All Pokémon Video Game Promo Cards

45 cards

Four new main-series Pokémon games have come with a card in Japan: Snorlax-GX, sealed in packaged copies of Sun and Moon (2016); a Pikachu with Sword and Shield ordered from Seven Net Shopping (2019); and, with packaged copies only, Arceus V for Legends: Arceus and a Pikachu for Scarlet and Violet (2022). Spin-offs and campaigns added more, from the Dragonite in Japan's Game Boy card game (1998) to Detective Pikachu Returns (2023), and in the United States a Meowth came with the Game Boy card game and a Cool Porygon with a Nintendo 64 and Pokémon Stadium bundle (2000). Legends: Z-A (October 16, 2025) and Pokopia (March 5, 2026) came with none.

Outside Japan, the four main-series cards were sold rather than given away: each has an English print in a boxed collection. The table lists every physical card we found tied to a Pokémon game: given with a game, a Nintendo 64 or a launch event, or made from a game, with prices from real completed sales as of September 28, 2026. The digital promos of the Pokémon TCG Pocket app are not covered.

Pokémon video game promo cards, 1997 to 2023

Medians of real completed sales in US dollars as of September 28, 2026, in the card's language; "est." marks a median resting on one or two sales. "Mixed" means the recorded sales also include other releases of the same number: SM04 was given in cereal boxes too. Cool Porygon and Hungry Snorlax were reprinted with a CD in 1999, and our data does not separate the two prints.

The four main-series cards and their English prints

Each came a different way. Snorlax-GX was sealed in the boxes of packaged Sun, Moon and the Double Pack as a limited early purchase bonus; download buyers got twelve Quick Balls instead. The Sword and Shield Pikachu came only with copies ordered from Seven Net Shopping, the Seven & i group's online store, one per copy and two per Double Pack, as our 7-Eleven guide details. Arceus V and the Scarlet and Violet Pikachu were early purchase bonuses of packaged copies while stocks lasted; download buyers got items in the game (30 Heavy Balls, an item set). Scarlet and Violet had a second early purchase Pikachu, one that knows Fly and has the Flying Tera Type, received in the game by Mystery Gift until February 28, 2023 with either version: it is not the card.

English prints, real completed sales as of September 28, 2026.

The English prints keep the Japanese art, with one difference on two of them: the Japanese Arceus V and Scarlet and Violet Pikachu print their game's logo in the picture, and the English cards do not. On SWSH204, Atsushi Furusawa's painting is the same as on 267/S-P, but the Pokémon Legends: Arceus logo and the rainbow under it are gone, and the meadow and trees are painted where they were; SVP 027 drops the Scarlet and Violet logos at the bottom of 001/SV-P. Packaged copies sold in Taiwan and Hong Kong came with Traditional Chinese prints of the Scarlet and Violet Pikachu and of Detective Pikachu.

Snorlax GX#1/SM-PPikachu#1/S-PArceus V#267/S-PPikachu#1/SV-PSnorlax GX#SM05Pikachu#SWSH020Arceus V#SWSH204Pikachu#027

Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and Snap, 1997 to 2001

From December 10, 1997 to January 31, 1998, participating stores in Japan gave each buyer of a Nintendo 64 a booklet with Cool Porygon, Hungry Snorlax and two Food counters for Snorlax's attacks; both cards were reprinted with the Pokémon Song Best Collection CD on January 1, 1999. Pokémon Card GB, the Game Boy version of the card game (December 18, 1998), came with a Dragonite, and its sequel Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR! (March 28, 2001) with Team GR's Mewtwo and Lugia. The English Game Boy Color game came with Meowth, and the official guidebooks added a card each: a Venusaur with the Japanese guide of January 28, 1999, Black Star Promo 13 Venusaur with the English guide of March 31, 2000, and a Dark Fearow with the guide to GB2.

In 1999, photographs players took in Pokémon Snap became cards. The winners of CoroCoro's Best Photo Contest received 20 copies each of a card printed with their photo (Bulbasaur, Gyarados, Magikarp, Poliwag and Pikachu), and the winners of the TV show 64 Mario Stadium's contest 15 copies each (Koffing, Charmander, Squirtle, Articuno and Chansey). Where an illustrator's name goes, these cards read "Photo." and the player's name. The CoroCoro five are also in our CoroCoro guide.

Cool Porygon (Nintendo 64 campaign, Pokemon Song Best Collection CD 1997)Hungry Snorlax#143Dragonite (Pokemon TCG Game Boy Game 1998)Great Rocket's Mewtwo (Pokemon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR! 2001)Lugia (Pokemon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR! 2001)Meowth#10Cool Porygon#15

Bulbasaur (CoroCoro Best Photo Contest 1999)Gyarados (CoroCoro Best Photo Contest 1999)Magikarp (CoroCoro Best Photo Contest 1999)Poliwag (CoroCoro Best Photo Contest 1999)Pikachu (CoroCoro Best Photo Contest 1999)Koffing (64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest 1999)Charmander (64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest 1999)Squirtle (64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest 1999)Articuno (64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest 1999)Chansey (64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest 1999)

