I’m trying to put together a comprehensive database of card pull rates because as a collector I’ve always been fascinated with the challenge each and every card brings to obtaining. But for the longest time (pretty much since the first day I ever collected), the only way I could acquire this knowledge was watching hours of unboxing videos, scouring forums reading posts, or messaging people. I will also say, Pokemon was my very first card game as a kid and will always be very near and dear to me, so as a long time fan and a collector, I’ve wanted to help give back to the community. I’ve already been throwing this concept around with Scott and he’s been nothing but supportive in making this idea a reality so here I am ready to begin the journey and take on the challenge!
For those wondering whether I can handle a project of this magnitude – I have a formal education in Computer Science and years of experience working in Silicon Valley on highly reliable, complex distributed systems processing billion+ requests per day. Of course data like this would likely be nowhere near that scale but I can assure you my skills are well within the realm of what’s needed for Pokemon.
With all of that said, we all know a 20+ year card game can’t be tackled in a day, so what I would like to do is start with the newer stuff and work my way backwards to the older ones. I will be using this thread to help keep track of both sets that have been completed as well as those in progress.
SM Generation:
Sun & Moon
Guardians Rising
Burning Shadows
Crimson Invasion
Ultra Prism
Forbidden Light
Celestial Storm
Lost Thunder
Team Up
Unbroken Bonds
Unified Minds
How can I help?
Here’s what I need for each set:
The name
of cards per packs, # of packs per box, # of boxes per case
Each rarity seeding (e.g., Common: 3 per pack, Uncommon: 1 per pack, etc…)
I’m all about simple and easy so I went with a name that’s short, easy to remember for typing in your address bar or sharing with friends, and designed the interface to be clean and clear so anyone can understand how to use it. I’m also a big fan of crawling before walking (so to speak) so I decided to pilot the tool with DBS first since the game is much younger and less complicated but it’s now in a good place where I can expand it to Pokemon.
I’d be happy to help you compile this list. I’ve personally opened, and watched a TON of openings for sets ranging from the BW era, through DP/Pt, ex series, all the way back to WOTC stuff. Can nearly list pull rates of ultra rares, pack seeding, even where the rare sits in each pack off the top of my head at this point lol
Awesome! Do you have this written/saved somewhere or mostly off of memory? Also would you be open to posting on this thread or do you prefer messaging directly?
I just want to add I’ve talked to Mike about this project and he is trying his best to make a comprehensive resource for pull rates. He already has a nice concept with DBS cards, hopefully he links that in the OP.
Unfortunately with Pokemon there is a lot of guess work, especially for the tail end of WOTC and the Gold Star era. But having at least a solid resource is a step in the right direction!
I used to follow this and from what I saw it was generally accurate. I never understood why it says holos 1:4 packs as across all sets I think it fairly universally has been 1:3 packs for “premium” cards. It used to be simpler when they only “premium” cards were holos but now obviously we have tons of different things going on and over the years it has varied as well. Even those were never exact as I’ve gotten 11 and 13 holo base unlimited boxes in the past from time to time.
Common: 5 per pack
Uncommon: 3 per pack
Rare: 1 per pack
Ultra Rare: 1 per 6 packs (~5 per box)
Holo Rare: 1 per 18 packs (2 per box)
Secret Rare: 1 per 72 packs (1 per 2 boxes)
Reverse Holo: 1 per pack?
And do they have a basic energy (I haven’t opened modern English product for a long time, might be out of touch) ?
Are ultra rares 1/6 so 6 per box, or 1/7 so ~ 5 per box (box has 36 packs…)
Are Holo rares that hard to find now? I was always under the impression that it generally is 1 per 3 for a Holo or better (so ultra or secret would replace it) - because the per box amounts would then average at 12,
Also did you want to differentiate between regular ultra rares and full arts (shouldn’t matter too much imo)
I think an efficient way to get these rates would be to watch the “highlights” of Derium videos with tons of packs to have a stronger sample size. It might not be on a per box basis, but the numbers on the total might be closer as they open a lot in a single video (at least that is what I used to do, watch YT to get pull rates )
Are you actually guaranteed to get every GX in the set opening a case? It’s been a while since I’ve opened a case but I didn’t think this was how it worked.
