Mcdonalds and The Pokémon Company have started up a new promotion that puts Pokémon TCG cards inside Happy Meals. Kicking off yesterday, and running until September 6, each Pokémon Happy Meal will contain four cards (including one foil card) and the rules and components for a Pokémon TCG minigame called ‘Match Battle’. Oh, and your food, obviously.
The Pokémon TCG McDonalds Happy Meals come in boxes featuring that creep Pikachu’s smug little face, and naturally the iconic yellow mouse is one of the cards you can now get at Maccy Ds. The Happy Meals don’t have a super varied card pool, with 15 different Pokémon cards available in total. Aside from Pikachu, there’s also Rowlet, Growlithe, Glossifleur, Smeargle, Bewear, Chinchou, Cutiefly, Drampa, Flaafy, Victini, Tynamo, Pangoro, Lapras and Ledyba.
Pokémon Match Battle looks to be a rather simple game – we’ll let it off, it is for kids after all. It’s essentially Top Trumps, except the outcome is entirely random. You spin the spinner to pick a category – HP, dex number, height, or weight – flip the coin to determine if the highest or lowest value wins, and compare your cards. Not hours of fun, we don’t reckon, but it could be a good way to start learning how to play the Pokémon TCG.
It seems last time Pokémon Happy Meals were available, in early 2021, they were not an unqualified success – with scalpers turning up to snatch box after box, leading to limited supply. With the promotion only running a few weeks, we can only hope the same story doesn’t play out again here. Save some for the kiddies, folks.
Want to know more about the Pokémon TCG? Here’s our list of the best Pokémon cards and the best Pokémon trainer cards.