Rainbow rares split the room like nothing else in this hobby. Some collectors think they are the best thing the TCG has ever done and some think they look like a printing error. I am firmly in the first camp, and I think the people who dismiss them have mostly only seen bad photos of them.
They also happen to be one of the few parts of the hobby where you can still buy something genuinely striking for the price of a coffee. There are exactly 324 rainbow rares in the English TCG and more than thirty of them cost less than five dollars.
Everything below comes out of Card Codex, the Pokémon card database my co-founder and I run, so the selections are filtered on actual rarity rather than someone’s opinion of what looks rainbow. Tap the tag icon on any card to see what it is going for today.
Some links on this page are eBay affiliate links. If you buy through one I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. It never affects which cards I pick. Read the full affiliate disclaimer.
What makes a card a rainbow rare
A rainbow rare is a secret rare, which means its number runs past the official set total. A card numbered 200 out of 189 is a secret. The rainbow treatment specifically takes an existing GX, V, VMAX or VSTAR card and reprints the artwork in a pastel gradient with a heavy textured foil over the top.
They arrived with Guardians Rising in 2017 and stopped at the end of the Sword and Shield era. Scarlet and Violet dropped the treatment completely in favour of gold hyper rares, so there is not a single rainbow rare in any modern set and there never will be. The run is closed at 324 cards, which is unusual in a hobby where supply normally only grows.
Two things worth knowing before you buy. The texture scratches easily, so buy sleeved or graded if condition matters to you. And they photograph badly, which is genuinely why they have a reputation for looking washed out. In hand they are far better than any listing photo suggests.
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Start Tracking Now — It’s FreeThe best rainbow Pokémon cards
If you only ever buy one rainbow rare, it should probably be on this page. These are the nine most expensive in the English TCG, which is a crude measure but an honest one, and it tends to line up with the ones people actually want.
Fair warning that this is the priciest section here by a long way. Everything after it gets more reachable.
The nine best
Ranked purely on current market value, which is blunt but at least it is not my opinion. Charizard does what Charizard always does, and the Eeveelutions from Evolving Skies are not far behind.
Rainbow cards by Pokémon
The rainbow treatment suits some Pokémon far better than others. Anything with a lot of white or pale colour in the original art tends to come out beautifully, and anything already dark tends to lose detail.
These six groups are where the run is deepest, and where you can realistically build a full page around a single theme.
Eevee and the Eeveelutions
The Eeveelutions are the single best argument for rainbow rares. All that pale fur takes the gradient perfectly, and Evolving Skies alone gave us several of the best in the entire run.
Starters and Charizard
Charizard has eight rainbow rares on its own, so I have grouped it with the other starters rather than give it a thin page of its own. The Kanto three are the ones that hold value hardest.
Dragons
Dragons already have busy, colourful artwork, so the rainbow treatment either elevates them or completely overwhelms them. Rayquaza is the one everyone chases and it deserves it.
Legendaries and mythicals
Legendaries get the most dramatic rainbow prints because the base artwork usually has a lot going on. This is also where some of the steepest prices sit outside of Charizard.
Mew, Gengar and psychic types
Psychic types were made for this finish. The pastel gradient reads as something otherworldly on Mew and Gardevoir in a way it simply does not on a fire type.
Pikachu and electric types
Only thirteen electric rainbow rares exist, which makes this the tightest group here. Pikachu accounts for four of them and they are all worth a look.
Rainbow cards by card type
Every rainbow rare is a reprint of a card that already existed in a lower rarity, so the card type tells you roughly which years it came from. GX means Sun and Moon, while V, VMAX and VSTAR mean Sword and Shield. There are no rainbow ex cards at all.
It is also the most practical way to shop, because the type usually decides the price bracket more than the Pokémon does.
Rainbow GX
The biggest group by a distance at 144 cards, and the cheapest way into the run. Sun and Moon printed these generously so supply has never really dried up.
Rainbow VMAX
VMAX cards are physically bigger artwork, so the gradient has more room to work. These are the ones that look best in person and worst in a photo.
Rainbow VSTAR
Only 25 exist, all from the back half of Sword and Shield, making this the smallest card type in the run. A genuinely small run that gets much less attention than it should.
Rainbow Tag Team
Tag Teams have two or three Pokémon sharing one card, so there is more artwork for the gradient to do something with. Some of the most ambitious cards in the run.
Rainbow trainer cards
Rainbow trainers are the sleeper of the whole run. There are only nineteen of them, they get far less attention than the Pokémon cards, and the gradient works better on a character illustration than on almost anything else.
If you want the part of this article most likely to age well, it is this section.
Rainbow cards by era
Rainbow rares ran for about five years across two eras, and the look changed noticeably between them. Early ones are subtle to the point of being easy to miss. Later ones are far bolder and use much heavier texture.
Worth knowing which era you actually like before you start buying, because they do not sit together as comfortably as you would expect.
Sun and Moon era
Where it all started, with Guardians Rising in 2017. Early rainbows are subtler than what came later, which some people prefer and some find underwhelming.
Sword and Shield era
The peak of the format, both in quality and in quantity. If you are building one page from one era, build it from this one.
Rainbow cards by budget
This is the part that surprises people. Rainbow rares have a reputation for being expensive and plenty of them are, but the run is deep enough that there is something good at every level.
Prices are live from Card Codex, so treat the bands as a snapshot. Anything that has moved will show up when you tap through.
Under $5
Real rainbow rares for less than a booster pack. Only 34 sit under five dollars, so this is close to the complete list rather than a curated pick.
Under $20
The deepest band by far with 148 cards to choose from. If you are building a full rainbow binder page, this is where most of it comes from.
Under $50
Where the recognisable Pokémon start appearing. Still very reachable if you buy one at a time rather than trying to do a page in one order.
Under $150
Serious cards but not yet grail territory. The Sword and Shield VMAX rainbows dominate this bracket.
Grails over $150
Twenty-four cards sit above this line and most of them are Charizard or an Eeveelution. Buy the one you actually want rather than the one that is trending.
Rainbow, gold and secret rare: the difference
These three get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Secret rare is the umbrella term for any card numbered above the set total. Rainbow rare and gold rare are both types of secret rare, they just have different finishes.
Rainbow is the pastel gradient and it only ever appeared in Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield. Gold, now called hyper rare, is the metallic treatment that replaced it and it is what you pull from current sets. Nothing on this page is a gold card. If it has a metallic gold finish rather than a pastel gradient, it is a hyper rare and it belongs in a different article.
If you are shopping by look rather than by label, the thing to search for is the set number. Anything above the printed total is one of the three.
Track your rainbow cards on Card Codex
Because rainbow rares are a closed set, they are one of the few things in the hobby you can realistically complete. All 324 of them are in Card Codex with live pricing, so you can mark off what you own, see what is left and watch what the run is worth as the market moves.
Create a free account and start tracking.
