Pokémon card rarities explained: what each one is worth

The short version

This guide sorts the 4,611 cards of 25 English Scarlet & Violet and Mega Evolution sets, from Scarlet & Violet (March 2023) to 30th Celebration (September 2026) with promos left out, by the rarity the card database gives each one. Prices in this guide are TCGplayer market values for a raw Near Mint copy as of September 28, 2026, one price per card, the headline price on the card's own page. On that basis the median Special Illustration Rare price is $34.77, against $11.75 for Illustration Rares, $8.06 for Hyper Rares, $2.21 for Ultra Rares and $0.76 for Double Rares. Commons and Uncommons both have a median of 14 cents, and all eight Mega Hyper Rares are $50 or more.

Price follows rarity only loosely. A pack is about ten times less likely to hold a Hyper Rare than an Illustration Rare, 1 in 124.5 against 1 in 12 at the median of the published rates, yet Hyper Rares have the lower median price. For one named card the gap narrows to about two and a half times, because a set carries far fewer Hyper Rares than Illustration Rares. Two cards filed as a plain Rare, the Victinis of Black Bolt and White Flare, are priced above every Mega Hyper Rare. And the most valuable card in the data, Mew #G from 30th Celebration at $3,624.87, is the only priced card of its rarity.

How to read the figures

• Cards and sets. How many cards the database files under a rarity, and in how many of the 25 sets. Four cards have no price: two of the three RGB Rares, one Common and the one card labeled Rare Holo LV.X.
• Median and mean. The median is the middle price, with half the rarity priced below it and half above; with an even number of cards it is the midpoint of the two middle ones. The mean is the plain average, which expensive cards pull up, so a mean far above the median means the dearest cards sit far above the typical one.
• Odds. Packs per card of the rarity, any card of it, from the midpoints of published pack-opening counts (TCGplayer counts of 1,000 to more than 8,000 packs per set, plus community counts) collected in September 2026. Ranges run from the easiest to the hardest set with published odds. Sets with no measured rate, Black Bolt and White Flare among them, take an era average, left out of every range.

Two cautions go with the odds. The source gives one rate per rarity, so a named card's odds are that rate times the number of cards of the rarity in its set, and only if each is equally likely, which the counts do not show. And 30th Celebration's rates were collected in the month the set came out; they include the easiest published rates for Illustration Rares and Special Illustration Rares. Its pack is also built differently, five foil cards and a foil Basic Energy against the ten cards of an ordinary pack, one of the five a guaranteed Pikachu Rare, so its odds per pack do not compare like for like with other sets'.

The gap between mean and median matters for sealed product. As a rule, the site's sealed EV multiplies each hit rarity's odds by its mean price within the set, because an expected value is an average. Where the mean runs well above the median, and every card is equally likely, at least half of the pulls of that rarity are worth less than the figure the EV counts. Cards with no rate pull the other way, because they add nothing: the pack EV of 30th Celebration leaves out its RGB Rares, and the pack EVs of Black Bolt and White Flare leave out their Black White Rares and their Victinis, so each of those three figures is a floor on that account. The methodology page has the calculation and the sealed EV board the results.

The table sets the main rarities side by side, ordered by median price.

For the odds set by set, the live block below is the site's pull-rate board: every set with published rates, grouped by era, each linked to its own pull-rate page. It also covers the Sword & Shield sets, which this guide leaves out.

The chase rarities

Special Illustration Rare

The mean, $84.92, is about two and a half times the median, and 87 of the 232 cards, about three in eight, are $50 or more, a far higher share than any rarity with more than eight cards. The top three are Umbreon ex #161 from Prismatic Evolutions at $1,384.05, Pikachu ex #276 from Ascended Heroes at $944.57 and Mew ex #232 from Paldean Fates at $870.85. One copy of every Special Illustration Rare comes to roughly $19,700, about twice the roughly $9,500 for all 511 Illustration Rares, and those three cards are about 16 percent of it.

Published odds cover 21 of the 23 sets, from 1 in 19.5 packs in 30th Celebration to 1 in 102.5 in Pitch Black, with a median of 1 in 80, or about 0.45 per 36-pack booster box.

Mega Hyper Rare

The eight Mega Hyper Rares are spread over six sets, Mega Evolution, Phantasmal Flames, Ascended Heroes, Perfect Order, Chaos Rising and Pitch Black, and every one is $50 or more. The mean sits just under the median, the only rarity in the data where it does. The top three are Mega Charizard Y ex #294 from Ascended Heroes at $328.47, Mega Lucario ex #188 from Mega Evolution at $242.71 and Mega Charizard X ex #130 from Phantasmal Flames at $240.42.

