The Rarest Pokémon Cards in the World
The rarest Pokémon cards are prize cards that exist in a handful of copies: five of each 1998 Kamex Trophy Pikachu, nine Super Secret Battle No. 1 Trainers, and one-of-one cards printed with a winner's name. The best-known rare card, the Pikachu Illustrator, was awarded to just 39 contest winners. In today's booster packs the rarest cards are Mega Hyper Rares, about 1 in 1,000 packs or fewer.
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| Card | Copies | How it was given out |
|---|---|---|
| Named Trainer prize cards, such as Neo Summer Battle Road No. 2 Trainer (2001) | 1 each | Printed with the placing player on the card; one per division |
| Snap Pikachu (1999) | 1 known | Pokémon Snap photo contest; the only copy surfaced in 2023 |
| Commissioned Presentation Blastoise (1998) | 2 made, 1 seen | Wizards of the Coast sample made to win Nintendo's approval |
| Prerelease Raichu (1999) | 2 certified by CGC | Printed with the 1999 Prerelease stamp but never released |
| Trophy Pikachu No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 Trainer, Kamex Mega Battle (1998) | 5 of each | Placing at five regional tournaments in Japan |
| Super Secret Battle No. 1 Trainer (1999) | 9 awarded | Winners of Japan's regional 1999 summer tournaments |
| Master's Key (2010) | 36 | One to each finalist at the 2010 Pokémon World Championships |
| Pikachu Illustrator (1998) | 39 | CoroCoro Comic illustration contest winners |
| Raincoat Pikachu, Pokémon Art Academy promo (2015) | 100 | Japanese drawing contest winners; never sold in shops |
| Tropical Wind, Tropical Mega Battle (1999) | 586 | Participants in Japan's 1999 Challenge Road finals, plus a lottery |
Copy counts come from the auction houses that sold these cards (Heritage, Fanatics Collect, Goldin), TCGplayer's research and Guinness World Records; sources are listed at the foot of this page. Unofficial prize cards rarely have published print runs, so treat every figure as the best known count, not an official one.
A rare Pokémon card, in the strict sense, is one with very few copies: a small print run, or a small population in a grading company's census. That is different from the rarity symbol printed on a card, which tells you how often it turns up in packs, and different again from price.
What is the rarest Pokémon card?
Counted strictly by copies, the rarest Pokémon cards are one-of-ones: Japanese prize cards from 2000 and 2001 that show the placing player's own name, and the single Snap Pikachu known to survive. Among cards collectors can actually hope to buy, the 1998 Kamex Trophy Pikachus are the standout. Fanatics Collect's listings describe each of the gold No. 1, silver No. 2 and bronze No. 3 Trainer cards as “one of only five examples,” and only one of the bronze cards has graded PSA 10.
Pikachu Illustrator: the most famous rare card
The Pikachu Illustrator was never sold. Heritage's listing explains that CoroCoro Comic's first 1998 contest awarded 23 copies and the next two awarded eight each, 39 in all, and Guinness quotes the same 39. PSA has certified 15 at Mint 9 and only one higher, the PSA 10 that sold for a record $16,492,000 in February 2026. More copies appear in grading censuses than were awarded because cards get cracked out and resubmitted, which is why population reports can overstate how many exist.
Tournament and contest prizes
- Super Secret Battle No. 1 Trainer (1999): nine were awarded as invitations to a secret final in Tokyo, yet PSA's census shows 11, almost certainly the same cards resubmitted.
- Master's Key (2010): each of the 36 finalists at the 2010 World Championships got one.
- Snap cards (1999): 175 were given to winners of two Pokémon Snap photo contests, 15 or 20 copies of each winning photo; Snap Magikarp and Snap Pikachu are each population 1.
- Family Event Trophy Kangaskhan (1998): given to parent-and-child teams who reached a set number of wins; PSA's census recorded 93 copies at the time of a 2025 Goldin sale.
- Tamamushi University Magikarp (1998): for passing a mail-in “Hyper Professor” exam; the magazine promised up to 1,000, and nobody knows how many went out.
