I don’t necessarily disagree, #4 and #5 are somewhat interchangeable. I try to take a holistic approach.
As someone who’s first and foremost a competitive player, eeveelution mania is unheard of there.
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Ohh my bad then. Sorry, I just thought it was most popular Pokemon overall since that is the topic. However, the price aspect is not mentioned in the OP but even if it the TCG purely, Pikachu should be in top 3 easy. It has the highest promo cards released and also has multiple entry points (easy, medium, difficult) for any collector.
Rest I think depends on the whatever is popular but I would guess it would switch between Umbreon, Charizard, Gengar.
Cheers!
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I don’t keep up with the modern releases and prices too much, I’m looking at the whole picture more than one single card
Yeah, pretty interesting. I guess it depends on the angle you take. I thought it would be pretty clear that Umbreon is the hottest thing right now, but I’m not really up to date when it comes to promo’s.
So maybe it would be something like this;
#1 Pikachu (when it’s about the overall market including (niche) promo’s).
#1 Umbreon (when it’s about the main market)
#1 Charizard (when it’s about longtime, hardcore fans of the main market)
Maybe… #1 Umbreon (when you focus on the previous 4 years alone?)
Had a quick look at the top 10 cards for these three on pokedata.io The raw figures may not be 100% accurate, but it’s somewhat indicative. Umbreon Gold Star seems a little off…
Pikachu doesn’t include Trophy cards etc. I don’t know if I’d consider Poncho/Mario etc. Pikachu’s to be niche, but maybe that’s just me. They’re quite liquid aren’t they?
Anyway, quite interesting to look at.
Edit: To avoid confusion, I believe the order would be:
- Pikachu
- Charizard
- Umbreon
The only way Umbreon could be number 1 is if we focused on cards from the last 4 years alone.
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Umbreon Gold Star is that high up on the list, because it was really hard to get, both in English and in Japanese (same with Espeon but being a less popular Mon).
RAYQUAZA gold star goes for 3,000 in NM condition, so technically it’s the 2nd most popular.
I think an important factor that is left out in many of these posts is the interaction in supply and demand. Just because a card is that expensive doesn’t automatically mean that it’s a way more popular Mon but could also mean that the supply was really low or it has some other unique features (for example the Cramorant stamp promo is relatively expensive but it has nothing to do with the popularity of Cramorant but rather with the release history and artwork).
For me the Top 3 are pretty much clear (maybe you can change the order between them). After them a gap and how I would order them in terms of TCG popularity:
- Pikachu
- Charizard
- Umbreon
- Rayquaza
- Lugia
- Gengar
- Blastoise
- Eevee
- Mew
- Mewtwo
Honorable mentions: The other Eeveelutions, Greninja, Venusaur and Dragonite
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To me they are niche (Poncho Pikachu’s). I don’t collect Japanese.
Nice graph by the way. To me this still shows Umbreon’s (modern) superiority, but if you would count the Poncho Pikachu line, then it would be different. Again, not my field.
On a side note; it is really weird that a Moonbreon is more expensive than a Shining Charizard. Times have changed. I really think they will shift back again.
I don’t doubt it should top of the Umbreon list. More that I find it difficult to judge whether the raw price is accurate. I can’t imagine raw copies come up often, particularly the Japanese version! So there isn’t much in way of sales data - graded English copy sales appear to be a couple of times are year (according to 130point) max.
Yes, you’re quite right, if Gold Star value is the only metric.
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by literally ever measure, charizard and Pikachu are the most popular pokemon with a massive gap between them and number 3
also, with the exception of the 70,000 Pts Umbreon card and possibly psa10 gold star umbreon, The top ten charizard cards in terms of value absolutely crush every other umbreon card ever made
I dont think you should count promo cards and regional championship cards though, ext.
I also want to point out, pikachu illustrator has a Charmander on it. And 1st edition base zard regularly sells for hundreds of thousands each and every sale and STILL is the defacto chase card for the pokemon tcg
I’m just saying… cheetozard sells for $87k+ because it’s charizard… if that was a gengar looking cheeto im not even sure it makes the news
also, I would argue Mew/Mewtwo have a more storied history with bigger cards, more recognition, more subs than gengar and possibly umbreon although not quite as popular lately
The problem with raw card data is that it heavily tilts in umbreons favor because 2 of its biggest cards are recent/modern.
If i’m selling a charizard star and its pack fresh, i promise you im getting thousand(s) for it plural. The raw card data includes a lot of LP/HP vintage cards
A raw sunbreon is assumed to be pack fresh so it’s getting top dollar.
also as a side note: comparing all the gold star cards in misleading
Rayquaza comes out of Deoxys which wasnt loved/preserved and the pop on this card is 1,200. Thats total pop of all PSA subs for all grades, and includes resubs
For comparisons sake charizard star has a pop of 3,371… so almost 3 times as common as Rayquaza
and lets put aside psa10 data because its shakey and they rarely become available for sale
psa9 Rayquaza has recent sales from $8-9k
psa9 star zard just sold in a PSA auction for $10.5k
so im not even sure Rayquaza is the most valuable star card anymore
sorry pal.
if psa9 is getting 10.5k
a fresh psa10 will probably fetch 50k
thats just how it works
yesterdays news is old and irrelevant
its always been 4-6x psa9 price throughout the history
in 2021 when zard sold for over 25k the psa9 was getting ~5k
in 2023 when market collapased and zard got “only” 17.1k the psa9 was selling between 3-4k
its a strong ratio. Psa9 has multiple sales in feb for well over 8 with recents over 10k. the psa10 will be a multiple of this
old certs will be discounted tho
Can someone fact check this its a few months old
Surprised a bit seeing Zapdos so high, but seems otherwise as expected
I would argue, this over everything else to be the most accurate indicator of popularity…
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Here is the data posted by Gem Rate on Jan 26th 2025.
Here is their Instagram post.
Charizard and Pikachu definitely dominate grading popularity.
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How are venu and zap higher than Eevee and gengar?
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Being intentionally nitpicky I have to say that in order to take this at face value one would have to assume the availability of cards to grade is the same accross all pokemon (i. e. maybe all of the last 15 sets have had a zapdos but just one rayquaza).
I do agree this is the best though as I’d guess the distribution of cards printed across top 10 at least should be somewhat even (charmander might be an outlier?).
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Wondering why venusaur is not on the list and why Pikachu isn’t in the top 5