Foilio Study · Open data
In a Pokémon set, a handful of cards hold almost all the value
We added up the market-trend price of every single card in 8 Pokémon sets — 1,673 cards in total — and measured where the money actually sits. The answer is lopsided: the top 5 cards hold an average of 49% of a set's entire value, while 13–77% of the cards in every set trade for under €1.
Computed 2026-06-19 from Cardmarket EUR trend price, via the open pokemontcg.io API. Reference estimates, not sold records — free to cite with a link to this page.
How each set's value splits across its cards
Each bar is one set's total value, broken into the share held by its most valuable card, cards 2–5, cards 6–10, and everything else. Sorted oldest to newest.
What the numbers say
- Vintage is brutally top-heavy. A complete 1999 Base Set is worth about €5,720 at Cardmarket trend (one of every card) — and €2,712 of that (47.4%) is one card, the holo Charizard. The top 10 cards alone are 83.9% of the set. (Other bases — raw Unlimited, graded sets — put Charizard nearer a third; the point is the same: one card dwarfs the rest.)
- Modern sets spread value — a little. Newer sets print several Special Illustration and secret rares, so no single card dominates the way Charizard does; the top 10 average 58% in sets from 2019 on. But the tail is even cheaper: in most modern sets the median card is worth only a few cents.
- Most of any set is bulk. 13–77% of the cards in every set we checked trade under €1. The value you feel when you open packs comes almost entirely from the small chance of hitting a chase card — which is exactly the rarity-price ladder.
- Why it matters when you open or buy. Because value is concentrated, a sealed box's worth is really a bet on a few cards. That's exactly what an expected-value calculation captures — see Foilio's box-EV tool before you rip. And it isn't just Pokémon — we found the same pattern in Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh in the cross-game study.
The full data
Every figure below is computed from Cardmarket EUR trend price, via the open pokemontcg.io API, 2026-06-19. “Master-set value” is the sum of one of every card at trend price.
| Set | Master set | Top 1 | Top 5 | Top 10 | Under €1 | Median card |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Base Set 1999 · top by EU trend: Charizard €2,712 | €5,720 | 47.4% | 74.8% | 83.9% | 13% | €7.46 |
Cosmic Eclipse 2019 · top by EU trend: Togepi & Cleffa & Igglybuff-GX €406 | €3,607 | 11.3% | 35.6% | 51.9% | 63% | €0.29 |
Vivid Voltage 2020 · top by EU trend: Pikachu VMAX €182 | €553 | 32.9% | 49.7% | 58.3% | 69% | €0.16 |
Crown Zenith 2023 · top by EU trend: Pikachu €38 | €189 | 19.9% | 47.3% | 60.8% | 77% | €0.09 |
Scarlet & Violet Base 2023 · top by EU trend: Drowzee €53 | €500 | 10.6% | 33.8% | 48.7% | 74% | €0.06 |
Scarlet & Violet—151 2023 · top by EU trend: Charizard ex €236 | €1,541 | 15.3% | 43% | 60.4% | 73% | €0.08 |
Paldean Fates 2024 · top by EU trend: Mew ex €507 | €1,451 | 34.9% | 60.2% | 65.3% | 40% | €2.10 |
Twilight Masquerade 2024 · top by EU trend: Greninja ex €224 | €839 | 26.7% | 49% | 62.4% | 70% | €0.06 |
Cards with no available reference price are excluded from totals. Special-illustration / secret rares are included as separate cards. Individual chase-card prices move daily; the concentration pattern is stable. “Top by EU trend” is the single highest Cardmarket (EUR) trend price — the EU and US (TCGplayer) markets occasionally rank a set's very top cards differently. In Scarlet & Violet base, for example, the Drowzee illustration rare (€53) and the Gardevoir ex special illustration rare (€51) sit within ~3% on Cardmarket, with Gardevoir ahead on the US market.
How we computed this
- For each set we pulled every card id — including secret and illustration rares — from the open pokemontcg.io API.
- We took each card's Cardmarket EUR trend price (the same open, attributed source Foilio prices Pokémon with) and summed them into a “master-set value.”
- We sorted cards by value and measured the share held by the top 1, 3, 5 and 10, plus the percentage under €1 and the median.
- It's reproducible: the script lives in our repo and re-running it refreshes the figures as trend prices drift.
Questions
How much of a Pokémon set's value is in the rare cards?
Across the 8 sets we measured, the single most valuable card holds 10.6–47.4% of the set's entire market value, the top 5 cards hold 33.8–74.8% (average 49%), and the top 10 cards hold 48.7–83.9%. Value is highly concentrated in a handful of chase cards; the rest of the set is mostly bulk.
What percentage of Pokémon cards are worth under €1?
In every set we measured, 13–77% of the priced cards trade under €1 (average 60%). In most modern sets the typical (median) card is worth only a few cents — the value lives in the chase cards, not the commons.
Are older Pokémon sets more concentrated than modern ones?
Yes. In 1999's Base Set the top 10 cards held 83.9% of all value and a single card (Charizard) held 47.4%. Modern sets are less top-heavy (top 10 averaging 58%) because they print several special-illustration and secret rares that spread value across more cards — but their long tail is even cheaper, with median cards worth pennies.
Where does this data come from, and can I trust it?
We summed the Cardmarket EUR trend price of every card id in each set using the open pokemontcg.io API, then measured the share held by the most valuable cards. These are reference estimates, not sold records, and individual chase-card prices move daily — but the concentration pattern is stable and the method is reproducible (the script is in our repo). We never scrape marketplaces and never invent a number.
What does value concentration mean for opening booster packs?
It means the expected value of a pack is driven almost entirely by the chance of hitting one of a few chase cards — most cards you pull are worth under €1. Before ripping sealed product, it's worth checking a box's expected value against its price; you can do that free on Foilio's box-EV tool.
See where your value sits
Value your own collection free across every major game — and find out how much of it is riding on a few chase cards. No account.
Citing this study? Please link to foilio.net/studies/pokemon-set-value-concentration. Data licensed CC BY 4.0.
Cite or embed this study
Free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Paste the embed on your site for the chart card + a link back, or grab the plain citation.
<a href="https://foilio.net/studies/pokemon-set-value-concentration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
<img src="https://foilio.net/studies/og?stat=47.4%25&label=of%201999%20Base%20Set's%20value%20is%20a%20single%20Charizard&title=Where%20a%20Pok%C3%A9mon%20set's%20value%20really%20hides%3A%20a%20concentration%20study" alt="Where a Pokémon set's value really hides: a concentration study — Foilio" width="600" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:12px" />
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Source: <a href="https://foilio.net/studies/pokemon-set-value-concentration">Where a Pokémon set's value really hides: a concentration study — Foilio</a> · data CC BY 4.0
</p>Foilio (2026-06-19). Where a Pokémon set's value really hides: a concentration study. Retrieved from https://foilio.net/studies/pokemon-set-value-concentration