Scarlet & Violet vs Mega Evolution: Which Current Pokémon Sets Pay Off to Grade

Pokémon cards are having one of their biggest moments in years. Boxes sell out on release day, PSA's submission queue is backed up for months, and every collector has a strong opinion about which pull is actually worth grading. I got tired of guessing. So I pulled return on grading for every card from the two eras actually on shelves right now, Scarlet & Violet and the brand-new Mega Evolution line, and let the numbers settle it.

The current era, by the numbers

Between Scarlet & Violet and Mega Evolution, I've got 2,037 cards with both a raw price and a PSA 10 price recent enough to trust. Ninety percent of them clear grading and shipping costs today, and the median return sits at 105%.

Era	Cards scored	Median ROG	Positive return
Scarlet & Violet	1,643	107%	88.6%
Mega Evolution	394	98%	97.0%

I'm using median rather than average on purpose. A few cards in both eras post return multiples in the thousands of percent off a single thin sale, and averaging those in would make every set look better than a typical card actually performs.

Mega Evolution has only been around since January, so this is a smaller sample than Scarlet & Violet's three-plus years of sets: six sets against seventeen. Even so, its positive-return rate is the highest of any era I track, which is worth watching closely as more of it works through PSA's queue.

Scarlet & Violet, set by set

Scarlet & Violet isn't one market; it's seventeen of them, and the spread between the best and worst is huge.

Set	Cards scored	Median ROG
Black Bolt	99	385%
White Flare	98	361%
151	103	217%
Scarlet & Violet (base)	79	143%
Paldea Evolved	125	133%
Paldean Fates	181	132%
Prismatic Evolutions	125	115%
Obsidian Flames	72	96%
Paradox Rift	147	93%
Destined Rivals	92	92%
Temporal Forces	97	86%
Twilight Masquerade	101	79%
Surging Sparks	101	78%
Journey Together	61	69%
Stellar Crown	70	65%
Shrouded Fable	57	62%

Black Bolt and White Flare are running away with it. Since their release as Pokémon's first-ever split expansion in July 2025, both have been clearing triple the median of most of Scarlet & Violet's back catalog. 151 holds up well too; nostalgia sets tend to age gracefully. Everything from Stellar Crown down still turns a profit on a typical card, though the margin gets thinner toward the bottom of the table, so it pays to be choosier about what you submit from those sets.

Mega Evolution, set by set

Six sets in, and it already has a clear leader.

Set	Cards scored	Median ROG
Chaos Rising	47	135%
Ascended Heroes	123	130%
Perfect Order	57	108%
Pitch Black	49	90%
Phantasmal Flames	47	72%
Mega Evolution (base)	71	68%

Ascended Heroes carries most of Mega Evolution's volume, with 123 scored cards, and it's holding a strong median for a set that's only been out since January. Chaos Rising is smaller but running slightly ahead of it. These numbers are worth checking again in a few months, once PSA's population catches up to submission volume, because populations this early can still move fast.

Rarity tier matters less than people assume

When I group Scarlet & Violet by rarity, at a minimum of twenty scored cards per tier, the chase rarities everyone reaches for first aren't automatically the strongest earners.

Rarity	Cards scored	Median ROG
Rare Rainbow	144	360%
Illustration Rare	391	318%
Rare Holo GX	159	286%
Rare Ultra	244	282%
Shiny Rare	120	155%
Special Illustration Rare	167	120%
Rare Secret	246	106%

Special Illustration Rare sits closer to the bottom than the top. Everybody submits their SIR pulls, so PSA 10 population climbs fast and the premium compresses. A plain Illustration Rare tends to hold its grading premium longer, mostly because it's less hyped and fewer people bother sending it in.

Cheap cards, real returns

These are cards under $15 raw where the PSA 10 comp has a real, non-round sale price behind it rather than a scraped asking price.

Card	Set	Raw price	PSA 10 price	ROG
Dolliv	Scarlet & Violet (base)	$7.46	$239.52	699%
Carracosta	Black Bolt	$12.69	$273.88	678%
Gurdurr	Black Bolt	$11.60	$262.73	670%
Annihilape ex	Paldea Evolved	$4.82	$202.75	642%
Larvitar	Obsidian Flames	$6.54	$212.50	632%
Frogadier	Chaos Rising	$6.20	$141.25	392%
Froakie	Chaos Rising	$9.12	$149.99	374%

None of these are the flashiest pulls in their sets, and that's really the point. A clean $5-15 card with a genuine PSA 10 comp does more for your submission budget than one expensive chase card riding on a single big sale.

What I'd actually do with this

If you're deciding what to submit today, Black Bolt and White Flare are the strongest bet in either era right now, while Ascended Heroes is worth watching as Mega Evolution's population data fills in. Sun & Moon-era cards still post the highest returns of any era I track, for what it's worth, but that's an older, settled market rather than what's actually coming out of packs this year.

If a PSA 10 comp looks unusually round or unusually high for what the card is, check it against PSA's own population report before you trust it. It's free, and it's the closest thing the hobby has to a real supply count. Grading fees have shifted a few times this year as well, so it's worth a glance at PSA's current pricing page before you budget a submission.

You can run any of this math yourself on the free calculator, or browse a set directly to compare raw and PSA 10 prices side by side.