Pokémon TCG is really hotting up with the summer weather, as the Scarlet & Violet era hits its stride. We’re a month into the second set, Paldea Evolved, while hotly anticipating both August’s Obsidian Flames, and September’s Pokémon 151 sets. This makes it a great time to see how Paldea Evolved’s cards are standing up, both in terms of the live game’s meta, and their resale values.
Paldea Evolved launched internationally just about a month ago, with a lot of anticipation surrounding the Special Illustration Rare Iono. Having reached a ludicrous peak of $US1,500 for the Japanese version (and still changing hands for over a grand, pack fresh), it was obviously going to be the card to pull for the English-language release. The race for second place was always going to be more interesting, and you’ll perhaps be rather surprised to learn what’s there.
When it comes to the live game’s meta, S&V is still having a hard time making a serious dent. Lost Origin’s Lost Zone cards are still dominating with the likes of Greninja/Comfey/Cromorant decks, while Silver Tempest’s Lugia decks are still enormously popular. However, we are seeing Gardevoir ex and Miraidon ex decks winning in tournaments, albeit primarily supported by yellow-bordered cards, and Paldea Evolved’s Chien-Pao ex working in tandem with the endlessly popular Palkia VSTAR.
Although we also have to mention Iono here too, as she steps in to replace the recently rotated-out Marnie. We’ll get into details later, but alongside Super Rod and Jet Energy, it really does seem like the new era is currently proving powerful with its trainer cards, rather than the Pokémon themselves.
Right, so let’s dive in, to find out which are the most playable, and sellable, cards in Paldea Evolved. (All prices are accurate at the time of writing, but are subject to the mad whims of the market.)
Raichu (Illustration Rare)
As you might imagine, the very prettiest cards in Paldea Evolved are all proving relatively popular, with Special Illustration Rares for Meowscarada ex, Skeledirge ex and Tinkaton ex all hovering around the $US15 mark. They are, in fact, out pricing even the most expensive gold cards, including Chien-Pao ex Gold at just $US14.
But the least expensive card to break the $US15 limit right now is the utterly lovely Raichu Illustration Rare, changing hands for $US17. This is purely because of its looks, the Pikachu evolution offering a hefty 200 point attack, but at the cost of all three energy it takes to use it.
Grusha (Special Illustration Rare)
Oh my, this is the prettiest card. As you might expect, if you’ve been following the rather awkward tale of so-called “waifu cards” in Japan, the version of this released as part of Snow Hazard is pretty pricy over there. It’s still trading for $US150 ($208) pack fresh, and as much as $US700 ($972) for a graded PSA 10. And you can barely see her in the image!
Things are significantly more sensible internationally, with artist DOM’s beautiful winter scene (look at those Starly!) selling for a much more realistic $US18. Yup, it’s still a lot of money for shiny cardboard, but it’s a very lovely way to be able to draw at least five cards from your deck.
Dendra (Special Illustration Rare)
OK, so the international audience over-prices the waifu cards too. Dendra’s special illustration rare is, well, nothing special? It’s just a pretty, but very bog-standard anime rendering of the character, with…make what you will of the water fountain imagery. It’s hardly a revelatory card to play, only allowing you to get up to five cards in your hand after putting another to the bottom of your deck (a mostly meaningless act, given how often you have to shuffle.)
It’s currently selling for just over $US18, and honestly, if you pull it you might as well take a sucker’s money.
Tyranitar (Illustration Rare)
Phew, that’s more like it. A classic, bold, and beautifully coloured Pokémon card. The Tyranitar illustration rare always looked like a card people would want to collect, even if its playability is somewhat questionable. This Stage 2 card is not only hard to get into play, but then every time you use its admittedly enormous 230 attack, you have to discard a whopping five cards from your deck. That’s playing with fire, especially when there are plenty of ex cards that’ll do more damage with no punitive results.
Still though, it’s so lovely to look at! That’s thanks to artist Nurikabe, who has previously brought us Lost Origin’s enormously expensive Aerodactyl V (still around the $US100 mark almost a year later) and Crown Zenith’s wonderful Pokémon-packed Kricketune from the Galarian Gallery.
