Pokémon Trading Card Game collectors are already chasing a handful of eye-popping price tags just as the franchise's newest expansion, Mega Evolution — Pitch Black, hits shelves on Friday, July 17, with early secondary-market data showing one Mega Darkrai card commanding close to $1,000 in the set's first week of release.

Pitch Black marks the latest entry in Pokémon's Mega Evolution era of releases and centers on Dark- and Ghost-type Pokémon, with Mega Darkrai serving as the expansion's headline creature across a set built around eerie cityscapes, new Trainer cards and additional Mega Evolution mechanics. According to early tracking data from the marketplace TCGplayer, several cards from the set have already generated significant buzz among collectors and competitive players, with prices climbing quickly in the days surrounding the set's release.

At the very top of the list sits a Mega Darkrai ex card numbered 120/084, classified as a Mega Hyper Rare using the set's signature gold-foil treatment. That card was trading for $996.69 on TCGplayer as of the latest tracking, making it the single most valuable card in the new expansion. Market watchers cautioned that early secondary-market prices for freshly released sets tend to be volatile, and that values for high-demand cards like this one often settle somewhat once more booster packs have been opened and additional copies enter circulation.

The second-most valuable card in the set is a different version of........

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