Charizard ex Obsidian Flames: Every Variant, Pulls & Values

Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Obsidian Flames (SV03) released August 11, 2023 as the third main S&V expansion and the first English set to feature Tera Pokémon ex in non-native types — Charizard ex 125/197 is a Tera Darkness card with 330 HP — and the set shipped four collector-grade Charizard ex printings across four rarity tiers: 125/197 Double Rare (the playable Tera Darkness ex), 215/197 Ultra Rare Full Art (textured silver border), 223/197 Special Illustration Rare (the borderless "perched on flames" skyline composition), and 228/197 Hyper Rare (the full-card gold). Half the internet — Reddit threads, secondhand eBay listings, even PullMarket's own pillar draft at the brief date — calls 215/197 the SIR. It isn't. The SIR is 223/197. This guide walks every Charizard ex in Obsidian Flames with corrected codes, cites the published TCGplayer pull rates, anchors PSA 9 → PSA 10 economics per tier to dated aggregator comps, and ends with the honest path-to-pull choices. PullMarket — operated by SKYCOAST CAPITAL LLC — is the lineage-mapped guide the SERP doesn't write.

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

Obsidian Flames in 60 Seconds: What the Set Is and Why Charizard ex Anchors It

Obsidian Flames is the third main Scarlet & Violet expansion (set code SV03, English release August 11, 2023), built on the Japanese sister set "Ruler of the Black Flame" (sv3, released July 28, 2023), and the first set in the English run to print Tera Pokémon ex in non-native types — Pokémon ex with a Terastal energy type different from their normal type. Charizard ex 125/197 is the marquee example and the reason collectors call OBF "the Charizard set." The full set runs 197 main set cards plus 33 secret rares for 230 numbered printings (per the Bulbapedia OBF set page).

• Set name + code: Scarlet & Violet—Obsidian Flames (SV03).
• English release: August 11, 2023. Japanese Ruler of the Black Flame (sv3): July 28, 2023.
• Set size: 197 numbered base cards + 33 secret rares = 230 total printings.
• Mechanic anchor: first English set to print Tera Pokémon ex in non-native types. Charizard ex 125/197 is a Tera Darkness ex (Fire-type Pokémon, Darkness-type card) with 330 HP, the Infernal Reign ability, and the Burning Darkness attack (180+ damage, +30 per opponent Prize taken).
• Why Charizard anchors the set: as of the draft date, the position-1 SERP hit for charizard ex obsidian flames is the 223/197 SIR; OBF Charizard ex is the most-traded card in the set by SERP volume, ahead of Tyranitar, Pidgeot, or Slither Wing.

For the broader Charizard chronology across every era, see the Charizard set-by-set guide; for the cross-set ex mechanic in plain English — what lowercase "ex" actually means, how Tera ex layers on top, and where ex sits between V/VMAX/VSTAR and the new Mega ex era — see the Charizard ex guide.

All Four Charizard ex Variants in Obsidian Flames (the Canonical Table)

The Obsidian Flames Charizard ex run is four printings spread across four rarity tiers, and the order matters because Google has effectively crystallized the 223/197 SIR as the canonical "Charizard ex Obsidian Flames" search result while the other three printings sit lower in the SERP without a unifying explainer above them. Every cell below cross-references the TCGplayer OBF product catalog, Limitless TCG variant cross-links, PriceCharting per-card pages, and Sports Card Investor URL slugs ("double-rare-125-197" and "hyper-rare-secret-228-197" both encode the rarity tier in the URL itself).

The 125/197 Double Rare (the Playable Charizard ex)

Charizard ex 125/197 is the Double Rare regular ex — the mass-pull, tournament-playable copy with the orange ex text frame, and the one most people mean when they say "I pulled a Charizard ex from Obsidian Flames." Card details cross-reference the Limitless TCG card sheet:

• Number / rarity: 125/197, Double Rare.
• Type / HP: Tera Darkness, 330 HP. Grass weakness, 2 retreat cost.
• Ability — Infernal Reign: when this Pokémon evolves from Charmeleon during your turn, you may attach up to 3 Basic Red Energy cards from your discard pile to your Pokémon. The ability that anchored the card's deck-building case in the Scarlet & Violet competitive meta.
• Attack — Burning Darkness: 180+ damage, +30 per Prize the opponent has taken — the Tera-Darkness payoff that scales as the match swings.
• Illustrator: 5ban Graphics.
• Other 125 variants: a Jumbo oversized 125/197 and a Prize Pack 125/197 also exist (cross-reference PriceCharting for both). Neither carries the same collector value as the standard pack-pulled 125, but completionists chase them.

