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November 17th - November 23rd, 2025

📋 TLDR

📰 TCG News: Ascended Heroes was revealed for a January 30 specialty release, Illustration Contest promos return via Pokémon Center codes, and new Phantasmal Flames pull-rate data shows Mega Charizard X ex is extremely tough to hit.

🔢 Card Market Highlights: Fall 2019 Collector’s Chest (~$1.65k), Mega Charizard X ex UPC (~$190), Black Label White Flare Reshiram (~$43k), Korean 1st Edition Base Set booster box (~$19.1k), PSA 10 Pikachu Birthday White Star 2nd Anniv. (~$7.8k)

😴 Potential Sleepers: Silver Tempest - Blaziken V #TG14

🏆 Card of the Week: Mewtwo & Mew Tag Team GX from the English Tag Team Power Partnership Tin SM191 and Japanese Miracle Twins #98 illustrated by sui. In Pokémon: The First Movie, their relationship is portrayed as contentious. This card flips that dynamic completely, showing Mew pestering Mewtwo in a playful, sibling-like way and Mewtwo tolerating it, which gives the artwork a surprisingly charming and lighthearted feel.

📰 TCG News

Note: Some updates may touch on wider Pokémon news beyond the TCG.

🔵 Ascended Heroes - Next English set releasing in January

The upcoming Pokémon TCG set Mega Evolution Ascended Heroes introduces more than 290 cards, including new Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, Tera Pokémon ex, and a wide range of Trainer cards with special illustrations.

The set releases on January 30, 2026 and will be distributed through specialty products rather than standard booster boxes. The Japanese Mega Dreams set releases Friday, November 28 and some of its cards will appear in Ascended Heroes. (Source: Pokémon) ​

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🔵 Free Illustration Contest promo cards return 🎨

The Pokémon Center is offering fans another chance to claim three free promo cards featuring the winning artworks from the 2024 Illustration Contest. These black-star promo cards include Pikachu, Feraligatr and Toxtricity ex, each marked with the “Illustration Contest 2024” logo. A promo code (e.g., draw2025us in the U.S.) can be applied with eligible purchases while supplies last or until December 31st, 2025). (Source: TheGamer)

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🔵 TCGPlayer publishes Phantasmal Flames pull rates from 5k packs

Phantasmal Flames mirrors the moderate pull rates of Mega Evolution, giving collectors fairly steady odds across most rarities and slightly stronger chances at Special Illustration Rares. In more than 5,000 packs opened, Double Rares such as Mega Gengar ex appeared in one out of five packs, Ultra Rares like Empoleon ex in one out of twelve, and Illustration Rares such as Meowth and Piplup in one out of nine.

Special Illustration Rares, including Mega Lopunny ex and Dawn, surfaced about once every 80 packs. The major chase is Mega Charizard X ex, which showed up as a Special Illustration Rare once every 400 packs and as the lone Mega Hyper Rare once every 1260 packs. Thanks to the smaller 130 card set, hitting specific high end cards is easier than in larger sets, giving collectors better odds overall even with the extremely rare Mega Hyper slot. (Source: TCGPlayer)

Note: This was published on November 15th, so technically not news from this week.

📈 Card Trends

Source: Price data provided by TCGPlayer and 7 day data breakdown provided by TCGMarketNews (which sources all data from TCGPlayer).

Weekly Top Gains 🔼

Weekly Top Losses 🔽

🔢 Card Market Highlights

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights

🔵 Fall 2019 Collector’s Chest Tin sells for $1.65k

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The Fall 2019 Collector's Chest Tin is themed entirely around the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back - Evolution. This connection is most evident in the three exclusive foil promo cards included, which feature Armored Mewtwo (SM228), Pikachu (SM227), and Charizard (SM226), all rendered using the 3D computer-generated animation style from the film. The movie itself is a CGI remake of the original 1998 film Pokémon: The First Movie and was released in 2019 in Japan, later becoming available on Netflix globally in 2020.

In last week’s report I wrote about the Armored Mewtwo selling for $6.3k which has risen significantly this year. Potentially as a result, the Collector’s Chest (in other words the sealed product that contains it) has also risen significantly. One of the lowest sales this month was at $800 in July. Given the growth of the Armored Mewtwo, the Charizard (~$850 avg. in a PSA 10) and Pikachu (~$400 avg. in a PSA 10) might be underrated even at the current price points.

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🔵 Mega Charizard X ex UPC sells for $190

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This UPC retails for $119 and prices have come down since highs near $300. The most anticipated items from this UPC are the promo Mega Charizard X EX #23 (releasing in Japanese as a part of the Mega Dream set this coming Friday) and promo Oriocorio ex #24 illustrated by Shinji Kanda.

This UPC will be available in Costco retailing for about $90 in early January next year (although details surrounding the date haven’t been confirmed exactly to my knowledge) and this restock could potentially help bring secondary market prices down even further.

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🔵 151 booster bundle display case sells for $1.3k

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The 151 set was not sold in the traditional booster box format but primarily through booster bundles (which contain 6 packs) and ETBs among other products. Booster bundle display cases contain 10 booster bundles. In the past 6 months prices have gone from ~$750 up to ~$1.65k before settling at the current ~$1.3k price range. This puts individual booster bundle prices at around $130 which are up from ~$60 since June this year.

