Destined Rivals Chase Cards: The Top 10, Led by Team Rocket's Mewtwo
The gold Team Rocket's Mewtwo in Destined Rivals is, by TCGplayer's count, about as hard to pull as the painted one. The painted one sells for seven and a half times as much. Gold, for once, is the budget option.
The set came out on May 30, 2025, the tenth and final main expansion of the Scarlet & Violet era, and it was big: 244 cards, 182 in the main set and 62 more numbered beyond it, which is why every card below reads something over 182. Journey Together, two months earlier, had half as many of those extras. Destined Rivals was built around cards that name a Pokémon's owner, like Misty's Psyduck or Cynthia's Garchomp, and more than 80 of its cards belong to Team Rocket, the first set built around the villains since EX Team Rocket Returns in 2004. As PokeBeach pointed out, not one of them shows Jessie or James.
Its first rival was the queue. When Pokémon Center preorders opened, PokeBeach reported one to two million people waiting, and at launch GameStop limited buyers to one item each while charging 20 to 33 percent over the suggested price on most products. Kotaku put "A Triumph" in a headline, and TheGamer said the card game had not been this exciting since Evolving Skies and Celebrations in 2021. The holdout was Wargamer's Callum Self, for whom the set had "fallen quite flat". Six months later, TCGplayer reckoned that in a normal year it could have been the biggest set of 2025, but 2025 also had Prismatic Evolutions and the first Mega Evolution sets.
Booster boxes still sell for more than two and a half times their $161.64 shop price. The singles went the other way over the summer, and most of the ten below now sit a quarter to a third under the highs they reached this May and June.
Three rarities make the top ten. The Special Illustration Rares are the big set pieces: a Pokémon, and usually its owner, painted edge to edge. The Illustration Rares give the supporting cast the same treatment. The Hyper Rares are the gold ones, with a gold frame and background and the Pokémon and its trainer outlined in gold. TCGplayer's pull-rate study, the only one anybody has published for this set, opened more than 8,000 packs and found a Special Illustration Rare about 1 in 94 packs, a gold card about 1 in 149 and an Illustration Rare about 1 in 12. Any one particular Special Illustration Rare works out at roughly 1 in 1,000 packs, and any one particular gold card is barely easier, at about 1 in 900.
Before the countdown, the small print. The prices in the boxes below are live and move with the market; the ones in the writing are accurate as of publication, September 24, 2026. Everything is raw and near mint unless it says otherwise.
The other 234 cards, Team Rocket's and everyone else's, are priced on the Destined Rivals card list.
The top ten, counting down.
#10 Cynthia's Garchomp ex 241/182 (Hyper Rare)
Illustrated by 5ban Graphics
Before release, the gold cards were expected to hold their own.
The Hobby Bin's prerelease guide put this one at around $120. By June 2025, Kotaku had it at about $35, and today it is $30.51, the cheapest card on this list. It is not a bad card. Garchomp, in its own colours but outlined in gold, roars mid-stride with every fin flared, while Cynthia half-smiles behind it with her hair over one eye, all against a swirl of gold light. It just had the bad luck to be printed in a set full of paintings.
#9 Ethan's Adventure 236/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Kariya
No HP, no attacks, and still in the top ten.
In a game, Ethan's Adventure digs Ethan's Pokémon out of your deck. On the card, Kariya drew Ethan sprinting down a sunny forest path, grinning, one fist pumped, with a Pichu riding on his shoulder. A Cyndaquil trots along at his side with its eyes shut and its back flames lit, and a Slugma oozes after them on the right. It looks like the first morning of a summer holiday. Kariya was also a key animator on POKÉDANCE, the Pokémon Day video from 2024.
It sold for about $63 in its first week and is $34.82 now, a little over half that.
#8 Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 240/182 (Hyper Rare)
Illustrated by aky CG Works
Same boss, same Mewtwo, finished in gold.
Mewtwo stands with its arms folded, glaring, while a giant, smirking Giovanni fills the left side with his eyes gone blank white, both outlined in gold against a gold swirl full of starbursts. The English card credits aky CG Works, but Japan's official card database also credits Hideki Ishikawa, who has worked on the Mega Man and Disgaea games, for the Giovanni.
