Mega Greninja ex 116/086: Grading Data for Chaos Rising's Chase Card
Mega Greninja ex 116/086 is the card Chaos Rising boxes get opened for. It's the second most-graded card on TCGrader over the last 90 days — 135 copies — which gives us an unusually clear picture of how this card actually grades.
The numbers
- 135 copies graded in 90 days — behind only Mega Charizard X ex (Phantasmal Flames) platform-wide.
- Average grade: 8.57 — slightly below the Chaos Rising set average of 8.65, and below the platform average of 8.67.
- For comparison, fellow Chaos Rising secret rare Cinccino ex averages 8.88 — a third of a grade higher.
A chase card grading below its own set average is worth pausing on. Popularity explains part of it — when a card is hot, every pulled copy gets graded, not just the clean ones. But the pattern in the subgrades points at something more specific.
Centering is the battleground
Among Greninja copies graded on the platform, the recurring weak subgrade is centering — border drift that's visible once you look for it, especially top-to-bottom. Corners and surface on fresh pulls are generally strong (the textured secret-rare finish protects the surface well).
Practical translation: your copy's centering is probably already decided whether it's a 9 or a 9.5+, before handling even enters the picture. Check it first:
- Hold the card square-on and compare top vs bottom border thickness.
- Flip it — back centering counts, and Chaos Rising backs drift too.
- Then do the usual corner/edge loupe pass, since a chase card deserves the full 60 seconds.
Submit or hold?
At an 8.57 average, blind-submitting Mega Greninja ex is a coin flip on the wrong side of 9. The sensible sequence:
- AI-grade your copy free — the centering subgrade in the result is the one to read first.
- Estimates 9.5+: strong submission candidate; the chase-card premium at gem grades is where the value concentrates.
- Estimates 8.5–9: compare raw vs graded prices on the marketplace before paying a fee — mid-grade modern chase cards often sell better raw than the fee-adjusted slab.
- Unsure it's real? Secret-rare fakes follow the money. Run the 10 fake-card checks or get free community authentication.
The bigger Chaos Rising picture
Chaos Rising has been the second most-graded set of the summer (448 cards in 90 days), and its frog is the reason. If you're deep in the set, the full most-graded rankings show how Froakie, Frogadier and Mega Dragalge ex are grading too — the evolution line is being slabbed as a family.