Only two Champion's Path cards clear the bar for grading: Charizard V (Secret Rare, #79/73) and Charizard VMAX (Secret Rare, #74/73). Every other card in the set sells for less than a standard grading fee, which makes grading a loss before the card even ships. Champion's Path is a 73-card Pokémon Sword & Shield expansion released September 25, 2020, built around Gigantamax Charizard and sold alongside a GameStop-exclusive Charizard VMAX Premium Collection, according to Dot Esports' release rundown. Within that set, value concentrates almost entirely in two Charizard secret rares, and everything else needs a specific reason before it's worth submitting.
Table of Contents
- The two cards worth grading
- Why Charizard VMAX is a weaker bet than it looks
- Which cards should stay raw
- What grading actually costs and how long it takes
- A simple checklist before submitting a Champion's Path card
The two cards worth grading
Charizard V, numbered #79/73 as a secret rare, is the set's single most valuable card, currently trading around $253 to $270 raw, per PokemonPriceTracker's price guide. That raw price already sits well above most grading fees, so a PSA 10 result adds real resale value rather than just a label.
Charizard VMAX, #74/73, is the second chase card, priced roughly $163 to $233 raw, according to eyeVoTCG's set spotlight. Together these two cards make up the bulk of Champion's Path's total value, which is why grading discussions about this set really come down to just these two numbers. Both cards clear the grading math because their raw-to-PSA-10 price spread is large enough to absorb a $79.99-plus grading fee and still turn a profit, a relationship explained in the next section.
Why Charizard VMAX is a weaker bet than it looks
Charizard VMAX's price looks tempting, but its population numbers tell a different story. PSA's population report lists 28,229 total graded copies of this card, and 19,837 of those — about 70% — already graded Gem Mint 10, according to Pikawiz's PSA pop report. A card where seven in ten submissions come back as a 10 is not scarce in top grade, so a PSA 10 doesn't carry the premium that scarcity usually creates.
Recent sales reflect that glut. PSA 10 Charizard VMAX copies cluster between about $190 and $366, with one eBay outlier reaching $812 on October 12, 2025, while a raw copy last sold around $195, per Sports Card Investor's sales data. That means the typical PSA 10 premium over raw is modest once grading fees, shipping, and turnaround time are factored in — it can still work, but it's a thinner margin than the raw price alone suggests. Charizard V doesn't carry the same population problem in the research available here, which is part of why it's treated as the stronger of the two grading candidates for this set.
Which cards should stay raw
Every other secret rare and alt-art in Champion's Path sells for a fraction of what grading costs. Gardevoir VMAX (Secret, #76/73) runs about $14 to $19, Drednaw VMAX (Secret, #75/73) sells for around $7, and Alcremie VMAX (#23/73) goes for roughly $5 to $7, according to PokemonPriceTracker. None of these come close to covering a grading fee, let alone generating a return once a PSA 10 premium is added. This isn't a judgment call specific to these three cards — it's arithmetic.
If a raw card sells for $5 to $20 and grading starts at $79.99, the card has to gain roughly 4x to 16x its raw value just to break even, before shipping and the months-long wait. No card in this tier moves that much even in top grade, so submitting them is a guaranteed loss regardless of the grade they come back with. The practical rule for this set: if a card isn't one of the two Charizard secret rares, check its raw price against the grading fee before doing anything else. If the raw price doesn't clear that fee by a wide margin, keep it raw.
What grading actually costs and how long it takes
As of 2026, PSA's cheapest walk-up tier — meaning no membership required — is called "Regular," priced at $79.99 per card with a $1,500 maximum declared value and a turnaround of roughly 40 to 50 business days, according to AllVintageCards' PSA pricing guide. Faster Express and Super Express tiers cost $149 to $349 per card, which only makes sense for a card worth enough to justify paying for speed. PSA also paused new submissions to its cheaper Value, Value Plus, Value Max, and Value Bulk tiers — previously around $24.99 per card for Collectors Club members — starting June 2, 2026, to clear a backlog projected to take up to four months, per the same AllVintageCards guide.
That pause removes the budget option that used to make grading cheaper cards marginally viable, which reinforces why only the two Charizard secret rares still clear the cost threshold. With the Value tiers paused, $79.99 is effectively the floor for most submitters right now. Any Champion's Path card priced under roughly $80 to $100 raw has no realistic path to profit under current fees, no matter how clean the card looks.
A simple checklist before submitting a Champion's Path card
Before sending any card from this set to PSA, run through this:.
- Is it Charizard V (#79/73) or Charizard VMAX (#74/73)? If not, stop — nothing else in the set reliably clears grading costs.
- Check the current raw price against the $79.99 Regular tier fee. The raw price should exceed the fee by several multiples, not just cover it.
- For Charizard VMAX specifically, remember that about 70% of graded copies already come back as a 10, so a 10 won't be rare — price your expectations off recent PSA 10 sales ($190–$366 typical range), not the $812 outlier.
- Factor in the 40-to-50 business day wait for the Regular tier, since that time has a cost even when the math otherwise works.
- Skip Gardevoir VMAX, Drednaw VMAX, Alcremie VMAX, and any common or non-secret-rare card in the set — their raw prices sit far below any grading tier's fee.
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