Spin-offs and campaigns, 2008 to 2023

• Raichu 114/DP-P (2008). Part of the Collection Challenge campaign: buying an eligible Pokémon game at participating chains and Pokémon Centers in July 2008 earned it.
• Shiny Rayquaza 144/BW-P (2012). Sealed in first-print copies of Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition, with the game's logo in the art.
• Pokémon Art Academy (2015). Contests entered from the 3DS game turned winners' drawings into cards: Japan's ran from December 13, 2014 to February 1, 2015, North America's and Europe and Oceania's from February 18 to March 29, 2015, each winner received 100 copies, and the international contest's rules kept the cards out of stores and official play.
• Rescue Team DX's Pikachu 036/S-P (2020). Geo gave it from March 6, 2020 with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX or 900 yen of Pokémon card products, one per purchase. It prints the game's logo and credits Spike Chunsoft, the game's developer, as its illustrator.
• Professor's Research, Professor Willow (2021). Pokémon GO's fifth anniversary card, 224/S-P in Japanese and SWSH178 in English, printed a code for a Special Research with Meltan in Pokémon GO; the codes expired on August 1, 2023.
• Detective Pikachu 098/SV-P (2023). The early purchase bonus of packaged Detective Pikachu Returns. The Detective Pikachu cards of the 2019 film are a different series, listed in our movie cards guide.

Rayquaza#144/BW-PRescue Team DX's Pikachu#36/S-PProfessor's Research#224/S-PProfessor's Research#SWSH178Detective Pikachu#98/SV-PPikachu#SM04

Sayaka Maruyama Pikachu (Pokemon Art Academy Competition 2015)Y Fujishima Pikachu (Pokemon Art Academy Competition 2015)Mame Akimaru Pikachu (Pokemon Art Academy Competition 2015)pikamania Pikachu (Pokemon Art Academy Competition 2015)gogotake Pikachu (Pokemon Art Academy Competition 2015)Ginga Pikachu (Pokemon Art Academy Competition 2015)

Cards a game reads or unlocks

The Nintendo e-Reader for Game Boy Advance, released in Japan on December 1, 2001 and in North America on September 16, 2002, but not in Europe, scanned the dot codes printed along the edges of e-Card cards for Pokédex data, minigames and extra attacks. In the English Expedition set each holo card also has a non-holo print, and the codes are on the non-holo one: the holo Alakazam 1/165 has decorative stripes where Alakazam 33/165 has its code. Japan's last e-Card set came out on October 4, 2002; English cards carried codes until early 2004.

Pokémon Rumble, a boxed card game of 16 cards showing the Pokémon as they look in the WiiWare game, came out in Japan on July 10, 2009 and in English on December 2, 2009, with a board and dice for two to seven players; its cards credit "Pokémon Rumble" instead of an illustrator. In Japan, 100 Pokémon Daisuki Club members who finished the game and entered the numbers it showed won three more cards by lottery. The English Rumble cards now sell far above most game promos: as of September 28, 2026, Pikachu 7/16 at $502 (5 sales) raw and Mewtwo 9/16 at $299 (5 sales). Products of the 2022 Pokémon GO card set also came with codes for items in Pokémon GO, avatar items among them, redeemable until July 31, 2024.

Alakazam#1Alakazam#33Venusaur#1Pikachu#7Mewtwo#9Mew#10Lucario#12Rattata#15

How to tell them apart and where to find them

Check the number and the art. The Japanese Rayquaza 144/BW-P, Rescue Team DX's Pikachu, Arceus V, the Scarlet and Violet Pikachu and Detective Pikachu print their game's logo in the picture; the 2016 Snorlax-GX and the 2019 Pikachu carry none. Some promos only share a game's name: Weavile 165/SM-P and Cresselia 166/SM-P came in 2017 with boxes of the Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon card sets at Pokémon Card Gyms, and Zygarde 178/SM-P with the same sets at Geo, not with the games.

The launch bonuses were limited to early purchases and to campaigns while stocks lasted, so these cards trade second-hand. The Japanese ones sell through Japanese card shops and online marketplaces, which buyers abroad reach through a proxy service, as our guide to buying Japanese cards from abroad explains; how Japanese cards differ from English ones is in our guide to Japanese Pokémon cards.

FAQ

Do Pokémon video games come with promo cards?

Some have, mostly in Japan: four main-series games (Sun and Moon, Sword and Shield, Legends: Arceus, Scarlet and Violet) and spin-offs and campaigns from the 1998 Game Boy card game to Detective Pikachu Returns in 2023. Legends: Z-A (2025) and Pokopia (2026) came with none.

What promo card came with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?

In Japan, Pikachu 001/SV-P, a full-art card with Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly, was the early purchase bonus of packaged copies from November 18, 2022. Its English print, SVP 027, came in the Paldea Evolved Elite Trainer Box in June 2023. The Pikachu with the Flying Tera Type was a separate, in-game bonus.

How do you get the Legends: Arceus Arceus V promo card?

Second-hand: it was the early purchase bonus of packaged copies in Japan from January 28, 2022, and its English print, SWSH204, came in the Arceus V Figure Collection of May 6, 2022. As of September 28, 2026, the Japanese card sells for $17.30 raw (5 sales) and SWSH204 for $24.86 (93 sales).

Did Pokémon Legends: Z-A come with a promo card?

No. Its early purchase bonus was a Ralts holding Gardevoirite in the game, and download buyers also got 100 Poké Balls.

What is the most valuable Pokémon video game promo card?

Among cards given with games, Rescue Team DX's Pikachu leads raw at $258 (6 sales), ahead of Pikachu 001/S-P at $200 (5 sales), and the English Cool Porygon leads in PSA 10 at $3,583 est. (2 sales), in real completed sales as of September 28, 2026. The English Pokémon Rumble cards, sold in a boxed game, go higher: Pikachu 7/16 at $502 raw (5 sales).

More Japanese promo series: CoroCoro, V Jump, the movie cards and, from the konbini, 7-Eleven.