Best Pitch Black Cards to Grade
The Pitch Black cards worth grading, ranked by expected profit per submission — every grade outcome weighted by how often the card actually receives it — after current grading fees. The PSA 10 best case is shown on every row but does not decide the order. Top pick: Mega Darkrai ex at an expected +$455.
Ranked by expected profit 5
| # | Card | Raw | PSA 9 | PSA 10 | Cost | Best case | Gem rate | Expected | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Expected +$455 per submission: 38.5% of 13 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($1,570), and a PSA 9 ($247) still clears the $395 you have in it. Confidence low on that sample. | $160 | $247 | $1,570 | $235 | +$1,175 | 38.5% | +$455 | 13 low |
| 2 | Expected +$384 per submission: 71.9% of 64 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($801), and a PSA 9 ($310) still clears the $273 you have in it. Confidence medium on that sample. | $185 | $310 | $801 | $88 | +$528 | 71.9% | +$384 | 64 medium |
| 3 | Expected +$189 per submission: 59% of 39 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($400), and a PSA 9 ($160) still clears the $91 you have in it. Confidence medium on that sample. | $7 | $160 | $400 | $84 | +$309 | 59% | +$189 | 39 medium |
| 4 | Expected +$87 per submission: 59.8% of 102 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($276), and only a PSA 10 covers the $96 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence high on that sample. | $13 | $58 | $276 | $83 | +$180 | 59.8% | +$87 | 102 high |
| 5 | Expected +$77 per submission: 63.6% of 44 graded copies came back PSA 10 ($250), and only a PSA 10 covers the $88 you have in it — a 9 loses money. Confidence medium on that sample. | $6 | $19 | $250 | $82 | +$162 | 63.6% | +$77 | 44 medium |
Best case only — no gem-rate evidence 5
Fewer than 10 graded copies in the PSA and CGC population reports. They clear the grading cost if they gem — that is all the numbers support.
| # | Card | Raw | PSA 9 | PSA 10 | Cost | Best case | Gem rate | Expected | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | $50 | — | $585 | $86 | +$449 | — | — | none <10 | |
| 7 | $79 | — | $538 | $85 | +$373 | — | — | none <10 | |
| 8 | $7 | — | $325 | $83 | +$235 | — | — | none <10 | |
| 9 | $37 | — | $250 | $82 | +$131 | — | — | none <10 | |
| 10 | $26 | — | $157 | $82 | +$50 | — | — | none <10 |
Expected = every grade outcome weighted by its share of the card's graded population, minus the raw price and the grading cost (PSA tier fee for the graded value plus ~$20 round-trip shipping, fees as of 2026-09-26). Best case is the PSA 10 leg alone. Gem rates come from a self-selected population — collectors grade their cleanest copies — so read them as an upper bound. Raw is a blended market price, not a sale of your copy. Full method and filters on the grading index.
How to read the Pitch Black ranking
Every Pitch Black card listed here clears one bar: its PSA 10 price beats its raw price by more than the cost of grading it. 10 cards from the set pass. 5 of them (50%) have a gem-rate sample of at least ten graded copies in the population reports, and 5 of those keep a positive expected value once every grade outcome is weighted by how often the card actually receives it.
The order is expected profit, not the PSA 10 best case, which rewards the widest raw-to-gem gap whether the card gems one time in two or one in fifty. Here the top row, the Mega Darkrai ex from Pitch Black, gems 38.5% of the time across 13 graded copies: +$455 is what a long run of submissions would average, $1,175 is what one lucky copy returns.
The median gem rate across the sampled Pitch Black cards is 59.8%. More than half of submitted copies came back PSA 10, and most rows here still cover raw price plus fee at PSA 9, so the PSA 9 price does most of the work. Of the 5 ranked cards, 3 still cover raw price plus fee at PSA 9 and 2 need a 10 to break even. 1 rests on a hundred or more graded copies.
5 cards sit below the ranking with a best case only, fewer than ten graded copies. The largest best case among them is the Mega Zeraora ex from Pitch Black at +$449.
Before you submit a Pitch Black card
Grading pays on condition. The four things every grader scores — centering, corners, edges and surface — can be checked at home before paying a fee, and a copy that is visibly off-centre or has a whitened corner will not gem whatever the population says. Those gem rates come from a self-selected population of clean copies, so a random copy does worse.
The cost column assumes a PSA submission at the tier covering the card's PSA 10 value, fees as of 2026-09-26, and raw is CardTrack's blended near-mint price, not a sale of your copy: pay more, or hold a lighter copy, and the break-even moves against you. Test a card with your own numbers in the ROI calculator, see the printings that fail the bar on the Pitch Black card list, or see how gem-mint premiums run across the whole catalogue on the PSA premium index.