I had to create a thread here and vent. The last topic I saw on this was 3 years ago.
The pull rates for english sets are terrible. It’s honestly just straight gambling at this point. I think I may be done collecting english other than vintage singles. I might pick up some 151 but even then I’d rather get a Japanese booster box that has guaranteed pull rates where I know I’m getting some interesting cards for spending all that money. English is a massive slap in the face. The cards are poorer quality. There are way too many filler cards now. Back in the good old days with base set it was common, uncommon, rare, and rare hollow. I remember enjoying even some packs that just had rares. Of course everyone ultimately wants a holo. Fortunately back then it didn’t take that many packs to get one. The pull rate was 1:4 so about every 4 booster packs you would get a holo rare card which was a TOP TIER card! Of course some holos were preferred over others and that gave another element to it but the rarity was basically the same. I feel like too the sets were smaller and so even the more common or uncommon cards were kind of fun to collect and didn’t fatigue you as much.
Now we have a TON of junk cards (all the commons and uncommons of course, reverse holos of everything (this is just more filler that no one needs), rares, and rare holos. None of these are even desirable anymore because they have created so many tiers above them RR, RRR, AR, SAR, UR/HR and those cards are MUCH harder to get as you go up the ladder. This all has forced most of the cards to be worthless and a few to be worth everything. It frankly kind of ruins the fun of collecting.
In Japanese at least you have a SAR per box and multiple AR’s and RR/RRR’s per box to make you feel like you got something really good. That makes those higher rarities feel closer to the old holo pull rate from the original base set and thereby gives you a greater sense of reward and hope that you will get something good. In practice you still loose money opening packs most of the time but from my experience you lose a lot less usually with the Japanese vs the English because you tend to get better pulls with the Japanese from those higher tiers that are cards people actually want. Spending $100’s on english packs to get a bunch of cards worth $1 and a few worth $10 just makes you feel like a total sucker. Anyway I’m kind of pissed at english Pokemon TCG. Its pretty terrible:
-Costs more per pack then Japanese
-Worse pull rates than Japanese
-Typically singles aren’t worth as much as a Japanese version long term
-Poorer quality card than Japanese
Honestly its broken and they need to fix it. And for once can we have something in America that isn’t designed to be addictive and take all of your money? Video games are all about gambling now too.
This is the near-impossible balancing act for all CCGs:
Collectors want something rare to chase
Collectors complain when chasing the rare card is too hard
Collectors complain when chasing the rare card is too easy
If you make desirable cards easier to get (i.e., Scarlet/Violet illustration rares), the value of the cards plummet and the long-term collectability is affected. However, if you make the cards extremely difficult to get (i.e., Evolving Skies alt arts), those same consumers complain about pull rates.
What a tough job it must be to delicately adjust chase card probabilities!
Why are you complaining now? It’s been the case for at least 7 years, if not the entirety of its existence.
In fact, the SV era has the best pull rates in years, quite possibly ever. They are better than the JP pull rates now. That’s not subjective, it’s objective now. Print quality is still all over the place, but pull rates are not.
Don’t @ me if you’re going to complain that it’s only new Pokemon or Pokemon not from Kanto or whatever.
There is a balance that pokemon needs to find. When the pull rates go down, value for the rare cards go up, but you pull those cards less often. When the pull rates go up, the value of the singles go down. There is not really a middleground that satisfies all, this is probably not the best pokemon can do, but we also cant get everything we want.
Also, opening packs is and always has been gambling, that is part of the thrill of opening packs, and also why I dont open packs
I don’t think pull rates differ that much in English. It’s just that sets are more diluted (which is bad) and that there’s no guaranteed hits (which is gamling - you might as well have more hits than normal).
People always complain about the low pull rates of alt arts, but they aren’t rarer than any other card of the same rarity level. There’s just less of them per set and they are more desirable. Alt Art Umbreon VMAX probably has the same pull rate as a rainbow Gordie full art trainer. No one calls rainbow Gordie rare.
Opening packs for one specific chase card does of course yield worse results in English because the sets are bigger. But then again, if you only want one or two specific cards, opening packs is not the way to go, no matter the language.
