Charizard ex: Every Variant Across Modern Sets, 2023–2026

Since the Scarlet & Violet era launched in March 2023, The Pokémon Company has printed at least 18 distinct collector-grade Charizard ex variants across six sets — including the four-tier SV 151 lineup (regular Double Rare 006/165, Full Art 183/165, Special Illustration Rare 199/165, plus the Japan-only Special Art Rare 201/165), the parallel four-tier Obsidian Flames lineup (125/197 / 215/197 / 223/197 / 228/197 gold Hyper Rare), the shiny Tera Charizard ex 234/091 from Paldean Fates, the Charizard ex Super Premium Collection promo tied to the 2024 Surging Sparks window, the November 14, 2025 Phantasmal Flames Mega Charizard X ex run (013/094 / 109/094 / 125/094 plus the MEP #023 UPC Black Star Promo), and the brand-new Mega Charizard Y ex from Ascended Heroes (022/217 regular plus 294/217 gold Mega Hyper Rare) that launched January 30, 2026. If you've searched charizard ex in 2026, the top of the SERP is a wall of single-product retailer pages, one Reddit thread, and a Polygon TCG-Pocket deck guide — none of them lineage the mechanic. This is the guide that does. PullMarket — operated by SKYCOAST CAPITAL LLC — walks every modern Charizard ex printing chronologically, decodes the four rarity tiers, cites real PSA-10 economics, and hands off the per-set deep-dives to the matching sibling articles.

Part of: Complete Pokémon Cards Guide — the pillar overview of every era from 1999 WOTC to the 2025 Mega Evolution Pokémon TCG.

What "ex" Actually Means in the Scarlet & Violet Era

The lowercase "ex" suffix on a modern Charizard ex is the Scarlet & Violet–era game mechanic introduced in March 2023, in which a Pokémon ex carries an upsized HP pool, a stronger attack profile, and the trade-off of giving up two prize cards when knocked out instead of one. That's the mechanic the 48,000-monthly-search charizard ex query is almost always asking about — every modern Charizard ex printing from SV 151 forward uses it. The Paldean Fates Tera variant (January 2024) layered the Tera Type mechanic on top, which is why the shiny Tera Charizard ex 234/091 sits in its own collector aesthetic tier.

A separate, older "EX" mechanic exists. Uppercase "EX" is two different vintage families — the 2003–2007 e-Card-era Pokémon ex (EX Ruby & Sapphire → EX Power Keepers) and the 2014–2016 XY Pokémon-EX run that included M Charizard X EX and M Charizard Y EX. Those are different mechanics on different card stock from different eras, and they pre-date everything in this guide. For the vintage EX context, see the Charizard set-by-set guide; the rest of this article stays inside the modern lowercase "ex" mechanic only.

Every Charizard ex Variant, Set by Set (the Master Table)

The fastest way to make sense of the modern Charizard ex run is one row per printing — set name, year, card name, card number, rarity tier, and where the per-set deep-dive lives. Every cell below cross-references Bulbapedia and the matching Pokémon.com or Limitless TCG database entry as of the brief date (2026-05-31); the rarity-tier classification follows The Pokémon Company's published rarity-symbol convention.

Two table notes that matter. First, the Obsidian Flames numbering trips up the SERP constantly: 215/197 is the Full Art Ultra Rare (textured silver border), not the SIR. The SIR is 223/197 — the skyline / cityscape borderless art where Charizard flies over a city silhouette. The Hyper Rare gold secret is 228/197. Second, MEP #023 and ME02 013/094 are two separate cards. MEP #023 is the Black Star UPC promo exclusive to the 2025 Mega Charizard X ex Ultra-Premium Collection; ME02 013/094 is the in-set Phantasmal Flames Double Rare. They look similar at a glance and they're not the same card.

SV 151 (2023): Where Modern Charizard ex Starts

The June 2023 Scarlet & Violet 151 set is where the modern Charizard ex chain begins, and it shipped four distinct Charizard ex printings — three for the English market plus one Japan-only Special Art Rare:

• 006/165 — Double Rare regular ex. The playable mass-pull version with the orange text frame; the card every SV 151 booster box was statistically likely to deliver in the ex slot.
• 183/165 — Full Art Ultra Rare. Textured silver-bordered full-body art, no text frame on the art panel itself.
• 199/165 — Special Illustration Rare. The borderless full-card "fire-tornado" art that became the iconic modern Charizard ex grail and the card Google's knowledge panel now locks as the canonical "Charizard ex" search result.
• 201/165 — Special Art Rare, Japan-only. Equivalent artwork to the SIR but with a Japanese-market print run; a completionist chase, not commonly traded on the English secondary market.