Why it matters for OBF Charizard chasers: the 125 is the printing you'll usually pull from a single booster box (roughly 1 Double Rare per 7 packs at the published TCGplayer rate, with Charizard ex one of several Double Rares in the rotation). Lowest per-card value of the four tiers, highest cultural recognition. For how the Double Rare tier compares to ex Double Rares across every other modern set — SV 151 006/165, Paldean Fates shiny Tera 234/091, Phantasmal Flames Mega Charizard X ex 013/094, Ascended Heroes Mega Charizard Y ex 022/217 — see the Charizard ex guide.

The 215/197 Ultra Rare Full Art (the Silver-Border Full-Body)

Charizard ex 215/197 is the Ultra Rare Full Art — textured silver-border, full-body Charizard, text frame intact on the art panel. It is not the SIR, and the confusion is the single most common identification error in the OBF Charizard market.

• Number / rarity: 215/197, Ultra Rare. Sits in the OBF Ultra Rare block (roughly 198–222).
• Art: textured silver Full Art treatment with full-body Charizard pose, breath of fire, the Pokémon text frame and HP / attack box still on the card face.
• Pull rate: roughly 1 in 15 packs at the Ultra Rare tier (per the TCGplayer Obsidian Flames pull-rate study). Charizard's share of the Ultra Rare pool depends on the total Ultra Rare count in OBF — cross-check against the Bulbapedia OBF set list for the exact share.
• Confusion alert: this is the printing most often mislabeled "SIR" on eBay listings and Reddit posts. Cross-reference the border (textured silver = Ultra Rare; borderless = SIR) and the number (215 vs 223). If you paid SIR money for a 215 on a secondhand listing, you overpaid — the 215 PSA 10 floor sits well below the 223 PSA 10 floor (see the value section below).
• Why collectors care: the Full Art is the textured, "feels premium-in-hand" Charizard ex of the set. Second-most-pulled of the four secret-or-higher tiers and the easiest "pretty full art" to chase if the SIR is out of budget.

The 223/197 Special Illustration Rare ("Perched on Flames")

Charizard ex 223/197 is the Special Illustration Rare — the borderless full-card composition of Charizard perched on a black-flames cityscape, breath of fire, no text frame, no border, the storytelling art runs edge-to-edge. This is the modern collector grail of Obsidian Flames and the card Google's product carousel locks as the canonical "Charizard ex Obsidian Flames."

• Number / rarity: 223/197, Special Illustration Rare (SIR). First card in the OBF SIR block (223–227).
• Art: borderless full-card composition. Charizard perched on / flying over a black-flames city skyline. No text frame on the art panel. Edge-to-edge storytelling composition — the hallmark of the SIR rarity tier The Pokémon Company introduced in the Scarlet & Violet era.
• Pull rate: roughly 1 in 32 packs at the SIR tier overall (per the TCGplayer OBF pull-rate study). With 6 SARs/SIRs in the set, the realistic Charizard-specific math is about 1 Charizard 223 SIR per 5 booster boxes on average.
• Why this is the chase: the SIR tier is the borderless, art-driven, lowest-pull-rate rarity in the standard Scarlet & Violet rotation. The OBF 223 SIR is the second-most-iconic 2023 SIR after the SV 151 199/165 SIR — see the SV 151 Charizard guide for the side-by-side comparison if you're choosing which one to chase first.

The 228/197 Hyper Rare (the Gold Charizard ex)

Charizard ex 228/197 is the Hyper Rare — full-card gold-foil treatment of the regular ex art, also called the "gold" or "secret rare." The first gold Charizard ex in the modern Scarlet & Violet ex mechanic, and the rarest of the four standard OBF Charizard ex tiers in raw pull-rate terms.

• Number / rarity: 228/197, Hyper Rare. Last card in the OBF SIR/Hyper Rare block.
• Art: full-card gold-foil treatment over the regular Charizard ex art. Solid gold field — the visual signature of the Hyper Rare tier.
• Pull rate: roughly 1 in 52 packs at the Hyper Rare tier (per the TCGplayer OBF pull-rate study) — the rarest of the four standard OBF Charizard tiers.
• PSA Spec for cert verification: PSA Spec 9245544 covers the OBF 228/197 Hyper Rare. Any PSA-graded copy carries a cert that resolves on the PSA Spec page — always cross-check the cert before paying graded prices.
• Why collectors split on this one: the gold isn't the art card — the 223 SIR is. The gold is the aesthetic card. Some collectors value the SIR more because of the storytelling composition; others value the gold more because of pull rarity and the "secret rare" status. Both views are defensible — the PSA 10 spreads in the next section tell the honest story. For the broader gold/Mega Hyper Rare lineage — including the January 30, 2026 Ascended Heroes 294/217 Mega Charizard Y ex gold-etched Mega Hyper Rare — see the Charizard ex guide.

