The most expensive card in Temporal Forces is a Gastly. Not a Paradox legend, not an ex — a first-stage ghost as an Illustration Rare, around $114 in our July 2026 price pull, floating above every futuristic chrome monster the set was actually built to sell.
Temporal Forces released March 22, 2024, as the Scarlet & Violet era's Paradox showcase: Walking Wake and Raging Bolt from the past, Iron Crown and Iron Boulder from the future, plus the return of ACE SPEC cards for the first time since Black & White. Two years on, it's settled into an unusual position — a forgettable chase board attached to the least-bad booster box margin in the mainline SV lineup.
Temporal Forces chase cards
Approximate prices from the same snapshot:
- Gastly (Illustration Rare) — about $114
- Morty's Conviction (SIR) — about $77
- Raging Bolt ex (SIR) — about $71
- Gengar ex (Ultra Rare) — about $68
- Walking Wake ex (SIR) — about $61
- Sawsbuck (Illustration Rare) — about $57
The ghost-line concentration is striking: Gastly, Morty, and Gengar hold three of the top four slots. There's also a quietly deep midboard — Deerling at $47, Iron Crown ex at $46 — so value is spread flatter than usual. No single card dominates, which cuts both ways: less jackpot upside, but a box's EV isn't hostage to one pull the way it is in most sets. That flat structure is the opposite of the chase concentration problem that defines sets like Destined Rivals.
Pull rates and the ACE SPEC slot
The calculator applies the standard SV slot model, with community-estimated rates:
- Illustration Rare: ~11% of packs
- Special Illustration Rare: ~3% (about 1 in 33)
- Hyper Rare (gold): ~1.2%
- Holo slot: ~30% Double Rare, ~10% Ultra Rare, ~5% ACE SPEC
Those ACE SPECs matter more here than the 5% suggests — Temporal Forces reintroduced them, several stayed playable, and they give bulk-adjacent packs a floor. As always, these are community sampling estimates, not published odds; the real story of where they come from is in how pull rates work.
Product EV: the box is the story
Snapshot pricing (no ETB price in this pull — sealed ETBs for this set trade thin):
| Product | Price | EV | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booster Box (36) | $319.71 | $242.88 | -25% |
| Build & Battle Box (4) | $42.88 | $26.99 | -36% |
| Booster Pack (loose) | $9.09 | $6.75 | -38% |
| Booster Bundle (6) | $80.49 | $40.48 | -53% |
A -25% box margin is the standout — for comparison, Destined Rivals boxes run about -50% and 151 products sit at -55% to -80%. You're still lighting a quarter of your money on fire to open it, but by SV standards that's cheap fun. The bundle is the trap here: $13.40 per pack against $8.88 per pack inside a box.
Worth restating plainly: -25% is the best mainline SV box margin and it still loses. That's the whole sermon of why most booster boxes are negative EV in one number. Run the live numbers for Temporal Forces to see if the gap has narrowed further.
Verdict: the budget ripper's box
- Ripping for fun? This is one of the better SV choices. The box's flat value spread means fewer total-bust boxes, and -25% is about as gentle as unopened Pokémon gets.
- Chasing a specific card? Buy it. The entire six-card chase above costs about $450 — roughly 1.4 boxes — and no single card justifies a hunt.
- Sealed hold? Weak-to-middling. Paradox Pokémon are a this-generation gimmick without obvious nostalgia legs, and the set has no anchor card. The comparatively tight margin also means less room for the sealed price to look cheap later.
- Skip the booster bundle at current per-pack prices.
FAQ
What is the best card to pull in Temporal Forces?
By price, the Illustration Rare Gastly at about $114 as of July 2026, followed by Morty's Conviction (~$77) and Raging Bolt ex (~$71).
Are ACE SPEC cards rare in Temporal Forces?
Community estimates put them around 5% of the holo rare slot — roughly one every couple of booster boxes' worth of that slot. Most are a few dollars; playable ones hold up better.
Is a Temporal Forces booster box worth it in 2026?
At about $320 with $243 of EV (-25%), it's the least-bad mainline SV box to open — fine as entertainment, still a guaranteed loser on average.