What it costs to complete a Pokémon set (and how the eras changed it)

For a modern set (2020 onward), buying one of every card within the printed set number, the base set, costs a median of about €70 across 32 sets, and every card number including secret rares and the Trainer Gallery / Galarian Gallery / Shiny Vault sub-lists medians about €937. We call that the "master" cut, but it has one copy per card number and no reverse holos, so a collector's full master set (with every reverse holo) costs more. The extremes are wide: Pokémon GO master-completes for about €239, while Evolving Skies runs about €6984. Based on one Cardmarket EUR trend per card from Cardmarket's published price guide, valued 2026-11-02.

Largely because of where cards are numbered. In the Sword & Shield era the median base set cost about €398; in those sets many full-art and alternate-art V cards are numbered within the printed total, so they count in the base cut. In the Scarlet & Violet era the median base set is about €23, roughly 17x cheaper; there the Illustration Rares, Special Illustration Rares, full-art Ultra Rares and Hyper Rares are numbered ABOVE the printed total. Note that SV base sets are summed mostly from bulk prices of a few cents, which are thin and rest on few sales, so the €23 figure is rough and real buying costs (minimum orders, shipping) run higher. The master-cut medians barely moved (€950 vs €937). The extreme case is Black Bolt: base ~€8, master ~€2901, about 373x.

Among the 32 sets we measured, Evolving Skies (2021), at about €6984 for the master cut; its base run alone costs ~€2541, the highest base figure here. Its priciest card is the Umbreon VMAX alternate art at about €1,995 (30-day average €1,730), the priciest single in this dataset. In the median set, 61.8% of the master cost sits in its top 10 cards.

For every 2020+ Sword & Shield and Scarlet & Violet era set with at least 60 printed cards, we took one Cardmarket EUR trend per distinct card from Cardmarket's published price guide and summed two cuts: base (cards within the printed set number) and master (every card, with the Trainer Gallery, Galarian Gallery and Shiny Vault sub-lists attached to their parent sets). Micro-sets like Celebrations are excluded for size. Reverse holo and other variant printings are not included. Reference prices, not sale records; treat each figure as a snapshot floor for buying the set as singles. Valued 2026-11-02.