Chilling Reign

What Chilling Reign is

Chilling Reign is the sixth main expansion of the Sword & Shield Series, released in English on June 18, 2021 under the set code CRE. It has 198 cards in the numbered set plus 35 secret rares, for 233 cards in total. The set draws on the Crown Tundra half of the Pokémon Sword and Shield Expansion Pass, with Calyrex in its two merged forms, Ice Rider Calyrex with Glastrier and Shadow Rider Calyrex with Spectrier, as its faces and the Galarian forms of Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres alongside them.

The secret rare run is one of the largest of the era: 39 Ultra rares (160 to 198) covering 26 full art and alternate art Pokémon V and 13 full art Supporters, 23 rainbow rares (199 to 221) covering the VMAX cards and 12 Supporters, and 12 gold cards (222 to 233) that include Electrode, Bronzong and Snorlax, six Items and three basic Energy cards. Eight Pokémon VMAX and 15 Pokémon V sit in the main numbering, Psychic is the most represented type at 30 cards and the set carries 59 Trainer cards. Every card but two carries the E regulation mark.

The cards come from the Japanese Silver Lance and Jet-Black Spirit expansions and the Peerless Fighters subset. Silver Lance has no Lightning Pokémon and Jet-Black Spirit no Fire Pokémon, a split reflected in the English set.

What makes Chilling Reign different

• The alternate art Blaziken VMAX Shigenori Negishi's Blaziken VMAX 201 is the most valuable pack pulled card in the set. Two more alternate art VMAX cards sit beside it, Oswaldo KATO's Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX 203 and Mitsuhiro Arita's Shadow Rider Calyrex VMAX 205, each paired with a regular rainbow print.
• Ten alternate art Pokémon V Ice Rider Calyrex V 164, Zeraora V 166, Galarian Rapidash V 168, Galarian Articuno V 170, Shadow Rider Calyrex V 172, Galarian Zapdos V 174, Galarian Moltres V 177, Galarian Slowking V 179, Blissey V 183 and Tornadus V 185 each carry a second, alternate art print. Shibuzoh.'s Galarian Moltres V 177 leads them in the graded market.
• The Galarian birds Galarian Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres each appear as a regular V, a full art V and an alternate art V, and the three alternate arts by Uta, Akira Komayama and Shibuzoh. are among the most collected cards in the set.
• A gold Snorlax The 12 gold secret rares include three Pokémon, Electrode 222, Bronzong 223 and Saki Hayashiro's Snorlax 224, an unusual choice that made Snorlax 224 one of the set's chase cards.
• Thirteen full art Supporters Agatha, Avery, Brawly, Caitlin, Doctor, Flannery, Honey, Karen's Conviction, Klara, Melony, Peonia, Peony and Siebold appear as Ultra rares (186 to 198), and all but Honey again as rainbow rares (210 to 221). Melony 195 also exists with a Professor Program stamp as an Exceptional Contribution Award.
• The first Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Boxes Chilling Reign introduced the Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box, with metal dice and a Calyrex coin. A manufacturing error packed eight packs instead of the intended ten, and the Pokémon Center credited buyers and sent an apology blister with two packs, a Raikou coin and the three Galarian bird V cards.

How Chilling Reign arrived

Japan released Silver Lance and Jet-Black Spirit together on April 23, 2021, following Single Strike Master and Rapid Strike Master, with the Peerless Fighters subset having arrived on March 19, 2021. The English set combined them and released on June 18, 2021, three months after Battle Styles and two months before Evolving Skies.

With prerelease tournaments still suspended, eligible Prerelease Program stores sold Chilling Reign Build & Battle Boxes from June 5, 2021 instead. Each box held four booster packs and a 23 card Evolution pack with one of four promos, Cinderace (SWSH 112), Inteleon (SWSH 113), Cresselia (SWSH 114) or Passimian (SWSH 115), plus non holofoil Cinderace 28, Inteleon 43 and Gardevoir 61.

The launch on June 18, 2021 brought the two Elite Trainer Boxes, the first Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Boxes, blisters, the Collector's Album and Ultra Pro portfolios. Customers who preordered the Pokémon Center boxes were told of the eight pack error by email on June 16, 2021, and the apology blisters went out by the end of July 2021. The set's cards kept appearing afterwards: Gastly 55, Haunter 56, Gengar 57, Hattrem 72 and Hatterene 73 with the Pikachu jack-o'-lantern stamp in the Trick or Trade BOOster Bundle, Abomasnow 10, Delibird 32, Ice Rider Calyrex V 45 and Ice Rider Calyrex VMAX 46 with a silver snowflake stamp in the Holiday Calendar 2022, Inteleon 43 as a Cosmos Holofoil in several Mini Tin 5-Packs, and Klara 145 as a Cosmos Holofoil in the Klara Premium Tournament Collection.

Chilling Reign products and what came in them

Two Elite Trainer Boxes launched with the set, Ice Rider Calyrex and Shadow Rider Calyrex. Each holds eight booster packs, 65 card sleeves and four dividers in the matching Calyrex design, six damage counter dice, a coin flip die, two acrylic Special Condition markers, 45 basic Energy cards, a rulebook, a player's guide and a code card. The Pokémon Center versions swap the polyresin dice for metal ones and the coin flip die for a Calyrex coin, and were meant to hold ten packs but shipped with eight.

Single pack blisters carry Morpeko (SWSH 116) or Phanpy (SWSH 117) with a Genesect, Rayquaza, Volcanion or Raichu coin, and three pack blisters carry Eevee (SWSH 118) or Snorlax (SWSH 119) with a Genesect, Rayquaza or Lucario coin. Premium checklane blisters reuse the Blaziken and Decidueye lines from Darkness Ablaze, and a second pair released in late June carried the Milotic line from Darkness Ablaze or the Wailord line from Vivid Voltage. The Collector's Album shows both Calyrex forms, holds 60 cards and includes one pack, and Ultra Pro released four pocket Calyrex binders and nine pocket Galarian bird binders.

Collecting and grading Chilling Reign

Blaziken VMAX 201 is the pack pulled card that matters, and the live prices above show the gap between a raw copy and a PSA 10. Galarian Moltres V 177 leads the alternate art V cards, with Galarian Slowking V 179, Zeraora V 166, Galarian Articuno V 170, Galarian Rapidash V 168 and Galarian Zapdos V 174 behind it, and the gold Snorlax 224 is the strongest of the gold cards.

The variant rows sit above all of them in PSA 10. The Play! Pokémon Prize Pack Blaziken V 20 and the reverse holofoils of Gengar 57, Inkay 69 and Gastly 55 show very high graded prices on thin markets built on sparse sales, and Delibird 32 and Cinderace 28 behave the same way. Treat those numbers as noise rather than a dependable exit, and match the variant label in the checklist below before comparing prices.

Only a handful of tracked singles clear a meaningful raw price and the median raw card rounds to nothing, so Chilling Reign is an inexpensive master set outside the alternate arts. Sword & Shield alternate arts show edge whitening and the textured VMAX surfaces scratch easily, so tilt each card under a light before submitting. The sealed table above tracks what booster boxes and Elite Trainer Boxes trade for today.