Data cutoff: Sunday, 25 October 2026, end of day. Distributed: Tuesday, 27 October 2026. Source: JustTCG.
The Week in Brief
Ten decliners, no gainers. Last week’s four green lines are gone, and the best climb anywhere in the pool, a Boss’s Orders from Paldea Evolved at +10.2%, would have ranked 18th. The Mega Evolution era owns the board: five of the ten are Mega-era cards, three of them from Ascended Heroes, and the next Mega set put its Build & Battle boxes on sale inside this window. Five of the ten fell on all seven days, which is what a market looks like when it is marking things down a little at a time rather than panicking.
The Chase Modern EN 50 stood at $36,998.80 on its 25 October refresh, +0.24% on the week against the 36,909.87 it printed on 18 October. Up, barely, and the shape is the story: it jumped to 37,590.28 on the 20th and gave almost all of it back over the next five days. The index is the fifty priciest chase cards and it finished up; the expensive end of our board did not. Cards at $100 or more had a median week of -2.73%, cards under $100 -0.97%, so don’t read the index line as the pricey end holding firm.
Figures are chase tier, $10 and up, sets at least ninety days old, ungraded Near Mint. The last-week column is back now that the two populations match.
Era | Cards | Median card | Share declining | Last week median | Last week declining |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sword & Shield | 239 | -0.61% | 64% | -0.71% | 65% |
Scarlet & Violet | 438 | -1.53% | 74% | -2.00% | 79% |
Mega Evolution | 77 | -3.60% | 79% | -2.69% | 78% |
Mega Evolution is the heavy row for a second week and it got heavier: median card -3.60% with 79 percent of its 77 cards falling, against -2.69% a week ago. Ascended Heroes is most of that, 25 of 27 down with a median card at -5.3%. Scarlet & Violet eased a little, -1.53% on the median from -2.00%, and Sword & Shield is the calm row again at -0.61%, which still means roughly two cards in three went down.
The whole board: median card -1.25% across 754 measured cards, 71 percent declining. 118 cards across our full coverage moved at least 5%, 27 of them up and 91 down. Call it three and a third decliners for every gainer at that size, a touch better than last week’s three and a half, and not by enough to build anything on.
Tournaments and product, briefly. Puebla ran a Regional on Saturday and Sunday with 2,234 players, the third straight weekend above two thousand after Nice and Louisville. Nothing on the board moved on it that we could trace, which is the usual lesson. What does show up is the calendar: Delta Reign’s Build & Battle boxes went on sale Saturday the 24th, with the full set landing 6 November. Last week’s Early Signal: Dreepy was the one-day jump we said needed a second price, and it got one, $11.37 to $8.72 over the seven days, -23.3% and back under the $10 floor. Hisuian Typhlosion VSTAR stayed flat at -0.4%. Marnie’s Grimmsnarl ex kept sliding, -4.5%. Of last week’s ten, Pikachu ex gave up another 6.0 percent, while Sylveon ex (-0.3%) and Arceus VSTAR (-0.3%) stopped where they were.
The Top 10 Movers
One list. Gainers and decliners ranked together by the size of the move.
# | Card | Set | Era | 7D | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Mega Emboar ex (273) | Ascended Heroes | Mega Evo | -15.5% | |
2 | Greninja ex (214) | Twilight Masquerade | S&V | -14.4% | |
3 | Timburr (125) | Black Bolt | S&V | -13.9% | |
4 | Mega Froslass ex (275) | Ascended Heroes | Mega Evo | -13.4% | |
5 | Giratina VSTAR (201) (Secret) | Lost Origin | SWSH | -13.3% | |
6 | Mega Venusaur ex (177) | Mega Evolution | Mega Evo | -12.5% | |
7 | Archaludon ex (241) | Surging Sparks | S&V | -12.4% | |
8 | Drayton (172) | Prismatic Evolutions | S&V | -12.3% | |
9 | Cinccino ex (119) | Chaos Rising | Mega Evo | -12.1% | |
10 | Mega Scrafty ex (285) | Ascended Heroes | Mega Evo | -11.8% |
Seven day window, 18 to 25 October 2026. Prices are ungraded Near Mint; the price column links to TCGplayer. 385 of 754 measured cards moved at least 2 percent, 237 of those cleared the direction and confirmation rules, and 148 were held out. None of the held-out cards moved enough to have made this ten; the two closest are named below.
No gainers in ten, which is four fewer than last week and the first all-red board since we rebuilt the universe. Three of the ten are cards under $15, and the two most expensive, Greninja ex and Mega Venusaur ex, are the two with the most money moving. Read the red lines with that in mind.
Why It Moved
Context for each of the ten, with the daily closes where the shape of the week is the story.
