Collector’s Guide to Pokémon Asia Championship Series Promos (Part 2: Current System)

[rabby250]

What is This Guide for

This guide is for collectors who are interested in promo cards printed with the following stamps:

Promo cards printed with these stamps are from the Pokémon Asia Championship Series in its current system, which we will introduce in this guide.

Note: this guide doesn’t cover past stamps like the ones below:

These stamps are from legacy Pokémon Asia Championship Series tournaments held before year 2024-25 and were covered in the Part 1 guide:

Collector's Guide to Pokémon Asia Championship Series Promos (Part 1: Past System)

What is This Guide for This guide is for collectors who are interested in promo cards printed with the following stamps: [ACS_Stamp_1] Promo cards printed with these stamps are from the past system of Pokémon Asia Championship Series, which we will introduce in this guide. Note: this guide doesn’t cover the new stamps shown below: [image] Promo cards printed with these stamps are given after TPC revised the tournament system in 2024. They are covered in the Part 2 guide: What is the P…

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What is the Pokémon Asia Championship Series (PACS)

The Pokémon Asia Championship Series a.k.a. PACS is the series of competitive play tournaments organized by TPC as the Southeast Asian equivalent of TPCi’s Pokémon TCG Championship Series. The series consists of organized tournaments of various scales which allow competitive players in the Southeast Asia regions to play through and earn their chances to play in Worlds.

Starting from year 2024-25, TPC revised PACS’ tournament system, which introduced a brand new tournament structure and logos:

Tournaments are now represented by different types of Poké Balls:

• Great Ball League tournaments
• Ultra Ball League tournaments
• Premier Ball League tournaments
• Master Ball League tournaments

Regions and Languages

PACS tournaments offer various prizes including promo cards printed with PACS stamps. As PACS tournaments are held in various Southeast Asian regions with each region requiring participants to play with cards printed in the region’s respective language, promo cards offered in PACS tournaments are also printed in languages corresponding to the regions each card was given out in.

As the tournaments don’t have region names specified on their logos, collectors targeting a specific language can aim for any region whose tournaments are played in that language without having to worry about region variants.

Regions Distributing Localized Cards

In the following 4 regions, PACS is held individually in each region and requires players to play with cards printed in each region’s respective local language:

Country / Region	Language
Taiwan	Traditional Chinese (F)
Hong Kong and Macau*	Traditional Chinese (F)
Thailand	Thai (T)
Indonesia	Indonesian (I)

• In Hong Kong and Macau tournaments players can play with either Traditional Chinese or English deck, however promo cards distributed in those regions are always printed in Traditional Chinese. English-exclusive tournaments held in the past tournament system had been cancelled in the new system.

Since cards in these languages are released by TPC, all promo cards share the following specifications:

• Cards are assigned promo indices (such as ***/SV-P) of their respective language.
• Cards are printed in the same quality as Japanese cards.
• The same card will be distributed to all regions holding the same event in the same season (albeit in different languages). For example, the 2024-25 Premier League tournaments held in all regions gave out the same Tatsugiri promo as participation prizes.

Regions Distributing English Cards

There are also 3 PACS regions which require players to play with English cards and offer English cards as prizes:

Country / Region	Language
Singapore	English
Malaysia	English
Philippines	English

Although PACS is organized by TPC, all cards played in these regions are from TPCi products as all English card releases are managed by TPCi and not TPC. This also affects the promo cards offered in these regions:

• All promo cards are sourced from existing TPCi sets and retain their original set indices. This is similar to promo cards distributed in TPCi’s own Pokémon TCG Championship Series.
• Cards are printed in the same quality as TPCi cards.
• Cards distributed may be different from non-English regions holding the same event in the same season. For example, the 2024-25 Premier League tournaments held in English regions gave out Fan Rotom as participation prizes instead of Tatsugiri.

While similar to their original TPCi prints, promo cards given out in these regions do get PACS stamps which makes them attractive to TPCi collectors.

Card Lists

In the remaining sections of this guide, we will list all cards printed with the Asia Championship Series stamps as of this writing (year 2024-25).

Great Ball League

Great Ball League tournaments are held at Pokémon TCG Gyms, which are local card shops authorized by TPC to hold organized events. A region can have tens or even more than 100 Great Ball League tournaments held within a year.

At the start of each year, TPC announces 3 one-month-long time periods in each region which are called “Seasons”, and require Pokémon TCG Gyms to hold Great Ball League tournaments within those 3 seasons. Players participating in Great Ball League tournaments receive participation prizes which are Item cards printed with the Great Ball League logo. Different participation prizes are given in different seasons, so players will have to participate in all 3 seasons in order to collect all participation prizes of the year.

