Pitch Black is live: how to read ME05 before the Build & Battle drop
Mega Evolution—Pitch Black hit shelves on 17 July as the fifth expansion of the Mega Evolution era, and it is the darkest-themed set of the run so far — over 115 cards tied directly into Pokémon Legends Z-A: Mega Dimension, led by Mega Darkrai ex. What makes this launch worth watching is not the chase card, though. It is the calendar.
The set arrives in three waves, not one
Most collectors treat a set release as a single supply event. Pitch Black is spread across a month, and each wave puts a different card into circulation:
- 3 July — Mega Greninja ex Premium Collection. A foil promo plus an oversized display copy, a tech sticker and eight boosters. Mega Greninja ex brings the Mortal Shuriken Ability and a Ninja Spinner attack that reaches 200 damage.
- 17 July — the main wave. Booster display (36 packs, ten cards plus one Basic Energy each), Elite Trainer Box (nine packs and a full-art Zarude promo), the Pokémon Center ETB (eleven packs and two full-art Zarude promos, one carrying the Pokémon Center logo), and a six-pack Booster Bundle.
- 31 July — Build & Battle Box. A 40-card preconstructed deck with one of four unique foil promos, plus four boosters.
That staggering matters because the promo-only cards never enter the booster pool. The Zarude full art exists in exactly two products, and the Pokémon Center logo variant in one — so its floor is set by ETB allocation, not by pull rates. The four Build & Battle foils behave the same way, and they arrive two weeks after the market has already priced the main set.
Six Mega ex, one obvious chase, and the ones nobody is pricing
Mega Darkrai ex is the headline and will carry the set ceiling. But the expansion ships six Mega Evolution Pokémon ex in total — Mega Zeraora ex, Mega Chandelure ex and Mega Excadrill ex among them — and the historical pattern in this era is that the second- and third-tier Mega ex are underpriced in launch week, then correct upward once decklists settle.
The cards that climb are rarely the ones the hype cycle picks on day one. Watch the playable rares alongside the alt arts.
Compare against ME04: Chaos Rising, which shipped in May. Two months of price history on a directly comparable set is the cleanest baseline available for judging whether Pitch Black singles are running hot or cold right now.
The wider tape
Context helps. The Pokémon market moved roughly +1.5% over the trailing week and +4.2% over 30 days heading into mid-July, against average card prices up about 46% year over year. A rising tide inflates launch-week comparisons, so measure a new single against its own set, not against last year.
What is next on the calendar
First Partner Collection Series 3 follows on 7 August. The bigger date is 16 September, when the 30th Celebration expansion launches worldwide simultaneously for the first time — no region gets it early. That removes the usual Japan-first window that speculators have leaned on for years, and it is worth planning around now rather than in September.
Track the sets tagged below to get pricing the moment new singles land in the catalog.