The Build and Battle Stadium (BABS) contains essentially a take away pre-release experience for two: it has two Build and Battle boxes, each of which contains a forty-card playable deck, including one of four different promo cards (for Paldea Evolved, the cards are Baxcalibur, Pelipper, Murkrow and Tinkaton), and four Paldea Evolved booster packs. Then there’s also Pelipper, which, when it evolves, can either retrieve a Trainer from discard or find one from the deck.

Elite Trainer Box | Pokémon Center Official Site Elite Trainer Box | Pokémon Center Official Site

In this set, there is a stage two Pokemon, Baxcalibur, with an ability that allows you to attach any number of water energy from your hand to any of your Pokemon.And even the not-so-hot Pokemon look like they might make for some interesting new decks and, more importantly, a chance to get back in the game and hit back at some of those ever-present meta decks. It is a combination of Japan’s Snow Hazard and Clay Burst with some cards kept over from the three starter sets.

GameStop Pokemon Trading Card | GameStop

Oh, this card… It has an attack that does 60 damage for each water energy discarded from all your Pokemon.Plus, it makes a handy storage box and has energy and dividers for building and organising your decks and cards. But here’s the thing; Ting Lu has an ability that turns off the abilities of any non-ex Pokemon if it has damage in it (see ya, Regieleki! For the money, I would say that the ETB juuuuuust edges ahead of the BABS for value for money… this time. The rarity terms are common, uncommon, rare, ex, full art, Special Illustrator Rare(s) and Gold cards.