Charmeleon

Charmeleon sits at #10 in XY Evolutions, released in November 2016. XY Evolutions is part of the modern English Pokémon TCG era and uses the standard contemporary card frame and rarity tiers. Illustration by Mitsuhiro Arita. Arita was the original Pokémon TCG illustrator and the artist behind the Base Set Charizard. His vintage-era art has a painterly quality that distinguishes it from the cleaner reference-style work of the Sugimori cards. In the games, Charmeleon evolves from Charmander, which makes it a late-stage card in the line.

The flavor text on the card reads: "It lashes about with its tail to knock down its foe. It then tears up the fallen opponent with sharp claws." Pokédex entries from this era are short and often quirky, written by the original Japanese localization team for a specific stat-block layout that no longer exists in modern cards.

The middle Charmander stage. Bigger, more aggressive, and notoriously hard to befriend in the games. The forgotten middle of the most famous evolution line. Charmeleon usually trades in the shadow of its evolved form. Collectors completing a Charmander to Charizard 1st Edition run pay up; standalone demand is thin.

XY Evolutions shipped in standard Holofoil and Reverse Holo prints. No 1st Edition; that convention had been retired years before. The set reuses original Base Set artwork inside modern XY-era card frames, which makes the Evolutions Charizard a popular modern reprint chase despite the small price gap to other 2016 cards.

Modern Uncommons grade cleanly. The secondary market for graded modern Uncommons is mostly set-completionist driven; standalone demand is thin. Useful as a first grading submission to learn the process.

Raw copies of this card are inexpensive enough that the grading math rarely justifies submission unless you have a clearly pack-fresh example. For set completionists, picking up a clean raw copy and sleeving it is the practical move.