Is a Pokémon Pitch Black Booster Box Worth Opening? Pull Rates, Value & What Collectors Should Know

Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Pitch Black has quickly become a popular set with collectors, featuring Mega Pokémon ex, Illustration Rares and one of the expansion’s biggest chase cards: Mega Darkrai ex.

But if you’re thinking about buying a Pitch Black booster box, there’s a bigger question:

Is it actually worth opening one?

If you’re opening Pitch Black for the experience of collecting the set, a booster box can be great fun. If you’re chasing one particular card—especially one of the rare Mega Darkrai ex cards—buying the single will usually be the more predictable and cost-effective option.

Below, we’ll look at estimated Pitch Black pull rates, booster box contents, chase-card odds and whether opening a box makes sense for different types of collectors.

What Do You Get in a Pitch Black Booster Box?

An English Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Pitch Black Booster Display Box contains 36 booster packs.

That last point is particularly important. Unlike some products where collectors may expect particular rarity distributions, an English booster box does not guarantee that you’ll pull a Special Illustration Rare or a particular chase card.

What Are the Pokémon Pitch Black Pull Rates?

The Pokémon Company does not publish official pull rates for individual rarities, so the figures available to collectors are based on community openings and recorded pack-opening data.

One sizeable community dataset tracked more than 753 Pitch Black booster packs. Based on those results, a 36-pack box would average approximately:

Important: these figures are estimates, not guaranteed box contents.

The more common rarity estimates are based on considerably more recorded pulls than the rarest cards. Special Illustration Rare and Mega Hyper Rare figures therefore have much more uncertainty and should be treated as a guide rather than fixed odds.

Is an SIR Guaranteed in a Pitch Black Booster Box?

No. A Special Illustration Rare is not guaranteed in an English Pitch Black booster box.

Community data currently suggests an SIR may appear approximately once every three to four booster boxes on average, but individual results can vary significantly.

You could open a box and pull an SIR, while another collector could open several boxes without finding one.

How Hard Is It to Pull Mega Darkrai ex?

Mega Darkrai ex is one of the headline Pokémon in Pitch Black and one of the cards many collectors will be hoping to find.

The problem is that pulling a premium rarity doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll pull the specific Pokémon you want.

Even if you manage to hit a Special Illustration Rare, it could be any eligible SIR from the set rather than Mega Darkrai ex.

This makes chasing one specific premium card through sealed booster boxes potentially very expensive.

Collecterz TCG Tip

If Mega Darkrai ex is the main card you want, consider setting yourself a pack-opening budget before you start.

A strategy we like for modern Pokémon sets is:

• Open one box for the experience.
• Enjoy whatever you pull.
• Buy the remaining singles you genuinely want afterwards.

This gives you the fun of opening the set without repeatedly buying sealed products trying to hit one specific card.

Is Opening a Pitch Black Booster Box Good Value?

It depends on what you mean by value.

If You’re Opening It as a Collector

This is where a booster box makes the most sense.

You get 36 packs to open, plenty of cards from the set and multiple chances to find Pokémon ex, Illustration Rares and potentially one of the premium chase cards.

For many collectors, the opening experience is part of what they’re paying for. Discovering the cards, seeing the artwork and finding a surprise hit can be worth more than simply comparing the market value of the cards with the price of the box.

If You’re Opening It to Make Money

The calculation becomes much less favourable.

There is no guarantee that the total market value of the cards you pull will equal or exceed the amount you paid for the booster box.

Even if you pull valuable cards, selling them can involve:

• marketplace fees
• payment processing fees
• postage
• protective packaging
• changing card prices
• card condition
• time spent listing and dispatching cards

We therefore wouldn’t recommend opening Pitch Black booster boxes on the assumption that the contents will generate a profit.

Pitch Black Booster Box vs Buying Singles

If there is one particular card you want from the set, buying the single is usually the more predictable option.

For example, you may be looking specifically for:

• Mega Darkrai ex
• Slowbro Illustration Rare
• Misty’s Vitality
• a particular Illustration Rare
• one final card needed to complete your collection

When opening packs, you’re paying for a chance of finding that card.

When buying a single, you’re paying for the actual card you want.

For collectors who enjoy opening packs but also want to complete a set without overspending, a good compromise is:

Open a booster box for fun, then buy singles to fill the gaps.

Why Pitch Black Pull Rates Can Be Misleading

One of the most important things to understand about Pokémon pull rates is that they describe averages across large numbers of packs.

They do not predict what will happen in your individual booster box.

If community data suggests around four Illustration Rares per 36 packs, that doesn’t mean every box must contain exactly four.

One collector could have an exceptionally strong booster box while another could open a much weaker one.

Both results can occur while the larger average remains broadly accurate.

That’s why we’d always treat published pull rates as a guide to expectations rather than a guarantee.

Should You Open Pitch Black or Keep It Sealed?

There isn’t one correct answer because it depends on what you enjoy collecting.

Consider Opening It If:

• you enjoy opening Pokémon booster packs
• you want to collect Pitch Black
• you enjoy discovering cards yourself
• you’re happy with whatever pulls you receive
• the opening experience is part of the hobby for you

Consider Keeping It Sealed If:

• you collect sealed Pokémon products
• you don’t particularly want the cards inside
• you prefer displaying sealed booster boxes
• you’re considering opening it mainly because you expect to make money from the pulls

Older Pokémon booster boxes becoming valuable doesn’t mean every modern booster box will follow the same pattern.

Sealed Pokémon products can rise or fall in value over time, so we wouldn’t describe keeping Pitch Black sealed as a guaranteed investment either.

Our Experience Opening Pokémon Pitch Black

We’ve opened quite a few packs of Pokémon Pitch Black ourselves, so we’ve had a chance to get a feel for what the set is actually like to open rather than looking at pull-rate data alone.

Pitch Black is themed around Mega Darkrai and features a strong selection of Special Illustration Rares (SIRs), including cards such as Mega Darkrai ex, Morpeko and Mega Zeraora ex, alongside plenty of other cards to chase.

So far, we haven’t managed to pull an SIR from the Pitch Black packs we’ve opened. That’s not particularly surprising given the estimated pull rates we’ve discussed above — we simply haven’t opened the roughly 70–90 packs that community data suggests you may need, on average, to see an SIR.

We have, however, pulled several Illustration Rares, Full Arts and plenty of Double Rares. That has made Pitch Black a fun set for us to open even without hitting one of the biggest chase cards.

What Do We Think of Pitch Black?

Overall, we think Pitch Black is a fun set to open. Mega Darkrai gives the expansion a strong theme, there are some excellent cards to chase, and we’ve enjoyed opening the packs we’ve tried so far.

Would we rank it as our favourite set purely for artwork? Probably not. Personally, there are other sets we prefer visually, including Ascended Heroes, Crown Zenith and VSTAR Universe. That’s very much a matter of collector preference, though — and collectors who particularly like Darkrai or the cards featured in Pitch Black may feel very differently.

Our verdict: Pitch Black has been enjoyable to open even without pulling an SIR. If you’re chasing a particular high-rarity card, buying the single is still the more predictable option, but if you enjoy opening packs and like the set’s Pokémon and artwork, there’s plenty here to make opening Pitch Black fun.

Pokémon Pitch Black Booster Box FAQs