Mistys Vitality
Quick take
- Full art secret rare (111/084) of a Kanto Gym Leader in a set headlined by Mega Pokemon
- Illustrated by En Morikura, whose Trainer art carries real collector weight
- Kiawe-style effect: four Basic Water Energy onto one Pokemon, then your turn ends
- Briefly outpriced most SIRs at launch; settled around $26 two weeks in, just under the cheapest SIR and far above the usual full art Supporter band
Collector's readWhat it means for your master set
Set landscapeWhere this card sits in Pitch Black
VariantsCard variants
Holofoil 111/84 · $10.73 — the only variant this card was printed in (no reverse holo or special pattern), so a master set needs just this one copy.
The storyThe Trainer card doing Kanto nostalgia work in a Darkrai set
Pitch Black is built around Mega Darkrai ex. Dark set, dark headliner, and the biggest chase slots belong to Mega Pokemon. Then there is Misty. The full art Misty's Vitality (111/084) is the set's character card, and in launch week it briefly outpriced most of the Special Illustration Rares before settling around $26 — just under the cheapest SIR. Even the settled number is unusual for an Ultra Rare Trainer. It tells you where the demand is coming from: character collectors, not deck builders.
“Full art secret rare (111/084) of a Kanto Gym Leader in a set headlined by Mega Pokemon”
The card itself is simple. It is a Supporter that searches your deck for up to four Basic Water Energy, attaches them all to one Pokemon, then ends your turn. Bulbapedia points out it works like Kiawe from Burning Shadows, just for Water instead of Fire. Big swing, big cost.
The illustrator matters here. En Morikura handled both prints of this card, and her character work draws a crowd on its own. Put a first-generation Gym Leader in a full art frame with her name on the credit line and you get the card people rip Pitch Black packs hoping to hit when the Darkrai does not show.
By the numbersMarket analysis
About $26 two weeks after launch. Launch week had it in the set's top five, above most of the six Special Illustration Rares — the character premium at full froth — and the first wave of opened product deflated that to just below the cheapest SIR (Gladion's Final Battle, $29). Even so, that is a strong position for a full art Trainer at Ultra Rare, priced well above what a typical modern full art Supporter commands.
The launch-window froth resolved the way it usually does: down, then flat. From a top-five set position in week one to about $26 now, with the most recent week showing no real movement. The remaining question is the long-run one — character Trainers with this kind of following usually firm up once a set leaves active print, and Misty has decades of evidence behind that pattern.
Reasonable but not a lock. Character Trainer cards from popular sets tend to hold up after print runs end, and Misty has a long track record of demand across eras. The risk is the usual modern-card story: heavy supply while the set prints, plus the chance a future set drops an even flashier Misty. Buy it because you want Misty in the binder. If it appreciates, that is a bonus.
Full art Trainers usually carry a meaningful gem mint premium because the textured surface and full-bleed borders make 10s harder than they look. Two weeks in, population data is still nearly nonexistent and premiums have not formed. If you pull a clean copy from a pack, it is a sensible grading candidate; buying raw copies at $26 to grade for profit is money lost unless the copy is a true gem.
TCGPlayer's count of just over 4,000 Pitch Black packs puts Ultra Rares at 1 in 12 packs — a measured ME05 number now. That figure covers the whole 18-card Ultra Rare roster, so hitting this specific Misty works out to roughly 1 in 215 packs. If this card is the goal, buying the $26 single beats ripping packs by an enormous margin.
Within Pitch Black, it is far easier to pull than a specific Special Illustration Rare (about 1 in 480) and trades just below the cheapest SIR after briefly out-pricing most of the tier at launch. That gap between pull difficulty and price is the character premium at work. Compared with full art Supporters from recent sets, this one still sits well above the typical price band for the rarity.
ArtworkWhy the art matters
En Morikura is a Japanese illustrator best known outside the TCG as the character designer of the virtual YouTuber Kizuna AI. Her style is clean, character-first illustration with expressive faces and polished color work, which is exactly what collectors want from a full art Trainer.
The full art print gives Misty the entire frame in Morikura's character-focused style, a holofoil portrait treatment of the Cerulean City Gym Leader tied to her Water-type identity. The regular print (80/084) uses the same artist. We keep the scene description general here because published sources confirm the artist and the full art format but do not document the composition in detail.
