In May 2007, with the Sinnoh generation freshly arrived on consoles, the Pokémon TCG unveiled the mechanic that would define the next three years: the Lv.X. It wasn't an Evolution, nor simply a more powerful card — it was a Level-Up card that you placed on top of your Active Pokémon of the same name to "level it up" in the heat of battle, inheriting everything underneath it (accumulated damage, Energy, Special Conditions) and adding more HP, a new attack and, almost always, a Poké-Power capable of deciding the game. One per turn, and only onto your Active Pokémon. Between Diamond & Pearl (2007) and Arceus (2009), eleven sets minted 56 Lv.X cards that became the new holy grail of collecting — and the heart of this fourth installment of our TCG history.
This is Part 4. If you're new to the series, start with Part 1: the Wizards era or, better still, Part 3: the EX era and the Gold Stars, which ends exactly where this article begins: with EX Power Keepers closing out the pre-DP Nintendo reign in February 2007, three months before the first Lv.X came out of a pack.
Diamond & Pearl
130 cards
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Mysterious Treasures
123 cards
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Secret Wonders
132 cards
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Great Encounters
106 cards
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Majestic Dawn
100 cards
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Legends Awakened
146 cards
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Stormfront
100 cards
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Platinum
127 cards
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Rising Rivals
111 cards
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Supreme Victors
147 cards
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Arceus
99 cards
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Prices updated on August 5, 2026 · TCGPlayer via TCGdex
The Lv.X: 56 cards that redefined the era
Quick answer: the Lv.X era spans 11 sets across two acts — the Diamond & Pearl series (dp1–dp7, 2007–2008) and the Platinum series (pl1–pl4, 2009), with Arceus closing the cycle in November 2009. Across those eleven sets there are 56 Lv.X cards, or 75 if you add the 19 DP Black Star promos. A Lv.X is played onto your Active Pokémon to level it up without evolving it, one per turn, and its value today ranges from a few dollars raw to the ≈$36,000 of the Mewtwo LV.X in PSA 10.
The "56" is this era's hero number, the equivalent of Part 3's 27 Gold Stars. It's spread set by set in anything but a uniform way: 3 in Diamond & Pearl, 3 in Mysterious Treasures, 2 in Secret Wonders, 4 in Great Encounters, 4 in Majestic Dawn, 7 in Legends Awakened, 5 in Stormfront, 6 in Platinum, 9 in Rising Rivals (the peak), 7 in Supreme Victors and 6 in Arceus. Added up, that's 56; with the 19 promos of the DP Black Star line, the total climbs to 75.
A note of precision for anyone collecting off modern listings: the TCGdex database mislabels three secret Shiny cards from Stormfront (SH1–SH3) as Rare Holo LV.X. They aren't: they're 50-HP Basic Pokémon, part of the Shiny subset we cover below. Stormfront's real Lv.X are #96–100. With that correction, the rarity count squares back to 56.
Graded Lv.X in PSA 10 live in a market of their own, but — unlike the Gold Stars — many Lv.X have an active raw market on TCGPlayer. This curated gallery shows the most relevant live-priced Lv.X from both acts; it refreshes every 24 hours. Click any card to enlarge it:
Prices updated on August 5, 2026 · TCGPlayer via TCGdex
Team Galactic's SP Pokémon
If the Lv.X was the era's great battle mechanic, the SP Pokémon were its great design idea. SP stands for "Special", and they debuted with the Platinum series (pl1, February 2009): Pokémon that "belong" to a character from the Sinnoh universe, with a suffix attached to the name identifying the owner. And here's the rules trick: because the suffix is part of the name, "Dialga G" and "Dialga" were different cards for deckbuilding purposes — you could run up to four copies of each and stack several "same" Pokémon.
The five owners, all confirmed on the English cards:
- G — Team Galactic: Sinnoh's villain team (Dialga G, Palkia G, Charizard G).
- GL — Gym Leader: the gym leaders (Volkner's Luxray GL, Fantina's Mismagius GL).
- FB — Frontier Brain: the Battle Frontier aces (Blaziken FB, Electivire FB, Staraptor FB).
- C — Champion: Champion Cynthia (Garchomp C).
