XY Elite Trainer Box

XY Elite Trainer Box guide

What's inside the XY Elite Trainer Box

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

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 XY

Opened the XY series with the Kalos Pokémon and introduced Mega Evolution, with Mega Venusaur-EX and Mega Blastoise-EX. Released on 5 February 2014, it belongs to the Black & White and XY era. 12 years on, most of its sealed stock has long been opened, and unopened product mostly changes hands between collectors.

XY has 146 cards in its main numbering.

The cards an XY Elite Trainer Box can hold

The XY cards collectors most want to pull are M Venusaur-EX, M Blastoise-EX, Xerneas-EX and Yveltal-EX. 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 14 Ultra Rares and 42 Rares. See every XY card price for what each is worth.

XY Elite Trainer Box price today

Right now the cheapest XY Elite Trainer Box on eBay costs €1,831 including delivery to Germany, and the typical asking price across 2 listings is €3,586 (ebay.de from €1,831, ebay.com from €5,341).

Bear in mind these are asking prices rather than sold prices: sellers at the top of the range often accept offers or wait a long time to sell.

Price per pack

At the typical price, each of the 8 packs in an XY Elite Trainer Box works out at €448.27, compared with €158.77 in an XY Booster Pack and €386.90 in an XY Booster Box. That makes it the most expensive way to buy XY packs right now, partly because you also pay for the accessories and the box itself.

XY Elite Trainer Box as an investment

After 12 years, sealed XY elite trainer boxes rarely come up, and prices tend to rise as boxes are opened and supply shrinks. 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 M Venusaur-EX and M Blastoise-EX: if those cards rise, unopened product usually follows.

None of this is financial advice: sealed prices can fall as well as rise. Our guide should you buy sealed Pokémon products? weighs up both sides.

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 €3,586 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. Compare the total with delivery, not just the price, and store sealed product flat, out of sunlight and away from damp.