Ex Delta Species
Don’t get fooled by the card scans in this post - it is actually about Ex Delta Species.
This is the first set to feature Delta Species Pokémon. All the holos in the set are Delta Species. They use a new holofoil pattern compared to earlier sets, the “refractor” pattern similar (or possibly the same) to that used for the reverses in early Ex Series sets. The three Pokémon-ex and the three Gold Stars, by contrast, use the regular “cosmos” holofoil pattern. As to the reverses, they use the same “refractor” pattern as the holos, with the reverse rares and reverse rare holos being distinguished by gold HP text, and the reverse rare holos (but not the reverse rares) by a holofoil card border.
A box typically contains either 11 holos and 1 Pokémon-ex or 10 holos, 1 Pokémon-ex and 1 Gold Star. I am assuming the Gold Stars have a rarity of 1 in 3 boxes, as is the average over all the sets featuring them.
This leads to the question, which cards were printed on which sheets? For the non-reverses, the answer is straightforward: different holofoil patterns and the fact that the Gold Stars take the place of a holo (as opposed to earlier sets, where they take the place of a Pokémon-ex) mean three different sheets for holos, Pokémon-ex and Gold Stars must have been used.
For the reverses, the answer is less clear. The holofoil card border would be a potential reason to use a separate sheet to print the reverse rare holos, but at the same time, the colour difference between yellow and holofoil yellow isn’t so striking as to make the cards aesthetically unappealing if they aren’t well centered and a little bit of holofoil holo is visible on a plain yellow card border, or vice versa.
I did not find any images of reverses from this set featuring such a stripe of different colour on the edge (I am grateful if anyone can provide any), but I did find one for a later set which has the same card layout for the reverses:
The Charizard from Ex Crystal Guardians features a sliver of non-holofoil yellow on the top of the card. Another example of holofoil and plain yellow card borders on the same sheet are the Gold Stars (which feature a plain yellow border even if they are Delta Species) from Ex Dragon Frontiers, printed on the same sheet as the holos:
The first image is a German miscut; the second a slightly off-centered English card.
To determine if all the reverses from Ex Delta Species were printed on one sheet or not, I looked at the raw data - the number of reverse rare holos, reverse rares, reverse uncommons and reverse commons from a number of boxes - and compared it with four models:
- model A: all cards printed on one 110 card sheet, extra spaces filled in with commons
- model B: all cards printed on one 121 card sheet, extra spaces filled in with commons
- model C: 110 card sheet featuring only reverse commons/uncommons/rares, extra spaces filled in with commons
- model D: 121 card sheet featuring only reverse commons/uncommons/rares, extra spaces filled in with commons
The data shows model A, with a single 110 card sheet including the reverse rare holos, fits best:
With that said, here is the rarity table (“O” denoting the box topper, Azumarill):
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex (with dashed lines signifying where the transition from H7 to H6, R7 to R6 and EX37 to EX36 would occur) looks as follows:
Of the Gold Stars, two each were pulled. I did not look at the commons or uncommons.