What to target in Pitch Black

The top 10 cards are 83% of the set’s $1,006.00 estimated singles cost — plan these first and the rest follows on a normal budget.

The value math on Pitch Black is blunt: the chase cards account for the large majority of what it costs to complete the set, and within that group the two Mega Darkrai ex cards do most of the heavy lifting. The Special Illustration Rare and the Mega Hyper Rare are the mascot pulls, and they carry the mascot premium — collectors want Darkrai specifically, not just any strong card. Morpeko ex sits just behind as the other genuinely loved SIR in the set, a card that punches above its meta relevance purely on charm.

Below that top cluster, the picture softens quickly. Mega Zeraora ex and Mega Chandelure ex are Special Illustration Rares that cost real money but sit in the lower band, and the character trainers — Gwynn, Gladion's Final Battle, Misty's Vitality — are the kind of cards that a certain collector loves and everyone else skips. The Illustration Rares like Primarina and Armarouge are the value sweet spot: beautiful full-art work at accessible prices, which is where most set builders will spend their happiest money. If you're buying for love rather than the ledger, the IR tier is where Pitch Black is most rewarding.

#	Card	Number	Rarity	Market	PSA 10
1	Mega Darkrai ex	#116	Special Illustration Rare	$229.66	$2,700.00
2	Mega Darkrai ex	#120	Mega Hyper Rare	$172.51	$1,018.98
3	Morpeko ex	#117	Special Illustration Rare	$99.63	$577.84
4	Mega Zeraora ex	#114	Special Illustration Rare	$63.99	$320.33
5	Primarina	#88	Illustration Rare	$56.32	$59.53
6	Armarouge	#86	Illustration Rare	$48.73	$61.19
7	Mega Chandelure ex	#115	Special Illustration Rare	$47.80	$265.03
8	Gladion's Final Battle	#108	Ultra Rare	$39.99	$53.70
9	Gwynn	#119	Special Illustration Rare	$39.62	$203.69
10	Gladion's Final Battle	#118	Special Illustration Rare	$31.99	$171.45

How Pitch Black is built

The smart way to complete Pitch Black

The smart approach to Pitch Black is to separate the two halves of the set completely. The base 84 plus the cheaper rares come together fast and cheap through a modest amount of pack-opening or a single bulk singles order. Then treat the top-tier Special Illustration Rares and the Mega Hyper Rare as individual purchase decisions, because that's where nearly all your budget will actually go — and where sealed variance can either save or sink you.

1. Build the printed base set (1–84) first — commons, uncommons, and regular rares are cheap and fast to source as singles or from a box or two.
2. Pick up the Illustration Rares (Primarina, Armarouge, and the rest of that tier) next — they're the best art-to-cost ratio in the set.
3. Add the lower-band Special Illustration Rares — Mega Zeraora ex, Mega Chandelure ex — and the character trainers Gwynn, Gladion's Final Battle, and Misty's Vitality.
4. Target Morpeko ex as the first of the marquee SIRs, since it's often the more attainable of the truly wanted cards.
5. Close on the two Mega Darkrai ex cards — the SIR (116) and the Mega Hyper Rare (120) — buying each as a deliberate single rather than hoping for the pull.
6. Verify centering and edges on your top cards before committing; the ceiling cards are where condition matters most for long-term hold.

Collecting challenges

The difficulty is Medium, and that rating is really a tale of two sets. The base and mid-tier cards are genuinely easy — cheap, plentiful, and quick to run down. The hard part is purely financial: 36 secret rares sit above the printed set, and a small handful of them absorb the vast majority of the completion cost. There's no brutal short-print gauntlet here, just a steep price wall at the top. You can get to 90% of the checklist quickly and then spend most of your total budget on the final few cards.

Singles or sealed?

Because Pitch Black concentrates so much of its value into a few top cards, sealed product is largely an entertainment-and-variance play rather than an efficient path to those chase cards. Packs are great for building the base set and stumbling into Illustration Rares, but if the Mega Darkrai ex cards are your actual goal, singles get you there without gambling. The live math on this page will show exactly how the box route compares to buying the headliners outright — for most builders chasing specific cards, singles win.