I pretty much agree too.
The problem for me is indeed dilution.
I end up with huge stacks of doubles and “less desirable” cards (after filling what I have in the binder, of course).
And maybe that’s on me - to trade more and initiate more interaction in the local community.
But life’s busy I can barely carve out time for opening a box here and there.
Japanese has always been more fun for me. It’s the original, and you get most of the set fairly easily with fewer boxes. And it feels less diluted. And I can read a lot of the cards with my basic reading skills.
Are you complaining about pull rates or value? If its about pull rates i dont think anyone ever disagrees but i feel it is more common now to have unfair comparisons. Comparing a 4 rarity system with a 8-9 rarity system isnt the same especially when there were really only 2 possible rarity differences in a pack compared to the 6-7 now. I also think there werent many people who were opening several booster boxes in a single sitting, of course cards are going to feel stale when you are seeing so many of the same ones so often.
Have you considered trying to alter your goals? Maybe focus on an artist or specific pokemon so you get more interest in the packs instead of just the top value chase card.
I agree for the most part. It wouldn’t bother me so much if the quality wasn’t so crap. There is no excuse why I should be pulling fresh cards out of fresh packs and already they have whitening, dents, and other issues. I know English never amounted to the same quality as Japanese for the most part but the Quality Control has seriously gone down south exponentially over the last few years.
It’s gotten to the point that I don’t feel like I can justify the price for some modern English singles and am strongly considering switching to Japanese only after 23 years of collecting both.
Look I understand you’ll never satisfy all collectors. That’s not what this rant is about. I gave specific reasons why I feel the situation is unacceptable. I mentioned all the bulk cards no one wants. But I didn’t necessarily mention the part where English sets are generally bigger and seem to have more of those junk cards and a higher chance of pulling a pack with nothing but junk cards than japanese.
Back in the OG era, opening a $3 booster back would usually yield one card that was at least worth $0.50 let’s say if its a non holo rare and probably at least $1 or more if its a holo. Some holos were obviously more desirable and fetched a higher price. Worst case back then you felt you were getting $0.50/$3 = 17% of your value back but with the upshot of a lot more. I’m using money to explain this with numbers but really you weren’t thinking about the money, rather the feeling of getting cards that had value. Nowadays I would say the vast majority of english packs I open have a holo “rare” at best. Of couse these holo rares are really just uncommon junk cards and not what everyone is after. You might get $0.25 or we’ll say $0.50 just to be generous. Booster packs nowadays are more expensive. Usually $5 unless you buy in bulk. $0.50/$5 = 10%. Even being generous you are getting less value for your money than you used to and you are pulling those low value packs more often. This is one of the problems caused by all the bulk junk cards.
The other is that I think we have too many tiers and types. I think they need to reduce the number of types OR increase the hit rate closer to opening a Japanese booster box because in the end it makes you feel like those cards are all in a similar rarity bucket based on how often you are pulling them.
Honestly it will always be gambling for sure but there is a point where the gambling becomes way too crazy and I think we are there.
I’ve been out of the hobby for awhile which is why that has hit recently. I think English TCG should try to be more like the Japanese TCG. Increase pull rates and decrease the amount of printing. They’d end up with about the same number of desirable cards in the market, a more fun opening experience for collectors, and might even create greater hype for the hobby like the Japanese market has done. The trade would be they would likely lose revenue. But there is more to life than maxing out your monetary gains. My personal experience has been if you focus on providing value to your customers and make them happy, the success tends to come with that and you feel a lot better in the process.
i don’t think pull rates are bad. i think the problem is the culture around modern. pulling one full art is considered bad pull rates, but another is considered good pull rates.
I opened a crown zenith collection box (the one with shiny zacian) for my birthday.
It contained 10 packs.
I pulled 4 textured full arts, one chr, and two radiant pokemon…
I know these special sets are often outliers but if you are opening packs to see some beautiful cards that’s the way to go.
Opening set packs usually give you a harder pull rate for often a more valuable card but that’s just the way it goes.
Its not gambling if you’re not expecting to pull anything great