It was about $63 in June 2025 and is $55.70 now. That makes it the most valuable gold card in the set, which in Destined Rivals is not saying a great deal.
#7 Misty's Psyduck 193/182 (Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by OKACHEKE
The last time a card was called Misty's Psyduck, it was 2000.
OKACHEKE, who painted the sleeping Oshawott in our Black Bolt and White Flare chase cards countdown, paints this one from straight above: clear turquoise water with pebbles showing on the bottom. Misty is out for a swim, smiling up from the water, and next to her Psyduck bobs head first with its body blurred under the ripples and that familiar blank, baffled stare. It is the calmest card in a set run by gangsters.
It opened at about $95, was down to $54 within three weeks, and is $56.49 now. PSA has also seen more copies of it than of any other card in the set, and has not been kind to most of them.
#6 Team Rocket's Crobat ex 234/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by cochi8i
A face only a Team Rocket grunt could love.
cochi8i filled the card with Crobat's grinning purple face, fangs bared, yellow eyes narrowed, while a swarm of Zubat and Golbat flaps around it. Off to the left, level with Crobat's face, a green-haired Team Rocket grunt in a black cap crouches among them with a sly smile. It is flat, bold and graphic, more animated film than painting, which fits: cochi8i lists Tarzan, A Bug's Life and Barbapapa as influences.
It sold for about $65 to $75 at launch and is $60.62 now.
#5 Team Rocket's Nidoking ex 233/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Uninori
Giovanni has used a Nidoking in every game where you fight him, so this one was owed.
Uninori drew it in inked lines with watercolour and coloured pencil, and it looks like a page from a 1990s manga: Nidoking charges through a floor that is breaking into slabs, horn first and fangs bared, with orange blasts and rubble flying. Giovanni stands at the top right in a grey suit with a red R on his lapel, glaring, one hand thrown forward to give the order.
When it came out, TheGamer priced it at $90.04 and predicted it would settle closer to $50. It is $89.70, and it has not settled yet.
#4 Team Rocket's Moltres ex 229/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by AKIRA EGAWA
A firebird over a city at night.
AKIRA EGAWA has Moltres diving head first out of the top right corner, its burning wings sweeping across the whole card in great arcs of orange and gold, talons reaching. On a railed rooftop at the left stands Archer, the Team Rocket executive, in his pale uniform with one hand on his hip, watching it. Far below, the city glows pink and violet.
It sold for about $150 on launch day and is $92.16 now. It also has a twin: the Moltres Ultra-Premium Collection sold at GameStop in November 2025 came with a copy of this exact card with a small logo stamped on it, and that version sells for less.
#3 Ethan's Ho-Oh ex 230/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Atsushi Furusawa
Gold and his bird.
The hero of the Johto games was called Gold before he was Ethan, and Ho-Oh was the mascot of Pokémon Gold, so the casting was never in doubt. Atsushi Furusawa, who also drew this set's booster pack art, has Ho-Oh banking across a golden sunset, its red wings tipped in white and lime green and its long gold tail feathers streaming out behind. At the bottom right, Ethan in his red jacket and cap stares up open-mouthed as the talons pass just over his head. Even Wargamer's Callum Self, who had no time for the rest of the set, made an exception for this card.
It sold for about $162 at launch and is $149.36 now, and still sliding.
#2 Cynthia's Garchomp ex 232/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by HICO KIM
Garchomp does the fighting. Cynthia does the shouting.
HICO KIM, a Korean illustrator who has done promotional art for Genshin Impact, made their Pokémon card debut here and went straight in with a Champion. Garchomp lunges straight out at you, jaws open and fins swept back, with rubble and dust spraying up from the arena floor. Behind it stands a tiny Cynthia in her black coat, arm flung out, and above them, filling the top left, is a giant Cynthia mid-shout, up on the stadium's big screen according to Pokémon's art write-up. The stands behind are full of lights, with a flaming brazier on a tower.
Before release, Rare Candy expected this to be the most valuable card in the set. It peaked at about $295 in late May this year and is $220.50 now.
#1 Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 231/182 (Special Illustration Rare)
Illustrated by Iwamoto05
The boss and his experiment, worth nearly double anything else in the set.
