Pokemon TCG Collectors Are Buying 100s of Copies of This Card (Here’s Why)

For many Pokemon fans, the release of a brand-new set is equal parts exciting and frustrating. Finding newer expansions on shelves continues to be difficult, and that leaves many players searching for both rare collectibles and playable cards secondhand. Often, the most popular Pokemon TCG cards on resale sales like TCG Player are highly playable cards from the current run. Yet one Illustration Rare from 2025 is suddenly climbing in popularity (not to mention price). And it’s an interesting case because it’s neither that set’s rarest case card or a highly playable utility option.

The Pokemon card in question is a full-art Meowth Illustration Rare from the Pokemon TCG: Mega Evolution – Phantasmal Flames expansion. This set first released back in November 2025 as the second expansion for the Mega Evolution era. In total, Phantasmal Flames has 130 cards in its list, with just a handful of Special Illustration Rares and one Mega Hyper Rare. Plenty of these rarest cards have become high-value chase cards for collectors. Yet over the last month, the relatively common Illustration Rare of Meowth has absolutely skyrocketed in popularity. Naturally, I had to do some digging to see if I could get to the bottom of why that is.

Phantasmal Flames Might Have a New Chase Card & It’s One You’ve Probably Got At Home

While any full-art card will be harder to find than commons, Illustration Rares are the easiest to pull. They’re much more plentiful than Ultra Rares and Special Illustration Rares. So while they often offer equally stunning full art designs, these tend to be less coveted than your harder-to-find varieties. From Phantasmal Flames, rare cards like the Mega Charizard X ex Mega Hyper Rare, and Dawn Special Illustration Rare top the list for collectors. Pulling these cards requires either exceptional luck or access to a lot of Phantasmal Flames boosters (or often, both). By contrast, Meowth’s Illustration Rare status means your odds of actually pulling one are actually pretty solid. So, why is everyone clamouring to buy it secondhand?

The Meowth Illustration Rare from Phantasmal Flames has been fairly popular since shortly after the expansion released. After all, Meowth is an iconic early Kanto Pokemon who is particularly memorable for its role as part of Team Rocket in the anime. But since around early to mid-March, this particular Meowth card has begun to show an interesting trend on sites like TCG Player. Specifically, it’s had several days where individual sales for the card have passed 300 or more in the span of a few days.

Most recently, TCG Player alone tracked nearly 300 sales for the Meowth card on a single day (May 19th). Given that the card is relatively inexpensive compared to others from its set, it’s hard to imagine these sales are driven by hopeful resellers eager to make a profit alone. After all, Meowth’s pricing has stayed relatively consistent over the last several months, tracking at slightly below or above $20 ungraded and just about $250 for a PSA 10. That’s a decent value, but it’s hardly showing signs of skyrocketing in price to prompt hopeful scalpers to buy, buy, buy. Then again, many Pokemon TCG resellers do try to predict trends ahead of time, so hopes for a future price hike could be a play. But more likely, it’s tried and true Pokemon fans who want to add this card to their collections.

A Picture-Perfect Art Reference Makes This Meowth Card a Collector’s Item for True Pokemon fans

Read Next

I Opened 55 Packs from Pokemon TCG’s Chaos Rising, Here’s How The Pull Rates Are Looking

Another key factor in the sales numbers is simply that there are enough Meowth Illustration Rares from Phantasmal Flames on the market. The rarest cards may simply not be available to sell and resell in the same quantities. But it’s almost certainly the specifics of this card’s artwork that have so many people eager to snag a copy. At first glance, it’s already a very cute Meowth card, showing the mischievous cat Pokemon lounging in a tree. My “cute Pokemon cards” collection is already desperate for this one from that alone.

However, many Pokemon fans have noticed that the card pays homage to the Kanto region as it appears in Gen 1 games like Pokemon Red & Blue. Specifically, the viewpoint seen in the card pretty clearly references a spot near Cerulean City that happens to be the most common Meowth spawn point in the games. This is also near where the Pokemon Daycare is located, making it a very familiar view for anyone who’s tried their hand at breeding in early Pokemon games.

So, combining the card’s stunning artwork with its nod to video game lore is a likely culprit behind its ongoing popularity. Thus far, the spike in sales for this Meowth card doesn’t appear to be having too dramatic an impact on its resale price. Ungraded and PSA 10 sales alike have gone up slightly over April, but are still within a pretty normal range for this card since its debut in November 2025. Going forward, it will be interesting to see if the high rate of sales continues and whether it causes a boom or bust in the card’s resale value. But for now, it’s just a really solid Illustration Rare with a nostalgic story attached to it.

Do you have your eye on this Meowth Illustration Rare from Phanstasmal Flames? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!