Chaos Rising One Week In: Mega Greninja ex Leads the Chase as the Painted Art Outsells the Gold
A week after launch, Mega Evolution: Chaos Rising prices have settled. The Mega Greninja ex Special Illustration Rare leads the set near 590 dollars, edging out the gold Mega Hyper Rare around 400, while a surprise Cinccino ex SIR sits near 123. A full master set runs about 2,400 dollars.
The packs have been ripped, the streams have cooled, and the secondary market has had a few days to find its level. One week after Mega Evolution: Chaos Rising hit shelves, the chase-card pecking order is set — and the headline is that collectors voted with their wallets for the illustrated full-art over the gold. Here is where the set's most valuable cards stand right now, and what the early pricing tells us.
Mega Greninja ex Owns the Set
No surprise here: with Greninja sitting near the top of Pokemon popularity polls for years, its Chaos Rising chase cards were always going to lead. What is notable is the order. The Mega Greninja ex Special Illustration Rare (#116/086) is the most valuable card in the set, with a TCGPlayer market price hovering around $580 to $595. It is also brutally rare, appearing on average roughly once every 620 packs.
- Mega Greninja ex — Special Illustration Rare (#116/086): about $583 to $594, the set's top card.
- Mega Greninja ex — Mega Hyper Rare (#122/086): about $400, the gold variant and second-most valuable card.
- Cinccino ex — Special Illustration Rare (#119/086): about $123, the surprise of the set.
The Illustrated Full-Art Beat the Gold
The most interesting story of the week is the gap between those top two. The illustrated Special Illustration Rare settled above the gold Mega Hyper Rare — roughly $590 to $400 — even though the gold MHR sits at a higher rarity tier on paper. Day-one TCGPlayer prices pointed the same direction, and a week later the order has held. Collectors are increasingly willing to pay a premium for art over a chase defined purely by foil treatment, a pattern that has shown up across recent Pokemon sets.
"When the painted full-art outsells the gold, that is the market telling you what it actually values. Artwork is becoming the real chase, and the gold variant is along for the ride."
The Cinccino Surprise
Every set has a card that punches above its competitive weight, and in Chaos Rising it is Cinccino ex. A Pokemon that rarely gets the spotlight, its Special Illustration Rare caught collectors off guard with warm, charming artwork and now sits around $123 — comfortably the most valuable non-Greninja card in the set. It is a reminder that in the modern era, a beloved illustration can matter more than a Pokemon's tournament relevance.
What a Full Master Set Costs
For the completionists, the bill is steep. A complete Chaos Rising master set runs an estimated $2,400 at current market prices, with the two Mega Greninja cards making up the bulk of that figure. If you are chasing the set, the smart sequence is to secure the cheaper rares first and let the two Greninja cards — the line items most likely to soften as supply settles — come last.
Buy Now or Wait?
Opening-week pricing on a hot set almost always runs hot, and Chaos Rising is no exception. If you want the Mega Greninja ex SIR for your binder, history suggests singles tend to drift down in the weeks after launch as more product gets opened and the initial frenzy fades. If you are buying to hold, the art-driven cards — the SIRs — have historically held value better than foil-only chases over the long run. Either way, buy the cards you genuinely want to own, and treat the rarity odds as a reason to buy the single rather than chase it through sealed packs.