Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: Destined Rivals – Everything You Need to Know

The highly-anticipated Pokemon TCG set Destined Rivals is releasing in May, and as we’re starting to see, this is definitely one we’ll need to prepare for trouble for. And make it double, because with every new card that’s revealed, the hype just grows and grows.

We all want the Special Illustration Rares (SIR) of Garchomp and Ho-oh. We’re obsessed with the striking red and black design of the Elite Trainer Box. We haven’t even seen the main bulk of the Team Rocket’s Pokemon cards yet, and we already know Destined Rivals is a must have for any collector.

It’s going to be wild, and as more cards get revealed in the run up to the Japanese Glory of Team Rocket release on 18th April, it’s going to be a challenge to protect our wallets from devastation.

Pokémon Destined Rivals Release Date & Availability

Destined Rivals will be released in English on 30th May. It will be made from the recently released Japanese set Heat Wave Arena and the upcoming Glory of Team Rocket set, in which every Pokemon card will be a Rocket’s Pokemon. Doesn’t that take you back to the good old days of that first Team Rocket set that Wizards of the Coast released? Now you understand why the demand for this set is expected to be so high.

The Pokemon Center website released their exclusive ETB and other products on 24th March, and they completely sold out within two hours. So many people were trying to place pre-orders that the website had to implement a queuing system, and it was reported that between 1 million and two million people were in the queue throughout the day. That’s a lot of Pokemon fans!

Obviously, not everyone will have been buying for themselves. Trust Team Rocket to bring out the villains in droves!

Now that the Pokemon Center is sold out until release day, it’s important to turn your attention to sites like Magic Madhouse for upcoming pre-orders. Keep an eye on their social media accounts to find out when their pre-orders will launch, and it might be a good idea to set up an account if you haven’t already to ensure a smooth checkout process.

Full Set List & Key Cards

The full set list for Destined Rivals hasn’t been revealed yet, but thanks to the earlier Japanese releases, we already know some of the cards to expect.

Heat Wave Arena contains some truly stunning and collectible cards. The featured trainers of this set are Cynthia, Misty, Ethan and Arven. For Cynthia, we have a beautiful Illustration Rare (IR) of Cynthia’s Roserade, and, of course, the Cynthia’s Garchomp ex SIR. The Garchomp is sure to be one of the chase cards of the set, alongside Ethan’s Ho-oh ex SIR and the Team Rocket’s Mewtwo ex SIR, which hasn’t been revealed yet but is almost certainly going to be in Destined Rivals.

We also have a couple of Misty IRs featuring Lapras and Psyduck. The Starmie ex gallery card from Astral Radiance, which also features Misty in the artwork, is now extremely sought after. Misty’s Lapras and Misty’s Psyduck are sure to get some attention in the hopes that they’ll go the same way.

Ethan’s Typhlosion IR is another great card that’s causing a stir, both for its incredible art and playability. Ethan is also lucky enough to get a trainer SIR called Ethan’s Adventure. In the early days of the Scarlett and Violet era, SIR trainers were always the chase cards of the set.

The rest of the Destined Rivals set will be formed of cards from the upcoming Glory of Team Rocket set, which we’re starting to see teased. Most notable at the moment is the Team Rocket’s Meowth IR, which features everyone’s favourite villain boss, Giovanni, in a delightfully cartoonish style.

It has been confirmed that all the Pokemon cards in the Glory of Team Rocket will be Team Rocket’s Pokemon, so we can look forward to plenty of other IR and SIR cards featuring members of Team Rocket and Giovanni. The Destined Rivals ETB comes with a Team Rocket’s Wobbuffet promo, so perhaps we’ll even get Jessie and James featured in a few cards!

New Gameplay Features & Mechanics

Like its predecessor, Journey Together, Destined Rivals will encourage players to build decks full of a specific trainer’s Pokemon. The abilities of these Pokemon and certain trainer cards clearly reveal each deck’s intended strategy.

Arven’s Pokemon Deck

For Arven, the strategy is simple: get Arven’s Mabosstiff ex into play and use its attack ‘Hustle Tackle’, which does 30 damage plus 120 if there are no damage counters on it.

When Mabosstiff takes damage, use Boss’s Headbutt instead for 210 damage and play the Arven’s Sandwich trainer card to heal the damage so you can keep hitting for 150. Arven’s Sandwich heals 30 damage for regular Pokemon, and 100 damage if the Pokemon is Arven’s.

This pairs with Arven’s Greedent, who has the ability to place 2 Arven’s Sandwich cards from your discard into your hand when you evolve it from Arven’s Skwovet.

Cynthia’s Pokemon Deck

Cynthia’s Roserade’s ability is ‘Glory Cheer’, which makes Cynthia’s Pokemon’s attacks do 30 more damage. This ability can stack, so if you have all four of your Roserade’s in play, all Cynthia’s Pokemon will be dealing an extra 120 damage.

Cynthia’s Gabite’s ability ‘Champion’s Call’ lets you search your deck for a Cynthia’s Pokemon card and put it in your hand. Find the Roserades, or go straight for the ace - Cynthia’s Garchomp ex.

Garchomp ex is a heavy hitter. For one fighting energy, Corkscrew Drive does 100 damage and lets you draw cards until you have 6 in your hand. For 2 fighting energy, you can use Dragon Blaster for 260 damage, but you must discard all the energy cards attached to Garchomp ex. However, with the Roserade boost, this attack can be doing anywhere between 300-420 damage - plenty to KO most Pokemon. Plus, when you build the energy back up to Dragon Blaster, you’ll already be putting 100 damage on your opponent’s Pokemon with that first attack.

