Burning Shadows

What Burning Shadows is

Burning Shadows is the third main expansion of the Sun & Moon Series, released in English on August 4, 2017 under the set code BUS. It has 147 cards in the numbered set plus 22 secret rares, 169 in total. Its central Pokémon is Necrozma, the Prism Pokémon, and its theme is Team Skull, whose leader Guzma and admin Plumeria appear as Supporters alongside Acerola, Kiawe, Sophocles and Wicke. It is also the set that gave the Sun & Moon Series its first Charizard GX.

The checklist holds 40 rares, 30 Ultra rares and 22 secret rares. The Ultra rares split into the regular Pokémon GX, Charizard GX, Ho-Oh GX, Necrozma GX, Marshadow GX, Darkrai GX, Gardevoir GX and their peers, 13 full art GX and six full art Supporters, and the secret rares into 13 rainbow rare GX, six gold Items and three gold basic Energy cards. Fighting is the most represented type at 23 cards, and 5ban Graphics drew 38 of the 169.

The cards come from the Japanese To Have Seen the Battle Rainbow and Darkness that Consumes Light, paired sets of 64 cards each, combined with the Facing a New Trial subset.

What makes Burning Shadows different

• Charizard GX 5ban Graphics' Charizard GX 20 and its rainbow rare print at 150 made Burning Shadows the Charizard set of the GX era, and the rainbow Charizard GX is the most valuable pack pulled card in the set by a wide margin.
• Thirteen rainbow rares Every Pokémon GX in the set has a rainbow rare print from Golisopod GX 148 to Noivern GX 160, with Gardevoir GX 159, Darkrai GX 158 and Marshadow GX 156 the strongest after Charizard.
• Team Skull's Supporters Megumi Mizutani's Acerola 142, Masakazu Fukuda's Guzma 143 and Naoki Saito's Wicke 147 are the full art Supporters collectors chase, and Guzma became one of the era's defining tournament cards.
• League Raichu Reverse holofoil Raichu 41 was awarded as the Burning Shadows Season League Challenge promo in 1st to 4th Place versions, and the 1st Place print tops the set's PSA 10 list on a handful of sales.
• Alternate art Yellow A cards Charmander 18a, Tapu Fini GX 39a, Darkrai GX 88a, Kirlia 92a, Porygon-Z 105a, Acerola 112a, Guzma 115a and Kiawe 116a exist as Yellow A alternate art promos from collections, blisters and league events, and the alternate art Darkrai GX sits high on the graded list.

How Burning Shadows arrived

Japan released Facing a New Trial on April 21, 2017 and the paired To Have Seen the Battle Rainbow and Darkness that Consumes Light on June 16, 2017. The English Burning Shadows followed on August 4, 2017, a month after the McDonald's Collection 2017 and two months before Shining Legends.

Prerelease tournaments ran on the weekends of July 22 to 23 and July 29 to 30, 2017, with a kit of four booster packs, a tip sheet and a 23 card Evolution pack built around one of four SM Black Star Promos, Seviper 46, Crabominable 47, Zygarde 48 or Bewear 49, for a 40 card deck.

Launch day brought the Elite Trainer Box, the Rock Steady and Luminous Frost Theme Decks, Single Pack and Three Pack Blisters, a Launch Display for hobby shops with 72 packs, eight Theme Decks, 16 promos and 16 deck boxes, a Collector's Album and Ultra Pro portfolios featuring Ho-Oh and Marshadow, the stars of the twentieth movie. Dollar Tree began selling 3 card Mini Packs in late August 2017, the first expansion with long and short pack variants, and Two Pack Blisters with Cosmos Holofoil Alolan Dugtrio, Alolan Muk and Alolan Golem followed on January 5, 2018.

Burning Shadows products and what came in them

The Elite Trainer Box features Necrozma and holds eight booster packs, 65 card sleeves, four dividers, six damage counter dice, a coin flip die, two Special Condition markers, a GX marker, basic Energy cards, a player's guide and a code card. The Rock Steady Theme Deck is built on Midday Form Lycanroc with a Cracked Ice Holofoil Lycanroc 76, and Luminous Frost on Alolan Ninetales with a Cracked Ice Holofoil Alolan Ninetales 28, each with counters, a coin, a playmat, a deck box and a code card.

Collecting and grading Burning Shadows

The rainbow Charizard GX 150 is the card that matters, and the live prices above show it far ahead of the rest of the pulls. Gardevoir GX 159, Darkrai GX 158 and Marshadow GX 156 lead the other rainbow rares, the alternate art Darkrai GX 88a from the Shining Legends Figure Collection sits among them, and the full art Acerola 142 and Wicke 147 are the leading Trainers, with Noivern GX 160, Golisopod GX 148 and the full art Darkrai GX 139 and Machamp GX 135 behind them.

The League Challenge Raichu 41 at the top of the list is a tournament prize variant with almost no graded sales, the Toys R Us stamped Stufful 110 is a retail promo and the reverse holofoil Pikachu 40 shows a PSA 10 price on thin volume; match the variant label in the checklist before comparing any of them with a pack pull.

Rainbow rares of this era show surface scratches easily, so the PSA 10 premium on Charizard GX is large and condition on the pull decides everything. Sealed Burning Shadows has become a vintage Sun & Moon product, and the sealed table above tracks booster boxes, the Elite Trainer Box, the Theme Decks, blisters and tins.