The odds run from 1 in 540 packs in Ascended Heroes to 1 in 1,400 in Perfect Order. The median, 1 in 1,260, is 35 booster boxes' worth of packs. No set in the data has cards of both this rarity and the Hyper Rare.

Illustration Rare

This is the largest group after Commons and Uncommons. A little over half of its 511 cards are $10 or more, and 37, about one in 14, reach $50. The top card, Magikarp #203 from Paldea Evolved at $368.75, is priced above every Mega Hyper Rare. Next come Seismitoad #105 from Black Bolt at $220.04 and the Classic Collection's Magikarp #203 at $115.34.

Published odds cover 20 sets, from 1 in 5.5 packs in 30th Celebration to 1 in 13, with a median of 1 in 12. Leave 30th Celebration aside and the six other Mega Evolution sets with published odds run 1 in 8.5 to 1 in 10, against 1 in 11 to 1 in 13 for every Scarlet & Violet set with published odds.

Hyper Rare

Hyper Rares appear in 14 sets, from Scarlet & Violet (March 2023) through Destined Rivals (May 2025). Twenty-seven of the 74, a bit over a third, are $10 or more. The top three are Pikachu ex #247 from Surging Sparks at $80.22, Pikachu ex #179 from Prismatic Evolutions at $61.39 and Basic Darkness Energy #98 from Shrouded Fable at $60.25.

The odds run from 1 in 49.5 packs in Paldea Evolved to 1 in 189 in Surging Sparks, with a median of 1 in 124.5. Beside the Illustration Rare, rarity and price part ways here: at the median rates a pack is about ten times less likely to hold a Hyper Rare, yet Hyper Rares have the lower median price and a smaller share at $10 or more, 36 percent against 56. For one named card the gap is much smaller, because a set carries far fewer Hyper Rares: about five a set, 74 across 14 sets, against about 22 Illustration Rares a set, 511 across 23. On an equal share within the rarity and at the median rates, one named Hyper Rare comes near 1 in 660 packs and one named Illustration Rare near 1 in 270, about two and a half times apart. The data shows the price gap, not its cause.

The middle tiers

Ultra Rare

Only 24 of the 356 Ultra Rares are $10 or more, and one reaches $50: Gengar ex #193 from Temporal Forces at $53.91, ahead of two cards from 151, Charizard ex #183 at $38.86 and Mew ex #193 at $29.56. Published odds cover 19 sets, from 1 in 11 packs in Ascended Heroes and Perfect Order to 1 in 30 in Shrouded Fable, with a median of 1 in 15. Every published rate but Shrouded Fable's is 1 in 19.5 or better.

Double Rare

None of the 329 Double Rares reaches $10. The top three are Umbreon ex #60 from Prismatic Evolutions at $8.42, Pecharunt ex #39 from Shrouded Fable at $7.91 and Charizard ex #6 from 151 at $7.59. Published odds cover 14 sets, from 1 in 4.5 packs in 30th Celebration and Chaos Rising to 1 in 8 in 151, with a median of 1 in 6.

ACE SPEC Rare

The mean is nearly five times the median because three of the 33 cards reach $10: Hero's Cape #152 from Temporal Forces at $27.13, Unfair Stamp #165 from Twilight Masquerade at $14.00 and Neo Upper Energy #162 from Temporal Forces at $12.58. The other 30 average about $1.07. Published odds exist for four of the six sets: 1 in 20 packs in Temporal Forces, Twilight Masquerade and Stellar Crown, and 1 in 25 in Prismatic Evolutions.

Common, Uncommon and Rare

Commons, in all 25 sets, and Uncommons, in 23, come to 2,497 cards, a little over half of the data. Only two Commons reach $10, Pikachu #58 at $31.33 and Erika's Jigglypuff #69 at $16.14, both from the 30th Celebration: Classic Collection. One Uncommon reaches $10, Archen #131 from White Flare at $10.30.

For Rares the mean of $3.51 is about 18 times the 19-cent median, the widest gap in the data, and two cards make it: Victini #171 from Black Bolt at $621.89 and Victini #172 from White Flare at $560.43. Take them out and the other 369 Rares average about 32 cents.

The data gives no odds for these three rarities. They fill a pack's common, uncommon and rare slots, which the site's sealed EV values as a baseline at each card's regular printing, capped at $1 for a Common or Uncommon and $5 for a Rare, so special foil parallels cannot inflate it. The site leaves both Victinis out of that baseline as too dear to be ordinary Rares, and no published rate counts them as hits, so none of their value is in either set's pack EV. The guides to Black Bolt and White Flare show what that does to each set's figure.

