Umbreon VMAX 215/203 leads Evolving Skies at $1,977.00 on Cardboard Alpha's October 7, 2026 evaluated prices, and the set's 17 alternate-art cards hold 84.7 percent of a $7,449.00 one-of-each run.
Umbreon VMAX 215/203, the alternate-art Secret Rare nicknamed "Moonbreon," is the most valuable card in Evolving Skies. Cardboard Alpha's evaluated price for a raw near-mint copy was $1,977.00 on October 7, 2026, with Rayquaza VMAX 218/203, the set's other alternate-art headliner, next at $1,191.85.
Those two cards carry 42.5 percent of the $7,449.00 cost of one raw near-mint copy of all 237 cards at those prices. The ten most valuable carry 78.7 percent, and all ten are alternate-art printings.
Evolving Skies released in English on August 27, 2021, as the seventh main Sword & Shield expansion, per Bulbapedia, drawn mainly from Japan's Skyscraping Perfection and Blue Sky Stream of July 9, 2021.
Bulbapedia notes it brought Dragon-type Pokémon back for the first time since Cosmic Eclipse, with Rayquaza and Duraludon as its focus, and that all eight Eeveelutions appear as Pokémon V.
Numbered cards 1 to 165: Commons through Holo Rares, including 18 regular Pokémon V and 15 regular Pokémon VMAX.
Ultra Rares 166 to 203: 22 full-art Pokémon V, 5 full-art Supporters and 11 alternate full-art Pokémon V.
Alternate-art VMAX: 6 Secret Rares between 205/203 and 220/203.
Rainbow Rares: 16 Secret Rares, 11 Pokémon VMAX and 5 Supporters.
Gold Rares: 12 Secret Rares: 3 Energy, 6 Item and Stadium cards and 3 non-V Pokémon.
Each pack holds ten cards from the set, per Bulbapedia, and because the set predates the Trainer Galleries of later Sword & Shield sets, TCGplayer notes only the rare slot can hold anything fancier than a Holo Rare.
TCGplayer calls the pull rates "downright mean" and notes the "Evolving Cries" nickname: only about 5.94 percent of packs held a full-art card or better.
The top 15 cards, priced
Every figure is Cardboard Alpha's evaluated price for a raw, near-mint copy on October 7, 2026. Print types follow TCGplayer's product names and pull-rate study.
The first twelve places all go to alternate art. The first card without it, the rainbow Rayquaza VMAX 217/203, is 13th at less than a tenth of its alternate-art counterpart.
An evaluated price is one number per card per day, not one marketplace's displayed price, so it can sit above or below what a single venue shows. Moonbreon's figure is the midpoint of that day's lowest and highest recorded sale. Of these 15 figures, seven included a same-day sale signal; eight were anchored to asking prices and a prior evaluation.
The alternate-art chase
The 17 alternate-art cards carry $6,306.94 of the $7,449.00 total, or 84.7 percent. TCGplayer's Authentication Center opened more than 8,000 packs in August 2021 and found an alternate-art Pokémon V in about 1 in 91 packs and an alternate-art VMAX in about 1 in 332.
Umbreon VMAX 215/203
TCGplayer puts the odds of pulling this exact card at about 0.05 percent per pack, roughly 1 in 2,000, with a margin of error as large as the estimate. The same study put Twilight Masquerade's Special Illustration Rare Greninja ex at about 1 in 941. KEIICHIRO ITO illustrated Moonbreon, per the catalog.
Anesaki Dynamic's Rayquaza VMAX is second in the set on the same read. Rayquaza's price ladder across every set compares it with the Pokémon's other chase cards.
Alternate Art Secret. Evaluated price, raw NM, $1,191.85 on October 7, 2026.
The Eeveelution alternates
Five of the eight Eeveelutions get alternate art here. Leafeon, Glaceon, Sylveon and Umbreon each have an alternate full-art V and an alternate-art VMAX; Espeon has only the V. Flareon, Vaporeon and Jolteon get none.
Those nine cards total $4,010.62, or 53.8 percent of the set. Umbreon's VMAX alone nearly matches the other eight combined at $2,033.62, and Sylveon's and Leafeon's VMAX alternates sat four cents apart.
Alternate Full Art. Evaluated price, raw NM, $233.93 on October 7, 2026.
The Dragon alternates
Dragonite V 192/203 is the set's most valuable alternate full-art V, $5.99 ahead of Rayquaza V 194/203. Noivern V 196/203, illustrated by Mitsuhiro Arita, trails at $73.78.
Alternate Full Art. Evaluated price, raw NM, $473.73 on October 7, 2026.
Duraludon is the outlier. Bulbapedia names it one of the set's two focus Pokémon, yet its alternates are the cheapest of all 17: Duraludon V 198/203 at $17.65 and Duraludon VMAX 220/203 at $15.16.
Alternate Art Secret. Evaluated price, raw NM, $15.16 on October 7, 2026, the cheapest alternate art.
TCGplayer's study treats every card in a group as equally likely, so that VMAX is as hard to pull as Moonbreon at under 1 percent of its price. Demand, not pull odds, sets the order, a pattern covered in what drives the alternate-art premium in general.
Same Pokémon, six prints
Umbreon and Rayquaza each appear in six printings here, isolating what print type alone does to price.
Print
Umbreon
Rayquaza
Pokémon V (numbered)
$7.00 (094)
$3.51 (110)
Pokémon VMAX (numbered)
$26.25 (095)
$14.99 (111)
Full-art V
$51.43 (188)
$62.00 (193)
Rainbow VMAX
$79.47 (214)
$97.89 (217)
Alternate full-art V
$367.02 (189)
$467.74 (194)
Alternate-art VMAX
$1,977.00 (215)
$1,191.85 (218)
Cardboard Alpha evaluated prices, raw near-mint, October 7, 2026.