Iwamoto05 put Giovanni at the left edge in a dark suit, head turned side-on towards Mewtwo, smirking. Mewtwo floats above you, seen from below, frowning down with its arms out and its fingers curled, blue psychic flames flickering off it. Behind them the sky is hot pink and crimson, crossed by searchlight beams, with dark pipes and ironwork above and a city skyline lit up at the bottom.
Not everyone loved it: Kotaku called the art ugly. It did not matter. Mewtwo has belonged to Team Rocket on a card twice before, in Gym Challenge in 2000 and EX Team Rocket Returns in 2004, and collectors were always going to want the third.
Nearly a fortnight before launch, at the early tournaments where people first got their hands on the set, one raw copy sold for $865. It launched at about $450, dropped to about $320 within a week, and has ridden two waves since, the second peaking at about $570 this June. It is $419.74 now, its lowest since our records began in March. The same card, name and attacks unchanged, came back in January with new art by Mitsuhiro Arita, at number six in our Ascended Heroes chase cards countdown, and this one is still worth more.
Is it worth grading Destined Rivals cards?
PSA has picked a side in this set, and it is not the Illustration Rares' side.
| Card | Raw | PSA 10 | Profit | PSA 10 pop | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 231 | $419.74 | $961.82 | $472.10 | 16,798 | Gamble |
| Cynthia's Garchomp ex 232 | $220.50 | $403.11 | $152.63 | 11,341 | Gamble |
| Ethan's Ho-Oh ex 230 | $149.36 | $352.47 | $173.13 | 9,954 | Gamble |
| Team Rocket's Moltres ex 229 | $92.16 | $270.88 | $148.74 | — | Gamble |
| Team Rocket's Nidoking ex 233 | $89.70 | $227.96 | $108.28 | 7,565 | Gamble |
| Team Rocket's Crobat ex 234 | $60.62 | $142.41 | $51.81 | 6,131 | Gamble |
| Misty's Psyduck 193 | $56.49 | $341.32 | $254.85 | 8,186 | Gamble |
| Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 240 | $55.70 | $173.01 | $87.33 | — | Gamble |
| Ethan's Adventure 236 | $34.82 | $139.53 | $74.73 | 2,913 | Gamble |
| Cynthia's Garchomp ex 241 | $30.51 | $95.26 | $34.77 | — | Gamble |
PSA 10 is our market estimate from recent graded sales. Profit is what is left after buying the card raw and paying the grading fee and shipping. PSA 10 pop is how many copies PSA has graded a 10 so far: copies graded, not sold, and the supply a new slab would join. Safe bet means a PSA 9 still turns a profit; Gamble means only a 10 does.
Start with the Special Illustration Rares. Five of the six Pokémon ex Special Illustration Rares on this list come back a PSA 10 roughly three times in five (we have no reliable count for the Moltres), and a 10 fetches two to three times a raw copy. A 9 sells for about what a raw copy does, so a miss costs you the fee.
The Illustration Rares are where PSA gets fussy. Every one in this set comes back a 10 somewhere between a fifth and a third of the time, and the Psyduck, the most graded card in the whole set, manages about 28 percent. Because so few make it, a PSA 10 Psyduck sells for about six times a raw one, and a PSA 10 of Misty's Lapras, the next Illustration Rare down, about ten times.
So the Special Illustration Rares are a fair bet with a clean copy, and the Psyduck mostly comes home as a 9, worth about what it was before you sent it. More than 29,000 Psyducks have already been through PSA, and most came back a 9. Slab Advisor can tell you from a photo which way yours is leaning, along with what a 10 and a 9 of it sell for, before anyone charges you for the answer.
Also worth a look
Misty is on the next card down as well: Misty's Lapras, an Illustration Rare painted by Orca, with Misty dozing against a contented Lapras on a beach, at about $28. Just behind it is the Team Rocket's Giovanni Special Illustration Rare, with Giovanni at the centre of a spiral of colour and his whole chain of command fanned out around him.
If you see a Team Rocket's Mimikyu or a Misty's Gyarados priced at well over $100, look for the word STAFF stamped on the art. Those went to the people who ran the early launch tournaments, and the copy in your binder is probably the ordinary kind.
The Destined Rivals card list has all 244, down to the last Team Rocket's Zubat, with what each one sells for today.
Giovanni turns up on three of the ten cards above, four if you count his own card just outside. For a man who prefers to work from the shadows, that is a lot of limelight.