Rarest is not the same as most expensive
The five-copy trophy Pikachus are rarer than the 39 Pikachu Illustrators, yet the Illustrator holds the price record. The 1st Edition Base Set Charizard is not rare at all by these standards, with 125 graded PSA 10, and still sells for six figures. Price depends on demand as much as supply: the character, the condition, the story behind a copy and how many wealthy collectors want it. For the price side, see the most expensive Pokémon cards ever sold.
The same holds in new sets. Prismatic Evolutions' gold Hyper Rares turn up in about 1 in 180 packs, four times rarer than its Special Illustration Rares, but the Hyper Rare Pikachu ex sold for $44.02 in October 2026 while the Special Illustration Rare Umbreon ex was $1,269.69 (TCGplayer market prices).
How rarity symbols work in modern sets
Since Scarlet & Violet, the symbol at the bottom left of each card tells you its rarity, and so roughly how often it turns up in packs. The odds below are TCGplayer's counts from more than 5,000 Mega Evolution packs, a typical modern set.
| Rarity | Symbol | Per pack (Mega Evolution) |
|---|---|---|
| Common | Black circle | Several in every pack |
| Uncommon | Black diamond | Several in every pack |
| Rare | One black star | Fills the rare slot when no higher rarity does |
| Double Rare (regular Pokémon ex) | Two black stars | 1 in 5 |
| Ultra Rare (full art) | Two silver stars | 1 in 12 |
| Illustration Rare | One gold star | 1 in 9 |
| Special Illustration Rare (SIR) | Two gold stars | 1 in 101 |
| Hyper Rare (gold) | Three gold stars | Replaced by Mega Hyper Rare in this set |
| Mega Hyper Rare | Its own four-pointed star | 1 in 1,260 |
Symbols from CGC's rarity-symbol guide and TCGplayer. Pull rates are TCGplayer Authentication Center estimates with margins of error; The Pokémon Company does not publish official odds.
- Illustration Rare: a full-card alternate-art version of an ordinary Pokémon, found in a reverse-holo slot.
- Special Illustration Rare: full-card alternate art of a Pokémon ex or a Supporter. These are usually the most valuable cards in a set.
- Hyper Rare: the gold-bordered cards of the Scarlet & Violet era, from 1 in 51 packs in 151 to 1 in 180 in Prismatic Evolutions.
- Mega Hyper Rare: new with Mega Evolution in September 2025: a gold, embossed Mega Pokémon ex, one or two per set, and the rarest regular pull in modern packs.
- Special set rarities: Black Bolt and White Flare have two monochrome Black White Rares each, so rare that TCGplayer found none in about 700 packs. Ascended Heroes adds Mega Attack Rares, with pink and green stars, at about 1 in 29 packs.
A specific card is much rarer than its rarity. Mega Evolution has ten Special Illustration Rares, so any one of them, such as Mega Gardevoir ex, turns up about once in 1,008 packs, and each of its two Mega Hyper Rares about once in 2,520.
The rarest card in each recent set
| Set | Rarest card | Odds per pack | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pitch Black | Mega Darkrai ex 120/084, Mega Hyper Rare | 1 in 1,081 | $135.53 |
| Chaos Rising | Mega Greninja ex 122/086, Mega Hyper Rare | 1 in 956 | $121.10 |
| Perfect Order | Mega Zygarde ex 124/088, Mega Hyper Rare | 1 in 1,786 (small sample) | $94.87 |
| Ascended Heroes | Mega Charizard Y ex 294/217 and Mega Dragonite ex 295/217, Mega Hyper Rares | 1 in 1,080 each | $283.75 and $159.40 |
| Phantasmal Flames | Mega Charizard X ex 130/094, Mega Hyper Rare | 1 in 1,260 | $205.11 |
| Mega Evolution | Mega Gardevoir ex 187/132 and Mega Lucario ex 188/132, Mega Hyper Rares | 1 in 2,520 each | $168.86 and $225.54 |
| White Flare | Victini 172/086 and Reshiram ex 173/086, Black White Rares | Unknown, none in about 700 packs | $550.89 and $467.36 |
| Black Bolt | Victini 171/086 and Zekrom ex 172/086, Black White Rares | Unknown, none in about 700 packs | $623.46 and $602.79 |
| Journey Together | Three Hyper Rares, such as N's Zoroark ex 189/159 | 1 in 411 each | From $3.50 to $12.29 |
| Prismatic Evolutions | Five Hyper Rares, such as Pikachu ex 179/131 | 1 in 180 for any of the five | From $5.35 to $44.02 |
| 151 | Three Hyper Rares, such as Mew ex 205/165 | 1 in 154 each | From $2.22 to $25.23 |
Rarities and prices from TCGdex (TCGplayer market prices for near-mint ungraded copies, updated October 14, 2026). Pull rates are TCGplayer's estimates for one specific card of that rarity, except where marked; the Perfect Order figure comes from a smaller sample of about 3,500 packs. Prices move daily and are not guaranteed.