The 199/165 SIR is the highest-demand card in the SV 151 set and the reason Ahrefs assigns charizard 151 as the parent topic of the head term charizard ex itself — 13,000 monthly searches go to charizard ex 151 alone. PSA-10 economics on this slab are the textbook modern SIR case (covered in detail below). Hand off: for the full SV 151 set context — pull rates on the Mew secret rare, the rest of the chase list, and per-card identification — see the SV 151 Charizard guide.

Obsidian Flames (2023): The Four-Tier Parallel Lineup

Released August 11, 2023, Obsidian Flames mirrored the SV 151 four-tier Charizard ex setup and added the first modern gold Hyper Rare Charizard ex in the lineup. Four prints, and the disambiguation matters more here than anywhere else in the cluster:

• 125/197 — Double Rare regular ex. The clean playable card; standard ex frame.
• 215/197 — Ultra Rare Full Art. Textured silver border, full-body art, no text frame. This is not the SIR — retailer listings and even some hobby-press posts get this wrong.
• 223/197 — Special Illustration Rare. The famous skyline / cityscape art where Charizard flies over a city silhouette. This is the SIR.
• 228/197 — Hyper Rare gold / secret. Solid gold-foil treatment of the regular ex art. The first gold Charizard ex in the modern mechanic, and the card the 1,200/mo charizard ex gold query is hunting.

Why the 215/197-vs-223/197 confusion persists: the SERP for charizard ex 215/197 is dominated by listings that mis-label the slab, and the pillar brief for the Charizard set-by-set guide itself originally mis-tagged 215/197 as the SIR (a known QA fail that the parent article should patch at next update). For this guide: the SIR is 223/197, full stop. Hand off: the per-card pull rates, OBF box-product context, and PSA-10 progression for each tier live in the Obsidian Flames Charizard guide.

Paldean Fates (Jan 2024): The Shiny Tera Charizard ex

The January 2024 Paldean Fates expansion is the Shiny-Vault-style subset for the SV era, and it shipped a single but high-impact Charizard ex: Shiny Tera Charizard ex 234/091, in SIR rarity, rendered with the Dark-type shiny treatment that the hobby quickly nicknamed the "black Charizard." That nickname is exactly what the 1,100-monthly-search black charizard card query and the 150-monthly-search black charizard ex query are after. The Tera mechanic — which lets a Pokémon temporarily change its energy type — is what underpins the unusual art treatment, and the shiny version is the chase printing of the entire set. No other Charizard ex variants from Paldean Fates exist; this is a one-card entry in the lineage. Hand off: for the Paldean Fates set context, the "black Charizard" disambiguation, and current shiny-SIR comps, see the Paldean Fates Charizard guide.

Surging Sparks (Nov 2024): The Charizard ex Super Premium Collection Promo

The September–November 2024 Surging Sparks product window included the Charizard ex Super Premium Collection (SPC) — the sealed-box product line that the 1,300-monthly-search charizard spc and 1,000-monthly-search charizard super premium collection queries are looking for. The SPC shipped a Black Star Promo Charizard ex distinct from any in-set Surging Sparks booster pull. Note the naming carefully: "SPC" and "UPC" are two different product tiers — the Charizard ex Super Premium Collection at the $40–$70 range sits closer to a Premium Collection than to the $119.99 MSRP Ultra-Premium Collection. They are not the same SKU and the promo cards are different.

Hand off: the box-by-box UPC-vs-SPC-vs-Premium-Collection product tier comparison lives in the Charizard UPC guide; the broader Charizard chronological lineage including the pre-ex era sits in the Charizard set-by-set guide.

Phantasmal Flames (Nov 2025): The Mega Charizard X ex Lineup + MEP #023 UPC Promo

November 14, 2025: Phantasmal Flames (set code ME02, the second wave of the Mega Evolution era) shipped the first Mega Charizard in the modern ex mechanic — a long-awaited return of the Mega form last printed in the 2014–2016 XY era. Four distinct Mega Charizard X ex cards belong to this release window:

• 013/094 — Mega Charizard X ex Double Rare (regular ex, the playable copy in the Phantasmal Flames booster).
• 109/094 — Mega Charizard X ex Ultra Rare (Full Art). Textured silver border, full-body Mega Charizard X art with the X mechanic's blue-flame motif.
• 125/094 — Mega Charizard X ex Special Illustration Rare. Borderless full-card scene with the Mega Evolution storytelling treatment.
• MEP #023 — Mega Charizard X ex Black Star Promo, exclusive to the 2025 Mega Charizard X ex Ultra-Premium Collection (the Phantasmal Flames UPC). Distinct gold-silver Mega Evolution border; not the same physical card as 013/094.

