Evolving Skies Chase Cards: The Moonbreon and the Nine Cards Chasing It
In the autumn of 2021 you could buy a whole booster box of Evolving Skies for about a hundred dollars. Today a single pack costs nearly half that, and the card everybody is hoping to find in it is worth more than twenty of those old boxes.
Evolving Skies came out on August 27, 2021, the Sword & Shield set built around Eevee's evolutions and the return of Dragon-type Pokémon. The numbering stops at 203, but the set does not: it runs on to 237/203, and those 34 extra cards are the secret rares, where half of this list lives. It was popular from the first weekend and, for about a year, easy to find. Shops restocked it, boxes slid below their launch price, and it took until its first birthday to claw back to around two hundred dollars a box.
Then the reputation took over. Bleeding Cool's launch review gave it 10/10 and called it "a modern classic", and five years on nobody is arguing. It has not been reprinted since it went out of print around 2023, and it rotated out of Standard tournament play in April 2024. The hits are also brutally hard to find, hard enough that players started calling it "Evolving Cries". When TCGplayer opened more than 8,000 packs at launch to measure it, they found an alternate-art VMAX in about 1 in 332 packs, and any one specific alternate-art VMAX in roughly 1 in 2,000.
Every card on this list is an alternate art: a full-card scene in place of the standard design. The ones marked VMAX show the Pokémon in its Dynamax form, the giant, glowing version from the Sword and Shield video games, and they are the rarest of the lot. And while 151 spent this spring and summer falling, every single card on this list is worth more today than it was in March, by somewhere between 17 and 86 percent.
A quick note before the countdown. The prices in the boxes below are live and move with the market. Any figure quoted in the writing is accurate as of publication, September 23, 2026. Everything here is raw and near mint unless it says otherwise.
If you want the full picture rather than the top of the pile, the complete Evolving Skies card list has all 237 cards with current values.
Here are the Evolving Skies chase cards, counting up to arguably the most famous modern Pokémon card there is.
#10 Sylveon V 184/203 (Alternate Art)
Illustrated by Yuu Nishida
The countdown starts in a cake shop, which is the correct place to start anything.
Yuu Nishida, who won the very first Pokémon Card Game Illustration Grand Prix in 2019, put Sylveon on top of a bakery display counter, juggling cupcakes with its ribbon feelers and holding a third in its paw, like it has been asked to help and is taking the job very seriously. The glass case below is packed with cakes, macarons and pastries, there are jars of jam on the shelves behind, and the whole shop is lit gold by shafts of sunlight. A chalkboard sign sits at the bottom and a leafy plant in the corner. Everything on it looks freshly baked, including the light.
It has put on about sixty dollars since March and sits at $199.09, the cheapest ticket onto this list.
#9 Espeon V 180/203 (Alternate Art)
Illustrated by sowsow
Espeon got one alternate art in this set, and this is it. An alternate-art Espeon VMAX never made it into Evolving Skies; English players got one a few months later, in Fusion Strike.
sowsow gave Espeon a library. It sits on a buttoned leather armchair, perfectly calm, while books float all around it in a purple psychic glow, alongside a lantern, a globe and a scatter of loose papers. It is all soft, chalky, pastel strokes, and the covers of the floating books are worth a close look: one has a sun on it, one a crescent moon, one a Ditto and one a sketch of an Eevee. One of sowsow's earliest Pokémon cards, in Forbidden Light, was a Cubone looking up at a cloud shaped like its mother's skull, so this is them in a much better mood.
Espeon is $240.03, about forty dollars more than the cake shop.
#8 Glaceon VMAX 209/203 (Alternate Art Secret Rare)
Illustrated by kirisAki
The first VMAX on the list, and the first party.
kirisAki, best known for full-art Trainer cards like Rosa, the chase card of Cosmic Eclipse, drew Glaceon at Dynamax size, standing on a frozen pond in an autumn park. The trees are orange, a stone bridge crosses the stream, benches line the path and there is a cart tied to a bunch of balloons. And Glaceon has company. Pikachu is out on the ice on the right, Eevee is bounding along at the left, a Marill is at the bottom left with a big, blurry Azumarill gliding past behind the attack text, and a Feebas is splashing about in the one bit of water that has not frozen.
At $312.61 it is within a dollar of its highest price since March.
#7 Sylveon VMAX 212/203 (Alternate Art Secret Rare)
Illustrated by Taira Akitsu
A bigger party, and this time there is a reason for the guest list.
Taira Akitsu put Sylveon, towering over everything, in the middle of a festival in a pastel town, all confetti, parasols, café tables and striped market stalls, with its ribbons looping through the whole scene. Look at who turned up. Vaporeon is sitting on a ribbon near its feet. Marshadow is perched on another ribbon on the right. A Flabébé holding its red flower floats in at the top left, and a Kangaskhan is watching from a rooftop.