It’s currently changing hands for $US20.
Super Rod (Hyper Rare)
This is not one of the best-selling cards in the set, with gold cards really seeming to have had their day when it comes to uber-popularity. Right now, Super Rod is in 14th place when it comes to cash value, hovering just below $US14. However, it is a very important card in the live game, and so worthy of a place in our list.
The card itself goes back to the dawn of the TCG, first appearing in English in Neo Genesis in 2000, when it relied on a coin flip to see if you could get an evolution card out of the discard pile and into the deck. Come Black & White it was changed such that it now fished out three basic Energy cards or Pokémon cards in the same manner, with no coin flip required.
The only difference for its Scarlet & Violet incarnation is the addition of the words, “up to,” allowing you to choose to fewer cards if you wish. So why is such a classic card of interest today? Because we haven’t seen it since Sun & Moon, meaning it’s been out of rotation for three years. Now the card is back, players are putting it straight into their decks, with its game-changing chance of letting you get a knocked out favourite back into play.
Chi-Yu ex (Special Illustration Rare)
The Scarlet and Violet video games introduced four of a brand new type of legendary Pokémon — the Treasures of Ruin. Each apparently an ancient creature, that seemingly neither evolve from nor into anything, they’re a mysterious and deeply weird bunch. Of them, surely Chi-Yu is by far the least interesting? It’s…a goldfish. That’s it.
Sure, Wo-Chien is essentially a snail, but it’s massive, and looks like an ancient woodland guardian. Then Ting-Lu is, er, a bear with a giant cup on its head? Who knows, but it looks amazing, and apparently the cup is its true form, the body a result of the fear of humans. Come on. Then there’s the obvious best, Chien-Pao, which is a snow leopard with a broken sword for teeth.
So we’ve established, and all agree, that of them all Chi-Yu is rubbish. Its mythos is that those daft eyes were once jade beads, and it was given life by a human envy to own them that caused many wars. Meh.
Anyway, this is all to say, who the heck is paying $US21 for its special illustration rare, when Wo-Chien Ting-Lu’s are only going for $US11?! OK, sure, the art by Akira Egawa is amazing, and its one-Energy ability allows you to discard the top two cards from your opponent’s deck, and it does 100 damage while also adding Energy to three of your benched Pokémon, and oh yeah I get it now.
Chien-Pao ex (Special Illustration Rare)
As established, Chien-Pao is the coolest of the Treasures of Ruin, with its ice-spiked sword blade and hilt for teeth, and shards of ice sticking out of its body. As such, it’s by far the most popular card, as my poor 8-year-old can attest to, frantically wanting to pull it, and endlessly disappointed by its price when he tries to buy it. $US29 is way too big of a dent into his savings, and far too much for me to even countenance spending on a small piece of card. It’s not like it’s got Mantine or Snorlax on it, for goodness sakes!
Still though, plenty of others are, and it’s the fourth highest priced card of the set as a result. I have to admit to being somewhat underwhelmed by the art. Kodama is a stalwart artist with 75 cards, including one of SV’s adorable Lechonk, that gorgeous Hisuian Samurott V from Crown Zenith, and Brilliant Stars’ adored Trainer Gallery Single Strike Urshifu VMAX.
This art just doesn’t hit for me, the Chien-Pao lost in the image, and its face far too comical. Still though, it’s a Basic ex that is getting tournament play thanks to its ease to get into play, and solid skills. It has an Ability that allows you to get two basic Energies into your hand, while its tw0-Energy attack, Hail Blade, can do up to 180 damage. In a deck with Frigibax, Palkia and Bidoof, you can feed it the energy it requires to do real harm.
Iono (Ultra Rare)
Nope, it’s not the Iono, but it’s testament to just how wildly popular the card has become that the other full-art version of the card is so highly priced. It’s completely daft, of course, given there’s a regular bulk version of Iono that’s no different when you’re playing. But people want this “influencer” trainer a great deal, hence why this fairly bog-standard trainer art is selling for — gulp — $US36.
