Surging Sparks: the most expensive Pokémon cards

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Surging Sparks came out on 8 November 2024 and it is the set that gave Pikachu its most chased card in years. Nearly two years on the prices have settled, which makes this a good moment to look at them: the launch swings are long gone.

The set revolves around one card. Pikachu ex Special Illustration Rare (#238) is worth 250.64 €, while the same Pikachu ex in its base print (#057) costs 1.10 €. Same creature, 228 times the price.

We ran every card in the set through the DarkDex pricing engine and sorted by value. These are real single-card prices, Near Mint, the lowest available across sellers, updated on 21 August 2026. Graded copies are excluded: a slabbed card follows a separate market.

In short. The value of Surging Sparks sits in three cards: Pikachu ex (#238) at 250.64 €, Latias ex (#239) at 143.63 € and Milotic ex (#237) at 120.60 € are together 60% of the set. Completing Surging Sparks costs around 864 €. Prices as of 21 August 2026.

The ranking: the 15 most expensive cards

This is the full ranking down to 7 euros: every card in the set worth more than that.

1Pikachu exSpecial Illustration Rare · #238€250.64

2Latias exSpecial Illustration Rare · #239€143.63

3Milotic exSpecial Illustration Rare · #237€120.60

4Pikachu exHyper Rare · #247€55.64

5Hydreigon exSpecial Illustration Rare · #240€30.40

6Alolan exeggutor exSpecial Illustration Rare · #242€21.74

7Durant exSpecial Illustration Rare · #236€19.42

8LatiosIllustration Rare · #203€17.27

9Lisia’s AppealSpecial Illustration Rare · #246€15.21

10Jasmine’s GazeSpecial Illustration Rare · #245€13.21

11Pikachu exUltra Rare · #219€12.21

12CeruledgeIllustration Rare · #197€10.22

13Alolan exeggutor exHyper Rare · #248€10.12

14Archaludon exSpecial Illustration Rare · #241€8.97

15Clemont’s Quick WitSpecial Illustration Rare · #243€7.65

Fifteen rows, and it is worth saying where the set thins out: only the first thirteen cards clear ten euros, and from the sixteenth down you enter a sea of cards under 7 €, where a most-expensive ranking stops answering the question.

These are the cards people buy boxes for. Add them to your collection on DarkDex and track their value day by day, without redoing the maths every time the market moves.

Which is the rarest card in Surging Sparks?

The rarest card in Surging Sparks is Jet Energy (#252), the last numbered card in the set, a gold Hyper Rare. It is worth 4.19 €.

The most expensive is the Pikachu ex Special Illustration Rare (#238) at 250.64 €, sixty times as much. It is the clearest case in the whole block: declared rarity does not make the price, demand does. A gold energy is chased by people completing the set, the Pikachu with the city skyline behind it is chased by everyone.

Pull rates are not published, so there is no official answer, and price remains the only measurable indicator.

The chase cards of Surging Sparks

There are four chase cards:

1. Pikachu ex (#238), Special Illustration Rare: 250.64 €
2. Latias ex (#239), Special Illustration Rare: 143.63 €
3. Milotic ex (#237), Special Illustration Rare: 120.60 €
4. Pikachu ex (#247), gold Hyper Rare: 55.64 €

Below the fourth the set collapses: the fifth card, Hydreigon ex (#240), sits at 30.40 €, and nothing else clears 22 €. Outside the four chase cards, Surging Sparks is a cheap set.

Add them to your collection on DarkDex and follow the value day by day.

The versions of Pikachu ex

Pikachu ex exists in four prints inside the same set, and it is the best way to understand why a Pokémon's name tells you nothing about price:

• base print (#057): 1.10 €, the one that comes out of ordinary packs
• Ultra Rare full art (#219): 12.21 €, eleventh in the ranking
• gold Hyper Rare (#247): 55.64 €, fourth in the ranking
• Special Illustration Rare (#238): 250.64 €, the most expensive in the set

From first to last there are 228 times the difference. Value does not live in the creature, it lives in the print: collector number, rarity and finish. Which is why estimating a collection by eye does not work, and why DarkDex keeps the price of every single variant separate instead of lumping them under one name.

It is not an isolated case: Latias ex goes from 1.82 € to 143.63 €, which is 79 times, and Milotic ex starts at 0.11 € and reaches 120.60 €, over a thousand times.

The trainer cards that hold up

Two trainer cards make the ranking, which is not a given: Lisia's Appeal (#246) at 15.21 € and Jasmine's Gaze (#245) at 13.21 €. They are character Special Illustration Rares, the category that has held value best across the Scarlet and Violet block after the first year, because they do not depend on competitive rotation: people who buy them buy them for the artwork.

The reverse holds too. Latios (#203), a plain Illustration Rare with no "Special" attached, sits at 17.27 € and beats several Special Illustration Rares from the same set. Artwork that lands is worth more than a rarity tier.

How much it costs to complete Surging Sparks

Buying every card in the set at the lowest Near Mint listing, one by one, takes around 864 €. The figure is distributed terribly, though:

• the top three cards cost 515 €, which is 60% of the total
• the top ten reach 688 €, or 80%
• the median card is 0.11 €: half the set costs about as much as a stick of gum
• 201 cards out of 252, 80% of the set, sit below one euro

Translated: without the top ten cards the set costs a little over 175 €. Everything else is three cards.

Worth saying that this is a theoretical floor: minimums from different sellers, shipping excluded, counting only the 252 cards that have at least one listing.

Where Surging Sparks sits in the Scarlet and Violet block

We ran eight sets of the Scarlet and Violet block through the pricing engine, so the comparison can be made on numbers rather than impressions:

The "cards" column counts the cards in the set with at least one Near Mint listing, not the number printed on the back of the pack.

Surging Sparks lands squarely in the middle: twice the cost of Journey Together, half of Destined Rivals. What sets it apart is concentration: 60% of the value in three cards is the second highest figure in the group, which means the set completes cheaply as long as you give up on the chase cards.

Singles or packs?

It depends on what you are after. You buy packs for the fun of opening them: the expected value of a box is almost always below the price of the box. You buy singles when the goal is a specific card or the complete set, because you pay market price and you know exactly what arrives.

On Surging Sparks there is a detail worth noticing: the Booster Box costs 167.64 € and the Elite Trainer Box 114.64 €, meaning an ETB from a two-year-old set costs more than that of far more recent sets. That is the signal that sealed stock is running out, and from here it tends to rise rather than fall.

Heads up. Card prices move constantly, and chase cards are the most volatile of all: the numbers in this article are a snapshot of the market on 21 August 2026.

How to keep an eye on the value

On DarkDex you add your Surging Sparks cards to your collection and the market value updates itself, with price history and your portfolio total always in view. It works with any language and any condition, not just English cards.

The same ranking exists for the other sets in the block: Destined Rivals (the priciest of the group), Twilight Masquerade, Journey Together, White Flare, Black Bolt, Paradox Rift and Paldea Evolved.