The reason is the blue Rapid Strike banner near the top of the card. Rapid Strike was one of the battle styles printed on cards at the time, a bit like a team badge, and Vaporeon, Flabébé and Marshadow all wear it on their own cards in this same set. Kangaskhan joined the team a set later. And then there is Eevee, three times over, which in an Eevee set counts as restraint: one riding a ribbon up by the HP, one asleep at a café table, and a big one seen from behind in the bottom right corner.
It is $384.28, less than a dollar behind the card at number six, and it has one more trick, which is below in the grading section.
#6 Umbreon V 189/203 (Alternate Art)
Illustrated by Teeziro
Umbreon, doing the thing Umbreon does best, which is staring.
Teeziro put it on top of a brick wall at the end of a narrow stone alley at night, a full moon sitting right behind its head and a lantern hanging from the building to one side. It is perfectly still, looking down at a crowd of dark, spiky silhouettes gathered below it, all turned towards it. Whoever they are, they came to see Umbreon, and Umbreon has not decided whether to let them.
At $385.20 it sits 92 cents above the Sylveon VMAX, and it is also the card on this list that PSA is hardest on.
#5 Leafeon VMAX 205/203 (Alternate Art Secret Rare)
Illustrated by HYOGONOSUKE
If the English countryside ever issued a Pokémon card, it would look like this.
HYOGONOSUKE, the artist behind the starry Cleffa in our Obsidian Flames chase cards countdown, drew Leafeon rolling a round hay bale across a harvested golden field. Behind it are more bales, green hills and hedgerows. In front of it runs a dry-stone wall with a rake and two shovels leaning against it, and an old wooden hay cart is parked in the stubble just behind. There is no black linework anywhere, just flat shapes, every colour sitting cleanly against the next. It would make a superb jigsaw, which is higher praise than it sounds.
At $402.96, Leafeon is the priciest Eeveelution VMAX in the set that is not an Umbreon.
#4 Rayquaza V 194/203 (Alternate Art)
Illustrated by Ryuta Fuse
Rayquaza, with a human for scale.
Ryuta Fuse drew Rayquaza coiling in a great ring through a bright blue sky, and underneath it, standing on dusty ground, is Zinnia. If you played Omega Ruby or Alpha Sapphire, she is why Rayquaza shows up at all: she calls it down to smash a meteor before it lands. Here she is holding a Poké Ball and looking thoughtful, cloak blowing behind her. Her Whismur is at her feet looking considerably less thoughtful. Bleeding Cool liked it enough in 2021 to rank it above the pricier Rayquaza at number two.
At $490.35 it is up about three quarters since March, and only the other Rayquaza on this list has climbed faster.
#3 Dragonite V 192/203 (Alternate Art)
Illustrated by Atsushi Furusawa
Dragonite has the energy of someone who has taken the afternoon off.
Atsushi Furusawa painted it drifting on its back over a misty forest, eyes shut, jaw dropped in an enormous yawn, one hand raised to its mouth and the other resting on its belly, legs dangling. Around and below it, a flock of Spearow is flapping hard to get somewhere, with one big Fearow among them. Dragonite is not going anywhere.
It is the laziest a dragon has ever looked on a card, and at $523.47 it costs more than every Eeveelution on this list bar one. Furusawa has not slowed down either: the Fuecoco ex Special Illustration Rare in last week's 30th Celebration set is theirs.
#2 Rayquaza VMAX 218/203 (Alternate Art Secret Rare)
Illustrated by Anesaki Dynamic
The card that was supposed to be number one.
Anesaki Dynamic drew Rayquaza at full Dynamax size, coiling down through a daytime landscape of towering rock pillars topped with trees, with mountains behind and pink beams of that same Dynamax glow shooting up from the ground. It is green, angry and enormous, which is everything anyone has ever wanted from a Rayquaza.
At launch, this was the card to pull, not the Umbreon. At the end of September 2021, Bleeding Cool had it at about $258 against the Umbreon's $222. Umbreon overtook it within two months and has stayed in front ever since. This year, the Rayquaza started closing the gap. It was $674.76 in March, and on September 17 it hit $1,255.44, its highest price in our data and a gain of 86 percent, the biggest on this list.
#1 Umbreon VMAX 215/203 (Alternate Art Secret Rare)
Illustrated by KEIICHIRO ITO
The Moonbreon.
KEIICHIRO ITO drew Umbreon, Dynamax-sized, clinging to the top of a slate-roofed tower, one front paw stretched up towards an enormous full moon. The sky is a swirl of teal and green full of stars, a second, thinner tower rises to the left, and far below, a town full of lit windows sits along the edge of the water. A beam of violet light runs down the right side, and Umbreon itself has a magenta glow around it. There is not another Pokémon on the card. It does not need one.