- 4 — Elite Four: an important heads-up here — on the English cards the suffix is the numeral "4", not an "E": Gallade 4, Alakazam 4, Infernape 4. Some catalogs (PokeTrace) label them "E4", but what's printed on the card is "4".
These are the non-Lv.X SP, ideal for seeing the mechanic in its base form — the SP Lv.X versions (Charizard G LV.X, Rayquaza C LV.X, Garchomp C LV.X) are the grails we'll get to below. Click to enlarge:
The SH Shiny: the secret subset
The Lv.X era had its own shiny wink, a direct inheritance from Part 3's Gold Stars: the secret "Shiny Pokémon" subset, twelve cards numbered SH1 to SH12 depicting the alternate-coloration variant of common Basic Pokémon.
It's worth clearing up a frequent mix-up: the Shiny subset is not in Rising Rivals. The secret subset of Rising Rivals is the 6 Rotom (RT1–RT6), one card per alternate Rotom forme, not Shiny. The 12 Shiny are spread across four different sets: Stormfront (SH1–SH3), Platinum (SH4–SH6), Supreme Victors (SH7–SH9) and Arceus (SH10–SH12). The full roster: Drifloon, Duskull and Voltorb (Stormfront); Lotad, Swablu and Vulpix (Platinum); Milotic, Relicanth and Yanma (Supreme Victors); Bagon, Ponyta and Shinx (Arceus).
A sample of the subset — click to enlarge:
The grails in PSA 10
This is where the Lv.X era goes toe to toe with the Gold Stars. Seven cards concentrate almost all the money in graded Lv.X collecting, and the podium is five figures across the board. The absolute grail is the Mewtwo LV.X from Legends Awakened (144/146): the most iconic Pokémon of the first generation, on the most expensive Lv.X of the whole era, with a PSA 10 market value of ≈$36,000 — and, on top of that, this article's cover card.
Behind it come two Supreme Victors SP Lv.X that are the heart of the hobby: Rayquaza C LV.X (≈$28,000) and Charizard G LV.X (≈$25,350) — a Team Galactic Charizard that many consider the most desirable Lv.X on purely aesthetic grounds. Rounding out the top are Garchomp C LV.X (≈$23,375), the Snorlax LV.X from Rising Rivals (≈$14,600, on a very thin market of barely a couple of gem-mint sales), and the Lucario LV.X (≈$12,100) from Mysterious Treasures and Gengar LV.X (≈$12,100) from Arceus, the grail that closes the era.
All seven, with their artwork. Click any to see it in high resolution:
Runner-ups for reference (also from PokeTrace's PSA 10 column): Glaceon LV.X from Majestic Dawn ≈$10,600, Dialga G LV.X from Platinum ≈$8,000, Torterra LV.X from Diamond & Pearl ≈$6,800, Palkia LV.X ≈$2,200 and Dialga LV.X ≈$1,852, both from Great Encounters.
About the prices
The PSA 10 prices shown are market values as of publication (August 2026), taken from PokeTrace's graded-price column (the median of recent eBay and TCGPlayer sales, not auction records). Like the whole vintage era, these are thin markets: the Snorlax LV.X, for example, rests on barely a couple of gem-mint sales, so its figure is more volatile than the Charizard G's, which is backed by around a dozen. Where an aggregator gets out of whack — there were automated listings that went as far as quoting "$100,000" for the Charizard G LV.X, contradicted by its real sales around $25,000 — we stick with the sales data.
The raw prices in the live gallery are TCGPlayer Near Mint market values via TCGdex and refresh every 24 hours. As throughout the series, "at publish" prices are historical evidence and are never modified after publication. All figures are TCGPlayer USD / eBay only.
Series · Part 3
Missed the previous chapter? The EX era and the Gold Stars (2003–2007)
The 27 Gold Stars, Pokémon-ex, Delta Species and the e-Reader's farewell — Nintendo's reign that ends exactly where the Lv.X era begins.
Read Part 3: the EX era and the Gold Stars →With Arceus, in November 2009, the Lv.X era came to a close: two years and eleven sets that reinvented how a Pokémon leveled up on the table. What came next was another reinvention — Part 5 will pick up the torch with HeartGold & SoulSilver and the Prime and LEGEND cards, Johto's return to the TCG. Until then, the 56 Lv.X remain one of the most beloved and collectible chapters in the game's history.