Rainbow Rare Pokémon Cards

What a rainbow rare is

A rainbow rare — the TCG's "Rare Rainbow" secret-rare treatment — is a pastel rainbow colour wash with a raised, textured surface over a big card (GX, VMAX, VSTAR or a full-art Trainer). It's a different treatment from the gold-foil Hyper Rares — the two rarities never overlap on a single card. Every rainbow rare is numbered past its set's printed total: our current #1, Charizard-GX (Burning Shadows), reads 150/147, above that set's printed total. Our catalogue's rainbow rares span 2017–2022 — the Sun & Moon through Sword & Shield eras — with none printed since: the treatment was discontinued for the Scarlet & Violet era, replaced by Special Illustration Rares and gold Hyper Rares.

Which cards got the rainbow treatment

The rainbow was reserved for the headline mechanic of each era and for full-art Supporters. Of the 324 rainbow rares we price, 144 are GX cards from the Sun & Moon era (including 28 TAG TEAM GX), 75 are VMAX (including 14 alternate-art secret rares such as Umbreon VMAX 215/203, which our data source files under the same Rare Rainbow label although they are not rainbow cards) and 25 are VSTAR from Sword & Shield, and 80 are Trainer cards. No plain Pokémon V received the treatment: V cards got full-art and alternate-art versions instead, and the rainbow was kept for the evolved VMAX and VSTAR. The split by era is 144 Sun & Moon rainbows to 180 Sword & Shield, running from Sun & Moon (February 2017) to Silver Tempest (November 2022), the last set in our catalogue to carry them.

What our prices show

The tier is cheaper than its reputation. The median rainbow rare is worth $15.80 ungraded, 192 of the 324 trade under $20 raw, and only 35 are worth $100 or more. The ten most valuable make up 30% of the combined value of the 200-card ranked list. What separates the two ends is the Pokémon, not the set or the year: a rainbow Charizard, Rayquaza, Gengar or Mewtwo is a chase card in any set, while a rainbow of a Pokémon nobody collects trades below many ordinary holos despite the same pull odds.

Every row in the ranked list is priced on its PSA 10 value, marked with a PSA 10 tag, so the headline numbers are slab prices. Across the cards with both prices, the PSA 10 sits at a median 7.3x the raw price (the PSA 10 premium index tracks it by card), a wide gap because the textured surface and pastel borders show handling and centring faults a plain card would hide. Check a raw copy's surface and centring before counting on a 10.

Why collectors chase them

Low pull rates plus eye-catching art make rainbows a premium tier. CardTrack's own pack-odds model weights a secret-tier hit — the tier rainbows share with Hyper Rares and other chase-level secrets — at roughly 1 in 40 modern packs; see our pull rates tool for the modelled odds by set. The value tracks the Pokémon: a rainbow Charizard or Pikachu is a genuine chase card, while others are affordable ways into secret-rare collecting.

Spotting a fake rainbow rare

Rainbow rares are faked often, because the chase ones are valuable and the pastel wash is easy to imitate at a glance; our fake card checker covers the general tells. The texture is the first check: a genuine rainbow has raised lines that follow the artwork across the whole face of the card, while most fakes are flat or carry a uniform dotted pattern. The colour wash on a genuine card is soft and even, without the oversaturated stripes cheap printing produces. Check the collector number against the set's printed total and compare the tiny border text with a known-genuine scan; for any card worth several hundred dollars, buy it already graded.

Rainbow-textured full-art cards sitting above the normal rarity ladder. Discontinued after Sword & Shield; distinct from the gold-foil Hyper Rare secret rares. Sun & Moon – Sword & Shield (2017–2022)

How a card qualifies: Rarity is exactly Rare Rainbow — a proxy: our data source also files some Sword & Shield alternate-art secret rares (e.g. Umbreon VMAX 215/203) under it.

Rainbow Rare Pokémon Cards — FAQ