Mega Evolution Chase Cards Cool Off Before Pitch Black

Mega Evolution Chase Cards Cool Off Before Pitch Black

Mega Greninja ex and Mega Dragonite ex, two of the priciest chase cards from the last two Mega Evolution expansions, are down 16.6% and 6.8% this week as Mega Evolution—Pitch Black's July 17 release pulls collector spending toward the newest set. It is the second straight week that Mega Evolution-era ex cards have led the market's fallers, while older GX- and VMAX-era cards are the ones climbing instead.

That pattern, pulled from two consecutive weekly price-mover reports covering more than 18,000 tracked singles, points to something more specific than a random dip: collectors appear to be selling down recent Mega Evolution chase cards to fund Pitch Black boxes, while parking money in vintage nostalgia cards that aren't tied to any release calendar.

What happened to Mega Evolution chase card prices this week?

In the week ending July 12, 2026, Mega Greninja ex from ME04: Chaos Rising fell 16.6% to £168.13 and Mega Dragonite ex from Ascended Heroes dropped 6.8% to £171.12, according to Monster Card Corner's weekly price-movers report, published July 13. A third Mega Evolution-era card, the Scarlet & Violet promo Greninja ex, also fell 6.5% to £100.38. Fallers outnumbered gainers three to two on the week, a reversal from the usual mix of even splits.

That decline didn't come out of nowhere. The week before, in the report covering July 5, ME03: Perfect Order's Meowth ex was already the week's single biggest faller, down 10.8% to £123.45, alongside three other Standard-format Special Illustration Rares. Two straight weeks of Mega Evolution ex cards leading the fallers list, in the two weeks directly before a new Mega Evolution set drops, is the kind of pattern that's easy to miss looking at any single week in isolation.

Why are vintage cards outperforming the newest set's own chase cards?

Vintage and collector-only cards are climbing while current-format Mega Evolution ex cards fall, most likely because Pitch Black's July 17 release is concentrating collector spending on the new set rather than the previous two. Latias & Latios GX, the 2019 Alternate Full Art chase card from SM: Team Up, jumped 20.8% to £2,000.00 in the week ending July 12 — the single biggest percentage gain of either report. Magikarp & Wailord GX, from the same set, rose 9.8% to £74.63. A week earlier, Rayquaza VMAX's Secret Rare from Evolving Skies led gainers at 11.9%, up to £600.28.

None of those three cards see any competitive play; Monster Card Corner's own notes on both reports flag them as "collector only" and driven by Special Illustration Rares, Secret Rares, and gallery pulls rather than tournament demand. That's the tell. When a set with genuine deck-building relevance (Chaos Rising, Perfect Order, both still legal in Standard) sees its ex chase cards fall while pure-collector Alternate Art and Secret Rare cards climb, the simplest explanation is a shift in where discretionary money is going, not a change in how good the cards are. Collectors gearing up to open Pitch Black boxes this week have a finite budget, and something has to give first.

Two weeks of Mega Evolution movers, side by side

Week ending	Top gainer	Change	Top faller	Change
July 5, 2026	Rayquaza VMAX (Evolving Skies, Secret Rare) — £600.28	+11.9%	Meowth ex (ME03: Perfect Order) — £123.45	-10.8%
July 12, 2026	Latias & Latios GX (Team Up, Alt Full Art) — £2,000.00	+20.8%	Mega Greninja ex (ME04: Chaos Rising) — £168.13	-16.6%

Other notable movers from the two reports: Charmander and Venusaur ex from Scarlet & Violet 151 both fell 8.5-9.7% on July 5; Magikarp & Wailord GX (+9.8%) and Greninja ex SV Promo (-6.5%) rounded out July 12. Both reports track roughly the same pool of about 18,500-18,700 singles, so the sample size and methodology are consistent week to week, which is what makes the two-week trend worth noting rather than dismissing as noise.

Is this a buying opportunity or a warning sign?