Sealed product comparison

Pitch Black pull-rate estimates

Community-estimated era averages from large pack-opening aggregates — not official Pokémon data. “Specific card” is the expected packs for ONE particular card of that rarity.

Which Pitch Black cards are worth grading?

Grading Pitch Black is a top-tier-only proposition. The cards that can plausibly justify grading fees are the ones with real ceilings — the Mega Darkrai ex Special Illustration Rare and Mega Hyper Rare, Morpeko ex, and the stronger SIRs — where a clean gem-grade copy separates meaningfully from a raw one. Everything below that tier rarely returns the fee, and modern print quality means you're competing against a lot of other high grades.

Because these are 2026 cards from a set that will be freshly opened, expect populations to climb quickly, which favors submitting only genuinely pristine copies of the genuinely valuable cards. The live EV figures on this page will tell you which specific cards clear the fee — treat that as the filter, and don't grade mid-tier IRs on hope. For most collectors, the honest answer is grade the Darkrai cards if they're clean and leave the rest raw in the binder.

Tier 2 — grade clean copiesClean copies only

Strong PSA 10 premium — the math works only on gem-worthy copies.

Mega Darkrai ex #116raw $229.66 → PSA 10 $2,700.00 11.8×Mega Darkrai ex #120raw $172.51 → PSA 10 $1,018.98 5.9×Morpeko ex #117raw $99.63 → PSA 10 $577.84 5.8×Mega Zeraora ex #114raw $63.99 → PSA 10 $320.33 5×Mega Chandelure ex #115raw $47.80 → PSA 10 $265.03 5.5×Gwynn #119raw $39.62 → PSA 10 $203.69 5.1×

Tier 3 — personal collectionCollection only

Fees eat most of the margin. Grade to preserve a pristine pull, not for profit.

Slowbro #90raw $14.13 → PSA 10 $123.89 8.8×Mega Darkrai ex #101raw $13.06 → PSA 10 $94.52 7.2×Goldeen #87raw $10.05 → PSA 10 $88.96 8.9×

Premiums and EV use tonight’s PSA prices and this set’s real gem rates — not projections.

What collectors say about Pitch Black

Creators on Pitch Black

▶Pitch Black is Pokemon's New NIGHTMAREPokeRev▶I Opened Every "Pitch Black" Pack Is It Worth It?PokeUnlocked▶I Ripped a Case of Pitch BlackMystic Rips▶Top 10 Pitch Black Pokemon Cards!PokeFlips

Synthesized from widely-reported collector consensus — see a take that’s off? Use the report link on any card page.

Protect your Pitch Black cards

This set has 2 cards worth $100+ — sleeve-and-toploader territory at minimum, and the chase cards deserve double-sleeving.

Affiliate links — purchases support CardPrice at no extra cost. Full guide: how to build & store a master set.

Where Pitch Black goes from here

As a current-era set, Pitch Black will be in active print for a while, and that's the single biggest factor on its outlook: supply is fresh, product is available, and prices for everything but the top cards will stay soft while boxes are on shelves. The Mega Evolution series has been well-received, and a Darkrai-headlined Darkness set has built-in mascot demand, which tends to support the ceiling cards better than the bulk. But the same reprint-adjacent reality applies — nothing here is scarce yet, and the base set will remain cheap.

The long-term interest, if it holds, will live in the marquee cards: the two Mega Darkrai ex prints and Morpeko ex are the kind of character-driven pulls that retain a following after a set rotates out of print. The trainer SIRs and lower-band cards are more speculative and more tied to whether their specific characters stay beloved. None of this is a forecast — it's a supply read. Collect the art you actually want to own, and let the ceiling cards be a bonus rather than a thesis.

Not financial advice — live prices and trends are above, collect what you love.

Related Mega Evolution sets

Chaos Rising2026 · 122 cards30th Celebration2026 · 19 cardsPerfect Order2026 · 124 cardsAscended Heroes2026 · 295 cards

Pitch Black — frequently asked questions