Chaos Rising Took a Real Hit. The Grading Math on These Four Cards Didn’t.
Mega Greninja has cooled nearly 50% since launch, but the best grading plays in the set aren’t the cards everyone was chasing.
Welcome to Staten News — where we spend way too much time staring at PSA population reports and convincing ourselves that a $7 Tauros might secretly be smarter than a $300 Greninja.
One month into Chaos Rising, the market is finally doing what modern Pokémon sets almost always do.
The launch-week hype is fading. The prices are settling. And the cards everyone was fighting over in May are suddenly looking a lot less invincible.
Meanwhile, a handful of cards nobody cared about are quietly putting up some of the strongest grading numbers in the entire set.
Welcome to the post-hype phase.
📉 Mega Greninja Finally Came Back to Earth
No card defined Chaos Rising more than Mega Greninja ex SIR.
Before release, it was the chase.
After release, it was still the chase.
And for a brief moment, it looked like it might become one of the defining cards of the Scarlet & Violet era.
Then supply showed up.
The card peaked at roughly $594 raw on release day.
Today?
It’s sitting around $323 raw.
That’s a decline of nearly 46% in about four weeks.
The Gold Mega Hyper Rare version followed a similar path, softening as more product entered the market and early buyers completed their collections.
Before anyone starts screaming “crash,” though, this is exactly what most modern sets do.
The first month is driven by scarcity.
The second month is driven by reality.
Chaos Rising is following the script almost perfectly.
🎨 The Surprise Hits Are Cooling Too
The correction isn’t limited to Greninja.
Several of the set’s most popular Special Illustration Rares have quietly drifted lower as well.
Notably:
Cinccino ex SIR slipped from $114 to roughly $109
Mega Dragalge ex SIR moved from around $111 into the low $100 range
Multiple mid-tier chase cards have followed similar patterns
None of these moves are catastrophic.
But collectively they tell the same story:
The launch-week buying frenzy is over.
Collectors who absolutely needed these cards already bought them.
Now the market is looking for equilibrium.
And that’s where things start getting interesting.
💥 The Best PSA Math Isn’t Coming From SIRs
Here’s the part that caught our attention.
The strongest grading opportunities in Chaos Rising aren’t coming from the cards dominating YouTube thumbnails.
They’re coming from cards most collectors probably tossed into a binder and forgot about.
According to current market pricing, four cards stand out as legitimate PSA candidates despite carrying relatively low raw prices.
🌸 AZ’s Tranquility (#120)
This may be the sneaky all-star of the set.
Current pricing:
Raw: $41
PSA 10: $245
That’s nearly a 6x multiple.
Even PSA 9 copies appear capable of supporting values significantly above raw pricing.
The card benefits from something many investors overlook:
Storyline demand.
Collectors building the AZ and Mega Floette narrative pairing continue to support the card, creating a steadier floor than many purely speculative plays.
Sometimes lore is a market catalyst.
Pokémon collectors know that better than anyone.
🦌 Xerneas (#91)
If there were a “most ignored card at release” award, Xerneas would be a strong nominee.
Current pricing:
Raw: $14
PSA 10: $104
That’s a 7.4x multiple.
Even conservative PSA 9 estimates still place the card comfortably above raw value.
Legendary Pokémon tend to age well.
Especially when entry prices remain low enough that most people don’t bother paying attention.
That’s often where opportunity lives.
🌱 Chespin (#87)
This is where the grading math starts looking ridiculous.
Current pricing:
Raw: $9
PSA 10: $72
That’s an 8x multiple.
Read that again.
A Chespin.
An eight-times return at gem mint.
Nobody was opening packs hoping to pull Chespin.
Which is exactly why so few people submitted Chespin.
Population scarcity has a funny way of creating value where nobody expected it.
🐂 Tauros (#96): The Quiet Champion
If we’re talking pure grading spreads, Tauros might be the king of Chaos Rising.
Current pricing:
Raw: $7
PSA 10: $74
That’s a staggering 10.6x multiple.
Metang (#94) sits right behind it:
Raw: $6
PSA 10: $55
Both cards maintain strong PSA 9 economics while offering some of the best risk-to-reward profiles in the entire set.
And neither one was remotely part of the release-week conversation.
📦 Why These Cards Work
The common thread isn’t rarity.
It’s population.
None of these cards benefited from launch hype.
None became social-media stars.
None generated viral pull reactions.
Because of that, most submitters ignored them.
Instead, grading queues were flooded with Greninja, Dragalge, and other obvious chase cards.
That leaves these overlooked cards sitting in an interesting position:
Low raw prices.
Healthy PSA premiums.
Limited early submissions.
That’s a combination worth paying attention to.
Especially while PSA’s lower-cost Value tier remains paused and everyone is paying Standard submission rates.
When grading costs rise, only the strongest math survives.
These cards still clear the hurdle.
🔮 What We’re Watching Next
The next two months will tell us whether Chaos Rising follows the normal Scarlet & Violet trajectory or develops into something stronger.
The key indicators:
PSA population growth on secondary cards
Stabilization of Mega Greninja pricing
Long-term demand for storyline cards like AZ’s Tranquility
Whether overlooked illustration rares continue attracting graders
If PSA populations stay controlled, today’s sleeper cards may not stay sleepers for very long.
📈 Final Thoughts
The biggest lesson from Chaos Rising isn’t that Mega Greninja fell.
Every modern chase card falls after release.
The lesson is that the most profitable opportunities are often hiding in plain sight while everyone fights over the headline card.
The hobby loves stars.
The grading market often rewards scarcity.
And those aren’t always the same thing.
Keep an eye on the cards nobody’s posting.
Sometimes that’s where the real upside lives.
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research before buying, selling, or grading collectibles.
— The Bandicoots 🎴📈