Pitch Black (ME05) released on July 17, and three weeks is long enough for a set’s market to stop guessing and start deciding. All 120 cards in our catalog now carry live prices, the release-week rush is over, and the ranking has taken shape. Back in our ME05 release guide we said the smart move was to wait out launch weekend. Consider the table below the receipt. Prices were pulled from our Pitch Black set page in the first week of August.
The 10 most expensive Pitch Black cards
| Card | Market price |
|---|---|
| Mega Darkrai ex (Special Illustration Rare) | $278 |
| Mega Darkrai ex (Mega Hyper Rare) | $186 |
| Morpeko ex (Special Illustration Rare) | $116 |
| Mega Zeraora ex (Special Illustration Rare) | $70 |
| Mega Chandelure ex (Special Illustration Rare) | $51 |
| Gwynn (Special Illustration Rare) | $40 |
| Gladion's Final Battle (Special Illustration Rare) | $31 |
| Misty's Vitality (Ultra Rare) | $26 |
| Slowbro (Illustration Rare) | $17 |
| Mega Darkrai ex (Ultra Rare) | $13 |
The usual ground rules: these are prices for raw, Near Mint, ungraded singles, which is what EvoMarket deals in, and they are a snapshot. Every card page carries the live number, a price history graph, and an alert button if you would rather be emailed about a dip than refresh the page.
Mega Darkrai owns this set
Three of the ten slots belong to one Pokemon. The Special Illustration Rare leads the whole set at $278, the Mega Hyper Rare sits second at $186, and the plain Ultra Rare sneaks into tenth at $13. Same attacker, three budgets. If you want the card for a deck rather than a binder, the $13 version hits exactly as hard as the $278 one. And if you have been chasing the SIR in packs, you may have lost some sleep over it, which is just how Darkrai likes it.
The surprise runner-up is Morpeko ex at $116, the second priciest single in the set. Its price has swung around a bit since launch, which tracks for a Pokemon whose two settings are Full Belly Mode and Hangry Mode.
The trainer cards are pulling real weight
One pattern from the Mega Evolution era keeps repeating: special-art trainer cards hold value better than most of the Pokemon around them. Pitch Black is no exception. Gwynn ($40) and Gladion’s Final Battle ($31) both made the table as Special Illustration Rares, and Misty’s Vitality ($26) got there as a regular Ultra Rare. Gladion’s Final Battle is also one of the only cards in the top ten that was up on the week, which says something about where collector attention is settling.
Three weeks of settling, in numbers
Almost everything above is cheaper than it was a week ago. Misty’s Vitality is down about 17 percent, the Slowbro Illustration Rare is down about 18 percent, and the top two Darkrai printings both slipped a few points. This is the drift phase we described in the release guide: supply keeps arriving, launch demand is spent, and prices walk downhill for a few weeks before finding a floor. Slowbro has been sliding all week, and knowing Slowbro, it will get around to stopping eventually.
Just missing the cut: an $11 Goldeen Illustration Rare. There are plenty of fish in the sea, but apparently only one of them got this kind of art budget.
How to buy the set right now
- Playing, not collecting? Buy the Ultra Rare versions of the big attackers. The gap between the chase art and the playable copy is wider in this set than usual.
- Chasing the SIRs? The drift is your friend. Set a price alert on the exact card you want and let the market come to you instead of paying the early premium.
- Watch the trainers. If the era’s pattern holds, Gwynn and Gladion’s Final Battle will fall less than the rest of the table over the next month.
The full card list, live prices included, is on the Pitch Black set page, or you can browse every Pokemon single our stores carry.