What Each Charizard ex Is Worth: PSA 9 → PSA 10 Economics per Tier

PSA 9 to PSA 10 spread is the modern Charizard ex grading economy in one sentence, and every figure below traces to a linked aggregator at the draft date of May 31, 2026. Re-fetch the comps before you act — these slabs move week-to-week, and the 228 was up roughly 25% over the prior 30 days at draft date, which is the kind of swing that makes any "PSA 10 is $316" line stale within a month. Honest comp data lives at Sports Card Investor, PriceCharting, Card Ladder, and PSA APR via psacard.com.

The four-tier value sweep, all figures as of May 30, 2026 unless otherwise noted:

125/197 Double Rare — raw NM ~$5.75 (Sports Card Investor, 4/29/2026 last sale; down 12.8% over the prior 30 days). PSA 10 lands in the $25–$45 range on recent GameStop and eBay sold listings; PSA 9 typically $15–$20. PSA 9 is usually net breakeven after $15–$25 grading cost — grade only PSA-10 candidates. The Jumbo 125 and Prize Pack 125 variants sit in their own niche markets; cross-check PriceCharting before pricing either.

215/197 Full Art Ultra Rare — raw NM Full Arts on OBF Charizard typically run $25–$60 depending on the week. PSA 10 floors land roughly $100–$200 on recent listings — well below the 223 SIR PSA 10 floor, which is the whole financial reason the 215-vs-223 disambiguation matters. Re-check the Sports Card Investor OBF Charizard ex pages at draft time for the current week's comp.

223/197 SIR — PSA 10 listed at $385 (Poke-Collect, draft date 2026-05-31; corroborated by GameStop graded listings). PSA 9 comps run roughly $130–$180, so the PSA 9 to PSA 10 premium is roughly 2x–3x. Raw NM sits in the ~$130 range — the raw to PSA 10 spread is roughly 3x. The grading-cost breakeven is clean if the raw is a PSA-10 candidate; pull-quality is the variable, not the print.

228/197 Hyper Rare gold — raw NM $44.99 (Sports Card Investor, 5/30/2026 last sale). PSA 10 $316 (5/30/2026; up ~25% over the prior 30 days — the freshest momentum trend in the set). PSA 9 ~$250. The PSA 9 to PSA 10 spread is roughly 1.3x (modest), but the raw to PSA 10 spread is ~7x — the highest in the set. That's the strongest grading-economics case on a clean raw PSA-10 candidate of any OBF Charizard tier.

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. Across all four OBF Charizard ex printings, the PSA 9 grade is the breakeven trap — only PSA 10 grades reliably clear grading cost plus premium. Pull-quality matters more than the print: a beat-up raw 223 isn't a PSA 10 candidate and isn't worth the slab fee. Specific dollar figures move weekly — treat the numbers above as a draft-date starting point and click through to the linked aggregators for the current week's comp before you act. The broader PSA 9 vs PSA 10 walk across the entire modern Charizard ex run lives in the Charizard ex guide.

Obsidian Flames Pull-Rate Reality: What a Booster Box Actually Delivers

A 36-pack Obsidian Flames booster box ($120–$160 at MSRP, $180+ on the secondary as of draft date) is the cinematic OBF Charizard ex rip experience — and the math for landing the specific Charizard you want above the Double Rare tier is statistically soft. The published TCGplayer Obsidian Flames pull-rate article is the single best uncontested source on the per-tier odds:

• Double Rare: ~1 in 7 packs
• Ultra Rare: ~1 in 15 packs
• Illustration Rare: ~1 in 13 packs
• Special Illustration Rare: ~1 in 32 packs
• Hyper Rare: ~1 in 52 packs

(Source: TCGplayer's Obsidian Flames pull-rate study.) Charizard's share of the secret-rare pool: Obsidian Flames has 6 SARs / SIRs in total at the secret-art tier, so the realistic per-Charizard math is roughly 1 Charizard 223 SIR per 5 booster boxes on average. What a single 36-pack booster box realistically delivers, on the published-rate math:

