Most Valuable Evolving Skies Cards — Top 25 (Market Value)

Evolving Skies quick facts
SetEvolving Skies (swsh7)
Year2021
Total cards (priced)237
Top cardUmbreon VMAX #215 — $2261.15
Top 25 combined value$6945
Price sourceTCGPlayer market (live)

Umbreon VMAX — most valuable card in Evolving Skies

This is the live market-value ranking of every chase card in Evolving Skies (2021), the 237-card Pokémon TCG expansion. Prices update on each PackRip build from TCGPlayer's market feed, so these numbers track the actual ungraded market rather than retail asks. The top 25 alone account for roughly $6945 in combined market value — that's where the pack-opening EV comes from.

Top 25 by TCGPlayer market price

  1. #1. Umbreon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #215 — $2261.15 (1 in 786 per pack)
  2. #2. Rayquaza VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #218 — $982.89 (1 in 786 per pack)
  3. #3. Dragonite V — Rare Ultra, #192 — $496.27 (1 in 683 per pack)
  4. #4. Rayquaza V — Rare Ultra, #194 — $421.78 (1 in 683 per pack)
  5. #5. Sylveon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #212 — $384.07 (1 in 786 per pack)
  6. #6. Leafeon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #205 — $376.97 (1 in 786 per pack)
  7. #7. Umbreon V — Rare Ultra, #189 — $371.80 (1 in 683 per pack)
  8. #8. Glaceon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #209 — $290.27 (1 in 786 per pack)
  9. #9. Espeon V — Rare Ultra, #180 — $223.34 (1 in 683 per pack)
  10. #10. Sylveon V — Rare Ultra, #184 — $163.65 (1 in 683 per pack)
  11. #11. Glaceon V — Rare Ultra, #175 — $155.69 (1 in 683 per pack)
  12. #12. Leafeon V — Rare Ultra, #167 — $142.93 (1 in 683 per pack)
  13. #13. Rayquaza VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #217 — $114.25 (1 in 786 per pack)
  14. #14. Umbreon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #214 — $75.09 (1 in 786 per pack)
  15. #15. Noivern V — Rare Ultra, #196 — $69.65 (1 in 683 per pack)
  16. #16. Umbreon V — Rare Ultra, #188 — $61.82 (1 in 683 per pack)
  17. #17. Sylveon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #211 — $56.04 (1 in 786 per pack)
  18. #18. Gyarados VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #207 — $46.38 (1 in 786 per pack)
  19. #19. Rayquaza V — Rare Ultra, #193 — $39.01 (1 in 683 per pack)
  20. #20. Dragonite V — Rare Ultra, #191 — $37.89 (1 in 683 per pack)
  21. #21. Glaceon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #208 — $37.68 (1 in 786 per pack)
  22. #22. Sylveon V — Rare Ultra, #183 — $36.15 (1 in 683 per pack)
  23. #23. Leafeon VMAX — Rare Rainbow, #204 — $34.64 (1 in 786 per pack)
  24. #24. Darkness Energy — Rare Secret, #236 — $34.61 (25.0% per pack)
  25. #25. Golurk V — Rare Ultra, #182 — $30.79 (1 in 683 per pack)

How to pull the top card

The single most valuable card in Evolving Skies is Umbreon VMAX at $2261.15. You can chase it for free on PackRip's Evolving Skies pack opener — it uses authentic per-rarity pull rates so the simulation produces the same expected-value distribution real boxes do over thousands of openings. The Hunt Pack mode boosts the relevant rarity slot if you want to optimize for this card specifically. Or skip the RNG and buy Umbreon VMAX directly on TCGplayer.

Why these prices change

2021 cards trade on relative supply: PSA pop reports, sealed-product scarcity, character popularity (especially Eeveelutions, starters, and legendary Pokémon), and grading-grade availability. PackRip refreshes its catalog every Phase release, so each new set drop pulls a fresh price snapshot via build-prices.mjs and the rankings reshuffle automatically. Bookmark this page — it stays current.

