Popular musician Kanye West recently gave his children a full-on shopping spree on Pokemon cards, paying to temporarily close the local game store. The famous rapper has been a regular at the Pokemon shop, often treating his kids to packs of the beloved card game.
Pokemon has been one of the biggest multimedia franchises in the world since the video games first debuted in the 1990s. The franchise’s trading card game saw a similarly meteoric rise when the game’s Base Set launched in 1996 in Japanese and in English in 1999. The Pokemon TCG has carried on throughout each era of the franchise’s video games and has even seen the growth of a sizable market of collectors, with some Pokemon cards selling for upwards of thousands, including the Raincoat Pikachu promo card selling for $8.4 million. Pokemon‘s massive fandom even extends to Kanye West and his children, who recently made some big purchases at a local card store.
A recent report from celebrity news publication Page Six revealed that Kanye West made a notable trip with his children to LA Sports Cards. The sports card store reportedly closed for West’s visit to the shop, with Kanye reportedly spent “thousands upon thousands” on Pokemon card packs for himself and his children to open. The owners of LA Sports Cards shared several photos of Kanye West posing with employees at the shop, saying that it was “always a pleasure” having Kanye and implying that he was a regular at the store. The posts did not reveal any specific Pokemon products Kanye West bought during his visit.
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Image via The Pokemon Company -
Image via The Pokemon Company
Kanye West’s high-profile visit to LA Sports Cards likely gave his children the opportunity to pick up plenty of the Pokemon TCG‘s most recent sets. Pokemon has released five new expansions for the trading card game throughout 2026, kicking off the year with the highly anticipated release of the Ascended Heroes set. Several sets launched in 2026 have produced some particularly pricey cards as well, including Pokemon‘s Mega Hyper Rare cards and Special Illustration Rare cards for popular Pokemon like Pikachu and Gengar. Pokemon also recently welcomed the launch of one of its most highly anticipated sets in recent years.
The 30th Celebration expansion serves as the Pokemon TCG‘s big celebration of three decades of Pokemon. The set includes a multitude of reprints of some of the most iconic cards from throughout Pokemon history, similar to those found in 2021’s Celebrations set. Pokemon also debuted a brand-new rarity with the release of 30th Celebration, adding the new Futuristic Rare cards for Mewtwo and Mew. A Futuristic Rare version of Pikachu was also released in the Japanese 30th Celebration Futuristic Box, with an English version expected to come later.
The Pokemon TCG has one more big release lined up for 2026, launching its final set of the year in early November. Delta Reign will serve as the newest expansion in the game’s Mega Evolution era, putting the iconic Mega Rayquaza in the spotlight as its cover Pokemon. The set will also introduce more Mega Pokemon first featured in Pokemon Legends: Z-A, including Mega Golisopod, Mega Malamar, and Mega Golurk. The Pokemon TCG‘s last release looks to close 2026 strong, with plenty on the horizon for the game in 2027.
