Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Obsidian Flames released on 11 August 2023 with 230 cards: a 197-card main set plus 33 secret rares numbered 198 to 230. Its face card is Charizard ex 223/197, the Special Illustration Rare by AKIRA EGAWA, priced by Quaza Track at CA$165.34 on 25 July 2026. This is the set that introduced type-shifted Tera Pokémon ex — a Charizard printed as a Darkness type — and, unlike 151 six weeks later, it was sold in an ordinary 36-pack booster box. Below: the rarity ladder, sixteen chase cards, all seventeen products with four of them priced live, and where the market settled.
Obsidian Flames sealed, priced live
Quaza Track carries four Obsidian Flames sealed products and reprices them daily in Canadian dollars, so these stay current after publication. Full history sits on the Obsidian Flames tracker page.
Six Tera Pokémon ex, four of them actually type-shifted
Obsidian Flames introduced no new keyword. It introduced a design variation on the Tera Pokémon ex already in the format: cards whose printed type and Weakness follow the Tera type while their attack costs stay with the Pokémon's original type. Six appear, all at Double Rare, all by 5ban Graphics.
| Tera Pokémon ex | Number | Printed type | Attack Energy | HP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charizard ex | 125/197 | Darkness | Fire | 330 |
| Tyranitar ex | 066/197 | Lightning | Fighting | 340 |
| Vespiquen ex | 096/197 | Psychic | Grass | 270 |
| Eiscue ex | 042/197 | Fire | Water | 210 |
| Dragonite ex | 159/197 | Dragon | Colorless / Lightning / Water | 330 |
| Greedent ex | 179/197 | Colorless | Colorless | 260 |
Only four are type-shifted — Charizard ex 125, Tyranitar ex 066, Vespiquen ex 096 and Eiscue ex 042. Dragonite ex is printed Dragon and Greedent ex Colorless, the types those two normally receive anyway, so "six type-shifted Tera Pokémon ex" overstates it. Eiscue ex 042 is the cleanest example — a Fire-type card whose attack costs Water Energy. Charizard ex 125 takes a Grass Weakness because Darkness answers to Bug in the games and Bug is drawn as Grass in the TCG; the Weakness is printed, that reasoning is community explanation.
Verbatim: as long as this Pokémon is on your Bench, prevent all damage done to this Pokémon by attacks, both yours and your opponent's. It stops attack damage only, so counters placed by an Ability or a Trainer still land; it covers both players' attacks; and it does nothing once the card is Active.
Charizard ex 125/197 carried an archetype for two years: Infernal Reign searches up to three Basic Fire Energy out of the deck on evolution, and Burning Darkness does 180 damage plus 30 more for each Prize card the opponent has already taken. Four prints exist — 125, Ultra Rare 215, Special Illustration Rare 223, gold 228 — all gameplay-identical. Dragonite ex 159 and Greedent ex 179 have no secret-rare print at all.
The chase tier, and how top-heavy it is
The 33 secrets are 12 Illustration Rares, 12 full-art etched Ultra Rares, 6 Special Illustration Rares and 3 golds. Sixteen below; filter by rarity, tap to zoom.
















| Card | Number | Rarity | USD, 25 Jul 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charizard ex | 223/197 | SIR | $110–117 |
| Charizard ex | 228/197 | Hyper Rare | $36–40 |
| Ninetales | 199/197 | IR | $39–41 |
| Cleffa | 202/197 | IR | $35–39 |
| Gloom | 198/197 | IR | $25 |
| Pidgeot ex | 225/197 | SIR | $18–23 |
| Charizard ex | 215/197 | UR | $21–22 |
| Pidgey | 207/197 | IR | $18 |
| Scizor | 205/197 | IR | $17 |
| Lechonk | 209/197 | IR | $14–15 |
| Eiscue ex | 222/197 | SIR | $8 |
| Revavroom ex | 224/197 | SIR | $5 |
| Basic Fire Energy | 230/197 | Hyper Rare | $4 |
| Poppy | 227/197 | SIR | $3 |
Aggregator market prices in USD, read 25 July 2026, quoted as ranges where up to four sites disagree; six of these rows rest on a single aggregator. These are quotes, not transactions: no individually dated sale for any Obsidian Flames card was retrievable, and PokeScope returned "no sales history found".
The distribution is severely top-heavy. Charizard ex 223, at $117.32 on Cardrake's card list, beats the next three secret rares combined — Ninetales 199, Cleffa 202 and gold Charizard ex 228 total $113.41 — and is 27% of the $435.22 all 33 secrets add up to. Below it the Ultra Rare tier is nearly worthless: eleven of twelve trade under $6, Ryme 221 at $0.89. Gold Basic Fire Energy 230, at $3.74, outprices 14 of the 33 secrets.
