The Highest Prices You Can Get For Pokémon TCG's Destined Rivals

So, you know what, this one gives me a bit of hope. Prices of Pokémon TCG cards are so often determined by two factors: the rarity, and whether there’s a pretty girl. But here, Ethan’s Typhlosion is not a super-rare card. There are very many cards in this set that are vastly more difficult to find, that are fetching far lower prices than the $42 this is going for at the time of writing.

And why? Because it looks so fricking cool! The average price for Illustration Rares in this set is about ten bucks, and a lot of them look fantastic, but damn, this card is incredible. This feels like the sort of card that’s going to gain a lot more value over the next few years, as numbers thin out and people start to reflect on what a stunner it truly is.

Ethan’s having a good showing in the top ten, and he’ll be back yet. This card is a more rare pull, but with a Pichu and a Cyndaquil it’s definitely getting extra attention for the cute factor. (Sorry Slugma, but no matter how hard artist Kariya has tried to make you cute, you’re still a slug made of fire.)

It’s selling for much the same price as Ethan’s Typhlosion, at $42, although it had nudged ahead by a few cents at the time I put this together.

At $54, Misty’s Psyduck is a very expensive Illustration Rare. I already mentioned that the average price at this rarity is ten bucks. At the same time, my fears were that it’d end up going far higher thanks to the dark side of Pokémon TCG collection. Misty, in the fiction, is 10 years old. Let’s move on.

This is a completely lovely card; the colors, the realistic effects of the water over cartoon characters, and just the happy freedom it represents as Misty swims with a Psyduck that for once doesn’t look horrified.

$54 does represent a massive drop in price, the card first fetching around $95 before that was cut nearly in half, likely by the relative ease with which it can be found.

The so-called “hyper rare” gold cards haven’t been desired by collectors for many years now, with the Scarlet & Violet sets trying all manner of variants to see if they can ignite a new interest. Nothing’s really worked, and no other gold card has hit the top 10 (they’re actually faring a lot better than usual, with Cynthia’s Garchomp and Ethan’s Ho-Oh golds sitting at around $35, while even Jamming Tower gold is getting $17, and the hideous Crobat $16), but nothing can stop the money-making power of Giovanni and Mewtwo.

So it is that this card, despite being pretty crass-looking, is currently fetching $63 on the resale market.

Cards like this Crobat always tend to do well. Pack them with intricate background detail and people are far more willing to pay up. So the Golbat and Zubat flitting around behind, accompanied by a Team Rocket member, boosts this.

It also helps that it’s a real tank of a Pokémon. If you can get it in play (which requires two evolutions) you’ve got a 120 attack for just two energy, with a massive 310HP. It can dish out the hits while absorbing a lot itself, and the moment it’s looking vulnerable, you can return it to your hand for no cost and save a prize card. Neat.

$65 makes this a very expensive way to play the card, however! Thankfully, the identical ability is available on the regular version of the card, which is currently selling for 72c!

Boast though I might, I did miss this card when predicting the big sellers. I’m still somewhat bemused. Featuring Giovanni helps, but there are a fair few other cards he shows up on that aren’t troubling the top end of the sales. I guess people like Nidoking more than I knew?

Whatever the reason, astonishingly this card is currently selling for $98! Someone tell me why on BlueSky and I’ll update.

Now this one makes a lot more sense. A legendary bird, a spectacular piece of art, and that monstrous ability to just discard your opponent’s active Pokémon.

It’s currently selling for an extraordinary $132, which means it’s really held on to its launch value. Day one it was selling for $150, and those are usually massively over-inflated prices. That it’s barely dropped is quite the thing.

Somehow people have already managed to get this PSA graded and sold, where a grade 10 has gone for $714. While I expect this’ll drop to around a hundred bucks soon, I think those PSA 10 prices still have room to climb.

I told you Ethan wasn’t done. Another legendary bird means another legendary price—this colorful card is starting at around $139, albeit well down from its early climb to $200.

Ho-oh ex is another superbly OP card in the set, with its ability to add piles of extra energy to other Ethan Pokémon cards, and a powerful attack that also heals 50 from every Pokémon you have in play!

No big surprises in the top two, unless you count that these are selling for slightly less than their Japanese counterpoints, rather than the double I was expecting. This spectacular card, which is so detailed that it’s hard to believe it’s not actually moving when you look at it, will currently cost you a cool $210.

Now, it’s worth noting that the price on this one has been unusual. You’ll usually see these cards get a crazy price on day one, as silly people pay massively over the odds for a card that’ll cost half as much in a week. But in the case of this card alone, its current price is higher than where it began, and that’s after it took a dip. This means that unlike most of the prices here that are now levelling out, this one could still be climbing. The fluctuation hasn’t exactly been significant—it only dipped to $195—but breaking the pattern remains of note, and we could be about to see this climb much higher. At grade 10, it’s currently dancing around the $1,000 mark.

So yes, predictably it’s the the extra-rare Mewtwo that comes out on top. But like I said before release...it’s ugly, right? It’s lit all wrong, the scales don’t work, and the whole thing looks like a concept art prototype before a final design. I mean, if you love it, then fantastic, who cares what I think! But it wouldn’t trouble the front page of any of my binders.

Given I didn’t manage to pull one, it’s not a situation in which I’ll find myself. This is currently selling for an average of $378, and you can find it for a lot higher. On launch it went for $450, before plummeting to $320 in its first week. The second week, however, has seen that somewhat recover, seemingly levelling off at its current point.

Mewtwo cards do tend to keep their value, however, and if yours has any hope of scoring a PSA 10, I’d seriously think about getting it graded. One has sold at a 10 so far, getting $1,451.

There you have it. It’s a pricey pile of cards, but it could have been a lot worse. And, vitally importantly, you do not need to be spending anything close to this to play these cards in your deck. Everything is available in a regular version, usually for cents, and even the Mewtwo will only cost you about $6.

Next up is the big finish for Scarlet & Violet in the TCG, with the first ever international split set of Black Bolt and White Flare on July 18. It’s going to be ridiculous, with literally hundreds of full-art cards spread across the two sets, and no booster boxes to be able to buy them in. Urgh. See you then!

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