Mega Lucario Cards: Japanese Costs Less for 3 of 4 Arts

Mega Lucario cards with the same art cost 41% to 60% less in Japanese than in English on TCGplayer in the week of October 26, 2026, for three of the four arts printed in both languages. The fourth is the gold card, and it runs the other way.

That matters now because Mega Lucario Z ex lands in Japan's Aura Seeker on November 27, and the older cards are what you can buy today. Our rule from the numbers: if you want the art and can live with Japanese text, buy Japanese. If you want the gold, buy English.

17 Mega Lucario cards, from $0.35 to $264.63

We read TCGplayer's Near Mint market price for every Mega Lucario ex and M Lucario-EX card its search returned on November 6, 2026, at 16:19 UTC, in both its English and Japanese catalogs, as the search returned them to a reader in Vietnam with US shipping set. Listing counts move fast, so treat them as a snapshot. The list below ranks the 17 that had a price.

The count leaves out jumbo cards, code cards and the Prize Pack copy of 077/132 ($5.01), and three older Japanese cards that had no market price: Rising Fist 105/096 and The Best of XY 063/171 and 176/171. TCGdex's English database lists the same English cards. Pokémon's own Japanese card database returns ten Japanese Mega Lucario cards, while Bill's Archive's Aura Seeker page shows five earlier ones, so use the official database if you're building a full Japanese run. Bill's Archive lists promo 012 among the Mega Evolution collection-box promos. The cheapest English copy is the Mega Evolution 077/132 double rare at $0.67, with the Ascended Heroes one a few cents above at $0.72. That second set's odds are in our Ascended Heroes pull rates.

Don't trust the English 160/132's $15.31 on its own. It's the price for the unfinished week of November 2, a week whose sales ran from $8.43 to $146.78. The full week before, it was $10.25 on 70 sales. Before you pay a headline price, check the recent sales behind it.

Three of the four shared arts cost less in Japanese, the Furusawa most of all

Japan got these cards first. Mega Brave came out there on August 1, 2025, and the English Mega Evolution set of September 26, 2025, merged it with its partner set Mega Symphonia, according to Bill's Archive. We matched the four Mega Lucario ex arts printed in both languages using the official card images and illustrator credits: 5ban Graphics drew the double rares (Japanese 029, English 077) and the golds (092, 188), takuyoa the full arts (078, 160) and Atsushi Furusawa the illustration rares (088, 179). The rarity names differ: Japan's SAR and MUR are the English SIR and Mega Hyper Rare, and our rarity symbols guide covers the marks.

Card images via tcg.pokemon.com (English) and pokemon-card.com (Japanese), Nov 6, 2026.

To compare like with like, we used each card's market price in the week of October 26, the last full week when we read TCGplayer's price history on November 6.

Chart: SetPulls. Source: TCGplayer price history, Near Mint, read Nov 6, 2026.

The Japanese double rare was 52% cheaper, the full art 41% and the Furusawa illustration 60%. The Furusawa gap is the one worth money: $161.60 in English against $64.14 in Japanese, $97.46 apart for the same painting. Actual sales that week put the gap wider still: the eight Japanese copies sold for $55.71 to $57.18, below their own market price, and the twelve English ones for $149.81 to $164.07. The English card also has the deeper market, with 977 Near Mint sales in the year to November 6 against 295 for the Japanese one. If you'd resell, that depth counts.

On November 2, u/BalognaSandwiches posted the English 179/132 on r/PokemonTCG as "my favorite SIR from the Mega Evolution era" (46 points as of November 6). One reply is about a pull, not a purchase:

That's u/Roose1327 (2 points as of November 6). With a pull like that, the language isn't a question. For a buyer starting today it is: the Japanese print of the same Furusawa art cost about two fifths of the English one in the last full week. What else differs between the two prints is in our Japanese vs English guide, and the odds of pulling the English one are in our SIR pull rates.

The Japanese gold's $266.31 market price rests on 24 sales in a year

The gold breaks the pattern. In the week of October 26, the Japanese 092/063 had a market price of $266.31 and no Near Mint sales that week. It sold 24 Near Mint copies in the whole year, and its last three sales were $239.48 (week of September 21), $228.44 (week of October 12) and $229.46 (week of November 2). All three sit below the $264.63 market price TCGplayer showed on November 6.

Chart: SetPulls. Source: TCGplayer price history, Near Mint, read Nov 6, 2026.

