Dragon Ball Z TCG coming to an end to make way for Dragon Ball Super

The end is in sight for the Dragon Ball Z Trading Card Game, after publisher Panini has announced that it will drop the anime spin-off to make way for a TCG based on sequel TV series Dragon Ball Super.

Panini has been running the TCG since 2014, after it resurrected the collectible card game originally released in the early noughties (and subsequently killed in 2004) by Score Entertainment.

The publisher released seven sets for the title, as well as combining reprints of older cards with brand new cards, keeping the new series compatible with the original game.

Panini cited the upcoming release of a Dragon Ball Super game by Bandai (which holds the overall rights to the series) as the reason for dropping the Dragon Ball Z title, suggesting that it did not want to “over-saturate the market with similar products”.

“From the sparse known details, Bandai’s new game and our DBZ TCG are vastly different,” it added in an online announcement.

Introduced in 2015, Dragon Ball Super is the ongoing TV sequel to Dragon Ball Z, which originally ran from the mid-1980s to the middle of the 1990s, as well as the original Dragon Ball manga series.

Although no ultimate date was given for the end of the Dragon Ball Z TCG, Panini said that it would continue to provide support for rules and tournament guidelines, including a final update to the Current Rulings Document (CRD) and Frozen List.

It vowed that “the goal of any remaining updates will be to lay the groundwork for an eternally balanced ‘final environment’”.