This is the run that brought Mega Charizard back as a collectible after a near-decade gap. PSA-10 comps are still maturing on these — the set is only six months old as of the brief date — so Card Ladder trailing-90 data is more useful than a single eBay sold-search for any of these slabs. Hand off: the in-set deep-dive lives in the Phantasmal Flames Charizard guide; the UPC box-level breakdown — what ships, what the promo is worth raw and graded, and whether the $200 secondary asking price clears EV — is in the Charizard UPC guide; the full XY-through-2026 Mega Charizard lineage including the 2014 M Charizard X EX / M Y EX vintage Mega prints lives in the Mega Charizard ex guide.

Ascended Heroes (Jan 30, 2026): The First Mega Charizard Y ex

The today-relevant section. January 30, 2026 launched Mega Evolution—Ascended Heroes, the largest English Pokémon TCG set ever released at 295 cards and the first set ever to ship the new "Mega Hyper Rare" gold-etched top-rarity tier. Two Mega Charizard Y ex printings shipped in the set:

• 022/217 — Mega Charizard Y ex regular Ultra Rare. The standard Mega ex frame in the in-set numbering. This is the "playable" Mega Y ex.
• 294/217 — Mega Charizard Y ex Mega Hyper Rare. Gold-etched secret print; the new top-rarity slot that only two cards in the entire 295-card set received. The other recipient is widely reported to be the headline trainer-art card of the set; the Mega Charizard Y ex is one of the two and the more chased of the pair.

The 294/217 Mega Hyper Rare gold was selling raw NM around ~$565 at brief date (Cardrake / PriceCharting, May 29, 2026), making it the highest-demand Charizard ex print of 2026 to date. PSA-10 comps for the slab are still too thin to anchor meaningfully — set released January 30, 2026; PSA standard service is currently 30–60 business days, so the first wave of PSA-10 pop is just landing as of the brief date. Treat any PSA-10 number cited on the slab today as provisional until trailing-30 data thickens.

Hand off: the full XY-to-Ascended-Heroes Mega Charizard lineage — both X and Y forms, vintage and modern, every card by set code — lives in the Mega Charizard ex guide; the chronological set-by-set context across the entire 1999-to-today Charizard run sits in the Charizard set-by-set guide.

How to Identify Which Charizard ex Tier You Have

If you're holding a modern Charizard ex and you're not sure which tier it sits in, the identification path is six steps and almost always solvable without leaving your couch:

1. Find the card number in the lower-left corner of the card frame (e.g. 199/165, 223/197, 125/094, 294/217). The first three digits are the print number; the second three are the set total — that's the unambiguous identifier.
2. If the first-three is ≤ the set total (006/165, 125/197, 013/094, 022/217), you have a regular Double Rare ex — the playable, mass-pull version with the orange ex text frame.
3. If the first-three is HIGHER than the set total (199/165, 215/197, 223/197, 228/197, 109/094, 125/094, 294/217), you have a secret rare — a Full Art Ultra Rare, SIR, Hyper Rare, or Mega Hyper Rare.
4. Look at the art. Borderless full-card art with no text frame and a storytelling composition = Special Illustration Rare. Textured silver border with full-body art = Ultra Rare Full Art. Solid gold foil across the whole card = Hyper Rare. Gold-etched foil (new in Ascended Heroes 2026, only two cards in the set) = Mega Hyper Rare.
5. Check the foil pattern. SIR uses a distinctive horizontal-line foil over the art. Full Art Ultra Rare uses cosmos / starburst foil. Hyper Rare gold uses solid gold field. Mega Hyper Rare uses the gold-etched treatment unique to 2026.
6. Verify on the canonical source. Pokémon.com's official card database, Limitless TCG, and Bulbapedia all cross-reference each modern printing by set + card number. For graded copies, cross-check the cert on the grader's own website — PSA cert lookup, CGC cert lookup, SGC cert lookup.

What the SIRs Are Pulling: PSA 9 to PSA 10 Economics

PSA-9-to-PSA-10 spread is what drives the modern Charizard ex grading economy, and every figure below traces to a linked aggregator at the brief date — values move; this is range orientation, not a quote. Honest comp data lives at Card Ladder (trailing-90 sale-by-sale), Beckett (loose / CIB sealed comps), and PSA Auction Prices Realized (individual PSA-graded sale anchors); use those, not a single eBay sold-search.

