Chaos Rising chase cards: the top 10 by price, and which are worth grading

Chaos Rising has been out for five months, so the hype prices are gone and the market has settled. That makes this a good moment to look at what the hits are really worth, how hard they are to pull, and which ones are worth sending to a grader. The short version: the set lives and dies on Mega Greninja ex, and most of the other chase cards sell for less than it costs to grade them.

What is Chaos Rising?

Chaos Rising is the fourth main expansion in the Pokémon TCG’s Mega Evolution series, released in the US and worldwide on 22 May 2026. It has 86 numbered cards plus 36 secret rares, 122 in all, and its headline cards are Mega Greninja ex and Mega Floette ex, tied to the Pokémon Legends: Z-A story in Lumiose City.

Small sets are good news for collectors. With only six Special Illustration Rares and one Mega Hyper Rare, the chase list is short, and each hit you open is a bigger share of the set than it would be in a 250-card expansion. If the star symbols are new to you, our guide to Pokémon card rarity symbols explains the gold star with the black border that marks a Mega Hyper Rare.

What are the chase cards in Chaos Rising?

Ranked by TCGplayer market price for raw, near mint copies, the top ten are the gold Mega Greninja ex, the six Special Illustration Rares, the regular full-art Mega Greninja and two Illustration Rares. Market price is built from recent sales and moves daily, so treat these as a snapshot.

Three things stand out. First, the two Greninjas are worth about three times anything else in the set. Second, the gold card and the Special Illustration Rare sell for almost the same raw, even though the gold one is about twice as hard to pull. Third, the bottom four Special Illustration Rares sit between $15 and $25, which is less than a single PSA submission. The Froakie and Frogadier Illustration Rares and the Greninja SIR were all drawn by Susumu Maeya, so the full evolution line in matching art is a popular binder page for not much more than the SIR alone.

How rare are Chaos Rising chase cards?

You’ll find a Special Illustration Rare in about 1 pack in 83 and the gold Mega Greninja in about 1 pack in 956, according to TCGplayer, which opened more than 8,500 packs. Pokémon doesn’t publish pull rates, so a big sample like this is the best figure there is.

Which Chaos Rising cards are worth grading?

Only the two Mega Greninja ex secret rares, and only clean copies. For every other card in the set, even a guaranteed PSA 10 clears less than selling the card raw once you pay PSA’s $59.99 fee, postage and selling fees.

Here’s what the top cards actually sell for raw and graded right now. Raw is TCGplayer’s market price; PSA 9 and PSA 10 are TCG Charts’ figures from recent eBay and Fanatics Collect sales.

The fee math, card by card

PSA’s cheapest open tier is Standard at $59.99 a card for cards worth up to $1,000 after grading, with a 90 to 100 business-day wait; its Value tiers are paused. Every card here fits in Standard. Add an estimated $15 a card for postage both ways when you send several cards in one order, and grading costs about $75 a card. eBay takes 13.25% plus $0.40 on each sale, raw or graded.

The break-even tells you the odds of a 10 you need for grading to beat selling raw, assuming a miss is a 9. The gold Greninja needs only about a 9% chance of a 10, because a 10 is worth so much and even a PSA 9 sells for more than a raw copy. The Greninja SIR needs about 36%. Cinccino needs about 84%, which no one can promise you. Dragalge, Floette and the two Supporters lose money even on a 10. Send one card alone, at closer to $100 all in, and the bars rise to about 14% and 49%. The is it worth grading Pokémon cards guide walks through this formula step by step, and PSA grading cost covers every tier and the postage.

Why does the gold Greninja sell for so much more in a 10?

Because PSA 10s of it are scarce. Only about 23% of the gold Greninjas PSA has graded came back 10s, against 68% of the Special Illustration Rares. Gold Mega Hyper Rares have an all-gold foil surface that shows every scratch, print line and edge chip, and that keeps the 10s rare.

That’s also why the Greninja SIR is a closer call than its price suggests. With over 6,000 PSA 10s already out there, buyers don’t pay much of a premium for one, and a PSA 9 sells for little more than a raw copy. The PSA population report guide explains how to read these counts for any card.

Should I grade my Chaos Rising pull?

Only if it could realistically be a 10. Pack-fresh doesn’t mean gem mint: modern cards often come out of the pack off-center or with white specks on the back edges. Five minutes under a bright light tells you most of what you need.

1. 1Check centering front and back. PSA’s 10 allows 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the back. On a full-art card, compare the thin silver or gold frame on each side; if one side looks visibly wider, it’s probably past 60/40, which caps it at a 9.
2. 2Look at the back edges. The dark blue border shows whitening the front hides. A few specks along one edge can cost the 10.
3. 3Tilt the gold card under a single lamp. On the Mega Hyper Rare, look across the textured gold for scratches, dents and print lines. This is where most of them lose the 10.
4. 4Check all eight corners. Any rounding or white dot rules out a 10. Sleeve the card straight away so it doesn’t pick up new wear.
5. 5Make sure it’s genuine. Fake gold cards are common. A fake comes back from PSA with no grade and you still pay the fee. Our guide on how to tell if a Pokémon card is fake covers the checks that work.

If you find a flaw, plan on a 9 at best and rerun the sum. For the gold Greninja a 9 still sells above raw, but after fees and postage you keep about half what a raw sale would give you. For everything else, a 9 loses money. The PSA 9 vs PSA 10 guide shows what separates the two, and Pokémon card centering explains how to measure it.

Is CGC cheaper for Chaos Rising cards?

CGC is much cheaper to grade with, but its slabs sell for much less on these cards. On 25 October 2026 CGC’s Bulk tier was $17 a card (25-card minimum, up to $500 value, about 150 working days) and Economy was $20 for cards up to $1,000.

The resale gap swallows that saving on the Greninjas. CGC 10 Gem Mint copies of the gold Greninja sold for $162 and $345 on Fanatics Collect on 17 and 18 October, while PSA 10s sell for about $650 to $750. On cheaper cards like Cinccino, CGC’s $17 fee makes the sum less hopeless, but a CGC 10 Cinccino sold for $50 on 15 October, so after the fee and postage it still clears less than selling the card raw. Our best grading company for Pokémon cards guide compares the graders side by side.

Is Chaos Rising worth opening?

For fun, yes. As a way to make money, rarely. A booster box’s TCGplayer market price was $183.05 on 25 October 2026, about $5.08 a pack for 36 packs, and a box averages fewer than one Special Illustration Rare at TCGplayer’s pull rates.

Most boxes give you a stack of Illustration Rares worth $3 to $6 each, a few Ultra Rares and, with luck, one SIR. Unless that SIR is a Greninja, the box is usually worth less in singles than you paid. Sealed product is a separate bet on future prices, and nobody can tell you how that goes; our guide on whether Pokémon cards are a good investment covers the risks. If you do pull something good, where to sell Pokémon cards compares the fees.