Sam’s Club Ascended Heroes Pokémon TCG release was awful, employees say

Fans expected long lines at Sam’s Club on Tuesday morning, when the warehouse retailer was scheduled to drop a product from the Pokémon trading card game hottest set of the year. What they didn’t expect was a flagrant disregard for purchasing limits — or the way some locations apparently failed to enforce them.

The occasion was earmarked for Ascended Heroes, a Pokémon TCG collection with stellar artwork that has exploded in popularity since its initial January 2026 release. The demand for Ascended Heroes has also created a cutthroat resale market where scalpers jack up prices 450% over the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. It’s difficult to purchase any Pokémon cards these days, but it’s especially impossible to cop Ascended Heroes at a reasonable price.

No surprise, then, that lines at Sam’s Club began forming during the weekend. The Ascended Heroes Focused Fighter Collection contains 15 booster packs for only $55.98, and at under $4 a pack, that’s an incredible deal. Management at Sam’s Club evidently surmised that the demand would be high, based on an internal memo shared with employees. In it, management claimed that the retailer’s internal systems had been upgraded to prevent customers from purchasing more than two boxes per membership.

The retailer still urged its employees to communicate those limits to customers tempted to find loopholes. In particular, the memo highlighted the likelihood that some customers might try to buy multiple memberships to obtain more boxes. The internal note asked employees to be watchful of such scenarios to ensure a sense of fairness. That notice, alongside leaked allocation numbers that promised high stock at key locations, gave customers a false sense of confidence about the release.

By Tuesday morning, however, many locations were overwhelmed with long lines, hours before stores were set to open. These lines wrapped around the store or spilled over into the parking lot, with customers bringing everything from chairs to camping gear to ease long wait times.

Some drops went smoothly. But an alarming number of Pokémon drops at Sam’s Club were a wash, according to attendees. At one location, an employee alleged that management at their store had made a deal with the first few people with many memberships in line to allow them to purchase as much as they wanted. The Reddit thread recounting this apparent occurrence had multiple replies from workers claiming to experience the same thing at other locations.

“288 boxes available today,” one wrote. “The first 5 people cleared the first palett. Only about 35 folks got boxes when we had enough for the entire line.”

Similar stories are all over the internet. Pictures of customers openly ignoring the limit have also gone viral.

At another Sam’s Club, one customer claimed that customers were given tickets that were supposed to ensure the ability to purchase boxes. Despite being near the front of the line and having tickets, customers were informed the store was already sold out.

Though apparent trickery was afoot for the Pokémon release, not all incidents were free of repercussions.

“We had an associate get written up for taking her lunch right when we open so she could cut in front of all the members waiting outside,” one Sam’s Club employee wrote. “Needless to say, she no longer works there.”

Sam’s Club members still have a chance of purchasing the Ascended Heroes box on Tuesday evening, when it goes on sale online (at least, in theory). Much like other retailers, virtual Pokémon releases are plagued with botters who eat up inventory in seconds.