The best Chilling Reign cards to grade are the ones with both a high PSA gem rate and a strong gap between the raw and PSA 10 price — right now that means the two Calyrex VMAX Alternate Art Secrets, plus select ultra rares like Snorlax and Zeraora V. Cards with low gem rates or already-flooded PSA 10 populations, such as Delibird and Galarian Moltres V, are poor grading bets even when they're fun to pull. Chilling Reign, Pokemon's 2021 Sword & Shield set, is still one of the most actively graded sets on the market because of its two Calyrex VMAX alt-art chase cards. Grading only makes financial sense when a card's odds of hitting a 10 and its price jump after grading both work in the submitter's favor — not every valuable card in the set clears that bar.
Table of Contents
- The safest grading bets in the set
- Is Gengar worth the gamble?
- Cards that aren't worth the grading fee
- Ultra rares and secret rares worth a second look
- Why high prices don't always mean good grading odds
- Check current numbers before submitting
The safest grading bets in the set
The Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX Alternate Art Secret (#203/198) and the Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX Alternate Art Secret (#205/198) are the two cards collectors reach for first when deciding what to submit. Ice Rider has a 75.8% PSA 10 gem rate, the highest of the pair, and PSA 10 copies have sold for roughly $95 to $110, according to a sale tracked on Sports Card Investor. Shadow Rider sits close behind at a 73.9% gem rate, per PokeInvest's PSA population report, updated October 14, 2026.
Both numbers matter because a gem rate above roughly 70% means most well-centered, well-preserved copies that go in come back as a 10. That lowers the risk of paying a grading fee and getting back a 9 worth a fraction of the price. For either Calyrex alt-art, a raw copy that's already clean under a light and loupe is a reasonable submission.
Is Gengar worth the gamble?
Gengar (Reverse Holo, #57) is the single most valuable PSA 10 in the set, priced around $1,200 against a PSA 10 population of only 31 copies, per PokeInvest's October 2026 report. That price reflects genuine scarcity at the gem-mint level, not just demand for the card.
The catch is the gem rate: only 15.1% of submitted copies come back as a PSA 10. That means roughly five out of six submissions miss, and a 9 or lower sells for far less than the $1,200 PSA 10 price. Gengar is worth grading only if the raw copy is exceptional — sharp corners, dead-center print, no surface wear — not as a volume play across several average copies.
Cards that aren't worth the grading fee
Delibird (#32) has the lowest PSA 10 gem rate of any Chilling Reign card with a meaningful population, at 11.1% — just 8 PSA 10s out of 72 copies graded, according to PokeInvest. Cheap to buy raw, it's expensive to turn into a 10, and most submitted copies land as 8s or 9s that don't recoup the grading cost.
Galarian Moltres V (#177) is a different trap. It's the most heavily graded card in the entire set, with roughly 13,084 PSA submissions already on record, but only a 57.4% gem rate. That combination means the PSA 10 market is already saturated with supply, so even a successful grade competes against thousands of others instead of commanding a scarcity premium.
- Skip grading if: the gem rate is under 20% and the card's raw price is low
- Skip grading if: the PSA 10 population already numbers in the thousands
- Consider grading if: the gem rate tops 60-70% and PSA 10 pricing clears the submission cost several times over
Ultra rares and secret rares worth a second look
Snorlax (#224, Secret Rare) tops Card Codex's Chilling Reign chase-card list for PSA 10 value, at roughly $314.63 against a raw price near $138.57 — a gap wide enough to justify grading a sharp copy, per Card Codex. Zeraora V (#166, Ultra Rare) shows a similar pattern, with a PSA 10 price around $224.21 on the same chase-card listing, one of the larger raw-to-graded spreads among the set's non-secret ultra rares.
Both cards are worth the submission fee when the raw copy is already close to flawless, since neither has the extreme gem-rate problems that drag down cards like Delibird. They're a middle tier: not as safe a bet as the Calyrex alt-arts, but not the long-shot gamble that Gengar represents either.
Why high prices don't always mean good grading odds
Blaziken VMAX (#201, Rainbow Rare) is the set's highest raw-priced card, running roughly $347 to $383, and it carries a strong 65.4% PSA 10 gem rate. The problem is supply: more than 10,729 copies have already been graded, per PokeInvest's October 2026 report, so the PSA 10 market for this card is already large and can cap how much a new 10 commands.
Castform (#121) shows the opposite distortion at the low end. PokePrices lists its PSA 10 value at $36.15 against a raw price of just $1.37 — a 26.4x multiple that looks dramatic but assumes a perfect grade on every submission, which the card's real-world gem rate doesn't guarantee. A multiple that large is a best-case number, not an expected return.
Check current numbers before submitting
Population and price data shift by source and snapshot date. Galarian Moltres V's PSA population is reported at roughly 11,693 by one tracker and roughly 13,752 by another, a gap large enough to change the grading math, based on figures from PriceCharting and Pikawiz.
Before submitting any specific card, check PSA's own population report and current sold listings rather than relying on a single snapshot. That variance doesn't change the overall picture for Chilling Reign — the Calyrex VMAX alt-arts remain the set's most reliable grading candidates — but it does mean the exact numbers for a borderline card, like Blaziken VMAX or Zeraora V, are worth confirming the week of submission.
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