Scarlet & Violet Base Set in 2026: The New Rarity System and What Collectors Still Chase
By Dexhaul Team · September 4, 2026
The Scarlet & Violet base set rewrote the collector's playbook in March 2023, and every SV set released since then runs on the framework it established.
Scarlet & Violet (SV01) arrived on March 31, 2023 as the first English release of the new era, replacing the Sword & Shield block's V/VMAX/VSTAR structure with a completely new rarity system. The surface-level change was renaming high-power Pokémon from "V" to "ex." The deeper change was redesigning every rarity tier from the ground up, including introducing two types of full-art Pokémon illustration cards that the community had never seen presented together in a single set.
Three years later, that rarity architecture is the foundation of every current SV product, from Obsidian Flames through the upcoming 30th Celebration set. Understanding SV01 is understanding why collectors spend what they spend on the modern TCG.
How the Rarity System Changed
The Sword & Shield era organized premium cards into a recognizable ladder: Full Art, Rainbow Rare, and Gold. Collectors knew that a Rainbow Rare was the top finish for any given Pokémon V or VMAX.
SV01 scrapped that ladder and replaced it with four distinct premium tiers.
Double Rare sits at the base of the premium tier: the standard ex card with full artwork but a conventional border. Ultra Rare steps up with a more elaborate treatment. Illustration Rare (ILL) is the first genuinely different format: a full-art card where the Pokémon illustration bleeds past the card border, integrating the character into a scene in a way previous card designs had not done at scale.
Special Illustration Rare (SIR) is the top tier. These cards feature the same scene-bleed illustration treatment as ILL cards but with significantly more detailed backgrounds and, in many cases, a human character sharing the illustration space with the Pokémon.
That last element is the structural novelty: a Supporter trainer appearing alongside a Pokémon in the same card art. Hyper Rare (HR), the gold-border cards, round out the set as a parallel tier to the ILL and SIR cards.
Why the SIR Tier Matters More Than a Naming Change
Before SV01, human Trainer cards existed in Secret Rare form going back to early generations. What changed in SV01 is scale and consistency.
The SIR cards in SV01 included Supporter trainers from the Paldea region alongside the primary Pokémon chase cards. That meant Arven, Nemona, and Professor Sada/Turo appeared as high-end collectibles in the same product as Gardevoir ex SIR and Miraidon ex SIR. Collectors who had previously organized their wants list around Pokémon species suddenly had an entire second tier of Trainer character cards to target.
This was not accidental. The Japanese releases that SV01 was compiled from, Scarlet ex and Violet ex, released separately in Japan in January 2023 and were combined into the single English SV01 expansion. The combining of two Japanese sets into one English release is standard practice for the TCG, but it meant that SV01 contained a larger-than-average number of SIR targets: the Pokémon SIRs from both halves of the Japanese release, plus Trainer SIRs from both as well.
Every SV set since has maintained this dual Pokémon-plus-Trainer SIR structure. Collectors who want to understand why current SV packs cost what they cost, and why ETBs for a set like the 30th Celebration are priced in the $160-200 range, are looking at a direct consequence of what SV01 established three years ago.
The Cards That Define SV01 for Collectors
Gardevoir ex is the set's headline chase card at the SIR tier.
Gardevoir has a long collector history in the TCG, with holo rares going back to EX Sandstorm (2003) and multiple high-end versions across the modern era. The SV01 SIR version depicts Gardevoir alongside a human character in the full scene-illustration format, making it the definitive collector target from the set. It combines name recognition, a strong illustration execution, and top-tier rarity.
Miraidon ex SIR is the set's other primary collector target: a Paradox Pokémon from the Scarlet & Violet games, with SIR artwork that reads differently from Gardevoir because it leans on the futuristic aesthetic of the character rather than a naturalistic scene. Miraidon was also competitively significant during its format life, which adds a secondary layer of documented interest.
Charizard ex in SV01 is an Illustration Rare, not a Special Illustration Rare. That distinction matters for collectors.
In market terms, the SV01 Charizard ex sits one tier below the SIR cards and pulls more frequently. For collectors specifically targeting Charizard, that makes the SV01 version more accessible than a SIR, but it also means it is not the ceiling. The later Charizard ex SIR releases across the SV era carry higher collector premiums than the SV01 ILL.
Is SV01 Worth Buying Sealed in 2026?
SV01 booster boxes have been out of standard retail distribution for over two years.
Secondary market prices for sealed SV01 product reflect that. An SV01 booster box in 2026 carries a meaningful premium over its original retail price, and individual pack prices from independent sellers reflect the same trend. Whether that premium is worth it depends entirely on what you are trying to pull.
If your target is a Gardevoir ex SIR or Miraidon ex SIR, buying the single card directly from a marketplace seller is almost always more cost-efficient than sealed product at current prices. Sealed product makes most sense for people who value the opening experience alongside the pull, or for those building a broader SV01 collection rather than targeting one specific card.
If your target is the Charizard ex ILL specifically, SV01 sealed is one path, but the card also appears in products like the Charizard ex Premium Collection, which contained the ILL as a guaranteed pull. Knowing which products guaranteed specific cards, versus which required pack luck, changes the buying calculus significantly for SV01.
What SV01 Tells You About Buying Current SV Sets
The rarity system SV01 introduced has not fundamentally changed in the three years since.
Every SV set from Paldea Evolved through the 30th Celebration launching September 16 uses the same ILL-SIR-HR framework. That consistency is useful for collectors who want to transfer what they learned from SV01 to decisions about current products. If you know that SIRs in SV01 are the top rarity tier and pull at low frequency from standard booster packs, that knowledge applies directly to any current SV booster.
The specific cards change. The structure does not.
For collectors who missed SV01 at retail and are now evaluating where to enter the SV era, the practical answer is usually the current or most recent set rather than trying to acquire SV01 at a secondary-market premium. The SIR format is available in every SV release. SV01's chase cards are historically significant, but the SV rarity system is not going anywhere.
DexHaul searches current SV-era products from independent shops in one place. Browse available sealed product, individual packs, and collection sets at dexhaul.com, including pre-orders for the 30th Celebration set ahead of its September 16 release.