Mega Forces Tins vs. Ascended Heroes Tins: Aug. 28 Clash

Mega Forces Tins vs. Ascended Heroes Tins: Aug. 28 Clash

Two different $21.99 Mega ex tins hit shelves on the exact same day, August 28, 2026: the brand-new Mega Forces Tin (Mega Dragonite ex, Mega Darkrai ex, Mega Zeraora ex) and the restocked Ascended Heroes Tin (Mega Feraligatr ex, Mega Meganium ex, Mega Emboar ex). Same price, same four-pack-plus-promo format, same release date — but one holds all-new alternate art and the other holds a cheaper repackage of a card that already has a real trading history. Here's what's actually in each, and which one deserves your $21.99.

What's in the Mega Forces Tin?

The Mega Forces Tin costs $21.99 and includes one foil promo card (Mega Dragonite ex, Mega Darkrai ex, or Mega Zeraora ex, styles vary), four Pokémon TCG booster packs, and a Pokémon TCG Live code card, according to the official product page. All three promos are new alternate-art prints that have not been released in any other English product — Pokémon.com describes them as fresh takes centered on each Pokémon's Mega Evolution form.

PokeGuardian, which first reported the reveal on June 11, 2026, described the artwork as leaning into each Pokémon's signature trait: Dragonite's wings, Darkrai's "terrifying gaze," and Zeraora's speed. Community reaction, per a report from Shane the Gamer, has run hottest for the Mega Dragonite ex tin, with some collectors already flagging scalping risk on Mega Darkrai ex specifically. Because these are first-print cards, there is no existing secondary-market history to check before buying — Valusaur's price history charts won't show a single sale until the tins actually ship.

What's in the Ascended Heroes Tin?

The Ascended Heroes Tin also costs $21.99 and includes one foil promo (Mega Feraligatr ex, Mega Meganium ex, or Mega Emboar ex) plus four Ascended Heroes booster packs, per Pokémon.com's official listing. Unlike Mega Forces, this is a rerelease: the same three promo cards first appeared in April 2026 inside $89.95 Ascended Heroes Mega ex boxes, which also included an oversized lenticular version that the August tins drop entirely.

That means these three cards already have a real price history to check before buying. As Valusaur reported on August 3, loose copies of the three promos were reselling for $57 to $154 apiece heading into the restock — a number that will move once four booster packs' worth of new tins start hitting the secondary market at a fraction of the April boxes' cost.

Mega Forces vs. Ascended Heroes, side by side

	Mega Forces Tin	Ascended Heroes Tin
Release date	August 28, 2026	August 28, 2026
Price	$21.99	$21.99
Promo cards	Mega Dragonite ex, Mega Darkrai ex, Mega Zeraora ex	Mega Feraligatr ex, Mega Meganium ex, Mega Emboar ex
Promo status	Brand-new alternate art, first release	Reprint of April 2026 box promo (no lenticular)
Booster packs included	4	4
Prior secondary-market price	None yet	$57–$154 per loose promo (pre-restock, Aug. 3)
Original companion product	None	$89.95 Ascended Heroes Mega ex box (April 2026)

Why are two nearly identical tins launching the same day?

Both tins share a release date because they're built from the same late-summer restock wave: Pokémon is refreshing the Mega Evolution—Ascended Heroes line with a cheaper single-promo tin at the same time it's introducing all-new Mega Forces art as a separate seasonal product. The Pitch Black set launched July 17 and Storm Emeralda hit Japan July 31, so August 28 lands in a natural gap in the release calendar — a window Pokémon has used before to clear demand for older chase cards (Ascended Heroes has been sold out since its January debut, per ScreenRant's June 27 report) without competing against a new mainline set.

The practical effect is that collectors with roughly $44 to spend on August 28 face a real choice between six different Mega ex promos, not three. That is new pressure on a market that was already absorbing the Ascended Heroes restock on its own.

Which tin is the better buy?

Ascended Heroes is the safer buy and Mega Forces is the speculative one. Ascended Heroes promos already have four months of real trading data — you know Mega Feraligatr ex, Mega Meganium ex, and Mega Emboar ex have sold in the double-to-triple digits, so a $21.99 tin at four packs' cost is a known discount on a known card. Mega Forces promos are unproven: they could settle near bulk value like plenty of tin-exclusive promos before them, or they could spike hard if the new art turns out to be genuinely scarce, since — unlike Ascended Heroes — there is no earlier box print run to fall back on for supply.

If you only have room for one tin and you dislike risk, buy Ascended Heroes for the cards you can already price-check. If you're chasing upside and can stomach a $21.99 swing landing at bulk value, Mega Forces is the one with a ceiling nobody has measured yet. Either way, price both against the secondary market the moment they ship rather than relying on presale listings, which run well above MSRP for any unreleased tin and aren't a reliable read on where the card settles.

Is $21.99 for one promo and four packs actually a fair price?

Both tins price the guaranteed promo as pure upside on top of four packs, which is the same structure Pokémon used for April's pricier Ascended Heroes boxes and the January Mega Boxes before them — the format is consistent even as the price drops. The real question isn't the $21.99 itself, it's whether the packs inside pull anything beyond bulk; Valusaur's Pitch Black pull-rate breakdown walks through that box math in detail, and the same logic applies here: don't buy a tin as a booster-box substitute, buy it for the guaranteed promo and treat the packs as a bonus.

Scan any promo you pull straight out of the tin with Valusaur to check its live TCGplayer and Cardmarket price the moment you open it, rather than guessing at value from memory or an old listing.

FAQ

Are the Mega Forces Tin promos exclusive to the tin, or will they show up elsewhere? As of this writing, Pokémon.com and PokeGuardian's June 11 reveal list the Mega Forces Tin as the only announced source for Mega Dragonite ex, Mega Darkrai ex, and Mega Zeraora ex in this alternate art. No other product has been confirmed to include them.

Is the Ascended Heroes Tin promo identical to the one in April's box? Yes — it's the same foil promo card. The only difference is the August tin drops the oversized lenticular card that came with April's $89.95 box and swaps it for a $21.99 tin with four booster packs.

Can I buy both tins for all six promos? Yes, nothing prevents buying multiple tins, but each tin only guarantees one of its three promo styles at random ("styles may vary"), so getting all six specific cards means either buying enough tins to hit every variant or trading for the ones you miss.

Which tin sells out faster? Neither has shipped yet, so there's no sell-through data. Ascended Heroes has the stronger track record — the underlying set has been sold out since January, per ScreenRant — which is a reasonable signal it clears shelves quickly, but Mega Forces' brand-new art could move just as fast on hype alone.

Should I preorder either tin? If you want a specific promo style guaranteed, preordering through a retailer that lets you pick the variant is safer than a random in-store pull. If you're fine with any of the three, waiting for release day avoids paying a presale markup over the $21.99 MSRP.