Mega Greninja ex Is Trending and N's Zekrom Just Jumped 31% — Here's Why

Two very different kinds of price moves landed on Pokémon flippers this week. One is a brand-new chase card from a set that's only been out three days. The other is a four-month-old promo whose price just popped because the supply ran out. Both tell you something useful about how the market is behaving right now in the Mega Evolution era.

What's hot: Mega Greninja ex (Chaos Rising #116)

Chaos Rising hit shelves Friday, May 22, and within 48 hours the Special Illustration Rare Mega Greninja ex was the most-searched card on TCGPlayer and the most-discussed pull on r/PokemonCardValue. Athlon Sports, CBR, Mint Vandal, and Card Chill all flagged it as the set's "definitive masterpiece card" in their day-one coverage. That kind of cross-source consensus on day three is rare and tells you the demand isn't manufactured by a single influencer.

The catalyst

Three things are stacking on top of each other.

First, Greninja consistently lands in the top three of every Pokémon Company popularity poll. The TCG finally gave it a proper Mega Evolution treatment this set, and the pent-up demand from a decade of "where's my Mega Greninja card" complaints is unloading at once.

Second, Mega Greninja ex isn't just a chase pull, it's the set mascot. It's printed on every booster pack and ETB box, which means the artwork is the face of the entire set's marketing. Every YouTuber doing a Chaos Rising opening is holding up the Mega Greninja ex pack to the camera. That visibility compounds.

Third, the card itself reads well as a TCG playable, not just a collectible. 330 HP, zero-energy retreat, and a 250-damage attack mean it'll see actual play in standard and expanded. Cards that flippers want AND players want hit a different demand curve than pure chase pulls.

The market read

Across TCGPlayer, eBay, and CardLadder over the last 48 hours, near-mint copies of the SIR (card #116) are settling into a $480–$520 range. The Mega Hyper Rare variant (#122) is currently selling above $700. The Ultra Rare full art (#100) is in the $180–$220 lane. Standard Double Rare (#22) is around $35.

PSA 10 comps on the SIR haven't started landing yet because the set is too new, but based on how Surging Sparks SIRs graded out, expect the PSA 10 multiplier to settle around 2.5–3.0x raw. That puts a PSA 10 SIR Mega Greninja ex in the $1,200–$1,500 zone once the first wave of grades returns.

Flipper's angle

The honest read is this card is currently expensive relative to raw chase cards from comparable sets at the same lifecycle point. Surging Sparks SIRs were selling in the $300 range at this maturity, and Mega Greninja is at $500. That premium is either justified by the unique demand profile (Greninja, set mascot, TCG-playable) or it's setup for a correction once the bulk-opening wave starts churning supply.

If you have a clean copy already, the right move is probably to grade and ride it out. PSA's queue is going to fill up with this card in the next 60 days and the early-mover grade premium matters. If you're considering buying in at retail SIR pricing right now, watch the sold-listing depth on TCGPlayer for the next two weeks. If listings keep clearing fast at $500, the new floor is set. If they start sitting, this was a peak you missed.

Biggest gainer: N's Zekrom (Ascended Heroes #155)

The biggest seven-day mover in Pokémon TCG isn't the new shiny chase, it's a January promo that's running out of stock. Near-mint copies of N's Zekrom from Ascended Heroes climbed from £84.22 to £110.61 over the past week, a +31.3% move, the largest single-card weekly gain reported by Card Value's price tracker.

The catalyst

This one is mechanical, not narrative. N's Zekrom was bundled into Ascended Heroes Elite Trainer Boxes as a Pokémon Center exclusive when the set launched January 30. There was no separate booster print, no standard rarity slot in the main set's pull table, and crucially, no announced reprint. The card exists only in ETBs that have now been on shelves for four months.

What's happening this week is the secondary market figured out that Pokémon Center's ETB stock is functionally depleted. Restocks have been spotty and small, and the moment that became apparent to the deal-hunting community on Reddit and Discord, the eBay floor on raw N's Zekrom popped from the $85 range to the $110+ range over four days.

This is a textbook supply-shock pump. Fixed supply, growing demand, no reprint risk in the near term. Whether it's sustainable depends on what Pokémon Company does next with this card. If it gets reprinted in a Mega Evolution Special Edition product later this year, the premium evaporates. If it stays Pokémon-Center-exclusive permanently, $110 is the new floor and $140 is plausible by Q3.

Is it sustainable?

The sold-listing depth is the tell. Looking at eBay sold listings over the past seven days, completed sales at the new price point are happening within 24 hours of listing. Buy-it-nows at $110 don't sit. That's a healthy demand signal, not a pump-and-dump.

But the size of the move (31% in a week) is the kind of velocity that often draws in flippers who haven't done the supply-side homework. If you see N's Zekrom on Reddit flip threads next week with people saying "still going up," that's the top.

Flipper's angle

If you already own copies, you're not in a hurry. Sit on them. If you're considering buying in, the question is whether the next reprint announcement is one month away or six months away. Pokémon Company has gotten more aggressive about Pokémon Center exclusive print runs this generation, so the reprint risk is real but not immediate.

Grading math gets ugly here. N's Zekrom is a basic Rare, not a Special Illustration Rare or Ultra Rare. PSA 10 multiples on basic Rares historically run 1.3–1.8x raw. At $110 raw, you're looking at maybe $160 in a PSA 10 — and you just spent $25+ on grading. The expected value of grading this one is marginal at best. The play here is buy raw, sell raw.

What this means for your watchlist

Two different lanes, two different reads.

Mega Greninja ex SIR is the new-set-frenzy lane. The cards in that lane have huge upside if the demand sticks, and equally large downside if the bulk-opening supply wave overwhelms the chase. If you're playing this card, you're betting on Greninja's long-tail popularity outlasting the supply curve. You either commit early and grade, or you wait six months for the correction.

N's Zekrom is the scarcity lane. The cards in that lane move quietly until the market notices supply is gone, and then they pop. If you're playing this card, you're betting on Pokémon Company not reprinting it. You buy raw, hold raw, and watch reprint announcements like a hawk.

If you want to track moves like this in real time, Flipr's Top 10 surfaces the highest-expected-profit cards every 30 minutes, and QuickFlip catches the listing-price mistakes when supply tightens. Both of these cards have been showing up in those feeds all week.

The actionable next step is to look at your own collection. If you have any uncatalogued Ascended Heroes ETB pulls or January promos sitting in a binder, pull them out tonight. There's a real chance you're holding the next N's Zekrom and don't know it.