Illustration Rares under $5: the list, set by set

On TCGplayer market prices as of October 4, 2026, 124 English cards of the Illustration Rare rarity were priced under $5. They came from 15 Scarlet & Violet and Mega Evolution sets plus two Holiday Calendar printings, and the spread is lopsided: the seven Mega Evolution series sets supplied 82 of them, about two thirds, and Ascended Heroes alone supplied 21. The cheapest was Probopass #96 from Perfect Order at $1.04 and the dearest was Team Rocket's Raticate #202 from Destined Rivals at $4.93. Both are priced at their Holofoil printing, and their lowest TCGplayer listings were $0.50 and $3.60.

The list is defined by a price, so it is a different list on different days. A rise of 7 cents takes Raticate off it, and any Illustration Rare a little above $5 joins it on a day its price dips under. The live table further down gives the day's totals and its cheapest and dearest card; every figure in this text is October 4's.

What the list is

The rule, printed under the table, reads: English cards of the Illustration Rare rarity (not Special Illustration Rare) whose TCGplayer market price is under $5 on the day the table is read. "Illustration Rare" here is the rarity the card database files a card under. Each card has one price, the TCGplayer market price its own card page shows, for a raw, ungraded Near Mint copy. On October 4 all 124 were priced at their Holofoil printing.

Several kinds of card fall outside the rule. Special Illustration Rares are a separate rarity and never count, whatever their price. Illustration Rares priced at $5 or more are out until their price drops under. A card with no market price cannot be under $5, so the list never has an unpriced card in it. Japanese and Chinese printings are a separate market and are never priced beside English ones; no Japanese printing filed in TCGplayer's English category matched the rule that day. For how Illustration Rares as a whole compare on price with the other rarities, see the rarities guide.

One gap that keeps cards out of other themes is narrower here. A list built on a Pokédex number or an illustrator credit cannot see the cards the catalog takes from TCGplayer alone, because the card database stores neither for them. It stores the rarity TCGplayer gives them, so a rarity rule sees every one TCGplayer files as an Illustration Rare. That is how two Holiday Calendar printings are on the list: Crabominable #149 at $2.18 and Vanillish #190 at $4.18, both Holofoil, with lowest listings of $1.41 and $3.69. The catalog files them under Miscellaneous Cards & Products, a TCGplayer catch-all group rather than an expansion, with no series. The release date the catalog stores for that group is the publication date TCGplayer gives the whole group, which was October 4, 2026 when this guide's data was taken and changes whenever TCGplayer changes that date, so the year a table shows beside these two cards is the group's date, not a release date for the cards. Crabominable is on the list twice: the Stellar Crown card, also numbered 149, was $3.38 at its Holofoil printing, with a lowest listing of $2.00.

The live list

The table below is drawn from the list on the day you read it: a totals line, then cards with their set, year, market price and an eBay search for raw copies. The site caps that search 12 percent under market only for a card priced at $5 or more, so no button on this list names a price: each opens Buy It Now listings from US sellers, lowest price plus shipping first. While the list runs past 60 cards, the table shows the 30 dearest and the 30 cheapest and gives the totals for all of them; the cards in between are not listed in it. The set-by-set table after it covers all 124 cards of October 4.

Set by set

Sixteen groups put cards on the list: eight Scarlet & Violet sets, seven Mega Evolution sets and the TCGplayer catch-all group.

Three sets supply 46 of the 124: Ascended Heroes 21, Mega Evolution 14 and Destined Rivals 11. Each of the seven Mega Evolution series sets puts between 9 and 21 cards on the list, while the eight Scarlet & Violet sets put between 2 and 11.

Some sets have none. Five Scarlet & Violet sets whose pull-rate pages list an Illustration Rare tier have no card on the list: 151, Paldea Evolved, Paradox Rift, Temporal Forces and Shrouded Fable. None of their Illustration Rares had a market price under $5 on October 4.

The two series also sit at different heights. The Mega Evolution sets' 82 cards and the Scarlet & Violet sets' 40 have medians of about $2.60 and $3.58. Of the 24 cards under $2, 23 are from Mega Evolution sets, 19 of them from the five sets on the list released in 2026: Ascended Heroes, Perfect Order, Chaos Rising, Pitch Black and 30th Celebration. At the other end, 10 of the 17 cards at $4.50 or more are from Scarlet & Violet sets, and both cards from the March 2023 Scarlet & Violet set are within 14 cents of $5. The data shows where the cards sit, not why.