1. Mega Emboar ex (273)
Catalyst: Ascended Heroes supply — staggered product waves and reprints, with buyer attention on 30th Celebration (TCGplayer price trends, 13 October); Delta Reign Build & Battle boxes on sale 24 October, set lands 6 November (ICv2, 1 October)
The biggest move on the board and the cleanest. $37.09 to $31.35, down on all seven days, the largest of them Friday at 38 percent of the week. -18.7% over fourteen days, -30.4% over thirty, at the bottom of its range and repriced 29 of 30 days, which is about as busy as a card gets. Ascended Heroes is the worst set in our coverage again, 25 of 27 down with a median card at -5.3%. The set keeps arriving in waves, the next Mega set’s Build & Battle boxes hit shelves on Saturday, and the cards that were priced for scarcity in August keep finding out they are not scarce.
2. Greninja ex (214)
Catalyst: none identified
The most money on the board. $303.26 to $259.44, down on all seven days, Thursday the biggest at 36 percent of the week. -18.8% over fourteen days and -23.1% over thirty, at the bottom of its range. The thirty-day shape matters here: it sat at $337.24 for the last days of September and barely moved through the first week of October, repriced only 16 of 30, and then the last ten days did all of the damage. Twilight Masquerade as a set was -1.54% on the median with 19 of 23 down, so the set leans the same way and this card is leaning much harder. We looked for a reason, a reprint, a tournament result, a product, and found nothing attached to it.
3. Timburr (125)
Catalyst: none identified
$13.85 to $11.93, down five of seven with one flat day and one four-cent up day, Tuesday carrying 46 percent of it. The last three days were nearly flat, so most of the week came early. -19.2% over fourteen days, -29.9% over thirty, and it has been falling almost every day since late September, from $17.01 then to here. Black Bolt is the second-biggest set in our coverage at 52 cards and 46 of them fell, median -1.73%, so this is the set’s direction at four times the set’s pace. A basic-stage Illustration Rare at $12 is the kind of card that gets marked down without anyone noticing, which is roughly what happened.
4. Mega Froslass ex (275)
Catalyst: Ascended Heroes supply — staggered product waves and reprints, with buyer attention on 30th Celebration (TCGplayer price trends, 13 October); Delta Reign Build & Battle boxes on sale 24 October, set lands 6 November (ICv2, 1 October)
Ascended Heroes’ second entry. $60.02 to $51.99, flat on Monday and then down six straight, Tuesday the largest at 33 percent of the week. -19.2% over fourteen days, -26.5% over thirty, bottom of its range, repriced 26 of 30. It was $70.70 on 27 September and has lost ground on almost every day since, in steps that never got dramatic, which is the same shape as the Emboar above it and the Scrafty below.
5. Giratina VSTAR (201) (Secret)
Catalyst: none identified
The one Sword & Shield card in the ten, and the one whose week was really three days. $28.24 to $24.49: Tuesday and Wednesday did 79 percent of the move between them, Friday was flat, Saturday ticked up thirteen cents, and Sunday gave that back. -14.7% over fourteen days, -14.8% over thirty, bottom of its range, but repriced only 12 of 30 days: it sat at $28.72 for ten straight days before this started, so the thirty-day number is really a two-week number. Lost Origin was -0.48% on the median with 4 of 8 down, which is to say the set was split and this card was not. Nothing we could find happened to it.
6. Mega Venusaur ex (177)
Catalyst: Delta Reign, the next Mega Evolution set — Build & Battle boxes on sale 24 October, set lands 6 November (ICv2, 1 October); an era-level reason, nothing specific to this card
The first Mega Evolution set’s entry, and the second-most expensive card on the board. $132.22 to $115.67, down all seven days, Saturday the largest at only 25 percent of the week, which is as evenly spread as a decline gets. -15.7% over fourteen days, -23.3% over thirty, bottom of its range, repriced 24 of 30. The base Mega Evolution set was -3.73% on the median with 14 of 18 down, so this is the set doing what the set is doing, at three times the pace. It is a year-old set with a new sibling arriving in two weeks; that is the whole story we can attach to it.
7. Archaludon ex (241)
Catalyst: none identified
$13.04 to $11.42, down six of seven with one two-cent up day on Saturday, and the first three days were three identical thirty-nine-cent steps, which is a feed being marked down on a schedule rather than a market arguing. The longer view is the odd part: -12.2% over fourteen days but only -8.1% over thirty, because it climbed through the first half of October to $13.06 and then lost all of that and more. Surging Sparks was -3.59% on the median with 13 of 17 down.
8. Drayton (172)
Catalyst: Prismatic Evolutions reprint wave — the September ETB reprints that TCGplayer’s 13 October price-trends column ties to the set’s chase cards; nothing specific to this card
$12.55 to $11.01, down all seven days, Thursday the largest at 43 percent of the week, and the last three days were two cents, five cents and a penny, which is a card finding a number. -18.3% over fourteen days, -18.8% over thirty, bottom of its range, repriced 24 of 30. Prismatic Evolutions had 25 of 33 down, median -2.52%. A trainer SIR at eleven dollars from a set that is still being reprinted is the cheapest kind of chase card there is, and it is priced like it.
