Destined Rivals Pull Rates & Top Chase Cards

Destined Rivals is Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet's tenth and final main expansion, released 30 May 2025. Eleven months on, sealed product is still moving. The set has one of the heaviest chase-card pools of the entire S&V era, with Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex Special Illustration Rare (SIR) now trading above $500 ungraded. If you're deciding whether to rip a box, chase singles, or stash sealed product, the Destined Rivals pull rates and current market data tell a clear story.

How rare are Destined Rivals SIRs?

The set contains 244 total cards: 182 in the main set plus 62 secret rares. Inside those 62 secrets sit 11 Special Illustration Rares, 6 Hyper Rares (gold etched), 22 Illustration Rares, and 23 Super Rares (the base ex cards).

Published pull rates from 8,000+ documented booster packs settle around these odds:

• Any SIR: roughly 1 in 94 packs
• A specific SIR: roughly 1 in 1,033 packs
• Any ultra rare (ex or above): ~1 in 16 packs
• A specific ex: ~1 in 344 packs

In practical terms, a 36-pack booster box averages roughly one SIR. A 9-pack retail ETB averages zero; it's not guaranteed. The 11-pack Pokémon Center ETB slightly improves your odds but doesn't change the maths meaningfully. If you're chasing one specific card, you're looking at ~28 booster boxes to statistically land it.

Put another way: two booster boxes together average around 2 SIRs across 72 packs, and push your chance of hitting any one specific card you care about to roughly 7%. Three boxes lift that to about 10%. Collectors who want a particular card at a sensible cost almost always come out ahead buying singles on the secondary market rather than chasing them through packs. For comparison, these odds are similar to Perfect Order and a touch tighter than Ascended Heroes pull rates.

The six chase cards that define Destined Rivals

Team Rocket's revival anchors the chase pool. Six Pokémon ex SIRs sit well above the rest of the set on current secondary-market prices. Ranked by ungraded USD value, this is what you're really chasing when you rip sealed Destined Rivals:

1. Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex (#231): ~$530 ungraded. PSA 10 copies clear $1,400. The set's unambiguous grail, with Giovanni framed behind a genetically-altered Mewtwo.
2. Cynthia's Garchomp ex (#232): ~$200 ungraded. Sinnoh nostalgia pricing plus one of the cleanest SIR compositions of the S&V era.
3. Ethan's Ho-Oh ex (#230): ~$165 ungraded. The Johto trainer's signature card, with Ho-Oh illustrated in a full-bleed Furusawa piece.
4. Team Rocket's Nidoking ex (#233): ~$94 ungraded. Stage 2 Rocket line, quieter on tier 1 lists but strong in PSA 10 at ~$297.
5. Team Rocket's Moltres ex (#229): ~$90 ungraded. First of the Rocket legendary birds, graded copies pushing $350.
6. Team Rocket's Crobat ex (#234): ~$63 ungraded. The cheapest of the top-tier SIRs and one of the highest grading-upside cards in the set (PSA 10 at ~$168).

Below Crobat, the value curve drops sharply. Arven's Mabosstiff ex SIR (#235) sits around $26 and the remaining Pokémon ex SIRs trail behind. Hyper Rare (gold etched) variants of Mewtwo, Ho-Oh, and Garchomp sit in the $30 to $70 range; attractive for set-builders but not the chase tier. For the full breakdown of what SIR, Hyper Rare, and IR actually mean, see our Pokémon card rarity guide.

Which Destined Rivals product gets you there fastest?

Three sealed formats matter if you plan on actually opening packs:

• Booster Box (36 packs): the expected-value purchase. One SIR on average per box, roughly two ultra rares, and a clean run at the Illustration Rare line.
• Pokémon Center ETB (11 packs): two full-art Team Rocket's Wobbuffet promos, 65 sleeves, 45 energy cards, dice, condition markers, and a collector's box. Best for display-first buyers who'll still rip.
• Booster Bundle (6 packs): the lowest entry price. No promo, no accessories, pure pack odds.

For SIR odds alone, a booster box is the only product where hitting an SIR is statistically likely rather than a coin toss. Bundles and ETBs give you the opening experience without the 36-pack commitment, and the PC ETB carries genuine accessory value for collectors who use the sleeves and want the Wobbuffet promo in hand. If you're targeting a specific card like Mewtwo, the honest answer is that singles are almost always cheaper than ripping boxes.

A common cross-format comparison is the Ascended Heroes Booster Bundle, which slots into the same 6-pack price bracket with a fresher Mega Evolution chase pool.

Is a sealed Destined Rivals box still worth buying?

Sealed Destined Rivals sits in an interesting window. Print runs slowed once Chaos Rising was confirmed for 22 May 2026, so reprint supply is effectively finite at this point. Booster boxes that launched around $180 now trade north of $260 on the secondary market, and the Team Rocket theme has strong IP legs. This is not a forgotten filler set.

That said, it isn't a Base Set-style speculative hold. It's a late Scarlet & Violet-era expansion with solid fundamentals: a memorable chase pool, trainer-focused illustrations, and the "final set of the era" stamp that historically lifts collector interest once the next era settles in. Previous end-of-era sets like Evolving Skies and Crown Zenith followed similar trajectories after their reprint cycles closed. Destined Rivals has the chase pool to follow that pattern, but it needs 12-to-24 months of post-rotation demand to prove it out. The broader "rip versus hold" question is covered in the sealed Pokémon investment guide.

Buying Destined Rivals sealed in the UK

Evol Vault ships all three Destined Rivals SKUs (Booster Box, Pokémon Center ETB, and Booster Bundle) from the UK with tracked shipping worldwide. Every product is factory sealed, sourced directly from Pokémon Center UK, and arrives in professional rigid packaging with tamper-evident tape. Free UK shipping on orders over £100.

If your preferred format isn't in stock on a given day, drops refill on a rolling basis. Add yourself to the drop alert list for restock notifications, or browse the full current catalogue for what's available right now. Every sealed product passes the authenticity checks outlined in our Pokémon authenticity guide before it ships.