Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you in the TCG community from all of us here at Cob and Pip

2025 has been full on with the release of some epic trading card games, from the release of Disney Lorcana's 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th set, Magic the Gatherings first Marvel collaboration - leading with Spiderman through to all the Pokemon sets.

The TCG community has come out in full force to support each new set as trading card collecting continues to gain popularity. Here are a few of our personal favourites from 2025:

LORCANA

It is too difficult to narrow this down to just the one favourite so we've gone all out and put all four sets in here. From the release of set 7 - Archazias Island - way back in March, we knew we were in for a great year from Lorcana. 

Reign of Jafar followed closely which was probably the least favourite Lorcana for us. As the name suggests, the set is based around Disney's Aladdin and redeems itself by introducing 18 new enchanted cards. Disney absolutely smashed it with the Fabled set, only to better that with Wispers in the Well. Featuring the Zootopia's Judy and Nick for the first time and having a detective theme, this is right at the top of our list when it comes to Lorcana cards. 

We could not be more excited by the next release - Winterspell - coming in February 2026. As the name suggests, the 11th Disney Lorcana set has a winter wonderland theme featuring the ever popular Lilo and Stitch (that's enough for us!), Pocahontas and a cameo for Darkwing Duck. Perfect for all tcg collectors.

TOPPS PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALL CARDS

2025 saw FIFA Premier League football cards return to TOPPS and they did not disappoint. With genuine autographs and ultra rare parallels to collect, there was plenty to entertain us and keep us opening those packs. The Golden Boot collectors tin was a nice touch from TOPPS and went out to a fair few trading card collecting friends and family members. The icing on the cake is that they pulled some numbered and autographed cards. A merry Christmas all round!

POKEMON

We could not write this without including Pokemon on our list. It's been an intense year with 6 new set releases. 

Prismatic Evolutions kicked off 2025 in style as the twelfth set in the Scarlet & Violet series. Featuring the Eevee evolutions, this set went big quickly! Journey Together followed and, though not known as one of the most popular sets, we loved it and are in the process of master setting this one. The return of the Trainer's Pokemon made it a must for us. Destined Rivals followed the Trainers trend but, importantly, also featured Team Rocket. This Pokemon set seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye. Sets sold out almost instantly as TCG fans snapped them ups and then we were quickly onto the final set of the Scarlet & Violet era...Black Bolt and White Flare. Released mid year, these were relatively small sets but featured a new rarity - Black White Rare. The cards themselves were phenomenal, with the #172 Black Zekrom and #173 White Reshiram blowing us away. The kid was lucky enough to pull the Black Zekrom on his first opening of Black Bolt. 

2025 saw the dawning of a new era...Mega Evolution. This saw the reintroduction of the mega Pokemon ex and has clearly been a hit. Packs have been flying off the shelves as we saw the likes of #187 Mega Gardevoir ex and #188 Mega Lucario ex as well as Bulbasaur and Ivysaur.

The current Pokemon  set - Mega Evolution Phantasmal Flames - followed closely and was all about the Charizard whether that's the #13 Mega Charixard X ex, #125 or the gold #130 Mega Charizard X ex.

We can only wait in anticipation for Pokemon Mega Evolution Ascended Heroes, the 3rd Mega Evolution set, to be released in January 2026.