Staryu · Hidden Fates, what to know.
About the Staryu card
Staryu sits at #13 in Hidden Fates, released in August 2019. Hidden Fates is part of the modern English Pokémon TCG era and uses the standard contemporary card frame and rarity tiers. Illustration by Ken Sugimori. Sugimori is the lead character designer of the Pokémon franchise itself. His TCG illustrations carry a tighter, more on-model feel because they are by the same hand that defined how the Pokémon look in the games.
The flavor text on the card reads: "In many places, there are folktales of stardust falling into the ocean and becoming Staryu." Pokédex entries from this era are short and often quirky, written by the original Japanese localization team for a specific stat-block layout that no longer exists in modern cards.
About Staryu in the Pokémon world
A star-shaped water Pokémon. Misty's second signature. Fossil Common. Easy and cheap.
Print variants and how to spot them
Hidden Fates shipped in Holofoil and Reverse Holo, plus a special Shiny Vault subset (numbered SV1 through SV94) that runs alongside the standard 69-card set. Shiny Vault cards use alternate-color shiny treatments and pull at lower rates than the standard holos.
Grading and condition
Modern Commons grade easily and trade thinly in graded condition. Raw pack-fresh copies are the practical buy for set completion. PSA 10 submissions on a Common from a modern set rarely return enough premium over raw to justify the service fee.
If you are buying this card
Raw copies of this card are inexpensive enough that the grading math rarely justifies submission unless you have a clearly pack-fresh example. For set completionists, picking up a clean raw copy and sleeving it is the practical move.
