Search for a Hidden Fates booster box or a Crown Zenith booster box and you will find Elite Trainer Boxes, tins, and collection boxes instead. Neither set was ever sold in booster boxes. Both are special sets, a kind of Pokémon release that sits outside the main expansions and is sold only in bundled products. Here is how special sets work, what made Hidden Fates, Champion's Path, and Crown Zenith different, how Battle Styles fits beside them, and what four cards from these sets show about the modern game.
What is a Pokémon special set?
The Pokémon Company releases three or four main expansions a year, sold in booster boxes and single packs. Special sets come out between them, usually as collector-focused releases. The rule is simple: special sets are never sold as individual booster packs, and their packs come inside Elite Trainer Boxes, tins, pin collections, and premium collections.
The English special expansions include Generations (2016), Shining Legends (2017), Dragon Majesty (2018), Detective Pikachu (2019), Hidden Fates (2019), Champion's Path (2020), Shining Fates (2021), Celebrations (2021), Pokémon GO (2022), and Crown Zenith (2023). Scarlet & Violet has continued the pattern with 151, Paldean Fates, and Prismatic Evolutions.
Hidden Fates, 2019
Hidden Fates came out on August 23, 2019, based on the Japanese set GX Ultra Shiny. It has 68 numbered cards, a secret rare Moltres & Zapdos & Articuno-GX, and a 94-card Shiny Vault of shiny Pokémon, for 163 cards in all. It launched in pin collections at $14.99 with three packs, then tins at $19.99 with four, then an Elite Trainer Box at $49.99 with ten. The chase card is the Shiny Vault Charizard-GX, SV49. As of September 2026, PriceCharting tracked a sealed Hidden Fates Elite Trainer Box at about $510.
The Shiny Vault Charizard-GX, SV49, and the secret rare Moltres & Zapdos & Articuno-GX, 69/68.
Mewtwo-GX 31/68 is from the main set. aky CG Works rendered it, and it has 180 HP, a Super Psy Bolt attack, and a GX attack, Psycrush-GX, that discards all Energy from the opponent's Active Pokémon. There is a separate shiny version in the Shiny Vault, SV59, and in Japan, 300 rainbow promo copies were given out at tournaments in 2019.
Ungraded · Hidden Fates, 2019
The main-set Mewtwo-GX from Hidden Fates, rendered by aky CG Works. Ungraded, sold as pictured.
$10.00 View card
Champion's Path, 2020
Champion's Path came out on September 25, 2020, with 73 cards plus secret rares, and it arrived just as the pandemic card boom took off. Its chase cards were a Charizard VMAX, 074/073, originally a tournament prize card in Japan, and a shiny Charizard V. Pin collections sold for $14.99 and the Elite Trainer Box for $49.99, with a full art Charizard V promo inside. The set was hard to find from the start, and demand for the Charizard cards led Play! Pokémon to put out a statement about additional stock. As of September 2026, PriceCharting tracked a sealed Champion's Path Elite Trainer Box at about $205.
Charizard VMAX 074/073 and the shiny Charizard V, 079/073, the two chase cards of Champion's Path.
Lucario V, 027/073, was illustrated by Akira Egawa. It is a Fighting Pokémon V with 210 HP and two attacks, Aura Sphere, which also hits a Benched Pokémon, and Beatdown Smash. The same year produced Vivid Voltage and its Amazing Rares, and our guide to that set covers the boom in more detail.
Ungraded · Champion's Path, 2020
Akira Egawa's Lucario V from Champion's Path, the special set of the 2020 boom. Ungraded, sold as pictured.
$7.00 View card
Battle Styles, 2021
Battle Styles is a main expansion, not a special set, and it shows the difference. It came out on March 19, 2021, as the fifth main Sword & Shield set, with 163 numbered cards, and it was sold in 36-pack booster boxes. It introduced two battle styles, Single Strike and Rapid Strike. Single Strike cards focus on heavy damage, while Rapid Strike cards favor quick, technical plays. As of September 2026, PriceCharting tracked a sealed Battle Styles booster box at about $267.