For anyone holding Mega Greninja ex or Mega Dragonite ex, this looks like a short-term budget-driven dip rather than a collapse in underlying demand — both cards remain legal, playable Special Illustration Rares in sets that aren't rotating out anytime soon, and the kind of pre-release cash crunch that's pulling their prices down now typically eases within a few weeks of the new set settling into the market. That's not a guarantee prices bounce back to their launch-week highs; SIRs from a six-week-old set rarely reclaim their opening spike once the initial pull-rate hype fades. But a 16.6% weekly drop tied to a specific, dateable catalyst (a new set's release pulling spending elsewhere) is a different situation than a slow bleed with no clear cause, and it's worth tracking with your own portfolio rather than reacting to the headline number alone. If you're scanning a binder full of Chaos Rising and Ascended Heroes pulls, now is a reasonable moment to check where each card actually sits against its 90-day range in Valusaur before deciding whether to sell into the dip or hold through it — a single week's TCGplayer or Cardmarket snapshot won't tell you that on its own.

The flip side is the vintage GX and VMAX cards climbing on both reports. A 20.8% weekly jump on a $2,000+ card like Latias & Latios GX is a large move for a six-year-old card with a fixed, shrinking population, and it's the kind of spike that's easy to chase after the fact. Buying into a card the week after it posted the market's biggest percentage gain is generally a worse entry point than buying it the week before — treat a single week of price-mover data as a signal to research, not a buy trigger.

What this means for Pitch Black's own release tomorrow

Pitch Black itself launches July 17 with over 115 cards and Mega Darkrai ex as its headline chase card; we've already broken down its booster box math and pull rates and its presale chase-card pricing in earlier coverage. What this week's mover data adds is the other side of that equation: the money funding those Pitch Black purchases has to come from somewhere, and right now it's visibly coming out of the two Mega Evolution sets that came before it. If that pattern holds after release, expect Chaos Rising and Ascended Heroes prices to keep drifting down through late July before finding a floor, while Pitch Black's own chase cards absorb the collector spending that's currently sitting on the sidelines. For the full lineup of sets in this era, see our Mega Evolution sets guide.

If you're holding cards across several of these sets, Valusaur's portfolio tracker can show you each card's price trend against its own 90-day range instead of a single week's snapshot, which is the difference between reacting to noise and spotting a real pattern.

FAQ

Is Mega Greninja ex's price drop connected to Pitch Black's release? There's no confirmed causal statement from TCGplayer or Cardmarket tying the two together, but the timing lines up closely: Mega Greninja ex fell 16.6% in the week immediately before Pitch Black's July 17 release, following a week where a different Mega Evolution ex card (Meowth ex) led fallers by a similar margin.

Should I sell my Chaos Rising or Ascended Heroes cards now? That depends on whether you're holding for the card's long-term playability or for resale value. Both sets remain legal in Standard, so the drop looks more like a temporary reallocation of collector spending than a fundamental loss of value; selling into a dip driven by a dateable, short-term cause is usually the wrong move unless you need the cash for Pitch Black specifically.

Why are older GX and VMAX cards going up right now? Latias & Latios GX and Rayquaza VMAX are both collector-only cards with no competitive use and fixed, aging print runs, and both posted the single biggest weekly gain in their respective reports. With current-format chase cards temporarily cooling, some collector spending appears to be flowing into vintage cards instead, though a two-week sample isn't enough to call it a firm trend.

How reliable is a two-week price snapshot from one tracker? Monster Card Corner's reports track roughly 18,500-18,700 singles using consistent methodology week to week, which makes the comparison meaningful, but it's still one retailer's data set rather than an aggregate across every marketplace. Treat it as a leading indicator worth watching over the next few weeks, not a definitive verdict.

When will Mega Evolution—Pitch Black prices start showing up in tracker data? Pitch Black releases July 17, 2026, so the first full week of secondary-market sales data will likely appear in trackers by the week of July 19-26, roughly matching the pattern seen with Chaos Rising and Perfect Order after their own releases.