What Futuristic Rare actually is
Futuristic Rare is a brand new card rarity built specifically for 30th Celebration, illustrated by the Japanese graphic artist YOSHIROTTEN instead of the game's usual in house alt art team. It's the first new rarity tier the Pokémon TCG has introduced since Mega Ultra Rare landed in 2025.
That matters more than a new coat of foil sounds like it should. Every existing rarity, Special Illustration Rare included, has an artist pool and a print history you can compare it against. Futuristic Rare has neither yet, which is exactly why the early speculation around it has gotten loud.
The four cards that are actually confirmed
Two Futuristic Rares ship inside the regular 30th Celebration booster set: Mewtwo ex and Mew ex, both credited to YOSHIROTTEN. Those are the two you can pull from a pack you buy at retail.
Two more exist only outside the pack. Pikachu ex, in Day and Night versions, is exclusive to the Futuristic Box, a premium Japanese product listed at ¥27,500. There's no English print of that box confirmed so far, and it doesn't appear on Pokémon's official US product showcase at all.
| Card | Where it's from | Pullable at retail? |
|---|---|---|
| Mewtwo ex | 30th Celebration booster pack | Yes |
| Mew ex | 30th Celebration booster pack | Yes |
| Pikachu ex (Day) | Futuristic Box (Japan, premium) | No, box exclusive |
| Pikachu ex (Night) | Futuristic Box (Japan, premium) | No, box exclusive |
Early coverage of the set, an earlier version of this article included, called Futuristic Rare a three card rarity. That was wrong. It's four, and the split between "in a pack" and "in a premium box" is the detail that actually decides how hard each one is to get.
Don't confuse that Figure Collection with the Futuristic Rares themselves. It ships the same two Pokémon as a sculpted figure and a regular foil promo, on a different card, through the official English lineup.
What it actually looks like
Where a Special Illustration Rare goes wide with a painted scene bleeding off the card's edges, Futuristic Rare goes for finish instead. Coverage of the reveal describes an opalescent, chrome like foil that shifts color as you tilt the card, closer to a shifting holographic surface than to painted art.
YOSHIROTTEN's regular work leans into exactly that: metallic gradients and digital, almost liquid metal textures, a different visual language from anything the TCG's in house illustrators have shipped on a chase card before.
The "Day" and "Night" split shows up twice in 30th Celebration, and it's worth keeping straight. The Ultra Premium Collection pictured above pairs Pikachu ex with Espeon ex for Day or Umbreon ex for Night, and neither of those is a Futuristic Rare. The Futuristic Box's Pikachu ex Day and Night cards are a separate product entirely.
Pull rate: what the early data actually says
Nobody has a real pull rate yet, us included, and we're not going to invent one just to make this section feel more finished than it is.
The closest thing to hard data comes from a July 2026 leak covered by TCGtalk: 33 packs opened ahead of release, across two boosters and three binder collections. Zero Futuristic Rares turned up in that sample.
That's not evidence the tier is impossibly rare. Thirty three packs is nowhere near enough to calculate a rate for a card this scarce, and the people who ran the leak warned against extrapolating from it themselves.
What we do know is scale. The set runs past 150 cards, and Futuristic Rare sits at the very top of that list as the one tier with zero confirmed real world pulls as of this writing. That will change fast once September 16 hits.
What a Futuristic Rare might actually sell for
Short answer: nobody knows yet, and anyone quoting you a firm number before the set has been open for a couple of weeks is guessing. There's no sales history for a brand new rarity, so there's no real price anchor to compare it against.
One market estimate circulating puts Mewtwo ex and Mew ex around ¥150,000, a little over $1,000, but that's a pre release projection from a Japanese marketplace, not a completed sale. Treat it as a ceiling someone hopes for, not a floor anyone has actually hit.
Our own read, from watching enough new rarity launches: launch week prices on a brand new tier almost always overshoot. If you're not opening on day one, waiting two to three weeks past September 16 gets you a real price instead of hype.
Whatever you pull, a Futuristic Rare or anything else worth grading, get it into a rigid holder before it leaves your hands. We cover what actually protects a raw card in our toploader comparison, and if you're weighing whether to keep or sell what you open, our bulk value guide walks through how we'd price it.
See every 30th Celebration product and date → Original set reveal on PokéBeach →
Frequently asked questions
- What identifies a Futuristic Rare?
Use the printed rarity symbol, collector number and official checklist rather than color alone.
- Is every Futuristic Rare equally scarce?
No. A rarity tier describes the treatment, while demand and the number of cards in that tier still affect individual prices.
