Pitch Black: the most expensive Pokémon cards

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Pitch Black (Buio Pesto in Italy) has been on the market for a month, and the prices are no longer the hot ones from launch week: they have settled, and not in the direction you would expect. The set's signature card, Mega Darkrai ex Special Illustration Rare (#116), is the only one that has genuinely risen: €289.63, up 15% on late July. Everything else in the ranking is down, in some cases by half.

We ran the cards through the DarkDex pricing engine and ranked them by value: real prices for singles in Near Mint condition, as of 17 August 2026.

In short. One month after launch the set's value has concentrated even further at the top: Mega Darkrai ex Special Illustration Rare (#116) at €289.63, its Gold Secret Rare (#120) at €177.63 and Morpeko ex (#117) at €49.64. The top three alone account for 79% of the top ten's value, up from 74% in July. From the fourth card down it drops below €45, and below €10 from the eighth. Prices as of 17 August 2026.

The ranking: the 10 most expensive cards

1Mega Darkrai exSpecial Illustration Rare · #116€289.63

2Mega Darkrai exGold Secret Rare · #120€177.63

3Morpeko exSpecial Illustration Rare · #117€49.64

4Mega Zeraora exSpecial Illustration Rare · #114€44.33

5Mega Chandelure exSpecial Illustration Rare · #115€27.07

6Gladion's Final BattleSpecial Illustration Rare · #118€20.27

7GwynnSpecial Illustration Rare · #119€16.79

8Misty's VitalityUltra Rare · #111€9.92

9SlowbroIllustration Rare · #090€8.26

10Mega Darkrai exUltra Rare · #101€8.00

The gap between the podium and the rest has widened: the top card is now worth more than six times the €44.33 Mega Zeraora ex in fourth, where in July it was five times. These are the cards people buy boxes for. Add them to your collection on DarkDex and track their value day by day, without redoing the maths by hand.

What is the rarest card in Pitch Black?

The rarest card in Pitch Black is Mega Darkrai ex Gold Secret Rare (#120): it is the last numbered card in the set, the rarity that turns up least often in packs, and it is currently worth €177.63.

Rare and expensive are not the same thing, though, and over the first month the two drifted further apart rather than closer. The top spot does not belong to #120 but to Mega Darkrai ex Special Illustration Rare (#116) at €289.63, even though it is slightly easier to find. In July €24 separated them; today it is €112, because the Gold lost 22% while the Special Illustration Rare gained 15%. Demand is what makes the difference: the Special Illustration Rare carries the full-card artwork, and that is what collectors actually want.

There is no official answer, because pull rates are never published. The best measurable proxy is the price, which is where the few copies in circulation meet the people looking for them.

The chase cards of Pitch Black

Pitch Black has three chase cards, and they make up the entire podium:

1. Mega Darkrai ex (#116), Special Illustration Rare: €289.63
2. Mega Darkrai ex (#120), Gold Secret Rare: €177.63
3. Morpeko ex (#117), Special Illustration Rare: €49.64

After the podium the drop is sharp: the fourth card sits at €44.33 and the tenth at €8. Opening packs for a chase means hunting two specific cards out of 120, while a single costs what it costs and actually arrives.

Add them to your collection on DarkDex and the value updates on its own.

One month on: how the prices moved

This is the part that could not be written at launch. We have the snapshot from 24 July, one week after release, and today's: out of ten cards exactly one went up, and it is the one on the set's cover.

This is how a set typically behaves after the first few weeks: at launch supply is thin and prices start high across the whole rare tier, then opened packs flood the market and values fall. Only what people want regardless of availability holds up, and in Pitch Black that is a single card.

Two concrete consequences. First, Gwynn #109 has dropped out of the top ten, replaced by Slowbro (#090), an Illustration Rare at €8.26 that did not appear in July. Second, anyone who bought singles in the €15 to €45 band during launch week is now looking at less than half, while anyone who bought #116 is up. In young sets the risk is not spread out, it is all in the tail.

Why value concentrates at the top

Six of the top seven cards are Special Illustration Rares, the full-art cards the market pays most for. Among them are Trainer cards (Gwynn, Gladion's Final Battle), which as always are worth more than common creatures. From fourth place down the price drops fast: below €30 from the fifth card, below €10 from the eighth. It is the classic profile of a young set, and a month has sharpened it: the top three cards hold 79% of the top ten's value, up from 74% in July, and #116 alone holds 44%.

The versions of Mega Darkrai ex

Mega Darkrai ex is the textbook case, because it exists in several versions at very different prices:

• base print (#101), Ultra Rare: €8.00, the most accessible and the only one in the ranking besides the chases
• Special Illustration Rare (#116): €289.63, and Gold Secret Rare (#120): €177.63, the two chase versions in the top two spots

Same Pokémon, values that swing by thirty-six times between the base print and the Special Illustration Rare. Value is not in the name but in the print: collector number, rarity and finish. This is exactly why summing a collection "by eye" doesn't work, and why DarkDex keeps the price of every single variant separate.

Heads up. Card prices move constantly, as the table above shows: the figures in this article capture the market as of 17 August 2026.

How to keep an eye on them

On DarkDex you can add your Pitch Black cards to your collection and their market value updates on its own, with price history and a live portfolio total.

After sealed products instead (packs, ETB, booster box)? Read our Pitch Black product price guide: what they really cost and how not to overpay.