The four things a grader measures are the same in every game: centring, corners, edges and surface. Anyone who tells you a grader applies a different rubric to a different card game is describing a different company, not a different rubric. What genuinely differs is what the grader is looking at — the paper, the cut, the size — and what the resulting grade can be compared against.
Quick answer
The rubric is constant and the outcome is not. A grader scores centring, corners, edges and surface on every card regardless of game. What differs between games is: the stock and cut (Yu-Gi-Oh! is thinner, smaller and square-cornered; everything else mainstream is 63 × 88 mm with rounded corners), the size of the graded population, and therefore how much a population report can support. On Pokemon a grade sits inside a thick statistical field. On Gundam, launched in 2025, it does not.
Same rubric. Very different amount of evidence around the result.
The four criteria, and why they never move
Centring is measured against the border. Corners are inspected for wear, dings and rounding. Edges are inspected for chipping, whitening and roughness. Surface is inspected for scratches, print lines, dents and gloss loss. Every company scores these four, and each publishes its own grade scale on top of them.
What changes between companies is how those four are weighted and where the cut-offs sit — which is why PSA vs BGS vs CGC is a different question from this one, and why the grading guide covers reading a label at all. Grading companies compared does the same job for Pokemon specifically.
What changes: the paper
Card construction is the first real variable, and it is not small.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is the outlier. Its cards are 59 × 86 mm — four millimetres narrower than the standard — printed on thinner stock, with square corners and narrower borders. Three of the four criteria get harder at once: thin stock creases, square corners show a point of wear rather than hiding it in a curve, and narrow borders make a given centring variance read worse. Grading Yu-Gi-Oh! cards is the detailed page.
Everything else mainstream — Pokemon, One Piece, Digimon, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Gundam — uses the 63 × 88 mm standard with rounded corners. Construction does not add difficulty. If you can grade a Pokemon card you can grade a One Piece card; the handling is identical and the sleeves are the same size.
What changes: the population
This is the variable that does most of the work, and it is the one collectors underestimate.
| Game | Print history | Population depth | What a population report supports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon | Since 1996, continuous | Very deep | Real percentages; card-to-card comparison |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! | Since 1999, two pools | Thin for its age | A count, with caveats on both pools |
| One Piece | Since 2022 | Growing, uneven by card | Ranking within a card, not across cards |
| Dragon Ball | Two Bandai games | Split between games | A count per game, never combined |
| Digimon | Since 2020 | Young and thin | A count, not a distribution |
| Gundam | Since 2025 | Very thin | Almost nothing inferential |
Read the right-hand column as a limit rather than a description. A thin population does not mean a card is rare; it means few people have paid to have one graded. Grading Digimon cards and grading Gundam cards both say this plainly, because it is the mistake that costs people the most.
What changes: the grade ceiling by game
If you submit the same number of cards to the same company, the share that comes back in the top grade will not be equal across games.
- Pokémon sets the baseline. The stock is stiff, the corners are rounded, the borders are wide enough to tolerate a little variance. A top grade is achievable in quantity.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! sits below that baseline for construction reasons, before any question of the individual card.
- One Piece sits near the Pokémon baseline on construction, but its published gem rates swing enormously from card to card. The variance is in the card, not in the game. Grading One Piece cards explains why that number is so often read wrongly.
- Dragon Ball is two games, and a grade in one should not be compared to a grade in the other. Which company grades a Dragon Ball card covers the split.
- Digimon and Gundam are too young for a ceiling to be meaningful yet, in either direction.
What changes: which pool the card belongs to
Two games print the same artwork into separate card pools, and grading does not merge them.
Yu-Gi-Oh! runs OCG and TCG as separate pools. A population figure that mixes them describes neither accurately. OCG and TCG explained sets out the split.
Dragon Ball has run as the Dragon Ball Super Card Game and as Fusion World, which are different games rather than different editions. A grade is attached to a specific card from a specific game.
One Piece does not have this problem. Japanese, English and Simplified Chinese editions are the same card pool, so a grade on any of them describes the same card.
