Skyridge
We have now arrived at the final WotC set, Skyridge. I decided to try a bit more structured approach and start off with the rarity table, discussing the various categories of cards below one by one. Here it is:
Naturally, the holos and Crystal Types will be of the most interest. I am assuming these secret rares were printed on the same sheet - same story as with Aquapolis, Neo Revelation and Team Rocket. Here is the raw data (dashed line showing where the transition from H3 to H2 would occur, Crystal Types highlighted in red):
Based on this I would assume that the four H2 cards are all Crystal Types - meaning there are in fact significant (factor of 2:3) but non-artificial differences in the pull rates. I wouldn’t interpret anything into the sample data for the individual Crystal Types.
The raw data for the rares is as follows (dashed line shows where transition from R4 to R3 would occur):
Nothing definitive can be said, but based on the data and the way the commons sheet looks, I wouldn’t be surprised if both the Magneton and both the Magcargo were R3.
I have not looked at the uncommons. It is worth noting though that of the 36 uncommons in the set, only 10 are Pokémon, while 23 are Trainer Cards and 3 are Special Energy Cards.
The commons are of particular interest in this set, as the set contains no less than 73 of them. This means some of them are only printed once on the sheet. These C1 commons actually have lower pull rates than any of the uncommons - in fact, their pull rate is the same as for the R7 rares from base set! I reconstructed the sheet as follows:
† Heracross, Nidorina, Sandslash, Igglybuff, Snubbull, Sunflora, Dunsparce, Rhyhorn, Swinub (Mud Slap), Ursaring, Hoothoot, Pineco (Double Edge), Venonat, Shuckle, Diglett, Yanma, Seel (Cold Breath), Murkrow, Sunkern, Houndour, Ditto, Granbull, Kakuna, Haunter, Gastly, Golbat, Mantine, Teddiursa, Magikarp, Poliwag, Seel (Double Headbutt), Voltorb, Girafarig, Delibird, Rattata, Zubat (Sound Waves), Venomoth, Eevee, Magnemite, Pikachu, Pineco (Surprise Attack), Dugtrio, Gligar, Skarmory, Snorlax, Farfetch’d, Kadabra, Forretress, Cleffa, Poliwhirl, Slugma (Tackle), Abra, Jigglypuff, Growlithe, Natu, Buried Fossil, Stantler, Machop, Sandshrew, Lapras, Ledyba (Gnaw), Heracross, Nidorina, Sandslash, Snubbull, Zubat (Wing Attack), Sunflora, Dunsparce, Rhyhorn, Ursaring, Slugma (Singe), Hoothoot, Venonat, Shuckle, Diglett, Nidoran f (Call for Family), Yanma, Murkrow, Sunkern, Staryu (Energy Healing), Houndour, Granbull, Kakuna, Haunter, Swinub (Ram), Gastly, Mantine, Teddiursa, Magikarp, Nidoran f (Poison Sting), Poliwag, Voltorb, Girafarig, Delibird, Weedle (Entangling Thread), Rattata, Venomoth, Eevee, Magnemite, Staryu (Slap), Pikachu, Dugtrio, Gligar, Skarmory, Meowth, Snorlax, Kadabra, Forretress, Cleffa, Raticate, Poliwhirl, Abra, Jigglypuff, Growlithe, Weedle (Fury Attack), Natu, Stantler, Machop, Sandshrew, Ledyba (Teary Eyes), Lapras †
The 25 C1 cards are both the versions of the 9 Pokémon which have two common versions, as well as 7 other cards. Chosing Pokémon with two versions as the cards to print fewer times on the sheet is something that has happened before - look at the two Gym sets - and will happen in future sets as well.
The reverses are also interesting. The set has 150 reverses, as unlike in Aquapolis, the Crystal Types were also printed as reverses. You would expect them to be printed on either 2 or 3 sheets (total of 220 or 330 cards), however the raw data (9 box opening videos with 325 reverses - one box had 37 packs) doesn’t really match this:
The sample yielded 5% reverse Crystal Types, 25% reverse rares, 23% reverse uncommons and 47% reverse commons. If we assume that all 150 reverses were printed either once on two 110 card sheets or twice on three 110 card sheets, and that the remaining 70 or 30 places on the sheets were filled out according to rarity (e.g. 70 of the commons, or all 36 uncommons and 34 of the commons, but not 20 of the uncommons and 50 of the commons), there is no way to get anywhere close to this distribution. While it is possible for the remaining spaces not to be filled out exactly by rarity (for Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua, 21 of the 32 reverse uncommons and 1 of the 12 reverse rares are RE2), I decided to go with a model that uses four sheets, with 140 RE3 reverses and 10 RE2 reverses. I would guess the RE2 are either all uncommons (Model A) or all commons (Model B). Here are the two models compared with the raw data:
Based on the raw data I am slightly inclined towards model A, because of the 7 reverses not pulled in the sample from the videos, 4 were uncommon Trainer Cards (Miracle Sphere α, Mystery Plate α, Mystery Plate γ, Mystery Plate δ) and the reverse uncommon Trainer Cards in general appear a bit rarer than the reverse uncommon Pokémon. This would mean WotC decided to give most of the reverses the same pull rate, at the expense of making 10 reverses quite rare.
If this rarity table is correct, 10 reverses for Skyridge set up a new record for “rarest card so far” with a pull rate of 1:220.
This brings the WotC era to an end. All future English sets were designed by Nintendo/TPCI, though they likely used the same printing companies, so the basics of pack collation ought to remain similar. I will go into this with the next set discussed - Ex Ruby & Sapphire.
Edit 2023/04/16: edited text regarding the reverses to include possibility that those reverses appearing more times on the sheets may not all be of the same rarity