Brilliant Stars In February 2022

The Pokémon TCG is an ever-changing and unpredictable market. Over the past two years, we’ve seen renewed interest in the hobby due to a number of factors including the 25th Anniversary, strong Sword & Shield-era sets featuring stunning Alternate Arts, influencers, box breaks, COVID-19 lockdown pushing people to find hobbies, and more. For a time, sets and cards that were readily available quickly became difficult to find. Now that the hype is settling down, let’s see where modern sets stand. Every month, I will do an installment of this series, Pokémon TCG Value Watch. This series is not financial advice but is rather a way to help collectors know the trajectory of a card’s availability so that Pokémon TCG completionists like myself know when to strike. Today, let’s see how the cards of Sword & Shield – Brilliant Stars, which came out this past week, are doing in this intense week of release.

Here are the top valued cards of Pokémon TCG: Sword & Shield – Brilliant Stars with market values observed on TCGPlayer as of this writing:

1. Charizard VSTAR Rainbow Rare 174/172: $172.77
2. Charizard V Alternate Art 154/172: $164.88
3. Arceus V Alternate Art 166/172: $76.65
4. Arceus VSTAR Gold Secret Rare 184/172: $72.17
5. Ultra Ball Gold Secret Rare 186/172: $72.17
6. Charizard V Full Art 153/172: $36.10
7. Galarian Moltres V Gold Secret Rare 183/172: $35.63
8. Arceus VSTAR 123/172: $33.98
9. Arceus VSTAR Rainbow Rare 176/172: $33.98
10. Marnie’s Pride Full Art Trainer Supporter 171/172: $31.01
11. Galarian Articuno V Gold Secret Rare 181/172: $29.27
12. Lumineon V Alternate Art 156/172: $27.04
13. Charizard VSTAR 018/172: $21.46
14. Cynthia’s Ambition Full Art Trainer Supporter 169/172: $20.56
15. Galarian Zapdos V Gold Secret Rare 182/172: $19.69

This Pokémon TCG expansion includes a Trainer Gallery subset. The top cards of this set are:

1. Umbreon VMAX Character Super Rare TG23/TG30: $43.40
2. Sylveon VMAX Character Super Rare TG15/TG30: $24.00
3. Umbreon V Character Super Rare TG23/TG30: $19.64
4. Gloria Full Art Trainer Supporter TG26/TG30: $18.71
5. Acerola’s Premonition Full Art Trainer Supporter TG24/TG30: $17.59

First weeks are dynamic. Hell, the first two months of a set are dynamic, and sometimes longer. This, though, is chaos. The day the set dropped, the Charizard VSTAR was going for $300. Now? It’s already down toward $170, dropping while the Alternate Art Charizard climbs.

Now, one major misconception that some Pokémon TCG collectors have is that Character Super Rares are Alternate Arts because they… you know, reprint a card’s text and use an alternate artwork. However, Alternate Arts are also a card type and rarity and are simply more difficult to pull than Trainer Gallery cards. For example, I saw a store purchase the Umbreon VMAX CSR for quite a lot of money under the mistaken impression that it would be worth as much as the Sword & Shield – Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX. Well, it has dropped over $100 of value in three days and will undoubtedly drop more, as subset cards are simply not difficult to pull.

My advice? For sure hold off on buying singles. The time to crack packs is here, so enjoy that, have fun, and good luck with your pulls.