Roaring Skies

What Roaring Skies is

Roaring Skies is the sixth main expansion of the XY Series, released in English on May 6, 2015 under the set code ROS. It has 108 cards in the numbered set plus 2 secret rares, 110 in total, and it is built on Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire around the debut of Mega Rayquaza EX, with Mega Latios EX, Mega Gallade EX and a flight of Dragon types alongside it. The set introduced Mega Turbo and Double Dragon Energy and continued the Ancient Traits of Primal Clash.

The checklist holds 29 rares, 22 Ultra rares and 2 secret rares. Rayquaza EX and M Rayquaza EX appear twice each in the numbered set, once as Dragon types at 60 and 61 and once as Colorless types at 75 and 76, and the full art run from Thundurus EX 98 to Shaymin EX 106 includes the shiny black M Rayquaza EX 105, with the full art Supporters Wally 107 by Emi Ando and Winona 108 by Megumi Mizutani closing the numbered set. The two secret rares are gold Energy Switch 109 and VS Seeker 110. Colorless is the most represented type at 22 cards and Dragon follows at 19.

The cards come from the Japanese Emerald Break, a 91 card set.

What makes Roaring Skies different

• The shiny M Rayquaza EX 5ban Graphics' full art M Rayquaza EX 105 shows the black shiny Mega Rayquaza and is the most valuable card in the set by a wide margin, one of the defining secret style chase cards of the XY era.
• Two Rayquaza types Rayquaza EX and M Rayquaza EX exist as Dragon types at 60 and 61 and as Colorless types at 75 and 76, and the Colorless M Rayquaza EX is the version players remember, printed in the same set as the Sky Field Stadium it was played with.
• Shaymin EX Ayaka Yoshida's Shaymin EX 77, Ryo Ueda's full art 106 and the Yellow A alternate art 77a from the Premium Trainer's XY Collection are three prints of one of the era's most played Basic Pokémon, and the alternate art sits in the set's top ten.
• Mega Turbo and Double Dragon Energy Roaring Skies introduced Mega Turbo and Double Dragon Energy, the two new boosts the set was sold on, one for Mega Evolution Pokémon and one for Dragon types.
• Full arts that lead the market Ryo Ueda's full art Hydreigon EX 103, Rayquaza EX 104 and Latios EX 101 and 5ban Graphics' M Latios EX 102 all rank above the regular EX cards, a set where the full art run carries the value.

How Roaring Skies arrived

Japan released Emerald Break on March 14, 2015. The English Roaring Skies followed on May 6, 2015, six weeks after Double Crisis and three months before Ancient Origins.

Launch day brought the green Mega Rayquaza Elite Trainer Box, the Storm Rider and Aurora Blast Theme Decks built around Zapdos and Articuno, Three Pack Blisters with Regirock or Pangoro XY Black Star Promos, Single Pack Blisters with Heliolisk or Meowstic, and a Launch Kit for card shops with 72 booster packs, eight Theme Decks and 16 promos. Build-A-Bear Workshop stamped Pikachu 20 and Meowth 67 as promos, a Yellow A alternate art Shaymin EX came in the Premium Trainer's XY Collection and Trainers' Mail 92a in the Black Kyurem vs. White Kyurem Battle Arena Decks, and Dragonite 52 and Salamence 57 later appeared as Cosmos Holofoils in Evolutions blisters.

Roaring Skies products and what came in them

The Elite Trainer Box features Mega Rayquaza and holds eight booster packs, 45 basic Energy cards, 65 Mega Rayquaza sleeves, two acrylic Special Condition markers, six damage counter dice, a coin flip die, four Mega Rayquaza dividers, a player's guide and a code card. Storm Rider is a Lightning and Grass deck with a Cracked Ice Holofoil Zapdos 23 and a non holofoil Dragonite 52, and Aurora Blast a Water and Fire deck with a Cracked Ice Holofoil Articuno 16 and non holofoil Salamence 57 and Swellow 72, each with counters, a coin, a playmat and rulesheet.

Collecting and grading Roaring Skies

The shiny full art M Rayquaza EX 105 leads the live prices above by a huge margin, followed by Ryo Ueda's full art Hydreigon EX 103 and Rayquaza EX 104, M Latios EX 102, the alternate art Shaymin EX 77a, the Dragon type M Rayquaza EX 61, the full art Latios EX 101 and Shaymin EX 106, then Rayquaza EX 60, Jirachi 42, Dragonite 52, Deoxys 33 and Winona 108.

The reverse holofoil Articuno 17 and Pikachu 20 near the top of the list show PSA 10 prices on almost no sales and should be treated as thin market noise; match the variant label in the checklist before comparing.

XY era full arts scratch easily and the M Rayquaza EX has a small PSA 10 population relative to demand, so the graded premium on the top cards is very large and a PSA 9 is a realistic result for most raw copies. Sealed Roaring Skies has become a vintage XY product, and the sealed table above tracks booster boxes, the Elite Trainer Box, blisters and the Mega Absol EX Premium Collection.