The Cynthia’s Power Weight trainer card gives Cynthia’s Pokemon 70 extra HP, so attaching this to Garchomp ex will make its HP an impressive 400.

Ethan’s Pokemon Deck

While Arven and Cynthia have Pokemon with a variety of different typings, all the key cards for Ethan’s deck are fire types. Firstly, we have Ethan’s Quilava, which has the ability ‘Adventure Bound’. Thanks to this, you can search your deck for an Ethan’s Adventure trainer card and put it into your hand.

Ethan’s Adventure is a key card in this deck. Not only does it allow you to search your deck from 3 cards that are either Ethan’s Pokemon or basic fire energy and put them into your hand - it powers up Ethan’s Typhlosion’s ‘Buddy Blast’ attack, which does 40 damage plus 60 more for every Ethan’s Adventure in your discard pile. That’s up to 280 damage for a single fire energy.

However, surprisingly, it isn’t Typhlosion that’s the top attacker - it’s Magcargo. Ethan’s Magcargo’s ability allows it to have no retreat cost if there are no energy cards attached to it, and its attack ‘Lava Burst’ lets you discard energy cards from it to increase its damage. It does 70 damage per energy discarded, with a max discard of 5 - letting Magcoargo hit for up to 350 damage and then run away to the bench for free on the next turn.

This works nicely with Ethan’s Ho-oh ex, whose ability ‘Golden Sun’ attaches two fire energies to your benched Ethan’s Pokemon. If you play these cards right, you can attack with a loaded Magcargo, set up another with this energy acceleration on the bench, and then pivot between them for a powerful single-prize attack strategy.

Misty’s Pokemon Deck

Finally, we have Misty. Obviously, her Pokemon are all water types. The strategy here hinges on getting Misty’s Pokemon to the top of your deck and then discarding them to power up Misty’s Gyarados’ attack.

There are plenty of existing trainer cards that can assist with this, such as Academy at Night and Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking. You also have Misty’s Psyduck’s ability ‘Slapstick Jump’, which lets you discard a card at the bottom of your deck and put it on the top of your deck. This ability can stack, so if you have multiples of these cards and are careful with your sequencing (watch out for those ‘shuffle your deck afterwards’ requirements), you can guarantee that all seven of the cards you’ll be checking when using ‘Splashing Panic’ will be Misty’s Pokemon for a gratuitous 490 damage.

The attack does mean you have to discard the cards after, but thanks to the return of the Sacred Ash trainer card (of course there’d be an Ash card in a Misty deck!), you can return up to five Pokemon to your deck from your discard pile.

The Best Cards for Competitive Play

Outside of the new Trainer’s Pokemon decks, the card that’s most likely to work well within the existing meta is Yanmega ex.

Yanmega’s ‘Buzz Boost’ ability allows you to search your deck for up to 3 basic grass energy cards and attach them to Yanmega. As well as helping it power up for its 210 attack, this ability pairs well with Raging Bolt ex, who discards energy from your Pokemon to power up its attack. Typically, we see Raging Bolt ex paired with Teal Mask Ogerpon ex. However, Ogerpon can only accelerate one energy per turn, so having the ability to play 3 every turn is a definite upgrade.

Shaymin may also see some use for its ‘Flower Curtain’ ability, which prevents damage to benched Pokemon without a rule box. This would make it a great addition to the Milotic ex blocker decks which have been rising in popularity.

Is Pokémon Destined Rivals Worth Collecting?

We may not have seen what Team Rocket cards await us yet, but Team Rocket are iconic. Most collectors will have fond memories of collecting the original Team Rocket set, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if this inspires an influx of people trying to complete master sets of Destined Rivals - similar to what we saw with 151.

The Team Rocket’s Pokemon IR and SIR cards will definitely be ones to watch when the set is released, but for now, Cynthia’s Garcomp ex SIR, Ethan’s Ho-oh ex SIR and Ethan’s Adventure SIR are likely to be the most sought after. Not only are they stunning cards of popular Pokemon, but having the trainers appearing alongside them adds so much life and appeal to the art. They’re competitive too, so collectors, resellers and TCG players will all be on the hunt for them.

The set is also likely to spark more interest in the Team Rocket sets that have come before it. Besides the original vintage set, there’s also a few Rocket’s Pokemon in Gym Heroes and the EX Team Rocket Returns set from 2004.

Where to Buy Pokémon Destined Rivals & Pre-Order Deals

It’s important to be patient with the release of Destined Rivals. This isn’t a speciality set like Prismatic Evolutions. There will be booster boxes and plenty of other products, and the Pokemon Company will ensure plenty of it is printed to meet demand.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and be tempted to pay outrageous prices on eBay or to ‘rip-and-shippers’, but doing so is creating an environment for resellers to thrive in. Plus, if the cards don’t come from a sealed box, you have no way of telling whether the packs you’re buying have been weighed or scanned with a metal detector (because apparently that’s a thing now!) to ensure they don’t contain rare cards.

With websites like Magic Madhouse, you never need to worry about these issues. They are a reputable online store who can guarantee the fulfilment of their pre-orders for the proper retail price. They also stock and sell singles too, so if there’s a certain card you’re desperate to buy or a few random commons you’re missing for your master set, it’s definitely worth seeing if they have it. With such an iconic design, you may even just want to buy an empty Destined Rivals ETB box from them to use for storage.

Magic Madhouse has not yet started pre-orders for Destined Rivals, but when they do, they’re sure to go fast. So sign up, follow their social media, and stay alert for the moment the products drop.