The highest HP Pokémon cards

First shown off in Japanese in July 2025, and revealed in English two months later, Mega Venusaur ex is officially the highest HP Pokémon card ever printed, with a mighty 380 hit points.

This grass type leviathan is one of the new mega-evolved Pokémon forms in 2025's Mega Evolution set. These are extremely tough and powerful variants of certain 'mons that get a huge hit points boost over their non-mega equivalent, plus game changing abilities and devastating attacks - but pay for it by giving up three prize cards if your opponent can knock one out.

Despite it's high HP, Mega Venusar ex hasn't made so much as a dent on the competitive scene, proving that bigger isn't always better.

One special card gets to bend the rules on how high a Pokemon card's HP can go. That privilege belongs to Ishihara GX, a rare and elusive Black Star promo that sells for eye-watering prices.

The most expensive copy ever seen sold for a staggering $247,000, but that came with a signature from the card's subject, Pokémon Company founder Tsunekazu Ishihara. Still, even the unsigned copies can sell for around $50,000, as these promo cards, handed out in limited quantities to celebrate Ishihara's 60th birthday, are extremely hard to find.

You're not likely to be playing a copy of this any time soon - and if you can afford one, why would you want to? The pride that comes with smashing your enemies with a 350 HP card is not worth the stress of possibly bending your $50,000 piece of paper.

Surprisingly the only legendary Pokémon on this list, Eternatus VMAX is a destructive card that can one shot loads of Pokémon, while being almost guaranteed to tank the first hit.

Its attack may seem puny at first, but if you build your deck correctly, using just the Pokémon type Darkness, then it can dish out up to 240 damage, easily handling less HP-blessed Pokémon. This requires quite a bit of set-up, and creates a restriction for your deck-building , but it's a fun strategy, and getting a wider bench is cool.

Eternatus VMAX never topped the competitive meta, as there were always more consistent, powerful decks around to squeeze it out. This deck was also indirectly hurt by one of the most powerful Pokémon cards, Arceus VSTAR. Because Arceus was so dominant, many players were running Fighting types just to handle it, which hurt poor Eternatus too!

Path to the Peaks is also a really common Stadium Trainer card right now. This shuts down the Eternal Zone, and reduces Eternatus' attack to just 150.

Garganacl ex is bonkers beefy, perhaps the hardest Pokémon to take out yet. First off, it's immune to special conditions, which shuts off one avenue an opponent might use to counter it. Second-off, it has the cherished 340 HP, the highest count on a legal Pokémon card.

But our eyes really light up when we take a look at its attack. Block Hammer makes the next attack Garganacl takes deal 60 less damage. At a minimum that effectively gives you 400 HP. You can keep using that move though and getting the damage reduction, making this Pokémon a next-level tank.

We'd be tempted to pair the card with regular Garganacl, which can heal your tank back up!

Copperajah VMAX is a classic tanky Pokémon card, without any bells or whistles. It's designed to roll with the punches, dealing out damage while surviving attacks, and benefitting from support like healing cards. Really, aside from a decent Grass type resistance, there's not much more too it that that.

Well, maybe that's not quite fair. Copperajah VMAX isn't just a high HP Pokémon card. It also boasts a pretty spectacular damage output. It's attacks are a bit costly on the energy front, but at least you can use Dangerous Nose to one-shot most Basic Pokémon, if you haven't reached four energy yet.

One of the newest cards on our list, Slaking ex is a really cool depiction of this great gorilla, and its Great Swing attack is truly devastating, able to one-shot many mid-weight ex Pokémon.

The trouble is, while its numbers are great the card comes with several downsides that make it difficult to use. Mainly, if its not facing an ex or VSTAR Pokémon, it can't attack. And because Slaking ex has a huge retreat cost, it's easy to get stuck in a bad situation where your opponent is free to whittle away your HP with impunity.

If you just look at sheer numbers, you'd think Skeledirge ex was one of the greatest Pokémon cards ever released. It not only has the coveted 340 HP like the other cards on this list, it also has an attack that deals 270 damage, and you only need two energy to pull it off!

Combine that with the utility of its healing power, and you'd think we had the next meta buster on our hands.

But sheer numbers can be deceptive. Despite the enormous HP and attack power, Skeledirge looks much stronger than it is in practice. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, it's a Stage 2 Pokémon, which can sadly be too clunky and slow in a world of strong basics and V/VSTAR Pokémon.

Secondly, Skeledirge's attack gets weaker the more damage it takes. This throttles its damage output as soon as it takes a hit, leaving you in a nasty spot if you can't immediately heal. At the end of the day, surviving an attack is only useful if you can then hit back.

Twilight Masquerade gave Water types their first 340 HP-er, in the form of Palafin ex. At first glance, this Pokemon card looks absurd. It's only a Stage 1, and it has a high damage 250 HP attack, which it can pull off for a super low energy cost. As you might expect, there is a downside, your Palafin can't attack the turn after. You'll have to retreat out, or make use of that high HP total.

Palafin ex's ability is also a strange one. You can't put the card into play normally; instead you must have a regular Palafin in the active spot and retreat it from battle. At that point you can search your deck for Palafin ex and swap them - placing the same damage counters and status effects on your new ex Pokemon.

It's a bit clunky, but a very flavorful reference to Palafin's Zero to Hero ability in the video game. The tricky part, though, is getting Palafin ex back into play afterwards. You need to set your deck up to make retreating easier.

Palafin is easy to get hold of, as a Palafin ex box was released shortly after it came out, featuring the ex, regular Palafin, and its preevolution Finizen.

Snorlax VMAX is yet another 340 HP Pokémon - an even bigger version of the Generation 1 roadblock that is Snorlax. Snorlax VMAX is an interesting card because while it never found a spot in Standard, it has had a very successful run in the more powerful Expanded format.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, Snorlax VMAX works wonderfully with normal energy cards. Triple Acceleration Energy can power up its attack instantaneously.

That attack gets stronger for every Pokémon you have on the bench, up to a max 210, so you also get to play around with some of the much stronger Abilities available in the Expanded format. The standout here is Zoroak GX, whose Trade effect gives you a constant stream of card advantage.

Certainly, this high HP Pokémon card has a lot more going for it than meets the eye.

An old favorite reimagined with a new typing, Tyranitar ex is a monster. It comes with 340 HP again (by now you might be thinking this is the norm, but remember, that much health, by itself, is exceptional) and has two very efficient attacks that can deal a lot of damage.

Lightning Rampage is, of course, the main draw of the card. For the bargain price of just two fighting energy, you can deal 250 damage, provided you have a damaged Pokémon on your bench.

While it requires some set up, this allows for combos with cards that don't see play in any other deck. For instance, you can get a lot of mileage out of 151's Dodrio, drawing cards and powering up Tyranitar in one fell swoop.