The Mew RGB Secret Rares Are Real: 30th Celebration Has a Hidden Chase Pokemon Will Not Acknowledge for Months

Two days before 30th Celebration officially releases, the set's best-kept secret is out. Multiple collectors opening product that hit some store shelves early have pulled three secret rare Mew cards that Pokemon has never announced, never previewed and did not print in the card list booklet inside the Elite Trainer Box. They are numbered R, G and B out of "RGB," and they are named for the original Pokemon Red, Green and Blue games.

What the cards are

All three are illustrated by YOSHIROTTEN, the Japanese artist behind the set's Futuristic Rare treatment, whose work leans on light, color and digital abstraction. Red, green and blue are the primary colors of light, which is the second layer of the joke: combine the three and you get the full spectrum. The set already has a regular holo Mew at number 65 and an alternate-art Black Star promo (MEP105). The RGB cards are a third, hidden tier above both.

The cards are not stamped with a standard set number, they are absent from every official checklist, and they were left out of the ETB booklet on purpose. That is why a large portion of the hobby spent two months insisting they were fake.

Why nobody confirmed them until now

The RGB Mews first surfaced about two months ago when streamers opened 30th Celebration product that had reportedly come from an unauthorized source inside the distribution chain. eBay later pulled early listings of the leaked cards under its stolen property policy at the request of The Pokemon Company International. Because the source was tainted, most of the reputable Pokemon news sites chose not to report on the cards at all, and comment threads calling them fakes went largely unchallenged.

That silence broke on September 12 when several unrelated collectors pulled the cards from product bought at retail. The mystery was clearly intentional. Mew was the original schoolyard rumor of 1996, the Pokemon that supposedly lived under a truck, and Pokemon appears to have designed the RGB cards to recreate that feeling for the 30th anniversary.

Expect them to stay officially unrevealed

Pokemon Japan does not officially reveal a set's secret rares until the following set releases, so there may be no acknowledgment of these cards for months. TPCi normally publishes a full card list at release, but since 30th Celebration is a simultaneous worldwide launch, it followed the Japanese approach this time. Do not expect an official pull rate, a set number or a Pokemon.com card database entry any time soon.

What this does to the set

• Pack prices will hold. A hidden four-figure chase in every booster is the single biggest thing keeping a set's sealed price above retail. Several early comments have already made the point that this set will not crash the way a typical special set does.
• Singles over sealed, more than ever. The expected value of a pack is now weighted toward three cards almost nobody will pull. If you want the Illustration Rares and Special Illustration Rares, buy them as singles once supply floods in.
• Beware fakes of the fakes. Cards that were widely called counterfeit for two months are now confirmed real, which is exactly the environment where actual counterfeits thrive. Buy raw RGB Mews only from sellers you trust, and lean toward graded copies once CGC and PSA start slabbing them.
• The art is polarizing. A meaningful share of the community dislikes the YOSHIROTTEN style. That does not change the price of a card with this scarcity, but it might make the SIRs the better long-term aesthetic hold.

30th Celebration releases Wednesday, September 16, the first Pokemon TCG set to launch worldwide on the same day. If your local shop is running a launch event, this is the week to go. Find one in our directory.