9. Cinccino ex (119)
Catalyst: Delta Reign, the next Mega Evolution set — Build & Battle boxes on sale 24 October, set lands 6 November (ICv2, 1 October); an era-level reason, nothing specific to this card
Chaos Rising’s first appearance on a board. $42.22 to $37.12, down all seven days and accelerating: Sunday was the largest at 31 percent of the week, Saturday second. -10.1% over fourteen days, -24.0% over thirty, bottom of its range, repriced 29 of 30. One wrinkle: it had actually steadied in mid-October, sitting just above $41 for a week, and Monday’s $42.22 was a small bounce before the week took it lower. Chaos Rising is only 7 cards in our coverage, 6 of them down, median -5.58%, the worst set median on the board this week.
10. Mega Scrafty ex (285)
Catalyst: Ascended Heroes supply — staggered product waves and reprints, with buyer attention on 30th Celebration (TCGplayer price trends, 13 October); Delta Reign Build & Battle boxes on sale 24 October, set lands 6 November (ICv2, 1 October)
Ascended Heroes’ third entry. $43.61 to $38.45, down six of seven with one twenty-five-cent up day on Thursday, Friday the largest at 39 percent of the week. -12.8% over fourteen days, -19.8% over thirty, bottom of its range, repriced 25 of 30. It was briefly $49.25 at the end of September and has not had two up days in a row since. Same set, same shape, further down the price list than Emboar and Froslass.
What we held out
148 cards moved at least 2 percent and did not make it past the rules: 146 because the move churned rather than went somewhere, 2 because one day did the work and nothing afterwards confirmed it. For the first time on the rebuilt universe, none of them moved enough to have made the ten; the two that came closest are worth a line each, because the rule that stopped them is the one that would have put a different card on the board.
Pignite (97), White Flare, -11.2%. It fell for four days, $13.89 to $11.89, and then climbed on two of the last three, finishing at $12.33. A card that bounces about a fifth of the way back is not a card going somewhere, so it sits out. It was short of the ten anyway.
Erika's Tangela (218), Ascended Heroes, +10.0%: up for four days, then down for two, then up on Sunday, and the net is a third of the distance it actually travelled. Path to the Peak (Secret), Astral Radiance, +6.3%: drifted around $11.50 all week and then stepped from $11.50 to $12.35 on Sunday, the cutoff itself, with nothing after it. That one is the same shape as last week’s Dreepy, and you saw above how Dreepy’s second price went.
No card in the universe closed Sunday under $10 and no card was pulled off the board by the review rule this week.
What qualifies as a mover
Chase tier, Sword & Shield onward, $10 or more, from a set at least ninety days old. At least 2 percent across the week. The move went somewhere rather than churned. If one day carried three-quarters or more of it, a later price change has to confirm it. No sealed product, no graded prices, no stale quotes. The full rules, the guards and what we don’t cover are on the how-it-works page, not here.
Informational only. The Spike Report is a market pricing publication. It describes observed secondary market activity for collectible trading cards. It is not investment advice, financial advice, or a recommendation of any kind, and nothing in it is a directive to take any action with any card or collectible. Trading cards are collectibles, not securities. Prices can move sharply in either direction and past movement does not indicate future movement. Any decision you make is your own.
Early Signal
Three cards whose price data currently matches a pattern we track. This week: a Paradox Rift ex that did its whole week in one Saturday step, the Fusion Strike Secret Rare we held off last week’s board that has now climbed 28% in a month and stopped, and the Destined Rivals slide that missed this board by one place. Included with Tome Intel and above.
Methodology. Data from JustTCG, the same source as the Chase Modern EN 50, so the two products cannot show contradictory prices for the same card. Coverage is the rebuilt universe: every chase-tier card at $10 or more across Sword & Shield, Scarlet & Violet and Mega Evolution, from sets at least ninety days old, 754 cards across 44 sets this week, all of which closed above the floor. How the Spike Report works is on its own page: The Spike Report · Pokémon | How It Works.
What changed this week. Nothing in the rules. The era table gets its last-week columns back, as promised, now that both weeks are on the same universe. The Early Signal base-rate table still sits out until the new universe has enough history to recompute it.
Sources this week. Set contents and release dates from the JustTCG set catalogue. Puebla Regional attendance from Limitless TCG. Ascended Heroes and Prismatic Evolutions supply notes from TCGplayer’s price-trends column of 13 October. Delta Reign’s Build & Battle date of 24 October and release date of 6 November from ICv2 (1 October). Entries marked “none identified” mean no event we could find attaches to that specific card, not that the week was quiet.
Cadence. Data cutoff end of day Sunday, distributed Tuesday. Unchanged.
Corrections. If a number here looks wrong, comment below. Corrections get published.