Rarities found in one or two sets

Paldean Fates: Shiny Rare and Shiny Ultra Rare

Both appear in Paldean Fates, released in January 2024, and in no other set in the data. Of the 120 Shiny Rares, 27 are $10 or more and three reach $50: Pikachu #131 at $74.64, Snorlax #202 at $51.20 and Mimikyu #160 at $50.20. The tier comes 1 in 4 packs, but with 120 cards in it one named Shiny Rare works out to about 1 in 480 on an equal share. The 12 Shiny Ultra Rares come 1 in 12 packs, and Mew ex #216 at $32.78 is the only one at $10 or more.

30th Celebration: Pikachu Rare, Futuristic Rare and RGB Rare

30th Celebration, released in September 2026, has three rarities that no other set here carries. The 30 Pikachu Rares come one in every pack, a published 1 in 1, and none reaches $10; the dearest, Pikachu #40, is $4.79, and the 30th Celebration Pikachu guide lists all 30. The Futuristic Rare is two cards, Mew ex #158 at $90.05 and Mewtwo ex #157 at $71.16, at 1 in 105 packs for the pair. The RGB Rare is three cards with one priced, Mew #G. The pull-rate source gives the tier only an estimate from a single pull, anywhere from 1 in 720 to 1 in 23,000 packs, and the site leaves a spread that wide out of both its odds and its pack value, so the tier has no odds here and its median is one card's price, which says nothing about the other two.

Ascended Heroes: Mega Attack Rare

Filed in the database as MEGA_ATTACK_RARE, this rarity has seven cards, all from Ascended Heroes, released in January 2026, at 1 in 35 packs. Mega Gengar ex #269 at $38.73 and Mega Dragonite ex #271 at $33.04 pull the mean well above the median; the third, Mega Froslass ex #265, is $6.70. The pull-rate board shows a rate for this tier in other Mega sets too, but only these seven carry the label in the card database, so only they are counted here.

Black Bolt and White Flare: Black White Rare

One card in each set, both released in July 2025: Zekrom ex #172 from Black Bolt at $617.19 and Reshiram ex #173 from White Flare at $483.61. Neither has published odds, and two cards are two prices, not a description of a rarity.

The Classic Collection labels

The 30th Celebration: Classic Collection, listed on this site as a set of its own, released the same day as 30th Celebration. Fifteen rarity labels appear there and in none of the other 24 sets, each on one to four cards: Rare Secret, Rare Prime, LEGEND, Rare Holo, Rare Holo EX, Rare Holo GX, Rare Holo ex, Rare BREAK, Amazing Rare, Rare Ultra, Holo Rare V, Holo Rare VMAX, Holo Rare VSTAR, Classic Collection and Rare Holo LV.X. The last two are one card listed twice: Palkia LV.X #106 is priced at $14.22 under the label Classic Collection, and its second listing, under Rare Holo LV.X, has no price.

Rare Secret is Lugia #149 at $369.02 and Shining Celebi #106 at $37.71, so its $203.36 median is the midpoint of two very different cards. Rare Holo's four cards have a median of $11.33 and a mean of $58.42, because one is Charizard #4 at $204.00. The Classic Collection guide takes them card by card, with the odds of the subset.

What changes and what stays

Every price here is dated, and so is everything built from prices: medians, means, counts at $10 and $50, totals, the order of the rarities and the top cards of each, all from the date given in the opening. The panel above this guide's text sets six of the card prices quoted here beside their latest daily values, and each linked card page shows its own live price and each linked set page its cards' live prices. The rarity medians and means have no live block, and the pull-rate board above is live but shows odds only.

The lasting facts are the rarity labels, which sets carry them, the card counts for these 25 sets and the published odds. A relabel in the card database would move cards between rarities, and a listing added or merged there would change a count, most likely in the 30th Celebration sets, released in September 2026, where the Classic Collection lists Palkia LV.X #106 twice. A revised or larger pack-opening count would change the odds, including 30th Celebration's, which come from its release month. A change to the site's EV model would change how the pack EV treats a rarity's mean or a card with no rate. Later sets would add cards and perhaps rarities without changing these figures, and a price for the two unpriced RGB Rares would change that line.

Bottom line

Special Illustration Rares hold about 46 percent of the roughly $42,500 that one copy of every priced card in these 25 sets comes to, with a median of $34.77, 87 of 232 cards at $50 or more and a mean more than twice the median. The eight Mega Hyper Rares are all $50 or more, at 1 in 540 to 1 in 1,400 packs. Illustration Rares have a median of $11.75 and Hyper Rares $8.06, though a pack is about ten times less likely to hold a Hyper Rare, and one named Hyper Rare is roughly two and a half times as hard to pull as one named Illustration Rare. A rarity confined to one set or subset describes those cards, not a rule across sets. For odds set by set, see the pull-rate board and how pull rates changed from 2023 to 2026.