Why card #1 is worth multiples of card #25

The variance inside a single set's top-25 is itself the most informative number on this page. Umbreon VMAX at $2261.15 sits roughly 73.4× the value of the #25 card ($30.79) — and that spread is the rule, not the exception, for 2021 Evolving Skies. The driver is a compounding stack: rarity tier (a Holo Rare is a 1-in-3 pull, a Crystal / Gold Star / Lv.X / Prime / Full Art chase is 1-in-30+), character popularity (Charizard / Pikachu / Eeveelutions trade at multi-x the average for the same rarity tier), illustration quality (full-art and alt-art prints command premiums regardless of competitive viability), and PSA pop-report scarcity (PSA-10 populations for 2021 cards are still expanding, so a low pop today can be 10× the future pop in two years). The top-25 sorts by the joint product of all four, which is why the curve is so steep at the top and flattens by #20+ where the cards are usually Holo Rares of less-popular Pokémon.

Raw vs graded — the multiplier nobody tells beginners

Every price on this page is the raw ungraded NM/M TCGPlayer market median. Graded copies trade at a multiplier on top of that depending on the assigned grade and the population of that grade for the card. The conservative rule of thumb (cross-checked against PSA's own auction history): PSA 9 ≈ 2-3× raw, PSA 10 ≈ 5-10× raw for XY-era cards, with the chase tier (Crystal / Gold Star / Shining / Prime / LEGEND / Full Art) skewing higher because the absolute population is smaller. So Umbreon VMAX at a raw $2261.15 typically prices a PSA 9 at $5653-6783 and a PSA 10 at $11306-22612. BGS 9.5 sits between PSA 9 and PSA 10. The grading-cost economics only work when the raw card is worth roughly 4× the grading fee — for 2021 Evolving Skies that threshold is met by roughly the top 8 cards on this list.

Historical price trend — how the Evolving Skies chase market evolved

The current $2261.15 TCGplayer market price on Umbreon VMAX is the end-state of a multi-year re-rating. XY-era cards (including Evolving Skies) remain in the early phase of their market cycle — the original collector cohort is in their teens / early-20s. M-EX chases and Full Arts lead the market, but absolute price levels are below comparable EX or BW chases at the same nominal age. Multi-year appreciation potential is high but the time horizon is longer. Pricing data on PackRip refreshes monthly via the TCGplayer market feed and the snapshot date is visible at the bottom of every card detail page.

Set-specific drivers — why Evolving Skies's top-25 looks the way it does

Evolving Skies (2021) sits in a specific niche within the Pokémon TCG market that shapes which cards land in this top-25 and why. XY-era sets are valued on M Pokémon-EX (Mega Evolution) and Full Art chases. The price level is below comparable older chases because the collector cohort is younger and the supply is higher. Within Evolving Skies specifically, the top-25 reflects this set's particular blend of those factors — high-popularity characters in the chase tier rank disproportionately well, and the deeper into the list you go, the more the ranking reflects pure rarity over character pull.

Condition grading deep-dive — the PSA 10 multiplier

The single biggest determinant of price for any vintage Pokémon card is grading status. PSA 10 ("Gem Mint") copies for 2021 Evolving Skies cards trade at substantial multiples of raw NM/M. The exact multiple depends on the specific card's pop report — common cards with high PSA 10 populations carry small premiums (1.5-2.5×), while chase cards with low PSA 10 populations carry massive premiums (8-15× or more). The threshold question for grading is whether the raw card is worth roughly 4× the grading fee — for Umbreon VMAX at $2261.15 raw, grading economics work cleanly. PSA / BGS / CGC are the three main graders; PSA carries the highest market premium for vintage Pokémon, BGS for modern, CGC for anything in between. The grading turnaround time at PSA fluctuates between 30 days (premium service) and 12+ months (bulk service); the bulk service is rarely worth using because the grading fee is small relative to the holding cost of card capital tied up for a year.

Authentication tips before you buy

XY-era Evolving Skies cards (2014+) trade in a mostly safe market for raw purchases under $100. Above that threshold, the standard PSA/BGS slab provenance check applies. For any purchase above $200 raw, the rational path is to buy slabbed (PSA/BGS/CGC) and skip the authentication risk entirely — the grading premium is usually less than the counterfeit risk discount.

Explore further