Notice that in most sets the rarest card is not the most valuable one. In Ascended Heroes the Special Illustration Rare Mega Gengar ex ($816.38) is worth almost three times the rarer Mega Charizard Y ex. Full card lists for each set are on Pokémon sets.
Know the odds before you open: how Godpack works
Booster pack odds are estimates from people counting thousands of packs. A Godpack pack works the other way round: each holds one real Pokémon card, a Near Mint raw card or a PSA or CGC slab, and lists every card in the pool with its odds before you open. You can see exactly how likely the rarest slab in a pack is before you spend anything; how Godpack's odds work explains the method.
Godpack's live pack contents and card values on October 20, 2026. Each slab is a single copy and can be pulled at any time.
See every graded card in the packs right now on Pokémon slabs.
- Prices: Starter $1, Trainer $10, Arena $25, Ultra $50, Master $100; the demo is free.
- Shipping: $5 per card in the US, $10 to Canada.
- Selling back: card value minus a 5% fee, lower for VIP members.
Published odds are still odds
Every Godpack pack is set to a 100% expected return, so the average card across a pack's pool is worth the pack price. Any single pack can be worth more or less than you paid, and most pulls land in the lower tiers of the odds table. The rarest slab in a pack is rare there too.
Real packs are for people 18 or older, or the age of majority where you live if higher. Open them for collecting and fun, not to make money.
Chasing a rare card: your options
- Booster packsWhich current sets have the best hit rates.
- A Godpack packOne real card, raw or slab, odds shown first.
- A graded singleThe exact card and grade you want.
- A free demo packA real slab revealed, no account.
FAQ
What is the rarest Pokémon card?
One-of-one prize cards printed with a winner's name are the rarest by count. Of cards that change hands, the 1998 Kamex Trophy Pikachus stand out, with five copies of each, and the best-known rare card is the Pikachu Illustrator, with 39 awarded.
How many Pikachu Illustrator cards exist?
39 were awarded to winners of CoroCoro Comic illustration contests in 1998. PSA has graded one at 10 and 15 at Mint 9.
What are the rarest Pokémon cards in modern sets?
Mega Hyper Rares, at roughly 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 1,800 packs in TCGplayer's counts, and the Black White Rares of Black Bolt and White Flare, which TCGplayer did not find in about 700 packs.
What do the gold stars on Pokémon cards mean?
One gold star is an Illustration Rare, two gold stars a Special Illustration Rare and three gold stars a Hyper Rare. Mega Hyper Rares have their own four-pointed star.
Is the rarest Pokémon card also the most expensive?
No. The five-copy Trophy Pikachus are rarer than the 39 Pikachu Illustrators, but a PSA 10 Illustrator holds the price record at $16,492,000. Demand, condition and history matter as much as the number of copies.
How rare is a Special Illustration Rare?
About 1 in 80 to 1 in 101 packs for any Special Illustration Rare in recent sets, on TCGplayer's counts. One specific card is far rarer, around 1 in 400 to 1 in 1,500 packs.
Can I see the odds for every card before opening on Godpack?
Yes. Every Godpack pack lists its cards and full odds before you open, from the $1 Starter pack to the $100 Master pack, and each slab in a pack is a single copy.
Related pages
- Most expensive Pokémon cardsThe record sales, and the priciest modern cards.
- Pokémon card valueHow to price any card, raw or graded.
- What is a god pack?The rare booster where every card is a hit.
- How Godpack's odds workPublished odds and the 100% expected return.
Open a pack with the odds up front
Every Godpack pack lists its full odds before you open. Start with the free demo or a $1 pack.