Tyranitar V, 097/163, is a Single Strike Pokémon illustrated by Ayaka Yoshida. It is a Darkness type with 230 HP, and its Single Strike Crush attack does 240 damage at the cost of discarding the top four cards of your own deck. The set also includes a full art version by Yoshida and an alternate art version by HYOGONOSUKE.
The full art Tyranitar V, 154/163, and HYOGONOSUKE's alternate art, 155/163.
Ungraded · Battle Styles, 2021
Ayaka Yoshida's Single Strike Tyranitar V from Battle Styles. Ungraded, sold as pictured.
$5.00 View card
Crown Zenith, 2023
Crown Zenith came out on January 20, 2023, as both the final special set and the last set of the Sword & Shield series. It has 230 cards in all, including the Galarian Gallery, a 70-card subset of illustration-style cards numbered GG01 to GG70. The Japanese source was VSTAR Universe. It came in a standard Elite Trainer Box with a Lucario VSTAR promo and a Pokémon Center version, and as of September 2026 PriceCharting tracked the standard ETB at about $307.
Giratina VSTAR GG69 and Arceus VSTAR GG70, the last two cards in the Galarian Gallery.
Ditto 107/159 is a holo rare illustrated by Kiyotaka Oshiyama. Its Ability, Sudden Transformation, lets it use the attacks of Basic Pokémon in your discard pile that don't have a Rule Box. The card's text came from the Pokémon GO set, where Ditto cards came disguised under stickers of Spinarak, Numel, or Bidoof, and Crown Zenith gave it new artwork.
Ungraded · Crown Zenith, 2023
Kiyotaka Oshiyama's Ditto from Crown Zenith, the last set of the Sword & Shield era. Ungraded, sold as pictured.
$3.00 View card
The world from 2019 to 2023
Detective Pikachu, the first American live-action Pokémon film, opened in May 2019, and Pokémon Sword and Shield launched on the Switch that November. In 2020, Pokémon GO had its biggest year, with about $1.92 billion in revenue, and eBay reported that Pokémon card sales rose 574 percent from 2019 to 2020. In May 2021, Target paused in-store sales of trading cards. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet followed in November 2022 and sold more than 10 million copies in three days, and in March 2023 Ash Ketchum's run as the anime's lead came to an end, with Pokémon Horizons premiering in Japan that April.
Collecting modern special sets
Modern singles like these are an inexpensive way into a set, and most of their value shows up in two places: sealed product and top grades. A Hidden Fates Elite Trainer Box that cost $49.99 in 2019 now trades for about ten times that, and PriceCharting tracked these four cards at roughly $70 to $120 each in PSA 10. For a look at how collectors got cards outside of booster packs twenty years earlier, see our guide to the Wizards-era Black Star Promos.
Keep reading
- Vintage Pokémon cards, era by era: a collector's guide
- Vivid Voltage and the Amazing Rares
- Diamond & Pearl era cards: LV.X and Mitsuhiro Arita
- Wizards Black Star Promos, 1999 to 2003
Browse the graded and ungraded Pokémon cards we carry in Artifacts.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Hidden Fates booster box? No. Hidden Fates is a special set, so its packs were only sold inside products like pin collections, tins, and Elite Trainer Boxes. The same is true of Champion's Path and Crown Zenith.
What is a special set in the Pokémon TCG? A release that sits outside the main expansions and is sold only in bundled products, without booster boxes or single packs. Examples include Hidden Fates, Champion's Path, Shining Fates, Celebrations, Crown Zenith, and 151.
Is Hidden Fates Mewtwo-GX 31/68 the same as SV59? No. 31/68 is the regular Mewtwo-GX from the main set. SV59 is the shiny version from the Shiny Vault.
What do Single Strike and Rapid Strike mean? They are two fighting styles introduced in Battle Styles in 2021. Single Strike cards focus on heavy damage, and Rapid Strike cards on technical plays.
Is Crown Zenith the last Sword and Shield set? Yes. Crown Zenith, released on January 20, 2023, was the final set of the Sword & Shield series and includes the 70-card Galarian Gallery.
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