Full Art Ultra Rare, numbered 111/084, so it sits in the secret rare range above the set's 84-card base numbering. Holofoil full art treatment consistent with modern Ultra Rare Supporters. The card debuted in Japan in the Abyss Eye expansion, where the regular print is 075/081 and the secret rare version is 108/081.
Three demand streams land on one card: a first-generation character, a recognized artist, and a full art secret rare slot in a heavily opened set. Pitch Black gives its premium real estate to Mega Pokemon, so this is the set's one big character moment, and the launch market has treated it that way.
BackgroundAbout Mistys Vitality
Misty has been part of Pokemon since the very beginning. She is the Cerulean City Gym Leader in the 1996 Game Boy games, a Water-type specialist, and one of Ash's original traveling companions through the early anime. In the TCG she goes back to the Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge sets of 2000, where her owned Pokemon and Trainer cards became some of the most collected of the vintage era. Modern sets keep bringing her back because she keeps selling.
- ›Original Kanto Gym Leader, instantly recognizable to anyone who touched Gen 1 or the early anime
- ›Decades of TCG history, from Gym-era cards to modern Trainer reprints, gives her a dedicated collector base
- ›Full art female Trainer cards are among the most consistently chased card types in the modern game
- ›Her Water-type identity translates cleanly into a playable, flavorful Supporter effect
- ›Cerulean City Gym Leader in Pokemon Red, Blue, and every Kanto remake since
- ›Main cast member of the original Pokemon anime alongside Ash and Brock
- ›Featured Trainer across the Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge TCG sets in 2000
- ›Returns in modern TCG sets through owned-Pokemon and Supporter cards like this one
The effect is real: search up to four Basic Water Energy and attach them all to one Pokemon, then your turn ends. Bulbapedia compares it directly to Kiawe from Burning Shadows, which powered turbo Fire decks in its day. Whether it sees serious play depends on whether a Water attacker wants that much energy at the cost of a full turn. For most buyers of the full art, playability is a footnote. The regular print covers deck needs cheaply.
Own it wellCollector guide
Full art holofoil Trainers show handling fast. Check the textured surface for print lines and scratches under direct light, and look closely at the corners and the card back for whitening from pack friction. Pack-fresh copies are everywhere while the set is in active print, so do not settle for a scuffed copy at a near mint price — and check for bowing, since curled cards are Pitch Black's most-reported quality issue.
Worth grading if the copy is genuinely clean. The card trades high enough for the rarity that a gem mint grade adds real value, and full art texture makes true 10s scarcer than raw supply suggests. If you are buying rather than pulling, an already-graded 10 usually beats gambling on raw copies once you price in grading fees and the miss rate. That said, graded copies of a days-old set barely exist yet, so patience helps here too. Read the grading guide →
Penny sleeve into a semi-rigid or a magnetic holder if it is staying out of the binder. For master set binders, use side-loading pages so the holofoil surface never drags against the pocket. Keep it away from direct sun; full art foils show fade and curl before regular prints do. See the storage guide →
The launch peak already deflated — from top-five in the set to about $26 in two weeks — so the froth is gone and there is no urgency in either direction while the set stays in active print. Compare recent sold listings rather than asking prices, and remember the regular print (80/084) exists for a small fraction of the cost if you just want the card in a deck. See the singles buying guide →
Counterfeits of brand-new secret rares exist but are less refined than fakes of vintage cards. Check for the etched full art texture, correct holofoil behavior when tilted, and crisp text printing. Compare against verified images on TCG Collector or Serebii, and confirm the 111/084 numbering and En Morikura's illustrator credit. For graded copies, verify the cert number with the grading company.
Protect your card
High Chase Score — protect and consider grading. · Amazon affiliate links · Storage guideWord on the streetCommunity sentiment
Collectors treat this as the set's character chase. Pitch Black conversation centers on Mega Darkrai ex, but the Misty full art is the card showing up in launch-weekend top-pulls posts from people who did not hit the headliner. Chase card guides for the set rank it among the most valuable cards, notable for an Ultra Rare Trainer outranking Special Illustration Rares.
The En Morikura credit does a lot of the work online. Artist collectors flagged the card when the Japanese Abyss Eye print surfaced, and Misty full arts reliably generate pull posts and binder showcase content. The launch-week debate over whether the price would hold is settled — it did not, sliding from top-five in the set to about $26 — and the conversation has moved on to whether it firms once the print run ends.
Good to knowFrequently asked questions
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