Pokémon Set Overview · Pitch Black

Pitch Black is the darkest release the Mega Evolution era has put out yet — a one-theme, one-Pokémon spotlight on Mega Darkrai ex that trades the era's usual variety for focus. It's also the most "predictable" English release to date, arriving nearly two months after its Japanese counterpart Abyss Eye, which means we already have a real read on how the chase cards are settling. Here's the full breakdown.

Pitch Black is the fifth main expansion of the Mega Evolution era and the first set built around the Mega Dimension DLC from Pokémon Legends: Z-A. It leans into a dark, shadows-and-nightmares theme — city lights swallowed by encroaching darkness as Mega Darkrai ex takes center stage. The set is a near one-to-one adaptation of Japan's Abyss Eye, which had already been on shelves for roughly eight weeks by the time Pitch Black launched in English, giving collectors an unusually clear read on how the set's chase cards were likely to settle in value.

1. Mega Darkrai ex (Special Illustration Rare, #116) — the set's headline pull, illustrated by Akira Egawa in his signature shadow-and-static style; widely regarded as one of the most striking cards of the era.

2. Mega Darkrai ex (Mega Hyper Rare, #120) — the gold-etched chase at the very top of the set, and the single hardest pull in the expansion at roughly 1-in-1,081 packs.

3. Mega Zeraora ex (Special Illustration Rare) — the set's secondary chase, part of the six-card Mega Evolution Pokémon ex core alongside Mega Chandelure ex and Mega Excadrill ex.

Odds sourced from Obsidia TCG's pull-rate tracking (4,000+ packs opened and recorded, 95% confidence intervals, last updated July 21, 2026), cross-checked against PullRates.com's independent tracker, which reports matching figures. Individual results vary — these are large-sample averages, not guarantees.

Mega Chandelure ex and Mega Excadrill ex — round out the Special Illustration Rare tier alongside the headline Mega ex Pokémon.

Wailord ex (Double Rare) — a curiosity at 380 HP, tying it with Mega Venusaur ex and Mega Emboar ex for the highest base HP of any tournament-legal card, and the highest of any Stage 1 Pokémon ever printed.

The eleven-card Illustration Rare run (#085–095) — includes Goldeen, Slowbro, Dhelmise, and Silvally among the standout pulls.

Pitch Black follows Chaos Rising (ME04, released May 22, 2026) as the fifth set in the Mega Evolution block. Where Chaos Rising introduced Mega Greninja and Mega Floette, Pitch Black narrows its focus to a single dark, cohesive theme built around Mega Darkrai ex — a more thematically unified release than the era has seen so far, with the deepest special-illustration run to date at over 35 cards carrying special art treatments. Against the full Mega Evolution era, Pitch Black ranks 5th of 6 sets released so far on our Collector Interest Grade — well behind era standouts Ascended Heroes (A) and Phantasmal Flames (A-), and part of a clustered bottom tier alongside Perfect Order and Chaos Rising (more on the reception below).

Pitch Black's reception has been more mixed than its chase-card ceiling suggests. Contemporary reviews were unusually blunt about the set feeling smaller and thinner than expected, with only two genuine chase cards and Illustration Rares that reviewers felt paled next to recent sets (see Special Notes below for the specific critical framing). Competitive Relevance is the clear bright spot: the set contributed multiple new meta decks and was well received by tournament players even where collectors were lukewarm. Artistic and nostalgia scores land in the middle — Egawa's Darkrai illustration is genuinely praised, but it's carrying a thinner overall art and pull experience than the set's ceiling implies.

Bottom line: with roughly a 1-in-1,081 shot at the Mega Hyper Rare (and about 1-in-480 for the Mega Darkrai ex Special Illustration Rare specifically), Pitch Black plays better as a singles-chase set than a pack-buying one — budget for the Darkrai SIR and Hyper Rare on the secondary market rather than breaking boxes.

Pitch Black had an unusually long lead time for market-read purposes — Abyss Eye's Japanese release on May 22, 2026 gave collectors nearly two months of real secondary-market behavior to study before the English set even launched, which is atypical for the Mega Evolution era's usual release cadence. It's also worth noting in the room: TheGamer's release-week review called Pitch Black the third consecutive Mega Evolution set (after Perfect Order and Chaos Rising) it described as "underwhelming," a sentiment echoed elsewhere in collector circles even as competitive players found more to like.