McDonald's Pokemon Cards For 2027 Revealed 12 Months Too Soon

Pokemon Accidentally Shows Off The Wrong Cards For Its McDonald's Promo Published Oct 30, 2026, 5:36 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Sign in to your TheGamer account Pokemon cards are returning to McDonald’s Happy Meals next month. That has now been officially confirmed. The thing is, when it was officially confirmed, Pokemon appears to have revealed the cards it has earmarked for next year’s McDonald’s set instead of the one that will be released in the US on November 10. 2027's McDonald's Pokemon Cards Revealed A Whole Year Early Pokemon All 15 cards you’ll find in Happy Meals starting on that date (November 3 in Canada, and November 5 in Australia) have been revealed, including Chandelure, Tyranitar, and, of course, Pikachu. That’s why fans were a little confused when an entirely different set including Raichu and Rowlet appeared on the Pokemon website. A closer look at the erroneous cards before the post was quickly taken down revealed that the stamp on them read M27, not M26, implying that the 15-card set we were shown is the one that will be in next year’s Happy Meals. To be clear, not the cards that will be available when the upcoming promo hits other countries like the UK, but an entirely new set that we likely won’t see in Happy Meals in the US until around this time next year. I've Never Seen That Squirtle Card Before Other than the surprising revelation that Pokemon seemingly plans these things more than a year in advance, there are a couple of interesting tidbits to pull from this uncharacteristic mistake. The first is the Squirtle card. The Squirtle in the M27 set is a new card. Almost every card included in McDonald’s sets is a reprint from a pre-existing expansion. That means you can expect to see the Squirtle show up in an official expansion next year before its McDonald’s variant is added to Happy Meal boosters. The other thing worth noting from the set is that there are no signs of any new Pokemon. Winds & Waves will release sometime in 2027, and you’d expect Pokemon from the new games, at least their starters, to be included in the first McDonald’s promo after those games are released. The August 2023 McDonald’s set, the first one after Scarlet & Violet’s release at the end of 2022, included all three Paldean partners - Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxly. Perhaps a stretch, but The Pokemon Company has always been about synergy between the branches on its massive and highly successful tree. It wants its cards, even the McDonald’s ones, to point people to its games. If the McDonald’s promo is coming to the US at the same time in 2027, and these will be the 15 cards that make up the set, that implies Winds & Waves won’t be released until later in the year, which, at this stage, having not heard or seen anything more from it since its reveal, is likely what most Pokemon fans are expecting. Franchise Pokemon Original Release Date October 20, 1996 Player Count 2 Age Recommendation 6+ Length per Game Variable Franchise Name Pokemon