Hey everyone,new to the game!
Has anyone weighed any packs of the new Hot Wind Arena?
Hello, thank you very much for the detailed documentation of the weights. Unfortunately, I used it as a guide and was very disappointed. That’s not an accusation, it just annoyed me because I had too high expectations.
I have had an undauted booster in my sealed collection for several years. The weight was 18.96g (!). This makes it the heaviest of all documented undauted boosters. Unfortunately, apart from the reverse card, there was no holo card included. That was really disappointing.
Does anyone have an explanation for this? Or was it just bad luck?
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Oh shit…
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Disclaimer saved me again!
But I’d imagine foreign packs use different card stock
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Welcome to the fourum 
Sorry for your loss, that is rough
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I opened an English ex Ruby and Sapphire pack tonight; 17.46g and pulled a holo Dustox!
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Is there a suspected or reported difference in the weight of Ex cards (from the Ex sets) as opposed to regular holos?
Not really from what we have found.
In theory you could probably safely assume an ex would weight marginally more than a regular holo. But this marginal difference would be undetectable after the slight variance in glue that each pack got when sealing.
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Thanks a lot. I want to buy a few heavy packs from the Ex era for nostalgia purposes and to maybe get some nice cards.
I saw some for Ex Ruby Sapphire in the 17.80g range, which is .34 grams higher than the heaviest non-holo pack reported in the sheet (although I appreciate that the sample size may not be the biggest).
This, in connection with your reply, leads me to another question: Is there a way for sellers to inspect the pack and see that maybe too much glue was applied which would explain the variance?
I haven’t seen any legit packs that are “obviously over glued”
We’re basically just talking very minor discrepancies. But those would matter since the difference between a Holo and an ex is also very minor.
However on a different note, if you’re just opening for fun EX R&S, SS and Dragon all have ~2x the ex pullrate. Not 2x the pack pull rate (it’s still 1:3) but they essentially made ex pulls as common as a Holo pull (except dragon uses one of the slots an ex would get with a secret rare, but you’d probably be fine pulling a secret rare I’d guess)
Not sure if you were aware of that, or if you were it’s just for the lurkers to be aware of too.
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Thanks for info re both points.
As for the pull rates, What does 2x the ex pullrate mean, if the pack pull rate is still the same?
It just means that instead of an average of ~3 ex per box (TMTA -PK) you get ~6 ex per box (R&S - DR)
Or
If you get your 1:3 heavy pack, you have a 50/50 shot at an ex as opposed to the 25/75 shot (favoring holos) in later set
Means it’s easier to get an ex in early sets and harder to get a Holo when compared to the rest of the ex era
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In Dragon, the secret rare I’m pretty sure can also replace a holo (5.5 exs per box, on avg).
Also, I suspect (although don’t for absolute certain) that holos and exs actually weigh the exact same. Both have the exact same cosmos holo layer, I think. If anything, the EX actually probably has slightly less ink because of the bottom border having none (although I don’t think this would impact weight in a perceptible way).
Now someone with a stack of a mint holos and a stack of mint exs needs to compare the weights and report back!
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Thanks both, very insightful.
I also noted that some later runs not in the table from the EX Era, like Deoxys, have had two different print runs. I saw a box being open that had 17.70 to 18.00 packs, wheresas some lighter print runs had holos even at 17.4.
Do we have some sort of database for these, and can it be said which weight, regardless of a run, would guarantee a holo? I saw an 18g pack on CardMarket recently.
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Unfortunately, the later EX series sets are extremely to difficult to reliably weigh unless you can compare multiple packs from the same source. For whatever reason, that sort of variation just doesn’t exist for the early EX sets, which are always 17.x.
But I don’t think I’ve ever seen an EX pack that is not 15.x, 16.x, or 17.x. 18g is abnormally heavy. As in, that would be the heaviest EX Series pack I’ve ever heard of from any set. If you didn’t weigh it yourself, I’d be concerned that the seller isn’t weighing it properly or that it’s resealed. Either way, I definitely wouldn’t operate under the assumption that it’s heavy.
That is also the reason I didn’t create the standard deviation plots for specific ex sets. It would be useless. It works very well for wotc and honestly it would probably work for early ex.
But the zoomed in data pages are probably more info than most people care for
Here is a link to the video, with many packs being a few grams over the 18.00 mark.
Warning: random loud music.
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If all those packs are originally from the same box, then the ~12 heaviest ones should have holos.
The 18g packs you’re referring to, though, is this listing, presumably:
IDK what the buyer protection is like on CardMarket, but I’d be skeptical. 0 feedback, 7 packs that are all heavy (with no light ones for sale). And as crazy as it is to call a $900 heavy EX Deoxys pack cheap…it actually is abnormally cheap compared to sold listings on eBay. That seems to be roughly the going rate for loose, “unweighed” packs.
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Also, was just looking on FB and came across this from just a month ago:
Someone was/is trying to sell a 17.81g pack as “guaranteed heavy.”
According to these people (neither of whose credibility I can vouch for), the weights differ significantly depending on if it’s International English or NA English. I have no first hand proof of this, though. But it would make sense given the well-documented print differences between the print runs (i.e., just look at any of the countless threads about intl English Deoxys gold stars).
Now we need someone to open some Deoxys packs for science!
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