Pitch Black Is Coming July 17 — And It Looks Like Nothing Else in the Mega Evolution Series

Five sets into the Mega Evolution series, we've started to see a pattern: bold card art, strong chase pulls, and our kids debating about who gets to keep what. Pitch Black — the sixth — looks like it's about to break that pattern in the best possible way, not because it's louder than what came before, but because it's a lot darker.

Mega Darkrai ex is the set mascot and the visual lead, and everything about Pitch Black leans into that: shadowy cityscapes, ghostly purple-blue flames, artwork that genuinely feels like a different aesthetic direction than the rest of the series. When we looked at the Mega Chandelure ex Special Illustration Rare — already officially revealed — we all went quiet for a second. That's usually a good sign.

The Chases We're Watching

The SIRs we're watching — Mega Chandelure ex, Mega Darkrai ex, and Mega Zeraora ex.

The Mega Chandelure ex Special Illustration Rare is already confirmed and is already one of our favorite things we've seen in the set; it just looks so creepy and cool.

The Mega Darkrai ex SIR has since been revealed, and it's widely expected to be the top chase card in the set — go in expecting it to be the hardest pull. (Pitch Black is the English version of Japan's Abyss Eye set, which landed back in May, so most of these cards have been out there to preview for a while.)

Then there's Mega Zeraora ex, which stands out for a different reason entirely. Zeraora is a Mythical Pokémon, and its Mega form is brand new — it debuted in Pokémon Legends: Z-A's Mega Dimension DLC, and Pitch Black is the first time that its Mega form has shown up as a card. A Mythical getting a Mega at all is unusual, so it's a collector moment regardless of what the secondary market does.

The Rest of the Set

Beyond the headliners, the confirmed Pokémon lean heavily toward the dark side: Gengar, Luxray, Tyrantrum, Chandelure, Darkrai in its non-Mega form. Pitch Black has a specific aesthetic and commits to it hard, which we appreciate. Mega Excadrill ex rounds out the confirmed Mega Evolution cards and is drawing competitive attention — but we're here for the binder, not the ladder, so we'll leave that conversation to others.

At just over 115 cards total, Pitch Black is one of the smaller sets in the Mega Evolution series. Smaller set lists are generally good news for binder collectors: fewer cards to track down, and the chase cards are more concentrated rather than spread across a 180+ card list.

On the Prerelease

Prerelease events run July 4–12 at participating hobby retailers with Build & Battle Boxes. We haven't done a prerelease together as a family yet, and the holiday weekend timing makes this one tricky for us — but if you've taken kids to a prerelease and have thoughts on whether it's worth it at that age, we'd genuinely like to know ahead of future sets. Let us know on X, tag us @Adventure_Coll.

Products and What Makes Sense for Us

The Elite Trainer Box comes in at $59.99 (if we or any real humans are able to get it at MSRP) — nine packs, a Zarude promo card, and Darkrai-themed sleeves. The Zarude promo has an unusual warm red-sky background that stands out against the rest of the set's dark aesthetic, which is a nice touch for something that's technically just the bonus card in the box.

The Booster Bundle (six packs, around $25) is the more modest entry point, and probably where we land for our first look at Pitch Black. We're a pack-here-and-there family most months, and an Elite Trainer Box feels like a special occasion product, especially at resale prices — so we'll see where we are with our other Binder Challenges before we decide how deep we get into pitch black at first release.

No mini tins or special collections have been officially announced yet, but we're sure they'll come eventually, so we'll keep an eye out. Considering how things have gone with Series 1 and Series 2, we expect these packs will likely be one of the packs inside the First Partner Illustration Collection Series 3 when it comes out in August as well.

How We're Approaching It

As always: no panic, no markups. We're not buying anything early or on the secondary market — just packs on shelves when the time comes.

What's Next for Us

We're still in the middle of getting our first look at Chaos Rising in person and getting the Binder Challenge off the ground, so Pitch Black is on the calendar for after the July 17 launch rather than before it. We'll have a full recap once we've actually had cards in hand. For now, this is what we're watching and why it's on our radar.

If you're going to a prerelease or you've already tracked down some of the Japanese product, tell us what the pulls were like. We're genuinely curious whether the dark aesthetic lands in person the way it does in the card reveals.