As always, we’re going to lay down some groundwork before we dive right into these numbers. These rankings are by revenue, which means that they’re not necessarily the best-selling cards in number of cards sold.  You’re thinking, "Why wouldn’t you tell me what the best-selling cards are?"

We don’t think that’s a very good metric.

The cards that sell the best are, traditionally, the cheapest ones.  It makes sense; when there’s less of a barrier to acquiring something, it’s going to sell more.  Even though there are more of them, by several orders of magnitude, ranch houses still sell far more reliably than castles do.

The margins on the best-selling cards, for the most part, are razor thin.  We don’t want you worrying about margins--we want you to make the most money for your time.

These are the top ten cards, by revenue, from the new Pokémon expansion Ancient Origins.

Top 10 'Pokemon XY--Ancient Origins' Cards by Dollar Volume
$ Vol. Rank	Card Name	Average Price
1	Lugia EX	$7.78
2	M Tyranitar EX	$11.35
3	Hoopa EX (89 Full Art)	$17.02
4	M Sceptile EX	$10.04
5	Lugia EX (94 Full Art)	$16.60
6	Hoopa EX	$7.93
7	Sceptile EX	$5.56
8	Giratina EX	$5.59
9	Tyranitar EX	$4.13
10	Tyranitar EX (91 Full Art)	$10.69

Every charted Pokémon is an EX-Pokémon.  If you’re unfamiliar with the gameplay of the Pokémon TCG, what EX signifies is that they’re more powerful than the average Pokémon, with more powerful attacks and higher HP, on average.  This added power comes with a caveat: When this Pokémon is knocked out, your opponent gets two prizes instead of one.  To win a game of Pokémon, you have to get six prizes, so the drawback to playing with EX-Pokémon in your deck is very real.  Fortunately, the EX-Pokémon in Ancient Origins are so powerful that their EX-drawback is mitigated.

If you’re wondering which cards are going to continue holding their value into the future, a good indicator is which full-art versions are selling the best.  Full-art cards cost a premium in comparison to their regular-art counterparts, and as a general rule, they only sell well if players foresee the Pokémon seeing regular play for a while.  The extended use justifies the beefed-up price tag. Lugia EX (#1), Hoopa EX (#7),  and Tyranitar EX (#9) each share the top ten with their full-art counterparts, so expect these cards to retain their value, or even shoot up some.

Ancient Origins wasn’t legal for the Pokémon World Championships, so it’ll be exciting to see how this expansion shakes up the Pokémon metagame.

Jon Corpora is a Creative Producer at TCGplayer.com. TCGplayer.com is the largest collectible card marketplace on the web, with hundreds of brick and mortar sellers listed.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.