Ascended Heroes

What Ascended Heroes is

Ascended Heroes is the first special expansion of the Mega Evolution Series, released in English on January 30, 2026 under the set code ASC. It is themed around the video game Legends: Z-A and gathers new and returning Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, Tera Pokémon ex and Trainer's Pokémon under one set. With 217 numbered cards and 78 secret rares, 295 cards in all, it is the largest Pokémon TCG expansion ever released in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, passing the 284 card record held by Fusion Strike.

The set draws its cards from the Japanese MEGA Dream ex subset and the Start Deck 100 Battle Collection. It contains 13 Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, six Tera Pokémon ex and 20 Pokémon ex, then a secret rare section of 33 Illustration rares, 14 Ultra rares, seven Mega attack rares, 22 Special illustration rares and two Mega Hyper Rares, Mega Charizard Y ex 294 and Mega Dragonite ex 295.

Ascended Heroes is also the first international set to bring cards with the J regulation mark into the Standard format, mixed with I and H mark cards from earlier in the series. Because it is a special expansion, its booster packs arrived through products rather than standalone display boxes, which is why the sealed table below lists Elite Trainer Boxes, tins, collections and bundles but no ordinary booster box.

What makes Ascended Heroes different

• The Mega attack rare debut Cards 265 to 271 introduce a new rarity first seen in Japan's MEGA Dream ex: full art Mega Evolution Pokémon ex drawn in a pop art style with the card's signature attack written in large text across the foreground. The attack text is swapped between regions, so the English cards carry Japanese attack text and the Japanese cards carry English, a nod to the Mega Evolution Pokémon EX cards of the XY Series.
• Poké Ball and Energy pattern foils instead of reverse holos Common, uncommon and rare Pokémon cards come in two parallel holofoil patterns rather than a standard reverse: a Poké Ball pattern or an Energy symbol matching the card's type. The ball is fixed per Pokémon line (Love Ball, Friend Ball, Quick Ball, Dusk Ball or standard Poké Ball), every first partner family including Pikachu uses Friend Balls, Team Rocket's Pokémon use the Team Rocket R, and Mythical Pokémon and the other Trainer's Pokémon use the standard Poké Ball.
• Two Pikachu ex Special illustration rares Pikachu ex appears twice in the Special illustration rare run, at 276 by booota and at 277 by James Turner, and the two cards sit at opposite ends of the set's value ladder despite sharing a name and rarity.
• 295 cards, a record Ascended Heroes is the largest Western Pokémon TCG expansion by total card count, ahead of Fusion Strike's 284, although Fusion Strike still has more non secret cards. 243 of the 295 cards are Pokémon, 50 are Trainers and two are Energy.
• Trainer's Pokémon return Erika's, Ethan's, Hop's, Iono's, Lillie's, Cynthia's, Steven's, Marnie's, N's, Larry's and Team Rocket's Pokémon fill the checklist, including Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 281 illustrated by Mitsuhiro Arita and Lillie's Clefairy ex 280 by Naoki Saito.
• Event and promotion stamps Rayquaza 153 was handed to every badged attendee at PokémonXP and the 2026 Pokémon World Championships with a PXP stamp. Poké Pad 198 exists as a Master Ball League participation promo and a Judge stamped version in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, and Team Rocket's Mimikyu 97 has a cosmos holofoil Gengar Enhanced 2 Pack Blister version.

How Ascended Heroes arrived

Japan released MEGA Dream ex on November 28, 2025 as the subset that introduced the Mega attack rare cards and the Poké Ball pattern foils. Two months later, on January 30, 2026, the English game received Ascended Heroes as a special expansion built from MEGA Dream ex plus the Start Deck 100 Battle Collection, sitting between the Play! Pokémon Prize Pack Series Eight and the March 27, 2026 release of Perfect Order.

The launch products were unusual. On release day the Tech Sticker Collections (three packs, a Charmander 20 or Gastly 123 promo and a large laptop sticker illustrated by Anesaki Dynamic) were the main way to open the set, and in Europe the Ascended Heroes Collection with Erika's Tangela 7 or Larry's Komala 175 arrived the same day. The Elite Trainer Box, the Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box, the Ascended Heroes Collection for other markets and a five tin Mini Tin Collection followed on February 20, 2026.

March 20, 2026 brought the Premium Poster Collections, each with a Mega attack rare print promo of Mega Lucario ex or Mega Gardevoir ex, a poster and ten packs, plus the First Partners Deluxe Pin Collection with pixel cosmos holofoil Chikorita 8, Tepig 29 and Totodile 41. A six pack Booster Bundle arrived on April 24, 2026, and three tins featuring Mega Meganium ex, Mega Emboar ex and Mega Feraligatr ex promos followed on August 28, 2026, each with four packs.

Ascended Heroes products and what came in them

The Elite Trainer Box features Mega Dragonite and holds nine booster packs, 65 card sleeves, 40 basic Energy cards, a player's guide, six damage counter dice, a competition legal coin flip die, a plastic coin, six dividers, a Pokémon TCG Live code card and a full art foil N's Zekrom promo (MEP Promo 031) first printed in Japan's MEGA Dream ex. The Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box adds two more packs and a second N's Zekrom with a Pokémon Center logo stamp.

Each Mini Tin (Riolu and Darumaka, Clefairy and Chikorita, Pikachu and Tepig, Togepi and Totodile, Zorua and Cramorant) holds two packs, a sticker and an art card with Pokédex information on the back; the five tin illustrations join into one picture. Because there is no standalone booster box, the Booster Bundle (six packs) and the Booster Bundle Display Box are the closest thing to bulk sealed product for this set.

Collecting and grading Ascended Heroes

The set's value concentrates in a handful of Special illustration rares and the two Mega Hyper Rares: Pikachu ex 276, Mega Charizard Y ex 294, Mega Gengar ex 284 and the two Mega Dragonite ex prints lead the graded market, with Pikachu ex 277, Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex 281, Lillie's Clefairy ex 280 and N's Zoroark ex 286 behind them. The live chase list above ranks every tracked print, and it separates the two Pikachu ex cards, which are easy to confuse in a listing.

The Poké Ball and Energy pattern foils create a second market. A common Charmander 20 or a rare Rayquaza 153 in a pattern foil is a different collectible from the plain print, and graded copies of pattern foils can carry surprising premiums on cheap raw cards; Slabfolio tracks those variants as Ball and Energy rows in the checklist. Check the pattern before you buy or submit, because the same number can appear in three finishes.

Modern Mega Evolution card stock grades well when centered, but the textured Special illustration rares and Mega attack rares scuff at the edges and the gold Mega Hyper Rares show surface marks under light. With no standalone booster box, sealed value lives in the Elite Trainer Boxes, the Booster Bundle Display Box and the collections, and the set is young enough that the sealed table is the only honest guide to what those are worth.