Choose by what this run can afford to lose
| Your situation | Recommendation | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| You depend on one carry or a hard-to-replace support | Refuse if losing that member would end your plan. | You do not choose the donor. Keeping a weak bench member does not guarantee that it will be selected. |
| Your goal is collecting starters and the remaining team can handle a boss | Consider accepting. | You gain a catch opportunity, but must handle the encounter with one fewer original team member. |
| You mainly want five Rogue Balls | Do not treat this as a free ball pickup. | The team change happens before the fight. The balls are payment for a real risk. |
| You have fainted party members | Do not assume they are protected or guaranteed donors. | The release code permits fainted members in the random selection, while protecting the last battle-able member. |
These recommendations are a way to weigh the documented costs, not a claim that one choice wins more runs. Before accepting, identify the jobs your team needs for the next boss: damage, survival, status control or catching. If losing any one of those jobs breaks the plan, refusing preserves the team you already built.
What accepting actually does
- A random party member is removed. This is not a screen where you nominate a sacrifice.
- You receive five Rogue Balls and a new boss encounter is generated.
- The removed member’s non-form-changing held items are carried into the opponent configuration. A well-equipped donor can therefore leave you facing an equipped opponent.
- Fight and attempt to catch the new Pokémon if that is your goal. A catchable encounter is not a guaranteed catch or a free replacement already added to your party.
Do not plan on getting the original member back by refusing the battle afterward. Refusing the initial offer is the choice that leaves your team intact, with no reward or encounter EXP.
Read the odds as cost bands, not catch chances
The checked release rolls 35% for cost 6, 50% for cost 7, 10% for cost 8 and 5% for cost 9–10. Those are selection bands in the source, not the probability of catching the result or a guarantee of a particular species.
The selection tries to match the removed member’s typing. A Mono-Type Challenge supplies its required type instead. If the requested combination has no eligible result, the selection helper can fall back; do not promise yourself one legendary from a type alone. The exclusion list includes Mythicals, Ultra Beasts, Paradox Pokémon, Eternatus and certain special forms.
Older articles list different percentages, and the Wiki summarizes the highest band as 9. This guide uses the explicit 9–10 band in release v1.12.2.4. Offline copies on older game files may differ.
When the encounter is eligible
Dark Deal starts at wave 30 within the Mystery Encounter window ending at 180, requires at least two party members, and is disabled for Hardcore and Mono-Generation Challenges in the checked release. Eligibility does not mean it must appear. Mystery Encounters belong to Classic and Challenge runs, not Daily or Endless.
Sources and version
Rules checked against Pagefault Games · release v1.12.2.4 encounter code ↗ (opens in a new tab) and the PokéRogue Wiki · Dark Deal ↗ (opens in a new tab). Code inspection supports the sequence and restrictions; we did not reproduce this encounter in a live run. Recheck after an encounter or balance update.
More PokeRogue decisions
Mobile versions and original entry · Dig or investigate the garbage