Alternate Full Art. Evaluated price, raw NM, $367.02 on October 7, 2026.
Alternate art multiplies the full-art V price 7.1 times for Umbreon and 7.5 times for Rayquaza, and the standard VMAX price about 75 and 80 times.
Rainbow and gold secret rares
The 11 rainbow VMAX cards had a median evaluated price of $35.76, against $347.46 for the 6 alternate-art VMAX cards. TCGplayer found each specific Rainbow Rare about as hard to pull as each specific alternate-art VMAX, roughly 0.05 percent per pack each, so the near-tenfold gap comes from demand, not odds.
Ranked by evaluated price, the top card holds 26.5 percent of the $7,449.00, the top two 42.5 percent, the top five 60.1 percent, the top ten 78.7 percent and the top twenty 89.2 percent.
Share of Evolving Skies' one-of-each cost held by its top cards
Top card (Umbreon VMAX 215)26.5%
Top 2 cards42.5%
Top 5 cards60.1%
Top 10 cards78.7%
Top 20 cards89.2%
Cardboard Alpha evaluated prices, raw near-mint, October 7, 2026. One main print per card, $7,449.00 total.
Print type
Cards
Combined
Share
Median
Alternate-art VMAX
6
$4,159.98
55.8%
$347.46
Alternate full-art V
11
$2,146.96
28.8%
$145.68
Full-art V
22
$388.74
5.2%
$12.89
Rainbow VMAX
11
$385.82
5.2%
$35.76
Numbered 1 to 165
165
$212.06
2.8%
$0.17
Gold Rares
12
$98.72
1.3%
$6.20
Full-art Supporters
5
$29.77
0.4%
$5.91
Rainbow Supporters
5
$26.95
0.4%
$5.50
Cardboard Alpha evaluated prices, raw near-mint, October 7, 2026.
The numbered run holds most of the cards and almost none of the value: 136 of its 165 cards priced under $1.00. Only seven reached $10.00, all regular VMAX, six of them Eeveelutions plus Rayquaza VMAX 111/203.
Measured the same way, one copy of every Evolving Skies card costs 3.1 times a Crown Zenith run with its Galarian Gallery, and more than the three sets below combined ($6,529.18).
Set
Cards
One-of-each
Top card
Evolving Skies
237
$7,449.00
Umbreon VMAX 215, $1,977.00
Crown Zenith + Galarian Gallery
230
$2,374.73
Giratina VSTAR GG69, $281.34
Fusion Strike
284
$2,184.54
Gengar VMAX 271, $994.16
Chilling Reign
233
$1,969.91
Blaziken VMAX 201, $365.49
Cardboard Alpha evaluated prices, raw near-mint, one main print per card, October 7, 2026.
Fusion Strike's top card, the alternate-art Gengar VMAX 271/264, is about half of Moonbreon's price.
Stamped and jumbo versions: Reissues Bulbapedia lists, such as snowflake-stamped Glaceon V from the 2023 Holiday Calendar, and jumbo cards are excluded from every total.
Every figure is one dated read, not a trend, and English cards only. The Evolving Skies set page tracks these cards daily, and the screener covers the wider card universe.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most valuable Evolving Skies card?
Umbreon VMAX 215/203, the alternate-art Secret Rare nicknamed Moonbreon. Cardboard Alpha's evaluated price for a raw near-mint copy was $1,977.00 on October 7, 2026, ahead of the alternate-art Rayquaza VMAX 218/203 at $1,191.85. Together the two make up 42.5 percent of the set's one-of-each cost.
How hard is it to pull Moonbreon from an Evolving Skies pack?
TCGplayer's Authentication Center opened more than 8,000 Evolving Skies packs in August 2021 and puts the odds at about 0.05 percent per pack, roughly 1 in 2,000. Its margin of error is as large as the estimate itself. Any alternate-art VMAX turned up about once in 332 packs.
How much does a complete Evolving Skies set cost?
One raw near-mint copy of all 237 cards came to $7,449.00 on Cardboard Alpha's evaluated prices for October 7, 2026. Adding the 132 reverse holo prints brings it to $7,488.93. The 17 alternate-art cards account for 84.7 percent of the one-of-each total.
Are Evolving Skies rainbow rares worth more than the alternate arts?
No. TCGplayer found each specific Rainbow Rare about as hard to pull as each specific alternate-art VMAX, roughly 0.05 percent per pack, yet the 11 rainbow VMAX cards had a median evaluated price of $35.76 against $347.46 for the 6 alternate-art VMAX cards on October 7, 2026. The most valuable rainbow card, Rayquaza VMAX 217/203, was $97.89.
Which Eeveelutions have alternate art in Evolving Skies?
Five of the eight. Leafeon, Glaceon, Sylveon and Umbreon each have an alternate full-art V and an alternate-art VMAX, and Espeon has an alternate full-art V only, per TCGplayer's product names. Flareon, Vaporeon and Jolteon get no alternate art in this set; their highest print is a regular full-art V.
Does this guide include graded or sealed prices?
No. Every figure is a raw near-mint evaluated price, so no graded price or population count appears. Booster box value is covered in Cardboard Alpha's separate booster box expected-value comparison.
Rochelle Lee writes price guides and set coverage for Cardboard Alpha. Rochelle works in sales as an account executive serving escrow and mortgage teams, a field where a price means little without comparable sales behind it, and brings that comps-first instinct to cards: what individual cards are worth, how whole sets and eras have held their value, and how a card's sold history differs from what sellers are currently asking. Each guide is built from published pricing and population data first, cites every source inline, and is fact-checked against those sources before it is published.
Rochelle Lee's articles describe card and set values using published pricing and population data. They are informational and are not personalized investment advice.
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