Charizard ex

There are a ridiculous four different versions of the Charizard ex in Obsidian Flames. Three of them are above, so I can save the best one until last.

It’s hard to judge which will prove to be the most popular. In previous times, it’d be the Gold version of the crystal card, listed as a three gold star Hyper Rare in the set list. That technically makes it the rarest version, but Gold cards just haven’t been proving popular in the Scarlet & Violet era. It’s hard to say exactly why, but they’ve not been reaching the prices we’re used to. My speculation is that it’s similar to the collapse in popularity of the Rainbow Rares in previous generations: they’re just inferior versions of the increasingly fantastic art available.

So while this gold ex looks great, it doesn’t look nearly as great as the Special Illustration Rare I’ve saved for last. That makes me suspect it’ll fail to reach the same levels of interest. This could all be relative, given it’s a set with a rare Charizard in it so everyone will go nuts, although even this needs to be qualified with the fact that September’s 151 will also feature Zards.