It looks like your math is assuming no duplicates happen. E.g. you’d say the odds of pulling a heart from a deck of cards would be 1/4 which is correct, but then your logic seems to say if you pull 4 cards from that deck your odds of having at least one heart are 4/4 or 100% which is obviously not the case since you could pull several combinations with no heart. Your true odds of pulling at least one heart would be only 68%.
Here is a specific card example.
For UBB GX cards you say there are 6 per box with 14 total GX types. I know I’ve gotten duplicates in a same box but you show the odds of getting a specific one, say Reshiram and Charizard GX as 42.8% in a box which is just 6/14 when I think the appropriate calculation would involve a binomial probability calculator with P(success) = (1/6)packs that have gx *(1/14) gx in set which leads to 0.0119 (your proper per pack chance). This in the calculator results in a box chance of 35%. A case chance (216 trials) of 92.4%.
@thecharizardauthorty can you comment on if a case is seeded or packed in a way that guarantees every gx card? Also do packs no longer contain any duplicate non holo rares, holo rares until all the ones from the set are exhausted? I assume this is not the case so the pull rate calculations are correct only for individual packs and not correct for boxes or cases.
TLDR: I think you are improperly assuming no duplicates when there are in fact duplicates per box/case leading to all the box/case odds being wrong. The proper calculation should likely require a binomial probability unless there are more complex seedings to the way they make boxes and cases @smaili.
A better example I found that hits the number right on the head.
Crimson invasion states that there are 12 holos per box and there just so happens to be 12 holos in the set. It states that the odds of getting each holo in the set per box are 100% which implies that every single box of crimson invasions has every holo in the set, with no duplicate holos. I don’t believe that to be the case, but I could be wrong.
Usually you get all of the regular art GX’s in a case. That is more just because you get more than 1 of each in a case. I have not seen anythign exact and I think it changes with reprints anyways. Some seem to have lower pull rates. For example i only pulled 4 FA & 3 Hyper reshizards in 6000 packs… I saw where someone literally pulled 2 Hypers in a single 3-pack blister.I have seen dupliacte holos and definitely nonholo rares in a single box.
On the Crimson Invasion comment, the 12 holos for your pulls includes ultra rares as well. You do not get 12 holos on top of the GX/FX/Hyper/Secret pulls. i find that you normally get 12-15 of all of those combined in a box, so slightly better than 1 in 3
Thanks for the feedback! My aim was have this tool be sort of a “pokedex” for pulls so that was part of why I wanted to keep things clean and simple.
To be honest, displaying rarities at the set level has been on my mind actually but I just haven’t yet come up with a clean way to incorporate it. Part of the trick is finding the right balance of showing data without overwhelming the user
You’re absolutely right, but I think the one thing to keep in mind is everyone’s specific experiences can vary – some may get duplicates – some may not. Being able to put into consideration every single experience of box opening just isn’t realistic – it would end up being an endless permutation that would likely result in me pulling my hair out than producing anything at all. So what I decided as a compromise was take the average ratios based on people’s claims, and just extrapolate that out to each volume of opening (pack/box/case). Yes it may not be perfect, and yes it may not have every consideration, but my goal was to at least provide some basis for people to get a sense of difficulty.
Just the timing of ordering directly from a distributor and when they came in. I heard there was a way to tell mayeb from the codes, but haven’t looked into it really.
@smaili , I opened many cases of the late XY product and found pretty consistently only 2 Secret Rares per case. I think the occasional 3 SR case whereas you have it listed as 4-5.
Just going back to add to what I mentioned before. You have SR Dialga from Phantom Forces as “guaranteed” 100% chance in a case. I have detailed data on a couple early cases I opened of Phantom Forces none of which I pulled a SR Dialga. It just feels weird to have a blatant misrepresentation there like that. Someone crazy like me who likes to pack pull all their own cards and sometimes doesn’t worry about losing a couple hundred bucks to do so, may see this data, decide to purchase a case to chase a certain card or set of cards and be really bummed out when it doesn’t happen as advertised. I think doing the proper binomial calculation or just leaving only the pack pull rates there is the best way to go. Further, calling a single pack pull odds of 0.69% “impossible” just feels wrong and is obviously just plain false as well.
I don’t mean to be negative, just trying to give constructive criticism/data as requested. It is definitely great of you to put this work in on a nice resource and it is much appreciated, I am just worried it could steer some collectors the wrong way.
