Mega Incineroar is not real and it can’t hurt you—at least not based on the Pokémon TCG packs

With so little information out about the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A game, fans have been speculating which Pokémon will make up the Starter trio—and the possibility that Mega Incineroar could make an appearance continues to strike fear into the hearts of the community.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A was announced back in February and we haven’t seen anything beyond that first trailer featuring a lot of Gen VI Pokémon, the Kalos region’s Lumiose City, and Mega Evolution. The highly anticipated game was even MIA from all the big announcements at Worlds last weekend, Aug. 16 to 18. To be fair, Z-A isn’t going to be released until at least 2025, so there’s still plenty of time for new trailers to drop. But until then, fans will continue to theorize and speculate with what little information we have.

Some fans have even speculated about the Starter trio based on TCG packaging, sending VGC players like former world champ Wolfe Glick into panic mode. An Aug. 24 post shared on X (formerly Twitter) shows the new Scarlet and Violet Temporal Forces fun pack packaging which curiously features three Starters: Turtwig, Totodile, and Litten. Of these three, Litten is the scariest, with the infamous Incineroar as its final evolution. 

If Incineroar ends up being in Z-A, that also opens up the door for it to get a Mega Evolution that’s even stronger. With the cat already being such a huge threat in competitive play, it’s easy to see why Glick and other VGC players are freaking out about the possibility of Mega Incineroar.

Lucky for the VGC community, Serebii webmaster Joe Merrick commented on the post, debunking the possibility of there being any intentional connection between the Z-A Starters and the TCG packaging. Even then, Merrick admitted we still can’t completely rule out Mega Incineroar’s existence. “Don’t get me wrong, Incineroar could easily be a starter and have a Mega and be the most prominent Pokémon known to humankind…the Fun Pack just doesn’t mean it,” he clarified.

While everyone loves to joke about how scary Mega Incineroar would be, VGC pros previously told Dot at EUIC that they didn’t believe the cat would break the game. In fact, if Incineroar were to get a Mega Evolution, it could be a case where the cat is better off holding another item and letting an ally Mega Evolve instead.