The Pokémon Type Tax: does a card's type change its price?
Two cards, same rarity, wildly different price. We took the median price of 571 modern Illustration Rares, held the rarity tier constant, and grouped them by Pokémon type. The type alone moves the number.
Typical card value, by type
Median Cardmarket EUR trend price of Illustration and Special Illustration Rares. Median, not average, so one chase card cannot inflate a type.
The most expensive card is not the most expensive type
The single priciest card in the whole sample is Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex, a Psychic-type card at €571. Yet Psychic ranks only mid-table by median. That gap is exactly why this study uses the median: a single whale card tells you nothing about what a typical card of that type is worth. Dragon wins not on one card, but because its whole distribution sits higher.
The priciest card of each type
| Type | Typical (median) | Priciest card | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dragon | €26 | Raging Bolt ex | €62 |
| Darkness | €16 | Charizard ex | €209 |
| Fire | €14 | Ethan's Ho-Oh ex | €284 |
| Psychic | €14 | Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex | €571 |
| Lightning | €13 | Pikachu ex | €273 |
| Water | €11 | Magikarp | €191 |
| Grass | €9.66 | Venusaur ex | €80 |
| Colorless | €7.23 | Persian | €47 |
| Fighting | €6.65 | Cynthia's Garchomp ex | €254 |
| Metal | €5.65 | Hop's Zacian ex | €36 |
Method & sources
- We pulled every card at the Illustration Rare and Special Illustration Rare tiers with a Cardmarket price via the open pokemontcg.io API (571 priced cards).
- Holding the rarity tier constant is the key: it isolates the effect of type from the effect of rarity.
- Per type we took the median Cardmarket EUR trend price, robust to one expensive chase card. Types with fewer than 8 priced cards were excluded.
- Cardmarket EUR trend price via the open pokemontcg.io API. Valued 2026-07-03. Reference estimates, not sold records; prices move. Reproducible from the open API.
FAQ
Does a Pokémon card's type affect its price?
At the same rarity, yes, measurably. Across 571 modern Illustration Rares and Special Illustration Rares, the median Dragon-type card trades at €26 while the median Metal-type card is €5.65, about 4.58x cheaper. Rarity is held constant, so the gap is the type effect, driven by how iconic and scarce each type's chase Pokémon are.
Which Pokémon type is the most valuable?
Dragon, by a clear margin (€26 median), largely because Dragon-type Pokémon are relatively scarce in print and include sought-after legendaries. Darkness (€16) and Fire (€14) follow. The cheapest types are Metal (€5.65) and Fighting (€6.65).
So does the single most expensive card belong to the priciest type?
No, and that is the point of using the median. The single priciest card in the sample is Team Rocket's Mewtwo ex, a Psychic-type card at €571, yet Psychic sits only mid-table on the median. One whale card does not lift a whole type; the median shows what a typical card of that type is actually worth.
Where does this data come from, and is it reliable?
We pulled every card at these two rarity tiers and its Cardmarket EUR trend price via the open pokemontcg.io API, then took the median per type (Cardmarket EUR trend price via the open pokemontcg.io API, valued 2026-07-03), excluding types with fewer than 8 priced cards. These are reference estimates, not sold records, and prices move. We never scrape marketplaces and never invent a number; the figures are reproducible from the open API.
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Source: <a href="https://foilio.net/studies/pokemon-type-tax?utm_source=share&utm_medium=study_embed&utm_campaign=viral">The Pokémon Type Tax: does a card's type change its price?, Foilio</a> · data CC BY 4.0
</p>Foilio (2026-07-03). The Pokémon Type Tax: does a card's type change its price?. Retrieved from https://foilio.net/studies/pokemon-type-tax