However, it’s a brilliant card when it comes to the TCG, especially given the recent retirement of Marnie. Which…argh! Dammit! My favourite deck to play is based around Lost Origin’s amazing Galarian Perrserker V, which does 20 damage for every card in my hand. My deck has four of the Perrserkers, and then essentially nothing but cards that get other cards out of my deck and into my hand. And it’s glorious! Until anyone played bloody Marnie, making me shuffle my hand back into my deck. I couldn’t wait to see the back of her when she was rotated out earlier this year. Only for Iono to step in.
Even worse (or better), Iono is Marnie crossed with Roxanne, meaning she not only forces both players to shuffle their hands, but then put them at the bottom of the deck, meaning they’re out of reach until the next deck shuffle. Then on top of that, you don’t replace them with four or five cards automatically, but with a card for each of your remaining prize cards. With a strong lead, Iono could see my hand reduced to one or two cards, rendering Perrserker useless! Baahhhhh!
Magikarp (Illustration Rare)
Surprise!
Yup, that’s right, the all-but-useless Magikarp is the second highest-priced of all of Paldea Evolved’s 270 cards. Which is pure testament to just how brilliant this art is.
Yes, absolutely, this Magikarp evolves into Gyarados, but honestly the Paldea Evolved Gyarados is nothing special. There’s certainly no special art version of it, and while it sports a couple of powerful attacks, it’s hardly the centre of any current meta. This Magikarp card’s success is purely down to Shinji Kanda’s phenomenal artwork.
Shinji Kanda is responsible for one of Pokémon TCG’s most expensive modern cards, 2022’s Lost Origin Giratina V Alt Art, still selling for around $US300 ($416). The Magikarp brings a similar style, with a stunning wealth of detail to just pore over. Because did you notice the Gyarados yet?
It’s hilarious that such a popular card is so spectacularly dreadful to play. As ever, Magikarp can do little more than flap about, although to be fair, it’s a little bit more capable than usual. It’s possible to do as much as 30 damage, should you get lucky two coin flips in a row! Haha.
But given the price for this card is hovering around $US50, you might prefer to keep this one sleeved and toploaded.
Iono (Special Illustration Rare)
Yup, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the most popular, highest-priced card in all of Paldea Evolved is the Iono special illustration rare. Although, thankfully, not nearly as highly priced as its Japanese equivalent.
It’s impossible to overstate just what a big deal this card was in Japan. When it was released as part of the Clay Burst set in April ‘23, not only did all of Clay Burst sell out, but all Japanese Pokémon cards sold out. So enormous was the brouhaha over this one piece of cardboard that people bought absolutely anything with the word Pokémon on the packaging. And the fuss still hasn’t died down, with the Japanese version still costing $US1,124 to buy ungraded. That’s despite print-to-order runs of Clay Burst in response to the rush, and packs now selling at regular prices, even via importers.
But for the English-language version? It’s a far more modest, yet still frankly ridiculous, $US120. Shop around and you can get closer to $US100, but yikes. And if you want one graded PSA 10, that’s currently selling at around $US650.
What’s great about this, however, is that it’s just an all-round great card. It’s (as described previously) a stellar card to have in any deck (although you’d be quite mad to risk playing this version), but it’s also a fantastic piece of art. Not only do you have online influencer Iono — and her utterly terrifying pointy teeth — but she’s surrounded by Pokémon-themed food, including what looks like an Eevee-topped cappuccino, and, um, Pikachu with pancakes and ice cream? I’m assuming that’s just a dead Pikachu that the clearly vampiric trainer gruesomely murdered earlier.
I especially love the detail of the Rotom phone hovering, out of focus, over the right side of the otherwise unbroken border. This is by kirisAki, an artist who’s been working on Pokémon cards as far back as 2013’s Legendary Treasures, and is responsible for the iconic Professor’s Research cards for Scarlet & Violet. She’s illustrated a total of 188 cards so far, and is also responsible for the amazing Sacred Style Gardevoir in Pokémon Unite!
It’s no Magikarp, but it’s a splendid card to be topping the sales charts.
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