What does not change: the meaning of a gem rate
A gem rate is the share of a card’s submitted copies that came back in the company’s top grade. It is derived from submissions, not from production. Three consequences follow in every game:
- A high gem rate does not mean the card is common. It means the copies people chose to submit were in good condition, or that the card survives handling well.
- A low gem rate does not mean the card is scarce. It may mean the card has a print line, or that its centring is consistently off, or that people submit damaged copies hoping.
- Two different gem rates for the same card usually means two different submission populations — different companies, different years, or different pools.
This is the one piece of grading knowledge that transfers between all six games without amendment.
The short version, per game
| Game | Hardest criterion | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Pokémon | Centring | Assuming a deep population means easy top grades |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! | Corners | Comparing a grade to a Pokemon grade |
| One Piece | Surface | Reading a gem rate as a scarcity figure |
| Dragon Ball | Varies by game | Mixing the two Bandai games in one count |
| Digimon | Edges | Treating a thin population as rarity |
| Gundam | Too early to say | Buying a grade as if it were a track record |
What this means before you submit
- Check the stock and the corners first. If the game is Yu-Gi-Oh!, your threshold for “worth submitting” should be higher, because the same handling produces a worse grade.
- Check the population before you expect a premium. A top grade in a game with no population history is a number without a comparison behind it.
- Ask which pool. For Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dragon Ball, a grade means nothing until you know which game the card is from.
- Do not translate a grade across games. A 10 is a 10 on the label. It is not the same achievement in every game.
Frequently asked questions
Do graders use different criteria for different card games?
No. Every company scores the same four things on every card: centring, corners, edges and surface. What differs is how a company weights them and where its cut-offs sit. Between games, what differs is the card itself — stock, size and corner cut — and the size of the graded population behind the result.
Which card game is hardest to get a top grade in?
Yu-Gi-Oh!, on construction rather than on strictness. The stock is thinner so it creases more readily, the borders are narrower so a given centring variance scores worse, and the corners are square so wear shows at a point instead of hiding in a curve. Everything else mainstream uses the 63 x 88 mm build with rounded corners.
Does a low population mean a card is rare?
No. Population counts submissions, not production. A low count means few people have paid to have a copy graded. That can happen because the card is scarce, or because the game is young, or because there is no reason yet for anyone to submit one. Gundam is the clearest example: launched in 2025, its population is thin by default.
Can I compare a grade in one game to a grade in another?
The label compares; the achievement does not. A 10 from the same company is the same label, but the effort to reach it differs with the card construction and the population. Treat a top grade as a statement about that card, in that game, and do not carry the expectation across.
Sources
Sources and further reading
- CardSpicy — Grading guide, for how to read a slab and what the four criteria mean.
- CardSpicy — PSA vs BGS vs CGC, for how companies differ in weighting and scale.
- CardSpicy — Grading Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, for stock, corners and border width.
- CardSpicy — Grading One Piece cards, for gem rates and what they measure.
- CardSpicy — Grading Digimon cards and grading Gundam cards, for what a thin population supports.
- CardSpicy — Which company grades a Dragon Ball card, for the two-game split.
- CardSpicy — OCG and TCG explained, for the two Yu-Gi-Oh! card pools.
Related reading
- Pokémon vs Yu-Gi-Oh! — the construction gap in detail.
- One Piece vs Yu-Gi-Oh! — age as a grading variable.
- Digimon vs Pokémon — same size, different population.
- Which card game to start with — the decision, made explicit.
- Is it worth grading your cards? — when submitting is the wrong move.
- Card slabs vs graded cases — what comes back and what it does not do.
Card sizes, stock descriptions and population notes are quoted from published card specifications and from our own reference pages at the date shown. Prices are not quoted on this page: our asking prices for what we hold are on each product page, and they move with the market.
Where to go next
- The CardSpicy card index — every card we track, with its PSA 10 population and market history (195 cards).
- The illustrator index — every artist behind those cards, card by card (110 artists).
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