The English Pokémon card rarity guide

Jungle

Just like for Base Set, all the sheets for Jungle are known (see Uncut Sheets for the photos).

The only thing remarkable about the sheets is that the uncommons sheet depicted at the link above has a blank spot in the top left corner. Such fillers are apparently sometimes used in other TCGs (see The Collation Project on the topic of Magic: The Gathering) and are discarded after cutting (though I wouldn’t be surprised if there are Jungle packs accidentally containing a blank card out there somewhere).

Another variant of the sheet, auctioned recently on Ebay, replaces the gap with an Exeggutor:

The sheet is labelled “Pokémon Jungle EN Asia Form”; I don’t know if that meens these cards were intended for sale in Asia.

In my opinion it can be assumed pretty much for sure that the blank spot was where the “Ivy” promo Pikachu was originally printed on the 1st Edition uncommons sheet (it is known to appear in the uncommons slot). If someone captures one being pulled from a pack on camera and the sequence of the uncommons is either Persian - Lickitung - Pikachu, Lickitung - Pikachu - Rhydon or Pikachu - Rhydon - Nidorina (or any of these sequences in reverse, the direction of the card sequence can vary), that would practically confirm this theory. The question if it was ever intended to be included in packs is not completely clear, but the discovery of E4 member styluspt that the cards was actually advertised to be in the set in a Japanese Trainers Magazine as well as on early concept designs of Jungle booster packs certainly makes this appear likely (see PIKACHU 1ST ED JUNGLE BLACK STAR PROMO - WAS IT INTENTIONAL? for his thread). The decision to exclude promo Pikachu from the set was probably taken in the last minute when WotC decided to release the card as part of their promotion for the Pokémon League instead, and some made it into packs and boxes before the production process could be adjusted to remove these cards after cutting.

One very curious discovery was made by streamer Murkd_ when he opened three Jungle packs containing ONLY promo Pikachus in the uncommon slot (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-NZIN7f0ig for a summary of the stream). This error probably arose when a stack of removed Pikachus was filled into packs instead of discarded. I have never heard of a whole box containing such error packs, though.

Based on the two different sheets, there would be three different variants of the set:

  1. those where the Ivy Pikachu was either removed after cutting or replaced with a blank that was removed. These would be 1st Edition as well as unlimited cards.

  2. those where the Ivy Pikachu was not removed, whether by mistake or not. Those are only 1st Edition cards.

  3. those where the blank has been replaced by an Exeggutor. Those would be unlimited cards. It is not clear if this variant was only distributed in Asia.

The tables for the three variants are given below:



There are no artificial rarity differences between cards. The choice of which cards appear more frequently on the sheets appears more or less random (non-holo Flareon is more common than non-holo Jolteon and Vaporeon, for example). The promo Pikachu in not that rare (slightly less than 1 per box) in the particular “error” batch it appears in, but since the ratio of error packs and boxes to “normal” 1st Edition packs and boxes is not known, it’s actual rarity is unclear.

In addition, there is a fourth variant of the Jungle set as well:

In my post on Neo Discovery further below, I discussed the “Belgian variant” boxes that used striped collation. There is a second WotC set with a variant which was printed in Belgium, namely Jungle. TCA Gaming explains about it in his Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfsHRJnU2c8.

There are two threads on E4 discussing Belgian Jungle booster boxes:

Here is the rarity table for this variant:

The commons and uncommons sheets are different to accomodate striped collation without including duplicate cards in booster packs. I am assuming the uncommons sheet now has no blank anymore. The rare and holo sheets may be the same as for the other variants, or they may be different.

Edit 2023/04/16: Added Belgian variant
Edit 2023/11/18: Added variant where the blank on the uncommons sheet is replaced by an Exeggutor

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