Expedition Base Set is a weird one because it not only had non-holofoil versions of holofoil cards, it also featured reverse versions of both the holofoil and non-holofoil card. I have this Instagram post showing the 4 different Pichu cards that formed part of this set which describes why this didn’t happen with the later sets.
I’m curious how the reverse cards were distributed, especially for those rare cards which had non-holofoil and holofoil variants.
I’m currently making the following assumptions:
A holofoil rare had a 33.33% chance of being pulled from any given Expedition Base Set pack;
A non-holofoil version of the holofoil rare had a 53.328% chance of being pulled (not 66.66% because there are 8 additional rare cards which were exclusively non-holofoil).
With this, I’m assuming that there are roughly 60% more non-holofoil versions of the holofoil cards distributed - i.e. for every 1 22/165 Pichu there are 1.6 58/165 Pichu cards.
What I want to know is: how did this work for reverse cards? I’m guessing it’ll be one of the following:
Same ratio as the non-reverse cards;
All reverse rares had equal chance of being pulled;
All reverse cards had equal chance of being pulled regardless of rarity.
The Holofoil card did not replace the non Holofoil card. If you recieved a pack with a holo you could also pull a reverse holo rare and a non holo rare. So every pack has the chance of pulling between 1-3 rares.
Since there are 72 rares in expedition you are almost equally likely to pull a rare reverse holo compared to a common/uncommon (don’t forget energies were not included in the reverse holo section).
As for the distribution between non holo reverses and regular holo reverses, every single card individually has the same odds of being pulled in the reverse holo spot.
Therefore both the reverse holo pichus you reference would have the same pull rate.
When you categorize the cards further into unequal groups (non-holo rare reverse, holo rare reverse, common reverse, uncommon reverse, ect.) you will get varying percentages provided you have the correct numbers.
@mthursty is correct. Every card that can appear in reverse holo has an equal likelihood of appearing in that slot. So equal numbers of each reverse holo Pichu were printed.
Yes, reverse rares (both holo and non holo) are no rarer than common/uncommon reverse holos.
Edit: Damn, too slow
Currently I’m going after a complete Master set of expedition and am having an equally difficult time finding each card in rev holo. I honestly see more reverse holo rares than commons/uncommons I’m assuming due to them having a higher precieved value .
That’s really interesting. If I have my math correct that means that any card in the set has roughly 0.63% chance being pulled as reverse. That then means that the reverse cards are rarer than the holofoil cards themselves, as those have a 1.03% chance of being pulled.
That is to say for every 63 reverse 22/165 Pichu cards exist an equal 63 58/165 Pichu cards along with 103 holofoil 22/165 Pichu cards and 165 regular 58/165 Pichu cards. Is that correct?
That would occur if non-holofoil rares were found in all packs - is it not 1/3 of packs have a holofoil rare and the other 2/3 only have a regular rare? If so that’d be 1.666…% not 2.5%.
Mine should have been 63:63:103:167 instead of …:165, but I think 250 is too high here?
I disagree, I opened cases and cases of Expedition, Aquapolis, skyridge, Ruby Sapphire and I always got way more duplicates of the common reverse and uncommon reverses.
Interesting. I’ll collect some data on it from pack opening videos because I’m curious what the deal is then. I’ve had numerous forum members tell me that reverse holo pull rates aren’t impacted by rarity :/.
I wish I could show it to you, but I kept the most rare reverses and sold the most uncommon/common ones.
All I know I opened most times 4 cases of each released set and had always way more duplicate commons/uncommons.
Why are rares more expensive if the pull rate is the same as for the uncommon/common?
Perhaps for expedition things are different due to the large amount of rares in the set.
I always assumed that reverse rares were generally more expensive because of the false perception that they’re rarer. But it’s interesting because reverse holo rares aren’t more expensive for quite a few sets. There are plenty of less desirable Ruby & Sapphire reverse holo rares, for instance, that are worth just as little as the less desirable reverse holo commons/uncommons.
That’s definitely interesting and would change my perception of reverse holo rares. But that would mean that to pull a specific reverse holo rare would be incredibly hard.
That may be true for the other sets but 45% of the reverse holo cards in expedition are rares. There are 72 reverse holo rares and 87 reverse holo common/uncommons.
