A big surprise this week from Hasbro with the release of a new wave of blind bags! Last year we thought it was game over for the classic blind bag waves with the continuous release of Cutie Mark Crew figures, but this turns out the be just a pause.
This week an images was shared on Instagram showing two well-known blind bag ponies with new cards attached. As far as we can tell the ponies in this wave are all re-releases from earlier transparent lines, like Wave 14, 16 and 17, with one exception: Rainbow Smile. A trademarked name we couldn't find a reference to anywhere else, and judging by the name, color and pose it could be a new name for Rainbowshine.
All figures come with a fully transparent body, no painted mane/tail and no added glitter. Though, there seems to be some color variations from the earlier releases, and we spot usage of the new eye designs from later waves.
The figures were found in Mexico, and we didn't see them at the NY Toy Fair this year or last year. This raises the question whether the new wave (technically #25 if we exclude Best Gift Ever) is a worldwide release, or of this wave will only see specific countries. Still, if that latter is the case, they could still end up in discount stores like the budget EqG dolls.

Again some new Blind Bags have been spotted. And this time on Ebay and we got a total of three new ones. The first one is a newer version for Twilight Sky which used the Earth Colt mold before but now he appears in the Apple Split mold looking more closer to his show appearance. The second and third ponies are some unnamed background ponies. What's interesting is the fact that they are once again all from Manehattan and possible for the Rarity Blind Bag waves, but that's still unconfirmed.

Some new Blind Bags have appeared on Ebay again. Thought the past ones that we found were confusing? Well this doesn't help much either as it turns out that two versions of the same Blind Bag have been found. All the characters that we spotted will be part of Wave 16. We know that they will be pearlized as we in the official Amazon listing of these.

Now about two days ago we spotted a new variant of Peachy Sweet and Merry May. Both of them had painted manes alongside the pearlized bodies. We thought that maybe they would be part of Wave 17 but now that we've found this it seems very unlikely for Hasbro to release the same ponies in the next wave but just with painted manes. So what's going on? Will there perhaps be two versions of the same wave? (one for the US/EU and one for the UK?) Will these be the final versions instead of the solid ones? (seems unlikely because of the listing)  It's all one big mystery and let's hope it will be solves soon.