The Hottest Cards In May's Team Rocket Pokémon TCG Set, Destined Rivals

While Supporter card Ariana is hardly groundbreaking (it allows you to draw cards until you have five in your hand, or eight if all your benched Pokémon are Team Rocket Pokémon), the art here really is. The Japanese version of the set contains three of these Team Rocket Supporter full-art cards, along with Giovanni and Ethan, and all three look highly collectible, but this Ariana is the sort of profile work you almost never see in the TCG.

It’s selling for about $35 in Japan, but I suspect the U.S. version will fetch much higher prices.

Kotaku’s own Ethan has a high showing in this set, starting off with these two versions of the Ho-Oh ex. Both are absolutely stunning cards in dramatically different ways, and my guess is that the version on the right may fetch around $150 when it launches. There will also be a gold version of this card, and I’ll be curious to see if it generates interest.

It’s also a hell of a card, given you can use it to load up all your Ethan Pokémon with energy each turn, and when in the Active Spot it’ll deal out a massive 160 damage, while healing every single one of your Pokémon in play by 50. I think there are going to be a lot of Ethan-based decks coming soon.

Stick Typhlosion in that deck too, and you can deliver two very powerful attacks. Once it’s evolved, it’ll do 40 damage for just one energy, but then add on another 60 damage for every Ethan’s Adventure card in your discard pile.

But clearly I’m including this one for the spectacular artwork. What an absolute beauty. In Japan, the big money cards are mostly Team Rocket, but I think this looks good enough that it’ll fetch a hefty resell value on its own merits.

Ethan, of course from Gen 2's Pokémon Gold and Silver, has a fair few cards in the set, including starter Cyndaquil, Magcargo, and the mighty Pichu. All three are celebrated in this outlandishly lovely card, Ethan’s Adventure.

The card itself helps you fetch Ethan’s Pokémon from your deck, of course going into your discard pile at the same time in order to power up Typhlosion.

But, also, look how flipping cute this is!

Cough. Yes, obviously this card’s going to do well. Everyone loves Misty, some rather too much, and here she is in her swimming cozzie. It does help that it’s also a completely lovely piece of art, with Psyduck looking so cute.

The Japanese version, from Heat Wave Arena, seems to sell for around $26, which is incredibly low. I imagine it’ll be double that in English by this time next month.

Its ability allows you to discard the bottom card of your deck, and then when done, discard any cards attached to the Psyduck and put the card back on the top of your own deck.

Team Rocket and Crobat are old friends, so this is no surprise. But wowsers, what a card. It looks stunning.

It helps that when you first evolve to it, you can put 20 damage on your opponent’s Stage 2 cards. Then, when you use it to do that 120 attack, you have the option to return it to your hand. Oh, and the 310 HP is ludicrous.

This is the third-highest-selling card from Japan’s The Glory of Team Rocket set, currently selling for around $120.

Look at Giovanni! He’s so cute! That’s definitely not right. I love it.

Meowth is, of course, a Team Rocket fixture, and it’s great to see him hanging out with the boss rather than Jessie or James.

Here, Meowth is his usual mischievous self, the first “attack” letting you pick a card at random from your opponent’s hand, look at it, and then have it shuffled back into their deck.

The second is a triple-coin toss, with 20 damage per heads flipped.

Moltres is always an incredibly popular card (although it seems to only ever hit the ridiculous money when it also features Zapdos and Articuno, which this does not). Add that to a Team Rocket special, then combine with this astonishing piece of art, and you have a total banger.

The Japanese version is already fetching $190 for U.S. buyers, so expect this card to go stellar. I wouldn’t be surprised to see $250, unless it ends up being used as a promo.

That 110 attack also reduces damage from the next incoming attack by 50, but that’s as nothing compared to its four-energy move. Here, if you have a Team Rocket Energy card attached to it, you discard that energy, causing your opponent’s active Pokémon to be instantly discarded too! It’s a one-hit kill, and you can keep the card in play!

This is the top-selling card in Japan’s Heat Wave Arena, and currently sells in the U.S. for over $230. That seems likely to spike an awful lot higher come June, and given the mediocrity of it as an ex card in play, we can likely put this down to the rarity and the spectacular artwork.

A 100 damage attack for one energy is amazing, and 260 for two energy is bonkers (even if you do have to discard it all), but given this is a Stage 2 evolution, it’s not going to be super-easy to get into play.

OK, this is the big one. It’s Giovanni, it’s Mewtwo, it’s sending everyone crazy. Prices are still climbing for the Japanese version out of The Glory of Team Rocket, at the time of writing sitting at $435.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the art here. Neither the style nor the composition. But then, hey, when I pull it I won’t mind parting with it for the big cash! It’s hard to say how big Destined Rivals is going to be, but if it’s as daft as I’m suspecting, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this hitting $600.

It’s a tricky card to play, however, with a sort of reverse-ability. An inability, if you will. You need at least three other Team Rocket Pokémon in play to even be able to use its attacks, which means it’s only going to work in decks built around the troublesome gang, and then you’ll depend on the draw.

However, in return you get a heck of an attack for a Basic card. Mewtwo delivers 160 damage as a base, but that can go up to a whopping 280 if you also discard two energy cards from your benched Pokémon.

There are a whole bunch of other spectacular pieces of art in our combination of the two Japanese sets (plus some other leftovers), and we’ll properly get into celebrating them once the set’s released and we’ve got all the cards in English.

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