Players finishing in top spots will receive additional top placement prizes such as round 1 byes in Ultra Ball League tournaments and/or Pokémon ex cards printed with the Great Ball League logo. Numbers of players who can receive the Pokémon ex promo card are not revealed in tournament details, but according to local reports it’s usually the number of players receive byes times 2 (for example, if a tournament offers top 4 players byes, then the Pokémon ex promo card will be offered to the top 8 players).

TPC Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	T. Chi.	Thai	Indo
2024-25	Season 1 Participation	Pal Pad	182/SV-P	221/SV-P	224/SV-P
2024-25	Season 2 Participation	Night Stretcher	204/SV-P	226/SV-P	229/SV-P
2024-25	Season 3 Participation	Tera Orb	217/SV-P	228/SV-P	231/SV-P
2024-25	Top Placement	Pidgeot ex	183/SV-P	222/SV-P	225/SV-P

TPCi Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	Index
2024-25	Season 1 Participation	Earthen Vessel	PAR 163
2024-25	Season 2 Participation	Night Stretcher	SFA 061
2024-25	Season 3 Participation	Tera Orb	SSP 189
2024-25	Top Placement	Pidgeot ex	OBF 164

Ultra Ball League

Ultra Ball League tournaments are city-level tournaments held by TPC. Similar to Great Ball League tournaments, TPC allocates 3 seasons per year in each region, but schedules exactly 3 tournaments per season per region, eventually adding up to 3 x 3 = 9 tournaments per region per year.

Promo card distributions are also similar to Great Ball League tournaments - different participation prizes are given in different seasons, and finishing in top spots receives additional top placement prizes.

TPC Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	T. Chi.	Count	Thai	Count	Indo	Count
2024-25	Season 1 Participation	Professor Sada’s Vitality	184/SV-P	2886	223/SV-P	812	226/SV-P	500
2024-25	Season 2 Participation	Professor Turo’s Scenario	216/SV-P	3072	227/SV-P	680	230/SV-P	500
2024-25	Season 3 Participation	Iris’s Fighting Spirit	218/SV-P	3376	244/SV-P	672	248/SV-P	768
2024-25	Top Placement	Pikachu ex	185/SV-P	216	224/SV-P	44	227/SV-P	44

TPCi Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	Index	Count
2024-25	Season 1 Participation	Professor Turo’s Scenario	PAR 171	768
2024-25	Season 2 Participation	Colress’s Tenacity	SFA 057	2200
2024-25	Season 3 Participation	Iris’s Fighting Spirit	JTG 149	1700+
2024-25	Top Placement	Mew ex	MEW 151	124+

Distribution Details

TPC has capacity specified in the event details of each tournament, which we can use to estimate the distribution count of each prize:

Year	Season	Event	TW	HK	TH	ID	SG	MY	PH
2024-25	1	1	720	306	256	244	112	128	80
2024-25	1	2	516	396	256	128	64	64	80
2024-25	1	3	552	396	300	128	64	96	80
2024-25	2	1	720	396	160	128	220	256	240
2024-25	2	2	516	396	256	244	260	256	240
2024-25	2	3	648	396	264	128	300	128	300
2024-25	3	1	648	396	160	128		256	300
2024-25	3	2	1024	396	256	320		256	300
2024-25	3	3	516	396	256	320		288	300

The following table was used officially during 2024-25 season 1 to determine how many top players will receive the Pokémon ex promo card in each Ultra Ball League tournament. It was removed in later seasons to allow TPC to adjust tournament prizes flexibly, however we will still refer to this table in this guide for estimating the distribution counts of top placement prizes.

Number of participants	Number of Pokémon ex promo cards
32 to 256	4
257 to 512	8
513 to 1024	16

Premier Ball League

Premier Ball League tournaments are regional-scale tournaments held once every year in each region which serves as the opening tournament of the year.

In Premier Ball League tournaments, participants receive participation prizes, while judges receive the same participation prize but with an additional Judge title printed at the bottom of the Premier Ball League logo:

Unlike the previous system, judge promos are handed out in all regions where Premier Ball League tournaments are held.

While Premier Ball League tournaments don’t offer promo cards as top placement prizes, top 4 participants from each age category receive special promo cards along with their trophies. Players in regions whose prizes are printed in English receive Pokémon ex cards printed with the Premier Ball League logo. All Pokémon ex promo cards offered are identical with no rank or region indicators printed on them.

Players in other non-English regions on the other hand receive localized copies of the trophy cards awarded in Champions League tournaments in Japan. These trophy cards are printed with the Premier Ball League logo along with the year, region and winner’s rank (Champion, Finalist or Top 4), making the cards exclusive to their respective tournaments. Most of the trophy cards are not unique though as the same set of cards is awarded to winners of all age categories in the same tournament.