The English 188/132 sold six Near Mint copies in the week of October 26, at $198.71 to $201, and 453 in the year, about 19 times the Japanese count. Compare the same week's sales and the gap holds: in the unfinished week of November 2, the Japanese gold's one sale was $229.46 and the English gold's one sale $194.88, $34.58 apart. For the gold, English is the cheaper card and the easier one to buy or sell. How often the English gold turns up in packs is in our Mega Hyper Rare pull rates.

The 2014 M Lucario-EX cards lost 27% to 40% in the same year

Age didn't protect the older cards. The English M Lucario-EX cards from XY Furious Fists, which TCGplayer dates to August 13, 2014, fell from the week of November 10, 2025 to the week of October 26, 2026:

• The 113/111 secret rare went from $196.19 to $142.89, down 27%, on 29 Near Mint sales in the year.
• The 55a/111 alternate-art promo went from $90.39 to $54.23, down 40%, on 214 sales.
• The 55/111 ultra rare went from $61.81 to $40.51, down 34%, on 65 sales.

Over the same weeks, the Japanese Furusawa 088/063 fell 28% and the Japanese gold 35%. The English Mega Evolution cards' own year is in our Mega Evolution chase cards piece, so we won't repeat it here. Two of the three 2014 cards, 113/111 and 55/111, had their lowest weekly market price of TCGplayer's one-year history in the week of October 26. If you want the 113/111 secret rare, $142.89 is the least it's been in that history, though 29 sales a year is a thin market to read a trend from.

Mega Lucario Z ex is 057/078, an RR, with no TCGplayer listing yet

Pokémon's Aura Seeker page puts the set on sale in Japan on Friday, November 27, at 200 yen for a five-card pack. Mega Lucario Z ex is card 057/078, an RR, and it differs from the 2025 card: Metal type instead of Fighting, 330 HP instead of 340, and an Ability (ハドウシーカー) that puts a Supporter from your deck into your hand. Its attack (ダンシングフィスト) does 120, plus 120 more against a Pokémon ex.

Card image: pokemon-card.com, Nov 6, 2026.

Pokémon's card list showed 34 Aura Seeker cards on November 6, and the only one numbered above 078 was the Crasher Wake Special Art Rare we covered in our Aura Seeker booster box piece. No rarer Z ex has been shown, and TCGplayer returned no product for "mega lucario z" in either language. Mega Brave printed its Mega Lucario ex four times, as an RR, SR, SAR and MUR. We'd expect Aura Seeker to give the Z ex at least one print above 078 for the same reason, but that's judgement, not data. Bill's Archive also reports a Traditional Chinese bonus promo, 245/M-P, with new Z ex art.

English collectors will wait longer, and the sources disagree on how firm the date is. Wargamer says Pokémon revealed Flowing Fists for February 5, 2027, ten weeks after Aura Seeker. Bill's Archive, updated November 6, lists the same date as reported and says The Pokémon Company hasn't announced it. We'd plan on February but wouldn't preorder on it yet. The full Aura Seeker list is in our Aura Seeker card list.

Buy the Japanese Furusawa at $57 to $64 and the English gold near $205, and wait on the Z ex

The Japanese 088/063 is the best value in the list: the same Furusawa painting as the $161.60 English card, with a $64.14 market price in the last full week and actual sales at $55.71 to $57.18, so pay $57 to $64, not more. It has 295 sales in the year to price it on. For the gold, pay English, near its $204.83 market price in that week, when its six sales landed at $198.71 to $201, not the Japanese card's $266.31 that its own last three sales didn't reach. Skip the Z ex until Pokémon shows its secret rares, since nothing above the RR exists to buy yet.

Two Japanese 092/063 sales under $205 in a month would flip the gold call. And if the Japanese Furusawa climbed back to its $88.73 of last November, the saving against today's English price would shrink to about 45%, still worth taking.

References

• Pokémon Card Game official site: Aura Seeker (ハドウシーカー) product page, checked Nov 6, 2026
• Pokémon Card Game official card database: Mega Lucario ex 088/063, checked Nov 6, 2026
• Pokémon: Mega Evolution card checklist (PDF), checked Nov 6, 2026
• TCGplayer: Mega Lucario ex 179/132, checked Nov 6, 2026
• TCGplayer: Mega Lucario ex 092/063 (Japanese), checked Nov 6, 2026
• Bill's Archive: Aura Seeker, checked Nov 6, 2026
• Wargamer: Flowing Fists, checked Nov 6, 2026

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