Pokémon TCG Temporal Forces Set Guide: 218 Cards, Products and Prices

Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Temporal Forces released on 22 March 2024 with 218 cards: 162 main set plus 56 secret rares numbered 163 to 218. It is the fifth English Scarlet & Violet expansion, the set that brought ACE SPEC cards back to the game, and — because all 218 cards carry regulation mark H — the oldest Standard-legal expansion in the Pokémon TCG as of 25 July 2026. A booster box trades at CA$447.04 today. Below: the seven ACE SPEC cards as printed, the complete Special Illustration Rare run, and every product with live Canadian prices.

The oldest legal set in Standard

The 2026-27 Standard format was announced on 9 January 2026, reached Pokémon TCG Live on 26 March and in-person tournaments on 10 April. It removed regulation mark G; H, I, J and later stay legal. Six Scarlet & Violet expansions went with it: Scarlet & Violet base, Paldea Evolved, Obsidian Flames, 151, Paradox Rift and Paldean Fates — the last routinely dropped from that list, because it released in January 2024 yet carries the G mark.

Temporal Forces was not among them. All 218 cards carry mark H, checked card by card against the pokemontcg.io database, which makes this 22 March 2024 set the oldest still legal for Standard play, with Twilight Masquerade nine weeks behind it.

The set that brought ACE SPEC back

ACE SPEC cards debuted in the Black & White Series and had been gone for years. Temporal Forces reintroduced them, and that is checkable rather than repeated: querying the pokemontcg.io database for the ACE SPEC Rare rarity returns 33 cards across exactly six Scarlet & Violet sets — this one (7), Twilight Masquerade (6), Shrouded Fable (3), Stellar Crown (3), Surging Sparks (8), Prismatic Evolutions (6). No earlier set in the era has one.

The restriction is printed on the cards: “ACE SPEC: You can't have more than 1 ACE SPEC card in your deck.” One card in total, not one copy of each.

Four Items, two Pokémon Tools and one Special Energy, three of them by Toyste Beach. Neo Upper Energy 162/162 is the era's first ACE SPEC Special Energy and, at US$19.24, the most valuable of the seven; Twilight Masquerade's Legacy Energy is the second.

The set did not introduce Ancient and Future Pokémon — Paradox Rift did, in November 2023. What it added was six Paradox ex echoing two older generations: an Ancient trio after the Legendary beasts (Walking Wake, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt) and a Future trio after the Swords of Justice (Iron Leaves, Iron Boulder, Iron Crown).

Fifteen cards, including every Special Illustration Rare

All ten Special Illustration Rares, 203 to 212, plus the two Illustration Rares that outsell most of them, the set's best Ultra Rare, one of the six gold Hyper Rares, and one main-set Double Rare.

All (15)Special Illustration Rare (10)Illustration Rare (2)Ultra Rare (1)Hyper Rare (1)Double Rare (1)

The six Paradox Special Illustration Rares split cleanly by artist: Teeziro drew all three Ancient cards (204, 205, 208), nagimiso all three Future ones (203, 206, 207). Each Paradox Pokémon also appears four times — Double Rare, Ultra Rare, Special Illustration Rare, Hyper Rare — with one illustrator taking three and a second the Special Illustration Rare. Across 218 cards there are 140 illustrators, and Mitsuhiro Arita has three, including the Relicanth Illustration Rare 173.

Where two years of re-pricing left the money

The Illustration Rares beat the Special Illustration Rares here, which is unusual. Gastly 177/162 — the alternate art of a 60 HP Common, not an ex — leads the set at US$101.54, and Sawsbuck 166 outranks eight of the ten Special Illustration Rares.

The monthly raw series shows why. The Special Illustration Rares peaked at or near launch and bled down for two years — Iron Crown ex 206 hit US$131.00 in March 2024 and reads US$45.99 now — while the Illustration Rares climbed from a far lower base, Gastly opening at US$19.99 for a 5.1× move. The six gold Hyper Rares never participated: the dearest, Gouging Fire ex 214, reads US$15.56 — below every Special Illustration Rare in the set.

Sealed went the other way. Against the January 2024 distributor MSRPs the six retail units with a documented price sit between 1.96× and 3.30×, and the ranking inverts the usual assumption. USD, 25 July 2026:

Per pack that is US$8.81 inside the box, US$10.76 for a single pack and US$14.79 inside the bundle — so the box is now the cheapest way to buy a Temporal Forces pack and the bundle the dearest, the reverse of 2024. Scarcity here is product-specific, not set-specific.

In Canadian dollars, the seven tracked sealed products and eight singles averaged +0.8% in the week to 25 July 2026 — the strongest seven-day average of the sixteen Scarlet & Violet sets, against an era-wide −0.90%. The index reads 111.44. It holds sealed products only, so the accurate statement is that sealed Temporal Forces re-rated upward while several raw singles went the other way.

Every product, with live CAD prices

Seventeen products, all released 22 March 2024 unless noted. Canadian prices are live and reprice daily; untracked rows read N/A. Full history is on the Temporal Forces tracker page.

Numbered promos are SVP Black Star Promos. *Derived by division from the PHD Games solicitation of 11 January 2024. †No MSRP confirmed; pokemon.com and pokemoncenter.com are bot-gated. ‡Pack count from retailer listings only, and the Premium Checklane Blister is absent from the January solicitation, so no street date is published for it.

Release timeline

• 26 Jan 2024Japanese Wild Force and Cyber Judge release, 100 cards each.
• 9–17 Mar 2024Prerelease tournament weekends.
• 22 Mar 2024Temporal Forces releases; the store-promo campaign begins.
• Mar 2024Iron Crown ex 206 peaks at US$131.00 raw, at launch.
• 6 Sep 2024Paradox Destinies Tins and Paradox Fury reuse its Paradox cards.
• Jan 2025Raging Bolt ex 208 peaks at US$104.61 raw.
• 9 Jan 2026The 2026-27 format is announced, removing mark G. Mark H is unaffected.
• 10 Apr 2026The rotation takes effect in person, after Pokémon TCG Live on 26 March.
• May 2026Gastly 177 peaks at US$108.63 raw.
• 25 Jul 2026Snapshot: box CA$447.04, index 111.44, seven-day move +0.8%.

Elsewhere in the Scarlet & Violet era

Either side of this set: Paradox Rift, which introduced the Ancient and Future mechanics this set continues and did rotate, and Twilight Masquerade, which shares the rotation floor. The Mega Evolution guide covers the block that replaced this era at retail; live prices are on Quaza Track.

Frequently asked questions