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💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights

🔵 Black Label White Flare Reshiram sells for ~$43k

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In last week’s report I wrote about a Reshiram card from White Flare being sent into space as a part of a collaboration between Beckett and Dragon Shield to test the durability of Dragon Shield products. After returning from space, Beckett re-graded the card which ended up with a black label grade. This card went up for auction from November 12th - November 19th and sold for ~$43k with all proceeds going to the Toy Foundation, a children’s charity.

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🔵 PSA 10 Portugese XY Pikachu promo sells for $7.5k

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This card comes from the Pikachu EX Red and Blue Collection Box. Although English is generally the most expensive version in a PSA 10 this card, other languages don’t fall far behind in price. The English copy is in the same range as Portuguese and the Japanese copy goes for about half. Despite being much less common or perhaps as a result, sales like this prove that language is no barrier to an increase in value especially for promo cards of very popular Pokemon. There are only 8 in a PSA 10 for Portuguese, 58 in English, and 1650 in Japanese.

This might be one case where the Japanese version is significantly less because the non-Japanese versions came in collection boxes which had a higher chance to damage the cards inside. (Quick note: The Portuguese version of the promo reportedly comes in the Red and Blue Collection Box manufactured for Portugal but from what I researched it didn’t seem to contain this particular Pikachu promo which is not to say that it does not but I just wasn’t able to confirm visually).

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🔵 Near mint Mega Charizard X ex sells for ~$750

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Raw, near mint copies of this card were selling prior to Phantasmal Flames release on November 14th at a peak of around ~$2.2k. Since release, prices have come down significantly and continue to come down. It is currently the most graded copy of the set with a total of 281 and 186 in a PSA 10. With restocks of sealed products coming to various retailers early next year this could help drive the price down further before it climbs up again.

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🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights

🔵 PSA 10 Pikachu Birthday White Star 2nd Anniv. sells for $7.8k

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Released in November 1998 to celebrate the second anniversary of the Pokémon TCG in Japan, the Pikachu Birthday White Star 2nd Anniversary promo was the first of the “birthday” Pikachu prints. Distributed inside the Japanese All Card Calendar, it features Kagemaru Himeno’s art of Pikachu, with a blank name line for the owner to write their name (presumably).

There are 782 PSA 10 copies, yet prices have spiked hard: one sold for $2.9k in September, then another sale on $8.1k on November 22, with multiple recent sales now above $6k, a sharp jump for a relatively high-pop card.

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🔵 1st Edition Gym Challenge booster box sells for $20k

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The top chase of Gym Challenge 1st Edition is Blaine’s Charizard which has had multiple confirmed sales from the ~$6.5k range in May up to $13.7k earlier this month.

For this booster box, there were multiple sales in 2024 around $13k and a couple of sales this year that show somewhat of a trendline of big upward growth (somewhat because the sales are very limited for boxes at this price). There was one sale in October of this year with a winning bid of $16k.

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🔵 Korean 1st Edition Base Set booster box sells for ~$19.1k

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The Korean 1st Edition Base Set is considered to be one of the lowest-print WotC Base language runs, so sealed boxes surface far less often than English or European languages. At ~$19.1k, this sale sits between a ~$13.5k Fanatics Collect sale (May 2024) and a ~$20k Heritage sale (Mar 2022) so this could be the start of a climb back up as the exclusivity of limited release language variants like Korean gains more recognition.

Looking at the top chase, the Korean 1st Edition Base Charizard sits at a PSA 10 pop of just 7, with one of the last known sales around $20k. The English 1st Edition Base Charizard PSA 10, with a pop near 124, still lands in the $200k+ range. Despite the Korean card being rarer on paper, the English version commands roughly 10–15x the price because of deeper global demand and its entrenched “grail” status.

😴 Potential Sleepers

Silver Tempest - Blaziken V #TG14

PSA 10 - 3435 pop / 5049 total - $108 average

Ungraded - $23 average for near mint condition

Trainer Gallery cards as a whole are still very underrated. Many of them feature popular trainers and their Pokemon which alone are factors that lend to a card popping off. This Blaziken card (presumably May’s Blaziken from the manga/anime) has been steady around $80 over the past 6 months and recently reached a peak of ~$170 in October before dropping back down to ~$110. This is potentially this card’s new settling point before it starts to go back up again. This Blaziken card also pairs well with Blaziken VMAX TG15 from the same set (~$115 in a PSA 10).

📚 Educational Commentary – Collector’s Corner

What does a realistic, sustainable long term collecting strategy look like for someone who is not trying to “invest” and also avoid overpaying?

From personal experience, a sustainable approach starts with limits, not goals. Set a monthly or yearly budget, decide how much you are okay tying up in cards. Put most of that budget into cards you genuinely love and keep a smaller slice for opportunistic deals but be honest about what you might sell later on.

From there, focus on steady habits instead of timing every dip. Stick to lanes you understand, check recent sold listings, and avoid chasing whatever social media is hyping that week.

(I have to admit I have fallen for this with the Japanese Meowth promo which is no longer Japanese exclusive as of Phantasmal Flames - although I genuinely like the card which massively softened the blow).

Prioritize condition and authenticity, skip panic buying over the last sale just to have it, and stay patient so you are not wildly overpaying.

🫐 Berries For Thought

💭 What is your opinion on the 151 set two years after release as one of the modern sets to launch the TCG back into wider popularity?

💭 Does the Mega Charizard X from Phantasmal Flames still have room to come down?

Share your thoughts on the above questions by replying to this email! (I read all of them 🙂)