Every product, with live CAD prices
Seventeen Obsidian Flames-branded products shipped, from the prerelease Build & Battle Box to a Super-Premium Collection fourteen months after launch. Its packs also went on turning up inside other sets' products, covered below. CAD is live from Quaza Track; untracked rows read N/A.
| Product | Packs | MSRP (USD) | Live (CAD) | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Booster Display Box | 36 | $161.64† | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Elite Trainer Box | 9 | $49.99† | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box | 11 | $59.99† | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Booster Bundle | 6 | $26.94† | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Booster Pack | 1 | $4.49† | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Build & Battle Box | 4 | $21.99† | N/A | 28 Jul 2023 |
| Build & Battle Stadium | 11 | $59.99† | N/A | 25 Aug 2023 |
| Charizard ex Premium Collection | 6 | $39.99‡ | N/A | 20 Oct 2023 |
| Charizard ex Super-Premium Collection | 10 | N/A* | N/A | 4 Oct 2024 |
| Collector's Kit | 1 | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Single Pack Blister | 1 | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Three Pack Blister | 3 | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Premium Checklane Blister | 1 | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Stage 1 Blister | N/A* | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Fall 2023 Mini Portfolio | 1 | N/A* | N/A | 1 Sep 2023 |
| Ultra Pro 9-Pocket Portfolio | — | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
| Ultra Pro 4-Pocket Portfolio | — | N/A* | N/A | 11 Aug 2023 |
†PokeGuardian's launch price list, 25 May 2023, the only source for this set; the pack, display, bundle and Pokémon Center figures match Pokémon Center's archived schema.org data for the sibling set Paldea Evolved (10 May 2023) — era-wide corroboration, not a second source for this one. ‡Weakest figure here, a PokeBeach report reached via search summary. *No MSRP retrievable; pokemon.com and pokemoncenter.com are bot-gated. Not made for this set: no Ultra-Premium Collection, no Booster Bundle Display, no Mini Tins, no Poster or Binder Collection, no tin.
What each product contains
- Booster Pack
- 10 cards, 1 Basic Energy, code card.
- Booster Display Box
- 36 packs; 18-pack half displays in Europe.
- Elite Trainer Box
- 9 packs, full-art Charmander (SVP 044), 65 sleeves, 45 Basic Energy, Player's Guide, dice, markers, 4-divider box.
- Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box
- 11 packs, two Charmander SVP 044, one logo-stamped.
- Booster Bundle
- 6 packs, no promo.
- Build & Battle Box
- 4 packs, 40-card deck around Palafin (SVP 036), Cleffa (037), Togekiss (038) or Mawile (039); prerelease only.
- Build & Battle Stadium
- Two Build & Battle Boxes, 3 extra packs, 121 Basic Energy, dice, markers.
- Charizard ex Premium Collection
- 6 packs, etched-foil Charizard ex (SVP 056), Mirage Holofoil Charmander 026 and Charmeleon 027, 65 sleeves, and the first One-Touch holder with an official TCG design.
- Charizard ex Super-Premium Collection
- 10 packs from five expansions, Charizard ex (SVP 161), Cosmos Holofoil 151 Charmander and Charmeleon.
- Collector's Kit
- Album, double-sided poster/playmat, 1 pack.
- Single Pack Blister
- 1 pack, Smooth Cosmos Holofoil Pawmi (SVP 040) or Paldean Wooper (041), jumbo coin.
- Three Pack Blister
- 3 packs, Houndstone (SVP 042) or Eevee (043); the only blister with no coin.
- Premium Checklane Blister
- 1 pack, three foils: the Mankey or Pawniard line, both base-set reprints.
- Stage 1 Blister
- Houndstone and Revavroom lines, jumbo coin; pack count undocumented.
- Fall 2023 Mini Portfolio
- 60-card album, Ting-Lu and Chien-Pao art, 1 pack.
- Ultra Pro portfolios
- 9-pocket, Tera Charizard and Dragonite, 252 cards; 4-pocket, Tera Tyranitar and Revavroom, 80 plus 4 oversized.
What the tracker shows, three years on
Quaza's Obsidian Flames index sits at 116.91 on 25 July 2026, up 16.9% over three months and above the 114.86 average of the sixteen Scarlet & Violet sets. One qualification matters: the index is sealed-only, so what re-rated upward is sealed Obsidian Flames product, not the set. Its singles show the split inside one week: Ninetales 199 fell 7.5%, gold Charizard ex 228 fell 7.7%, Gloom 198 fell 9.0%.
Over the seven days to 25 July 2026 the set averaged −2.9% across nine tracked products, ranging −9.0% to +0.3%, against an era-wide −0.90% across 222 products. That is the second-weakest week in the era; only Surging Sparks was worse at −3.2%.
Scarcity here is product-specific, not set-wide. The Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box at CA$1,003.62 is the most expensive Obsidian Flames item Quaza tracks: 2.2 times the standard Elite Trainer Box at CA$449.07 and 1.8 times a 36-pack booster box at CA$550.57. Two extra packs and a stamped promo do not account for that; a limited allocation does.
Against sticker, the per-pack ranking is not the obvious one. All USD, PokemonWizard, 25 July 2026: a pack at $12.78 is 185% over its $4.49 launch price, a 36-pack box at $388.89 is 141% over $161.64, the six-pack Booster Bundle at $116.30 is 332% over $26.94. Per pack that is $10.80 in a box against $19.38 in a bundle — the cheaper item costs nearly double. Those premiums are arithmetic on two USD figures, never mixed with the CAD readings.