The card came out in Japan first, in the Eevee Heroes set in May 2021, and nobody seems to know who first called it Moonbreon. Google searches for the name barely register until the middle of 2022, a year after the English release. By now it is simply the name, and TCGplayer has called it "the mascot of Pokémon card collecting in the 2020s".
Its low came early, at around $175 at the end of 2021, while boxes were still easy to buy. It was around $600 in early 2024, pushed past $1,500 around the time Prismatic Evolutions arrived with its own crystal Umbreon, and reached an all-time high of $2,416.28 on July 31 this year. It is $2,299.94 today, the most valuable raw card from any English set since 2020 that we price. Its Prismatic successor sells for more in a PSA 10 slab, which you can read about in our Prismatic Evolutions chase cards countdown, but raw, the Moonbreon is still out on its own.
Is it worth grading Evolving Skies cards?
PSA is kind to Evolving Skies, and that changes the maths.
| Card | Raw | PSA 10 | Profit | PSA 10 pop | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Umbreon VMAX 215 | $2,299.94 | $4,127.66 | $1,518.73 | 21,673 | Gamble |
| Rayquaza VMAX 218 | $1,255.44 | $2,264.42 | $849.99 | 15,123 | Gamble |
| Dragonite V 192 | $523.47 | $1,072.26 | $463.81 | 10,705 | Gamble |
| Rayquaza V 194 | $490.35 | $1,248.73 | $673.40 | 9,750 | Gamble |
| Leafeon VMAX 205 | $402.96 | $563.38 | $90.44 | 11,411 | Gamble |
| Umbreon V 189 | $385.20 | $990.54 | $535.36 | 8,531 | Gamble |
| Sylveon VMAX 212 | $384.28 | $605.24 | $150.98 | 14,277 | Safe bet |
| Glaceon VMAX 209 | $312.61 | $516.98 | $134.39 | 11,023 | Gamble |
| Espeon V 180 | $240.03 | $463.91 | $193.90 | 6,892 | Gamble |
| Sylveon V 184 | $199.09 | $388.99 | $159.92 | 7,153 | Gamble |
PSA 10 is our market estimate from recent graded sales. Profit is what is left after buying the card raw and paying the grading fee and shipping. PSA 10 pop is how many copies PSA has graded a 10 so far: copies graded, not sold, and the supply a new slab would join. Safe bet means a PSA 9 still turns a profit; Gamble means only a 10 does.
Look at the PSA 10 pop column next to the Moonbreon. PSA has graded about 31,000 of them, and nearly 22,000 of those came back a 10. That is 69 percent. The Prismatic Evolutions Umbreon, its obvious rival, manages under 30. The other VMAX alternate arts here all sit around 70 percent too. The V alternate arts come out of the same packs and manage only about half. Nobody has published why.
How often a card comes back a 10 decides this table. When 10s are common, a 10 is not special, and the premium for one is small. Leafeon VMAX comes back a 10 about 72 percent of the time, and a PSA 10 is worth only about 1.4 times a raw copy, which leaves very little once the fee is paid. Umbreon V comes back a 10 least often, about four in ten, and a PSA 10 is worth more than two and a half times raw. The card PSA is hardest on has the best multiplier on the list.
Then there is the Sylveon VMAX, the only Safe bet here, which is the table's way of saying even a PSA 9 pays. Its 9 sells for more than a raw copy, by enough to cover the fee. Only just, mind: a small move in either price would tip it back into Gamble.
For the VMAX cards, seven in ten come back a 10, so the real question is whether yours is one of the three that do not. Slab Advisor answers that before PSA does: it estimates the grade from a scan and prices the 10 and the 9, so the fee only goes on cards that can earn it back.
The rest of the sky
Just outside the top ten sit Glaceon V, lounging on a snowy park bench, and Leafeon V, bursting out of a pile of autumn leaves, both between $150 and $160.
Sort Evolving Skies by price and a couple of gatecrashers turn up near the top, neither of which came out of a booster pack: copies of the regular Rayquaza VMAX and Umbreon VMAX stamped with the Play! Pokémon logo, handed out in sealed prize packs to players at local tournaments in 2022 and 2023. The stamped Rayquaza VMAX is $468.04, about thirty one times the unstamped card.
And if you want a lesson in how much the art matters, the rainbow rare version of the same Umbreon VMAX, numbered 214, one place before the Moonbreon, is $83.76. The attack text is word for word the same. The Moonbreon is worth more than twenty seven of them.
If you are after the full 237, the Evolving Skies card list prices every one of them and picks out the ones you are still missing.
Five years ago you could buy a box of this set for about a hundred dollars. Nobody who walked past one is over it yet.