TPC Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	T. Chi.	Count	Thai	Count	Indo	Count
2024-25	Participation Prize	Tatsugiri	186/SV-P	6642	220/SV-P	1200	223/SV-P	1200
2024-25	Judge	Tatsugiri (Judge Stamp)	186/SV-P	N/A	220/SV-P	N/A	223/SV-P	N/A
2024-25	Finish in Semi Finals	Victory Symbol (Top 4)	SV-P	12	SV-P	6	SV-P	6
2024-25	Runner-up	Victory Symbol (Finalist)	SV-P	6	SV-P	3	SV-P	3
2024-25	Winner	Victory Symbol (Champion)	SV-P	6	SV-P	3	SV-P	3

TPCi Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	Index	Count
2024-25	Participation Prize	Fan Rotom	SCR 118	2376
2024-25	Judge	Fan Rotom (Judge Stamp)	SCR 118	N/A
2024-25	Top 4	Terapagos ex	SCR 128	36

Distribution Details

TPC has capacity specified in the event details of each tournament, which we can use to estimate the distribution count of each prize:

Year	Category	TW	HK	TH	ID	SG	MY	PH
2024-25	Junior	820	282	100	100	48	72	48
2024-25	Senior	820	282	100	100	48	72	48
2024-25	Masters	2932	1506	1000	1000	504	1032	504

Master Ball League

Master Ball League tournaments are regional-scale tournaments held once every year in each region which serves as the final tournament of the year. Prizes for the tournament hadn’t been fully announced as of this writing and will be filled in once the information is available.

TPC Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	T. Chi.	Count	Thai	Count	Indo	Count
2024-25	Participation Prize	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	230/SV-P	?	248/SV-P	1200	249/SV-P	?
2024-25	Finish in Semi Finals	Victory Symbol (Top 4)	SV-P	12	SV-P	6	SV-P	6
2024-25	Runner-up	Victory Symbol (Finalist)	SV-P	6	SV-P	3	SV-P	3
2024-25	Winner	Victory Symbol (Champion)	SV-P	6	SV-P	3	SV-P	3

TPCi Promo Cards

Year	Criteria	Card	Index	Count
2024-25	Participation Prize	Buddy-Buddy Poffin	TEF 144	?
2024-25	Top 4	N’s Zoroark ex	JTG 098	36

Distribution Details

TPC has capacity specified in the event details of each tournament, which we may use to estimate the distribution count of prizes once their distribution criteria was announced:

Year	Category	TW	HK	TH	ID	SG	MY	PH
2024-25	Junior			100			90	48
2024-25	Senior			100			90	48
2024-25	Masters			1000			1128	552

[mrbubbles]

Thank you as always. Really great info and would make a really great guide and checklist.

Cheers!

[Kob]

Are you able to point out the most earliest date when each card started to be distributed? Or is that obscure info

[rabby250]

(This is only for official release dates - leaks from LGS don’t count.)

Still take some effort to figure out but should be far easier than the previous system given that enough information is available on the official site. Also note that the methods below may mistakenly count in cancelled events so you’ll have to figure and ignore those yourself.

Great Ball League:

1. Go to https://pacs.portal-pokemon.com/2024-25/{region}/cardgame/great_ball/ (where {region} is one of tw/hk/th/id/sg/my/ph )
2. Click on “More Details”
3. In the event search page, expand the date range to cover the start of each season
4. Find the first event of the season and check its date

(Strictly speaking you can even get a ballpark estimate of how many Great Ball League promo cards were given out by adding up all capacity specified in each event in the search result, however counting that manually takes too much effort and is also prone to errors, so I’ll leave it to whoever wants to write a script to run that )

Ultra Ball League:

1. Go to https://pacs.portal-pokemon.com/2024-25/{region}/cardgame/ultra_ball/ (where {region} is one of tw/hk/th/id/sg/my/ph )
2. Click on each season and check the date of the first event

Premier Ball League:

1. Go to https://pacs.portal-pokemon.com/2024-25/{region}/cardgame/premier_ball/ (where {region} is one of tw/hk/th/id/sg/my/ph ) and check the event date
2. Check the rules to see if there are clues of on which day was each card given (i.e. right during check-in, after x games, after tournament, etc.; also check if some groups finish their tournaments early)

Master Ball League:

1. Go to https://pacs.portal-pokemon.com/2024-25/{region}/cardgame/master_ball/ (where {region} is one of tw/hk/th/id/sg/my/ph ) and check the event date
2. Check the rules to see if there are clues of on which day was each card given (i.e. right during check-in, after x games, after tournament, etc.; also check if some groups finish their tournaments early)

[Kob]

Very helpful, thank you so much