Three limits on the numbers above. No PSA, CGC or BGS population figure for any Obsidian Flames card was retrievable as of 25 July 2026, so no graded price or gem rate appears here. No official pull rates have been published for this set in any region, and no community sampling was retrievable within this research pass. A rate attributed to TCGplayer circulates second-hand; it was not verified here, so it is not quoted.
Rotation, and where the set sits in the era
Obsidian Flames is a regulation-mark G set. The 2026 rotation, announced 9 January 2026, dropped G on 26 March 2026 in Pokémon TCG Live and 10 April 2026 at in-person events, leaving H, I, J and later legal. It removes what Bulbapedia calls the first year of the Scarlet & Violet Series — six expansions: the base set, Paldea Evolved, Obsidian Flames, 151, Paradox Rift and Paldean Fates, that last a January 2024 release whose cards still carry G. Charizard ex 125/197 and Pidgeot ex 164/197 left Standard together. Rotation is a legality change and says nothing about manufacturing — a distinction lost in the widely shared claim that six sets would stop being printed.
By index level Obsidian Flames is second of those six, behind Paradox Rift at 119.00 and ahead of Paldea Evolved at 112.62, the base set at 111.65, Paldean Fates at 111.13 and 151 at 100.42. No source ties an Obsidian Flames price move to rotation with a date and a number, so this guide leaves causation alone.
One distribution fact does more work than the rotation dates. Obsidian Flames packs were filler in TPCi repacks for nearly two years, across more than thirty documented tins, boxes and collections, from the Paldea Partners Tins of September 2023 to the Slashing Legends Tins of 16 May 2025 — a distribution end-point, not an announced end of the print run.
Release timeline
- Set revealed: type-shifted Tera ex, rarity breakdown, launch prices.
- Japanese Ruler of the Black Flame releases, 141 cards; English prereleases begin with the Build & Battle Box.
- Obsidian Flames releases in English with 230 cards.
- Build & Battle Stadium releases.
- 151 arrives six weeks later, the era's first special set.
- Charizard ex Premium Collection, etched-foil Charizard ex SVP 056.
- Prize Pack Series Four hands out stamped Obsidian Flames cards.
- Charizard ex Super-Premium Collection, Charizard ex SVP 161.
- Slashing Legends Tins, the last product documented to carry OBF packs.
- Regulation mark G leaves Standard at in-person events.
- Tracker snapshot: index 116.91, nine products averaging −2.9%.
Frequently asked questions
When did Pokémon TCG Obsidian Flames release?
11 August 2023 in English, the third main Scarlet & Violet expansion. Prereleases and the Build & Battle Box ran from 28 July 2023, the day the Japanese source set Ruler of the Black Flame released.
How many cards are in Obsidian Flames?
230: a 197-card main set plus 33 secret rares numbered 198 to 230 — 12 Illustration Rares, 12 Ultra Rares, 6 Special Illustration Rares and 3 golds. Only one gold is a Pokémon: Charizard ex 228, beside the Stadium Artazon 229 and Basic Fire Energy 230.
What is the most valuable Obsidian Flames card?
Charizard ex 223/197, the Special Illustration Rare by AKIRA EGAWA, at CA$165.34 on Quaza Track on 25 July 2026; four USD aggregators quoted it $109.55 to $117.32 the same day. Ninetales 199/197 is second at CA$55.64, then Cleffa 202/197 at CA$53.17 and gold Charizard ex 228/197 at CA$50.99.
Is there an Obsidian Flames booster box?
Yes. As an ordinary main-series expansion it shipped in a 36-pack Booster Display Box at a launch price PokeGuardian's 25 May 2023 list puts at $161.64 USD, with 18-pack half displays in Europe, and Quaza tracks it at CA$550.57 on 25 July 2026. The era's special sets, 151 included, have no equivalent.
Is Obsidian Flames still legal in Standard?
No. It carries the G regulation mark, dropped on 26 March 2026 in Pokémon TCG Live and 10 April 2026 at in-person events. Six expansions from this era rotated: the base set, Paldea Evolved, Obsidian Flames, 151, Paradox Rift and Paldean Fates.
Obsidian Flames sealed at Quaza Collect
Boxes, Elite Trainer Boxes and bundles, benchmarked against the tracker.
Sources
- Bulbapedia: Obsidian Flames (TCG) — set list, 230 cards
- Bulbapedia: Scarlet & Violet merchandise — contents and dates
- pokemontcg.io: card data, rules text, illustrators, regulation marks
- PokeGuardian: reveal, rarity breakdown, launch prices (25 May 2023)
- Cardrake: per-card USD prices, all 230 cards (25 Jul 2026)
- PokemonWizard: sealed and single USD prices (25 Jul 2026)
- PokeInvest: per-card USD prices (25 Jul 2026)
- PokeScope: Charizard ex 223/197 pricing and sales history (25 Jul 2026)
- Pokémon.com: 2026 Standard rotation announcement
- Quaza Track: live CAD prices, 7-day moves, set index (25 Jul 2026)