Initial Hype is the Key to Long-Term Success for Modern Pokémon Sets!

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As a Pokémon fan, I’ve often found myself navigating the fine line between collecting for passion and investing in sets that show potential. Over the years, I’ve developed a hypothesis that might seem counterintuitive at first, but I’ve noticed it playing out time and again. This theory is mostly for modern sets.

My Theory

If a Pokémon set is popular and hyped right from its release, it is more likely to outperform other sets from the same era in the long run.

Of course, there are exceptions—like Vivid Voltage and some of the hype-driven anomalies from 2020-2022. But overall, the trend seems consistent.

Observations Supporting This Theory

Looking at modern sets, the best-performing ones often started with significant hype:

  • Evolving Skies
  • Eevee Heroes
  • Pokémon 151

For individual cards, the trend can be more volatile, but here are some examples:

  • Poncho Pikachus
  • Moonbreon
  • Van Gogh Pikachu
  • Base Set Charizard

Even when we examine older sets, those that were popular during their release often saw the most substantial increases during the COVID-era boom and have maintained their popularity since.

Criticisms of this hypothesis could be that 2–5 years is not a long enough time horizon to truly speak about long-term trends. Therefore, I looked at older sets, where most sets retained and increased their value and very rarely experienced a decrease.

What This Means for Prismatic Evolution

Applying this hypothesis to the Scarlet & Violet era, I believe Prismatic Evolution has the potential to be one of the best-performing sets—both in the short and long term. Its initial reception suggests it’s a strong contender.

What Do You Think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and observations.

  • Have you noticed a similar pattern of hyped sets outperforming others?
  • Are there any exceptions that challenge this theory?
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Yes and no.

Sets which are better than others do well over time. Sometimes that set quality is obvious from the beginning (Evolving Skies/Eevee Heroes) and other times people get it wrong (Champion’s Path/Vivid Voltage/Shining Fates).

The issue is that what qualifies as a “good set” is often evaluated in reference to all the other sets of the era and Pokemon’s future production. Back in 2020, a Shiny Charizard card with reprinted art actually was unique and hyped like no beginning. If you remember back then, Champion’s Path Shiny Charizard V was a top modern chase that everyone wanted. However, after that we got way more shiny Charizard cards, special art Charizards, and special arts of other popular Pokemon. The modern market has essentially decided that special arts are better than shiny cards, and thus the shiny sets and cards have stagnated relative to special art sets. Even Hidden Fates, one of the most initially hyped sets of all time, has kind of just faded into obscurity in the shadow of late SWSH.

In contrast, sets which actually weren’t received well upon initial release can see increases if they fit into what the market is valuing now. Take something like Double Crisis, a set which people originally viewed as too small and too boring. Now it has seen huge increases, which I attribute in part to low printing and also in part to the Groudon and Kyogre EX being very similar to today’s special art cards. We can see single-card examples of this too, The late-XY era UR cards are outperforming the entire XY era market because they’re effectively special arts. People thought they were cool when they came out, but the level of attention they’re getting now is much more than initial release.

Will Prismatic Evolutions do well long-term? If I had to bet, I’d put my money on yes. However, what if Pokemon sees the golden goose, so to speak, and starts making a new special Eevee set every generation like they have with shiny sets? Prismatic Evolutions might end up as the awkward middle child, where things like the tera hats discourage people from buying it and they instead buy the newer Eevee set. More Eevee sets also make the previous ones less special because they aren’t unique any more, just like the relative flood of Shiny Charizords has done to bring down prices on its modern examples.

Also, what if Pokemon comes out with something better and cooler that takes attention away from Eevee sets? Trainer’s Pokemon and Team Rocket sets are right on the horizon. Just like SWSH, Pokemon seems to be saving the best sets for the back half of the era.

Initial hype is certainly a good sign for a set (being popular is always better than not being popular), but it’s not some magic bullet for future gains.

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