The 30 Pikachu of 30th Celebration: list, numbers and illustrators

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The hook of 30th Celebration, released on 16 September 2026, is that every single pack contains a Pikachu. Not just any Pikachu: one drawn from a pool of thirty different illustrations, each signed by a different artist, each with a fireworks holo layer that no other card in the set has.

Now that the set is out, all thirty are here, with collector number, subseries number, card image and who drew each one. If what you are after is which cards the market chases, they are in the article on 30th Celebration card values.

In short. The 30 Pikachu occupy numbers 023/128 through 052/128 and carry a second numbering from 01/30 to 30/30. The rule to convert between the two is simple: set number minus 22. 023/128 is 01/30, 050/128 is 28/30. All thirty arrived with the set, each carrying the signature of a different illustrator. The first of the series is drawn by Ken Sugimori, the original Pokémon designer, the last by Kazuki Minami.

How the 30 Pikachu work

Three things to know before looking at the list.

One per pack, guaranteed. This is not a rarity to chase: it is the card that always comes out. In a set where every card is holographic, basic energies included, the Pikachu is what you will hold in your hand after every single opening.

Double numbering on the same card. Every Pikachu carries its normal set number and, next to it, a second number inside a Pikachu-shaped marker telling you where you are in the collection of thirty. The correspondence is fixed: the collection number is the set number minus 22. Worth knowing, because shops and marketplaces list cards by set number, while collectors call them by the subseries number.

They occupy one continuous block, from 023/128 to 052/128. Thirty consecutive numbers in the middle of the base set, so if you are completing the set in numerical order you will hit all the Pikachu at once.

All 30 Pikachu, one by one

The images are scans of the English prints. On other western prints the artwork is identical, only the language of the text changes.

Create a free DarkDex account and mark which Pikachu you are missing: your collection keeps count for you, and puts the live value next to it.

The ten signatures that only landed on release day

Until launch day ten slots were still covered: 02, 05, 07, 09, 13, 23, 24, 26, 29 and 30, that is set numbers 024, 027, 029, 031, 035, 045, 046, 048, 051 and 052. The order was not random, they clustered towards the back of the series, and that is where some of the least conventional artwork in the whole collection turned out to be:

• 02/30, danciao: a furious Pikachu inside a lightning burst, the only one in the series with Volt Tackle
• 05/30, Asako Ito: a crocheted Pikachu asleep on the grass
• 07/30, James Turner: flat colours on a teal background, cut-out style
• 09/30, Atsushi Furusawa: Pikachu curled up on a desk, next to a computer
• 13/30, Susumu Maeya: Pikachu asleep in a carpet of autumn leaves
• 23/30, Naoyo Kimura: Pikachu in the woods, among white hydrangeas
• 24/30, svlt: Pikachu on a rock, in a mountain landscape
• 26/30, KIYOTAKA OSHIYAMA: fruit and leaves in solid colour, the furthest of all from the usual card style
• 29/30, nagimiso: Pikachu on a green field crossed by electric discharges
• 30/30, Kazuki Minami: the last of the series, inside a burst of light

There is one more thing almost nobody looks at: the artwork is not the only difference. The thirty Pikachu have different HP and different attacks, from 50 to 80 HP, and no move repeats. They are thirty different cards, not thirty frames around the same card.

The 01/30 Pikachu by Ken Sugimori

Slot one goes to Ken Sugimori, the man who drew the original Pokémon in 1996, and the artwork is an explicit callback: a round, slightly clumsy Pikachu, the way it looked thirty years ago before the character slimmed down. On a set celebrating thirty years, putting the original designer at number one is not a graphic detail, it is a statement.

In practical terms this matters: when someone asks in a few months "which 30th Celebration Pikachu is worth keeping", this is the first name that will come up, and not because it is rarer than the other twenty-nine, but because it is the one with a story attached.

And it is not the only signature to know. Slot 25/30 belongs to Atsuko Nishida, the artist Pikachu's own design comes from: the character was born out of her drawing, not out of the one who signs slot one. Putting both of them in the same collection, at the very start and halfway through, is the most explicit callback in the whole set.

What the 30 Pikachu are worth

Not much, almost all of them, and that is not pessimism: it is print-run arithmetic. A card guaranteed in every pack of a simultaneous worldwide release is the least rare card in the product, by construction.

The numbers are in now, and they have moved a lot. On 7 October 2026 all thirty Pikachu have a price and they sit between 0.11 € and 1.60 €, and half of them cost less than 22 cents. On 17 September the median was 4.49 €, on 18 September 2.04 €: in three weeks the guaranteed Pikachu lost more than 90% of its launch price. The most expensive is still Tomokazu Komiya's 10/30 (032/128), down from 7.55 € to 1.60 €, level with 13/30 (035/128) at 1.57 €; five Pikachu sit at the market floor, 0.11 €. The precedent left no room for interpretation, and it was right. In the 25th anniversary set, which turns five in October, the special Pikachu all sit under six euros today: Flying Pikachu VMAX 5.80 €, Surfing Pikachu VMAX 3.52 €, Surfing Pikachu V 3.10 €, Pikachu 2.91 €, Flying Pikachu V 2.10 €. The only Pikachu in that set genuinely worth something is _____'s Pikachu at 40.52 €, and it is the exception that confirms everything: it was not a new card, it was the reprint of a twenty-year-old promo, and it did not come out of packs.

Not even the most chased signatures made a difference: Ken Sugimori's 01/30 is down to the 0.11 € minimum, and Atsuko Nishida's 25/30 sits at 0.45 €. The two ex versions are a different matter, and you can see them below. The full count for the set, with the real price ranking of every card, is here.

The Pikachu ex, day and night

Outside the collection of thirty there are two Pikachu ex, a day version and a night version, at numbers 053/128 and 054/128, and both return as secrets at 149 and 150.

These are the two Pikachu cards the market concentrated on, and the secret versions in particular. The 7 October prices say it bluntly: the base set Pikachu ex day sits at 0.45 € and its secret version (149) at 53.28 €; the night version is also at 0.45 € against 55.54 € for the secret (150). More than a hundred times over, for the same card in the same set. On 18 September the two secrets were worth 90.53 € and 75.64 €: they fell too, but far less than the regular versions and the thirty guaranteed Pikachu. You will find them alongside the others in the article on the chase cards of 30th Celebration.

Updated on 7 October 2026: the list is complete, all thirty Pikachu have a number, an image, an illustrator and a price. These are the lowest Near Mint listings collected on CardTrader on 7 October 2026. How the whole set moved since release, reprints included, is in 30th Celebration: the most expensive cards and what they are worth now.

How to keep track of the Pikachu you are missing

Thirty cards nearly identical in format and wildly different in artwork are exactly the kind of collection you lose track of: after the tenth pack you no longer remember whether you already have 17/30.

On DarkDex you mark what you own, see at a glance what is missing, and get the value of each one updated from the market instead of estimated by eye.

If you are still deciding what to buy, the page on the Classic Collection lists the thirty historic cards the set reprints, with what the original of each costs today. And if the question is which box to buy, the real cost per pack of every product is in the product guide.

Create your free account and start marking the Pikachu you pull.