For what a whole set costs, every rarity included, see what it costs to complete a set. For the odds of an Illustration Rare in each set's packs, see the pull-rate board, and for what a sealed product holds in raw card value, the sealed EV board.

The cheapest cards

Twenty-four cards were under $2, and 65 of the 124, more than half, were under $3. Perfect Order holds the two cheapest, and it is the only set with more than three cards on the list that has none at $4 or more.

The three cheapest, and the one Scarlet & Violet series card under $2:

Stunfisk, at $1.92, is the 22nd cheapest of the 24 cards under $2. No card on the list had a thin-market price that day, which in the site's terms is a price with no TCGplayer listing near it (none listed, or the lowest more than 1.5 times the market) or with an open price flag.

The ones just under $5

Seventeen cards sat between $4.50 and $4.99, and five were at $4.75 or more. This is arithmetic, not a forecast: each of the 17 is 50 cents or less from $5, so a rise of 50 cents would take any of them off the list.

The seven dearest of them:

Hisuian Zorua is the dearest of the nine from 30th Celebration, released in September 2026, and Drakloak the dearest of Ascended Heroes' 21. This guide's data stops at $5, so it cannot name the Illustration Rares just above the line; the live table picks one up on any day its price is under $5.

The median and the total

Two figures describe the whole list. The median card is about $2.87. One of every priced card comes to about $379. No card on the list was unpriced or a thin market that day, so that sum covers all 124 cards and is not a floor. It is a total of market prices, not of the lowest listings, and it adds nothing for shipping.

What the site shows for these cards

Each card page shows the market price, its history, an eBay button and a TCGplayer link. As in the table above, that button carries no price cap for a card under $5. Every price here is for a raw copy; graded copies are a separate market, covered in raw vs graded.

The site's deal feed does not cover these cards. Its rules set a minimum market price of $5, and the methodology page gives the reason: sub-$5 baselines are too noisy to compare against. So no listing of a card on this list can enter the feed while the card's market price is under $5: a listing that fails a qualifying rule scores 0.

On TCGplayer itself, each of the 124 had a lowest listing below its market price on October 4, and 20 had one at half the market price or less. The data records neither the condition of that listing nor its shipping, so it is not a like-for-like price. What the TCGplayer market price is, how it relates to the lowest listing, and how to check it by hand against eBay sold listings is in the TCGplayer market price guide, and what each condition grade means is in the condition guide.

What changes and what stays

The dated figures are every price, lowest listing, count, range, median and total in this guide, the cheapest and dearest cards, and the membership of the list itself, all as of October 4, 2026. They move with each daily TCGplayer update, and a card joins or leaves the list whenever its market price crosses $5. The live table above shows the day's totals, cheapest and dearest card, and the 30 dearest and 30 cheapest cards while the list runs past 60; the tables in this text do not update.

The lasting facts are the rule and the method. The rule changes only if the site changes the theme's definition. A card's place depends on the rarity the card database files it under, which changes only if that record is corrected, and on the printing its page prices, Holofoil for every card here, which changes only if the site changes how it picks a card's printing or that printing loses its market price. Every Illustration Rare a later English set prints joins the list on any day its market price is under $5, once the card database files it under that rarity. The $5 minimum for the deal feed, and the $5 line below which a card's eBay search carries no price cap, change only if the site changes those rules.

Bottom line

On October 4, 2026, 124 English Illustration Rares were under $5, two thirds of them from Mega Evolution series sets and 21 from Ascended Heroes alone. They ran from $1.04 for Probopass #96 from Perfect Order to $4.93 for Team Rocket's Raticate #202 from Destined Rivals, with 19 of the 24 cards under $2 from sets released in 2026 and 10 of the 17 cards at $4.50 or more from Scarlet & Violet sets. Half the cards were under $2.87, and one copy of each came to about $379; no card on the list was unpriced or a thin market, so that sum is not a floor. The list is a price line, not a fixed set of cards, so on any later day the live table gives its totals, its cheapest and dearest card and, while it runs past 60 cards, its 30 dearest and 30 cheapest.