Darkness Ablaze In March 2023

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 – Darkness Ablaze, which came out in August 2020, are doing now in March 2023.

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

1. Charizard VMAX 020/189: $31.38
2. Salamence VMAX Rainbow Rare 194/189: $9.56
3. Capture Energy Gold Secret Rare 201/189: $9.28
4. Eternatus VMAX Rainbow Rare 192/189: $9.05
5. Scizor VMAX Rainbow Rare 193/189: $8.81
6. Butterfree VMAX Rainbow Rare 190/189: $8.38
7. Shiny Rillaboom Gold Secret Rare 197/189: $7.66
8. Centiskorch VMAX Rainbow Rare 191/189: $6.81
9. Charizard V 019/189: $5.80
10. Big Parasol Gold Secret Rare 199/189: $5.38

Whoa! Another big drop for Sword & Shield – Darkness Ablaze as the set’s closest thing to a chase card, the Charizard VMAX, drops $10 this month alone. This set was once seen as exciting due to the Charizard card but with Champion’s Path delivering the Rainbow version, Shining Fates releasing the Shiny version, and Sword & Shield – Brilliant Stars showing Darkness Ablaze that a full offering is better by including a VSTAR, V Alt Art, and Rainbow Rare VSTAR, the cards of this set are just seen as lacking. This is mostly because Champion’s Path was created to be a “special set” rather than adapting the Japanese Tag Team GX All-Stars to English, which left both this and Champion’s Path feeling like one strong set that had been split into two weird ones.