Upcoming TCG Releases

Trading card games offer an experience you’re not likely to get from any other kind of gaming. They combine the creativity of deckbuilding with the camaraderie of coming together to play, and, best of all, they’re updated all the time. Whether it’s Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, or any of the other dozens of TCGs out there, you only have to wait a few months before the game will be revitalised with a new expansion.

RELATED: What To Buy For Magic: The Gathering

2023 in particular is set to be a huge year for TCGs, with multiple new games vying for your attention, anniversary releases from the major players, and lots of extra decks, products and bundles to keep you going. Here’s every major TCG release of 2023, so you can keep your decks up-to-date.

Updated May 26, 2023: The Fellowship of the Ring is still slightly off in the distance, making late May a rare quiet moment for TCGs. However, we’ve added a number of new dates for the One Piece Card Game and the Dragon Ball Super Card Game, meaning there’s lots more anime goodness yet to come. Things will definitely pick up as we go into the launch of Paldea Evolved, Lord Of The Rings, and Wild Survivors next month though!

This Week’s Highlights

• This week has mostly been a quiet one for MTG, as everyone gears up for Magic: The Gathering’s trip to Middle-earth. However, it did also release the From Cute To Brute Commander deck, and people were delighted to see it included art of Nicol Bolas, the big Dragon god villain of the War of the Spark, in his Emo teen days.
• Pokemon announced the third Scarlet & Violet expansion, with Obsidian Flames finally introducing type-shifted ex Pokemon for the first time. The expansion will include a Dark-type Charizard ex, a Water-type Dragonite ex, a Lightning-type Tyranitar ex, and at least three more when it launches on August 11.

January 2023

The year kicked off with a goodbye to the Sword & Shield era of the Pokemon TCG with Crown Zenith, and said hello to the new Paldea region in a series of Collection Box Sets.

We also headed back to Magic: The Gathering’s home plane of Dominaria in Dominaria Remastered, and Yu-Gi-Oh! introduced the adorable Purrely archetype in Amazing Defenders.

February 2023

February took us back to one of Magic: The Gathering’s grimmest settings, with the body-horror-filled Phyrexia: All Will Be One transforming five long-running characters into terrifying Phyrexian monsters.

Meanwhile, Yu-Gi-Oh! got its first major booster of the year with Photon Hypernova, introducing Gold Pride and adding support for dozens of older archetypes. Digimon focused on the cast of Digimon World Re:Digitize with Dimensional Phase, bringing characters like Taiga, Nicolai, and Yuuya to the game for the first time.

March 2023

Pokemon entered its latest era with the Scarlet & Violet base set introducing new, terrastalized ex Pokemon to replace the outgoing V-cards. Flesh and Blood us down to The Pits in Outsiders, and brought new heroes Uzuri and Riptide to the game, alongside a new version of Arakni.

Yu-Gi-Oh! had a busy month with not just the Maze of Memories booster set, but also Speed Duel GX: Duelists Of Shadows gave eight preconstructed Speed Duel decks to play with in a single box.

April 2023

April was a huge month for Magic: The Gathering, with the launch of March of the Machine. The culmination of a years-long storyline saw a war waged right across the multiverse, with deep cuts galore for long-time fans.

Battle Spirits Saga launched its first set, with Dawn of History, while Digimon’s Across Time brought together many of the series’ ‘Goggle Boys’ in one big, heroic set.

May 2023

Pokemon launched a lot of mini-products in May, with the Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR League Battle Deck leading the way as an accessible version of one of the top cdecks in the meta game. Yu-Gi-Oh! launched its second big booster, with Cyberstorm Access introducing Mannadium and Nemleria to the game.

Magic: The Gathering rolled out March Of The Machine: The Aftermath, a mini-set that explored what was left of the multiverse following April’s massive March of the Machine.

June 2023

June is a huge month for TCGs, with Pokemon launching Scarlet & Violet: Paldea Evolved, and Yu-Gi-Oh! giving us Wild Survivors, which includes a reprint of the staple Fire Formation – Tenki.

Of course, the biggest release in June is Magic: The Gathering’s long-awaited crossover with Lord of the Rings in Tales of Middle-earth. With four Commander decks and a full booster set following Frodo, the Fellowship, Sauron, and his dark forces, it’s full of Tolkien references anyone can appreciate.

July 2023

This is Yu-Gi-Oh!’s big month, with the rerelease of its first four booster sets alongaide 2004’s Invasion of Chaos to celebrate its 25th anniversary. These packs include tons of the game’s most iconic cards, like Pot of Greed, Dark Magician, Summoned Skull, and, of course, Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Flesh And Blood is also celebrating in July, with its tenth set, Dusk Till Dawn. This is a special set that includes 10-card booster packs, and the return of Prism to the game from Living Legend status. It’ll see the debut of the new hero Vynnset, who brings Chane’s Shadow Runeblades back to classic constructed, having been gone from the game since 2022.

August 2023

After almost a year of excitement, Disney Lorcana is finally launching this month, albeit only in United States game stores. This Disney TCG brings character sfrom right across Disney canon together, with a TCG that could very well become a serious challenge to the big three of Magic, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Magic is also dropping something huge, though, with Commander Masters. This is a reprint set focused on bringing the Commander format’s biggest and best cards to a single, draftable environment.

September 2023

After an early launch in the US, Lorcana gets its international launch in Canada, the UK, Germany, and France on September 1.

We’re heading back to Magic: The Gathering’s fairy-tale world of Eldraine this month too, with Wilds of Eldraine set to follow the world plagued by a sleeping curse. This is our first real look at a post-March of the Machine multiverse, as well as a longer Standard rotation, so it could be a big upheaval for the game.

October 2023

October kicks off with three special decks launching for Bushiroad’s Cardfight!! Vanguard. These Stand Up Decksets each include a different preconstructed deck based around Keter Sanctuary (for Gramgrace), the Dark States (for Favrneel), and the Brandt Gate (for Orfist) factions.

Later in the month, we see Magic: The Gathering’s next Universes Beyond crossover, where we move away from Middle-earth into all of time and space, with four Doctor Who-themed Commander decks bringing together the show’s entire 60-year history.

November 2023

Magic: The Gathering is the only TCG so far to have announced anything this late in this year.

The game’s last major set of the year, The Lost Caverns Of Ixlan, return to the popular Mesoamerican-inspired world of gold and dinosaurs, while a second release of Tales of Middle-earth is set to bring new products and potentially new card treatments not seen in the earlier June launch.

December 2023

So far, nothing has been confirmed to launch in December! It is heavily rumoured that we may see the second Lorcana set, and there are bound to be a number of gift products launch too. But for now, this is the one month of 2023 we know absolutely nothing about.

NEXT: Disney Lorcana: Beginner’s Guide