• ~5 Double Rares (Charizard ex 125 is one of several Double Rares in the pool — usually 1–2 Charizard 125s per box)
• ~2 Ultra Rares (the 215/197 Full Art shares this pool with every other OBF Ultra Rare)
• ~3 Illustration Rares
• ~1 SIR (any character — roughly 1-in-6 chance the SIR is the Charizard 223)
• 0–1 Hyper Rare (when one hits, it's frequently — but not always — the Charizard 228)

The honest takeaway: a single OBF booster box reliably delivers the 125, occasionally delivers the 215, rarely delivers the 223, and only sometimes delivers the 228. Opening sealed for the specific Charizard ex tier you want above Double Rare is statistically unreliable — the 215, 223, or 228 you usually end up paying singles market for. The obsidian flames etb and obsidian flames booster box searches sit in this same decision: cinematic sealed object vs odds-disclosed singles target. The next section lays out the three honest paths to a graded OBF Charizard ex without burning two booster boxes to chase one card.

How to Land an OBF Charizard ex Without Buying Cases: The Three Honest Paths

Three legitimate paths exist for any collector who wants an Obsidian Flames Charizard ex slab in-hand, and the right one depends entirely on which experience you're actually buying. Walk the decision in order:

1. Buy a graded single. The exact OBF Charizard ex you want — 125, 215, 223, or 228, in whatever grade you want — at market price, today. Lowest variance, no pull-rate uncertainty, no surprise. Use the dated comps in the value section above as your starting price, then cross-check Sports Card Investor and PriceCharting for the current week's number. Verify any PSA / CGC / SGC cert on the grader's own website before you pay — counterfeit modern slabs exist in the wild for high-demand prints like the 223 SIR.
2. Buy a sealed OBF booster box or ETB. 36 packs (booster box) or a curated ETB — the cinematic ripping experience, the sealed object on the shelf, and the social moment of the live rip. Per the math above, the box reliably delivers the 125 and roughly 1 SIR (any character, ~1-in-6 it's the Charizard 223). The obsidian flames booster box and obsidian flames etb searches sit here. Reasonable if you want the rip experience for its own sake; statistically soft if your single goal is a specific tier above Double Rare.
3. Rip a Pokémon pack on PullMarket. Real third-party-graded Pokémon singles, allocated to your account from a Pokémon-curated pack with published odds before purchase. Each pull is held in PullMarket's own insured, climate-controlled custody or sourced from verified supplier and partner-vault inventory per Terms §5.5. Per-card decision to vault, hold, ship, trade, or sell back for PullMarket Gems (store credit) within 24 hours. The rip-and-decide experience without buying a $200 sealed box to chase a single tier.

PullMarket isn't a sweepstakes, lottery, or wagering product — the product is collecting and ripping real third-party-graded cards with the odds published in front of you before you buy. PullMarket Gems is store credit and explicitly not cashable. The full operating-model walkthrough lives on our trust & safety page; the rip → decide → vault / ship / sell-back flow lives on how PullMarket works.

What Came Next: How Obsidian Flames Fits the 2023–2026 Charizard ex Lineage

Obsidian Flames is one of six Scarlet & Violet–era sets that have shipped a Charizard ex, and reading OBF in the context of the cluster makes the 223 SIR's collector position cleaner. SV 151 (June 2023) shipped the 199/165 SIR — the fire-tornado art, Google's knowledge-panel-canonical "Charizard ex," and the only other 2023 four-tier Charizard ex lineup; see the SV 151 Charizard guide for the head-to-head SIR-vs-SIR walk. Paldean Fates (January 2024) shipped a single but high-impact card — the Shiny Tera Charizard ex 234/091, in SIR rarity, rendered with the Dark-type shiny treatment hobbyists nicknamed the "black Charizard" — covered in depth in the Paldean Fates Charizard guide. Phantasmal Flames (November 14, 2025) brought Mega Charizard back as a collectible after a near-decade gap with the Mega Charizard X ex run — 013/094 Double Rare, 109/094 Full Art, 125/094 SIR, plus the MEP #023 UPC Black Star Promo — walked card by card in the Phantasmal Flames Charizard guide. And January 30, 2026 launched Ascended Heroes with the Mega Charizard Y ex 294/217 Mega Hyper Rare — the first new top-rarity tier in three years — covered in the Mega Charizard ex guide. OBF 228/197 was the first gold Charizard ex in the modern mechanic; that lineage now runs through the 2026 Ascended Heroes gold-etched Mega Hyper Rare.