The honest sweep across the modern Charizard ex SIR run, all figures as of May 29, 2026:

SV 151 Charizard ex 199/165 SIR — Raw NM ~$408 (Sports Card Investor). PSA 9 ~$435–$440 14-day average. PSA 10 ~$1,710–$1,760 14-day average. PSA-9-to-PSA-10 spread ≈ 4x. This is the textbook modern SIR case — the grade carries the margin, not the print run.

Obsidian Flames Charizard ex 223/197 SIR — Raw NM ~$130. PSA 10 listing tier ~$385. PSA-10-vs-raw spread ≈ 3x. Cheaper SIR overall than the 151 SIR because OBF supply ran wider; still meaningful PSA-10 economics.

Obsidian Flames Charizard ex 228/197 Hyper Rare gold — Raw NM ~$42. PSA 10 carries a ~5x premium. Lower absolute demand than the SIR (gold isn't the art-driven chase tier for most modern collectors), but cleaner grade-cost math at the entry.

Paldean Fates 234/091 shiny Tera SIR — Raw NM ~$235 at recent aggregator pulls. PSA 10 commands a meaningful premium that's still finding its trailing range as supply normalizes.

Phantasmal Flames Mega Charizard X ex 125/094 SIR — Recent release (Nov 2025); PSA-10 comps are still maturing and the trailing-90 window isn't full yet. Check Card Ladder at publish-time before quoting.

Ascended Heroes Mega Charizard Y ex 294/217 Mega Hyper Rare — Raw NM ~$565 at brief date. PSA-10 pop is too thin to comp meaningfully — the set is four months old and PSA standard service is 30–60 business days; the first wave of slabs is landing right now. Honest answer for any 2026 ask on this one is "trailing-30 data only," and that data is barely there.

Grading economics, plainly stated. PSA Standard service is roughly $15–$25 per card plus shipping at current public tiers (live pricing on psacard.com); CGC and SGC sit in the same range. A PSA-9-to-PSA-10 spread of 3x–5x on a modern Charizard ex SIR usually clears grading cost only at the PSA 10 outcome — PSA 9 grades on these slabs are routinely net breakeven or worse once fees and shipping are loaded. Rule of thumb across every tier: pull quality matters more than the print. A beat-up raw copy isn't worth submitting at any modern ex tier. For the broader PSA-10 vs PSA-9 grading-economics walkthrough across all Charizards including vintage, see the parent Charizard set-by-set guide.

SIR vs Full Art vs Hyper Rare: Which One Should You Chase?

The four-tier rarity ladder per printing is real, but most collectors only ever chase one or two tiers per set — the rest are completionist territory. Honest framing per tier:

The honest takeaway: most modern Charizard ex collectors chase the SIR per printing because the art is the differentiator and the storytelling composition is what makes a slab visually memorable on a shelf. Tournament players keep the regular Double Rare ex for the actual deck. Flippers chase the gold Hyper Rare for the novelty-tier upside, knowing it almost always settles below the SIR at PSA-10 12–18 months in. The 2026 Mega Hyper Rare in Ascended Heroes is the first new top-rarity tier in three years, and it's running hot enough at launch to break the usual pattern — track that one through Q3 2026 before anchoring on a long-term thesis.

Hunt a Charizard ex Without Buying a Full UPC

Three legitimate paths exist for any collector who wants a Charizard ex slab in-hand, and the right one depends entirely on what experience you're actually buying:

A short, plain note on the third path. PullMarket runs a hybrid fulfillment model per Terms §5.5 — some pulled slabs are held in PullMarket's own insured, climate-controlled custody and others are reserved against verified supplier and partner-vault inventory and sourced at redemption. Either way, what you pull is a real third-party-graded card with a PSA, CGC, or SGC cert that resolves directly on the grader's website. PullMarket Gems is store credit and explicitly not cashable (Terms §9.1). PullMarket isn't a sweepstakes, lottery, or wagering product — the product is collecting and ripping real graded cards with the odds published in front of you before you buy. The full operating-model walkthrough lives on our trust & safety page; the rip → decide → vault / ship / sell-back flow is on how PullMarket works.

Ready to Chase a Charizard ex Without the $200 Queue?

Browse the live PullMarket Pokémon pack catalog with the published per-pack odds in front of you, see exactly which graded slabs sit in each pack's possible-outcome pool, and decide per pack whether to rip, hold, or pass. Real cards. Real grades. Your decision per pull. The 2026 Mega Hyper Rare era is the first new top-rarity tier in three years — pick the slab you actually want.