How do you identify rare cards in the Pokémon TCG? When collecting Pokémon cards, you’re going to want to know how rare and collectible your cards are – and, with over 20 years’ worth of releases out there, there’s a lot of different Pokémon rarity symbols and variants to sift through. This guide walks you though every rarity type – including the four new rarities added in 2023’s Scarlet and Violet sets.
The world’s rarest, most valuable cards go beyond these classifications – to read more about them, check out our up-to-date guide to the most expensive rare Pokémon cards ever sold. But, if you’re cracking packs of the newest Pokémon set looking for top tier cards to sell, our guidance below will help you sort the chases from the chaff.
Pokémon rarity symbols
To find our how rare a card is, your first step is to check the Pokémon rarity symbol, as almost every card has one printed, alongside its Pokémon card type, attacks, and HP total. You can find the rarity symbol at the bottom of each card, either in the bottom left or bottom right corner.
There are four universal Pokemon rarity symbols:
- Common – A black circle.
- Uncommon – A black diamond.
- Rare – A black star.
- Promo – A black star with ‘promo’ written on it.
After over two decades of new cards, however, that simple black star for ‘Rare’ was hiding a huge variety of rarities, making things very confusing. So, since 2023’s Scarlet & Violet Pokemon sets, The Pokémon Company has added five new rarity symbols to denote higher-level rares.
The higher level rarity symbols are:
- Double Rare – Two black stars.
- Ultra Rare – Two silver stars.
- Illustration Rare – One gold star.
- Special Illustration Rare (SIR) – Two gold stars.
- Hyper Rare – Three gold stars.
Common and Uncommon are self-explanatory: these are easy to get and not too valuable – though they can still be powerful additions to your deck; remember, the best Pokemon cards in the game aren’t necessarily the rarest. As you move up the rare categories, cards become more and more unlikely to pull from booster packs, and thus (generally) fetch higher prices.
Here’s a handy Pokémon card rarity chart showing every symbol in ascending order of rarity:
This expanded range of rarity symbols makes it much easier to distinguish between your common-or-garden shiny, and something much scarcer that you need to sleeve and put in your binder immediately!
But it’s still not the whole story, because there are two other Pokémon rarity classes that aren’t shown with a symbol.
Pokémon rarities with no symbol
There are two types of Pokémon card rarity that don’t have a symbol to differentiate them: Secret Rares and Holo Rares (meaning holographic effect rare cards).
Secret Rare
The rarest type of Pokémon card found in each set is the Secret Rare. These are often (but not always) special versions of existing cards from the same set with brand new, typically gorgeous, art. Secret Rares can have various different rarity symbols, so you can’t identify them that way.
Instead, you can spot a Secret Rare by its collector number and set number: two three digit numbers divided by a slash, also found in the bottom left or right corner of the card. Normally the collector number tells you where the card falls in the official list of cards in the set, but Secret Rares have a collector number higher than the ‘official’ size of the set listed – they’re secret, you see.
For example, Obsidian Flames has 197 cards, but an additional 29 Secret Rares are available with collector numbers ranging from 198 to 227. These are the most difficult to find Pokémon cards, and you should expect to open one in every 35-50 packs.
Holo Rare
Sitting alongside the main ‘tier list’ of Pokémon card rarities, Holo Rares are rare cards printed with a holographic effect. There are a wide variety of these holo print styles (known as ‘treatments’) with wildly different pull rates (probability of finding the card in a booster pack) – meaning these cards vary hugely in potential value.
Broadly, there are two main types of Holo Rare:
- Reverse Holo – Art is matte, but the rest of the card is foil (shiny).
- Normal Holo – Entire card is foil (shiny) including the card art.
Normal Holos are usually considered more desirable, especially because the Reverse Holo treatment is also used on uncommon cards – in fact you’re guaranteed one Reverse Holo in every booster pack (usually an uncommon card).
Among Holo Rares, two specific treatments tend to be particularly valuable in many modern sets: Pokéball Holos and Master Ball Holos. These often have extremely low pull rates, making certain Master Ball Holo cards in particular some of the biggest chase cards, above even flashy Special Illustration Rares.
What are Promo Pokémon cards?
Unlike every other rarity, promo Pokémon cards are never found in booster packs. These are cards made to be given out at special events, as rewards for competitive players, or just bundled with pre-made decks and other products. We’ve placed them at the very end of our rarity chart above because many of the world’s rarest cards are promo cards.
However, promos don’t really fit into the usual rarity ranking system, because a promo’s scarcity will depend on how it was given out, and how many copies were distributed. Some one-off tournament prize promo cards are eye-wateringly valuable, while but many are dime-a-dozen shinies that come with battle decks or collector’s tins.
And that’s all you need to know about Pokémon card rarities in order to get started in Pokémon card collecting! If you’re hoping to pick up some used cards for your collection, make sure to also read our guide to identifying fake Pokémon cards before dropping big money.
If you do want to go hunting for the biggest game in the Pokémon TCG, check out our guides to First edition Pokémon cards and Shadowless Pokémon cards – some of the oldest and most valuable ‘mons around.
Source: Wargamer
