The 10 Most Iconic Mew Cards of All Time

The most iconic Mew cards are the ones collectors talk about by nickname: the Gold Star, the Shining card from a Japanese magazine, the one written entirely in glyphs. Ten of them, read from their scans.

The countdown runs from 10 to 1 in the order of the carousel this list comes from, ranked by how iconic each card is, not by price. Read the attacks as you go: most of them are not really Mew's own.

10. Mew ex, 2006

Ryo Ueda drew Mew drifting toward you, eyes wide, on a green holo sky full of glitter. 90 HP, and the rule box reminds you that your opponent takes 2 Prize cards when a Pokémon-ex is Knocked Out.

Its Poké-Body, Versatile, lets Mew ex use the attacks of all Pokémon in play as its own. Its only printed attack, Power Move, fetches an Energy from your deck and lets Mew switch out to the Bench.

9. Mew EX, 2013 full art

MAHOU gave Mew the whole card: it looks up and away, its tail looping around the frame, yellow sparkles on a blue and orange background. The number, RC24/RC25, places it in a small subset at the back of its set.

The Ability has the same name as on number 10, Versatile, and the text now spells it out: any Pokémon in play, both yours and your opponent's. Replace moves your Energy between your Pokémon in any way you like.

8. Mew VMAX, 2021 Fusion Strike

Akira Egawa made Mew huge, leaping over a city while trains and towers spin around it in streaks of light. 310 HP, numbered 269/264, above the size of its set, with the Fusion Strike logo in the corner.

Cross Fusion Strike does no damage of its own: you choose one of your Benched Fusion Strike Pokémon's attacks and use it. Max Miracle does 130, unaffected by any effects on the opponent's Active Pokémon.

7. Mew ex, 2023 promo

Natsumi Yoshida hid Mew in plain sight. It flies over a street at sunset, bunting strung between the houses, while a woman at her window and two children below look elsewhere. Nobody in the picture has seen it.

Restart lets you draw until you have 3 cards in your hand. Genome Hacking chooses one of your opponent's Active Pokémon's attacks and uses it as this attack.

6. Mew ex, 2024

USGMEN drew Mew blue instead of pink, asleep in a bubble over a hill, in thick cartoon lines. Small Pokémon peek out of the grass and a pond below. Two gold stars sit next to the number, 232/091.

The text is the same as on number 7: Restart, then Genome Hacking. Two cards a year apart, two styles, one Mew that fights with the opponent's attack.

5. Mew Gold Star, 2006

A gold star after the name, a pale blue Mew, a Water type instead of Psychic: Masakazu Fukuda's Mew is a Delta Species card, and the last number of its set, 101/101. A line under the art says you can't have more than 1 Pokémon ☆ in your deck.

Mimicry copies an attack from one of your opponent's Pokémon in play. Rainbow Wave does 20 damage to each of your opponent's Pokémon that shares the type of a basic Energy attached to Mew.

4. Mew, promo 8

Ken Sugimori drew Mew standing calmly on a swirl of colour, and the card wears a black Promo star. The flavour text explains the fuss: so rare that it is still said to be a mirage by many experts, and only a few people have seen it worldwide.

Psywave does 10 damage times the number of Energy cards attached to the Defending Pokémon. Devolution Beam returns the highest Stage Evolution card on any evolved Pokémon, yours or your opponent's, to its player's hand.

3. Mew 1/18, 2001

Keiko Fukuyama put Mew in an open sky, a rainbow behind it, a great yellow wing at the edge of the frame and a small red winged figure below. The set symbol is a palm tree, and the whole lower half of the card glitters.

Its only attack is Rainbow Wave, the same one the Gold Star would carry five years later. The flavour text is the most Mew line ever printed: its body is covered by fine hairs that can be seen only under a microscope.

2. Shining Mew, CoroCoro Comic promo

Hironobu Yoshida drew Mew pale blue, diving through a starry holo with its tail in one long loop. The card is in Japanese, and its bottom line says where it came from: a bonus card in the May issue of CoroCoro Comic.

The top line limits you to one in your deck. Its first attack costs a Lightning Energy and looks at the top 3 cards of your deck for one to keep; the second needs a Fire Energy. A Psychic card that pays in other types. The flavour text says it shows itself to those with a pure heart and a strong wish to meet it.

1. Ancient Mew, the card in glyphs

Every word on this card is written in glyphs: the name, the HP, the attack, the boxes at the bottom. Mew is a gold outline on a dark starfield. The only line you can read is the copyright along the bottom edge, which ends with Wizards, 1999 to 2000.

No illustrator is credited, no number, no rarity. It is the one card on the list that lives up to the promo's flavour text: you can hold it in your hand and still not know what it says.

Ancient Mew also appears in our list of the most amazing Pokémon cards ever printed, where it stands for card art as a puzzle.

What Mew's iconic cards have in common

Read the attacks instead of the art. Six of the ten cards fight with somebody else's moves: Versatile on numbers 10 and 9, Cross Fusion Strike on the VMAX, Genome Hacking on numbers 7 and 6, Mimicry on the Gold Star.

The older cards play another way, but never with power of their own. Psywave counts the opponent's Energy, Devolution Beam undoes an evolution, and Rainbow Wave, printed in 2001 and again in 2006, hits whatever type Mew is carrying.

The second thread is visibility. The promo calls Mew a mirage, the 2001 card talks about hairs seen only under a microscope, Shining Mew appears only to those who want to meet it. The 2023 promo draws a street where nobody looks up, and number 1 cannot be read at all.

Its clone gets the same countdown in our ranking of the most iconic Mewtwo cards, where the attacks count Energy instead of copying it.

Iconic cards are the ones collectors hold on to. Stakd shows what each Mew in your binder is worth, from promo 8 to the 2024 bubble.