Pokémon returned to McDonalds in 2023 to celebrate the release of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. If you ever wanted to see everything about this release, you’ve come to the right place!

 

This Year’s Box

The Match Battle box is slightly smaller and thinner than the previous year’s box, and it came with four items: a coin, sticker, instructions on how to play Match Battle, and a pack of four cards. The boxes themselves had one of five different Pokémon (Pikachu, the three Starters, and …. Cetitan for some reason), albeit in Scarlet and Violet forms. Take a look:

BOX DESIGN COIN TYPE STICKER NOTES
#1 – Pikachu
#2 – Quaxly
#3 –
#4 – Fuecoco
#5 –
#6 – Pikachu
#7 –
#8 – Sprigatito
#9 – Quaxly
#10 – Cetitan
Back view of box and Scarlet coin
Pack that came in every box, and back view of Violet coin

 

How to Play MATCH BATTLE

Basically you flip a coin, which randomly chooses a card stat and whether the “highest” or “lowest” of that stat wins. Then look at your cards. Whoever has the best example of that particular card stat will win!

 

Set List

This year there are 15 cards in the Match Battle packs. Below is the full setlist, as well as what card they were originally sourced from:

№ Type Name Mark Holo? Source
1/15 ZG Sprigatito G Holo Scarlet & Violet (2023)
2/15 ZR Fuecoco G Holo Scarlet & Violet (2023)
3/15 ZW Quaxly G Holo Scarlet & Violet (2023)
4/15 ZW Cetoddle G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
5/15 ZW Cetitan G Holo Scarlet & Violet (2023)
6/15 ZL Pikachu G Holo Paldea Evolved (2023)
7/15 ZL Pawmi G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
8/15 ZL Kilowattrel G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
9/15 ZP Flittle G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
10/15 ZF Sandaconda G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
11/15 ZF Klawf G Holo Scarlet & Violet (2023)
12/15 ZC Blissey G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
13/15 ZC Tandemaus G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
14/15 ZC Cyclizar G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)
15/15 ZP Kirlia G NH Scarlet & Violet (2023)

 

“Print Run” Analysis

Before I say too much, I just want to say this: it’s not exactly possible to determine a “print run” for this set, by virtue of the fact that there are just so little cards to pull any kind of appreciable data from it.

HOWEVER! There is still a very interesting pattern with the packs of this set. That is to say… as mentioned above, a pack of McDonald’s cards contains four cards: one holofoil card and three randomly inserted cards. Now very early on I noticed that certain Pokémon would only appear in certain “slots” within those three randomly inserted cards. I took note of the cards I got in a pack and their position, and low-and-behold!, they actually DO follow a pack position pattern!

  • For the sake of clarity, I will label the position of the pack as:
    • HOLO: the first card in the pack
    • (POSITION) A: the first nonholo card, the ones after the holo card
    • (POSITION) B: the second nonholo card
    • (POSITION) C: the third nonholo card, and the last card in the pack

Here’s a quick overview of my discovery:

№ Type Name H A B C
1/15 ZG Sprigatito XXX
2/15 ZR Fuecoco XXX
3/15 ZW Quaxly XXX
4/15 ZW Cetoddle XXX
5/15 ZW Cetitan XXX
6/15 ZL Pikachu XXX
7/15 ZL Pawmi XXX
8/15 ZL Kilowattrel XXX
9/15 ZP Flittle XXX
10/15 ZF Sandaconda XXX
11/15 ZF Klawf XXX
12/15 ZC Blissey XXX
13/15 ZC Tandemaus XXX
14/15 ZC Cyclizar XXX
15/15 ZP Kirlia XXX

One interesting note: Kirlia is listed 15/15, outside of Type order (where ZP-type Pokémon are listed before ZF-type Pokémon). Why is it at the end? Maybe it was a last-second replacement, or a genuine error? We’ll never know…