If you have been anywhere near a Pokémon TCG feed in the last year, you will have seen them: full-art cards that look less like trading cards and more like a page torn out of a comic. Heavy linework, flat blocks of colour, dramatic angles. These are Mega Attack Rares, and they have quickly become some of the most chased cards in modern Pokémon.
Here is what they actually are, how to recognise one, and what we know about the next wave.
What a Mega Attack Rare is
A Mega Attack Rare — usually shortened to MAR — is a special rarity treatment featuring comic book-style illustration. Rather than the painted or photographic styles used across most full-art cards, MARs use bold outlines and stylised panels that make them instantly recognisable in a binder.
They sit in the secret rare range, which is the practical way to spot one: the card number runs past the set total. A card numbered 284/217, for example, is card 284 in a set that officially contains 217 — the extra numbers are where the chase cards live.
Where they came from
Mega Attack Rares first appeared in Ascended Heroes, which began life in Japan as the High Class Pack set MEGA Dream ex. High Class Pack sets are Japan's end-of-year premium releases: smaller sets, higher hit density, and a heavy focus on collector-facing rarities rather than competitive play.
That origin matters if you are buying. The Japanese and English printings of the same card are different products with different print runs and different secondary markets, so "the same card" can vary a great deal in price and availability depending on which printing you are holding.
Why collectors chase them
Three reasons, roughly in order of how much they drive price:
- They are visually distinct. Most special rarities are variations on a theme. MARs look like nothing else in the binder, which makes them display pieces as much as collectibles.
- Named illustrators. Like other art rares, each card credits its illustrator, and collectors follow specific artists across sets.
- Set position. Sitting above the set total means limited print presence relative to the rest of the set.
What is coming next
Pokémon has teased Mega Attack Rares returning in what is widely expected to be MEGA x MEGA Parade, Japan's next High Class Pack set, currently pointed at February. As of writing, that set has not been officially revealed — the MAR appearance comes from a teaser rather than a product announcement, so treat specifics with caution until Pokémon confirms them.
Separately, Aura Seeker is due in November, with the English set symbol "FLO" and early reveals including Riolu, Mega Lucario Z ex and Sigilyph ex. That is a standard expansion rather than a High Class Pack, so it is a different kind of release, but it is the next thing on most collectors' calendars.
Source: PokéBeach, 30 August 2026.
Buying Mega Attack Rares in the UK
Two routes, and they suit different people.
Sealed gives you the chance of pulling one yourself, at the cost of variance — you may open a box and hit nothing. Singles costs more per card but removes the gamble entirely: you buy the exact card you want, in a known condition, for a known price.
If you go the singles route, condition is the thing to interrogate. Comic-style full-art cards use heavy ink coverage across the whole face, which makes edge whitening and surface scratching more visible than on a bordered card. Always look at the actual card before you buy — not a stock photo of another copy.
Every single in our store is scanned front and back at high resolution, condition-graded by hand against our published scale, and dispatched from the UK in 1–3 working days. What you see on the page is the card that arrives.
You can browse our Pokémon singles here, and if you want the deeper dive on the set where MARs began, we wrote about Mega Dream ex chase cards separately.