Crimson Invasion

What Crimson Invasion is

Crimson Invasion is the fourth main expansion of the Sun & Moon Series, released in English on November 3, 2017 under the set code CIN. It has 111 cards in the numbered set plus 13 secret rares, 124 in total. It is the set where the Ultra Beasts arrived, with Nihilego GX, Buzzwole GX, Kartana GX and Guzzlord GX invading Alola and the Synthetic Pokémon Silvally GX leading the defense, and it introduced Ultra Beast Pokémon GX with a red GX graphic, a red and black bar under the HP naming the card an Ultra Beast and GX attack text written in red.

The checklist is compact: 33 rares, 19 Ultra rares and 13 secret rares. Eight Pokémon GX, Gyarados, Alolan Golem, Nihilego, Buzzwole, Guzzlord, Kartana, Alolan Exeggutor and Silvally, each appear as a regular GX, a full art and a rainbow rare, and the three full art Supporters are Gladion by TOKIYA, Lusamine by Megumi Mizutani and Olivia by Naoki Saito. The five other secret rares are gold Counter Catcher, Wishful Baton, Counter Energy, Warp Energy and Water Energy. Water is the most represented type at 17 cards, and 5ban Graphics drew 28 of the set.

The cards come from the Japanese Awakened Heroes and Ultradimensional Beasts, paired 62 card sets.

What makes Crimson Invasion different

• Ultra Beast GX Nihilego GX, Buzzwole GX, Kartana GX and Guzzlord GX were the first Ultra Beast Pokémon GX, marked by a red GX graphic, a red and black Ultra Beast bar under the HP and red GX attack text.
• A guaranteed hit in every Japanese box Awakened Heroes and Ultradimensional Beasts were the first Japanese expansions to guarantee at least one SR or better card in every booster box, and Awakened Heroes had no Darkness or Fairy Pokémon while Ultradimensional Beasts had no Fire or Metal.
• The Gengar rare Gengar 38, an ordinary rare, is the most valuable card in Crimson Invasion in its reverse holofoil, regular and holofoil prints, ahead of every GX, on the strength of its artwork and thin graded supply.
• Eight GX, three prints each Every Pokémon GX has a regular, full art and rainbow rare print, with Gyarados GX 18, 101 and 112 the strongest of the set and the rainbow Gyarados GX its leading secret rare.
• Regi promos Regice 28, Regirock 53 and Registeel 68 were Pokémon League season promos and Regigigas 84 the League Challenge 1st to 4th Place promo, with a Yellow A alternate art Regigigas in Forbidden Light blisters and a Yellow A Guzzlord GX 63a in the Guzzlord GX Box.

How Crimson Invasion arrived

Japan released Awakened Heroes and Ultradimensional Beasts on September 15, 2017. The English Crimson Invasion followed on November 3, 2017, a month after Shining Legends and three months before Ultra Prism.

Prerelease tournaments ran on the weekends of October 21 to 22 and October 28 to 29, 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, Alolan Raichu 72, Salazzle 73, Regirock 74 or Registeel 75, for a 40 card deck.

Launch day brought the Elite Trainer Box, the Destruction Fang and Clanging Thunder Theme Decks, Single Pack and Three Pack Blisters, a Collector's Album and Ultra Pro portfolios featuring Silvally, Buzzwole, Guzzlord and Kartana, with Dollar Tree 3 card Mini Packs following in late December 2017. Jangmo-o 75 was stamped for Toys R Us and Jigglypuff 71 for Build-A-Bear Workshop, and Regice, Regirock and Registeel later returned as Cosmos Holofoils in Celestial Storm two pack blisters.

Crimson Invasion products and what came in them

The Elite Trainer Box features Silvally 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. Destruction Fang is a Darkness and Psychic deck built on Hydreigon with a Cracked Ice Holofoil Hydreigon 62, and Clanging Thunder a Dragon, Lightning and Fighting deck built on Kommo-o with a Cracked Ice Holofoil Kommo-o 77, each 60 cards with counters, a coin, a playmat, a deck box and a code card.

Collecting and grading Crimson Invasion

Read the live chase list above with the variants in mind. Gengar 38 leads in reverse holofoil, regular and holofoil form, an unusual case of a rare outranking every GX, and the Toys R Us stamped Jangmo-o 75 and the League Challenge Regigigas 84 are promo variants with thin sales. The reverse holofoil Pikachu 30, Milotic 27, Magikarp 17 and Minccino 85 show PSA 10 prices far above their raw values on almost no volume and should be treated as noise.

Among the GX cards the regular Gyarados GX 18, the rainbow Gyarados GX 112 and the full art Gyarados GX 101 lead, with Megumi Mizutani's full art Lusamine 110 the top Trainer. The Ultra Beast GX themselves, Guzzlord GX, Buzzwole GX, Kartana GX and Nihilego GX, trade modestly despite defining the set's theme.

Crimson Invasion was printed heavily and its raw singles are cheap, so grading only pays on Gengar and the Gyarados GX prints. The sealed table above tracks booster boxes, the prerelease kit, the Elite Trainer Box and the collections that carried its packs.