Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box

Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box guide

What's inside the Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box

Inside a sealed Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box you get 8 booster packs plus card sleeves, energy cards, dice, condition markers and a storage box. The packs are all Darkness Ablaze.

Pokémon Center exclusive ETBs come with extra packs and a stamped promo and sell for more, so they are left out of the prices here.

About Darkness Ablaze

The set with the first Charizard VMAX, which helped drive the 2020 collecting boom. Released on 14 August 2020, it belongs to the Sword & Shield era, when the collecting boom pushed print runs to record levels. 6 years on, most of its sealed stock has long been opened, and unopened product mostly changes hands between collectors.

Darkness Ablaze has 189 cards in its main numbering, plus 12 secret rares numbered beyond it.

Chase cards to look for

The Darkness Ablaze cards collectors most want to pull are Charizard VMAX and Charizard V. 8 packs is a modest number of tries, so most ETBs are bought to collect or keep sealed rather than to chase one card.

Our catalogue lists the set's rarest tiers as 12 Secret Rares, 13 Ultra Rares and 7 VMAX. See every Darkness Ablaze card price for what each is worth.

Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box price today

Right now the cheapest Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box on eBay costs €105.93 including delivery to Germany, and the typical asking price across 67 listings is €162.00 (ebay.co.uk from €140.27, ebay.com from €105.93).

These are live asking prices, not completed sales, so a good offer is usually close to the cheapest listing rather than the typical one.

Price per pack

At the typical price, each of the 8 packs in a Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box works out at €20.25, compared with €11.64 in a Darkness Ablaze Booster Box and €30.66 in a Darkness Ablaze Booster Pack. That makes it mid-priced among Darkness Ablaze sealed products.

Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box as an investment

Older sealed product tends to rise as boxes are opened and supply shrinks, and Darkness Ablaze is now 6 years past release. Its price still depends on demand for its chase cards and on any reprints. ETBs are popular to keep sealed because of their box art, but they take more space than they hold in packs. Much of its sealed value rests on demand for Charizard VMAX and Charizard V: if those cards rise, unopened product usually follows.

Only buy a Darkness Ablaze Elite Trainer Box to hold if you are happy to keep it either way, as prices can fall too. This is not financial advice; see should you buy sealed Pokémon products?

Before you buy

Check the shrink wrap: factory wrap on elite trainer boxes has neat seams, often with Pokémon logos printed on it, and loose or glossy wrap can mean a resealed product. At €162.00 it is worth asking for photos of every side and buying from sellers with a long, positive history, since resealed and weighed product is common. Check the listing photos show the ETB itself and not only the packs, and that it is the standard version rather than a Pokémon Center one if you are comparing prices. Always compare totals with delivery included, and keep sealed product away from sunlight, heat and damp once it arrives.