Ex Holon Phantoms
A box of Ex Holon Phantoms generally contains either 11 holos and 1 Pokémon-ex or 10 holos, 1 Pokémon-ex and 1 Gold Star (all the Gold Star pulls I observed on Youtube were either Mewtwo or Pikachu). It also contains 12 holofoil Energy Cards in the reverse slot, usually 2 of each kind.
I found three threads on the PokeGym Forums covering pull rates in this set:
- HP Box error | The PokeGym
- Holon Phantom number of ex's and *'s per box | The PokeGym
- Weird Holon Phantom's box | The PokeGym
The first and the third thread are about error boxes, of which I didn’t find any evidence of on Youtube: In the latter case, some boxes contained non-holo rares instead of reverses (but they still had the 12 holofoil Energy Cards). The first group of error boxes is insane though: They contained Gold Stars instead of holofoil Energy Cards. Yep, 12-13 Gold Stars per box! It is noteworthy that apparently all the extra Gold Stars were either Mewtwo or Pikachu, and no Gyarados. This makes sense, since the Gyarados Gold Star is a Delta Species Pokémon with a different holofoil pattern from the other two, and must have been printed separately.
The errors also demonstrate that the holofoil Energy Cards were printed on a separate sheet from the reverses (the holofoil pattern looks like it could be the same - I can’t say for sure as I don’t own any English cards from this era - but it would be necessary to use two sheets to print them in any case since 98 different reverses plus the corresponding amount of holofoil Energies - 49 - wouldn’t fit on a single sheet). A look at the raw data from Youtube shows that the reverses were likely printed on a 110 card sheet, with the extra 12 spaces filled out with commons:
Holofoil Energy Cards can come in packs alongside rares, holos and Pokémon-ex (and presumably alongside Gold Stars as well).
As to the rare slot, I am assuming three different sheets, one for Pokémon-ex (all of them Delta Species), one for the two non-Delta Species Gold Stars and one for the holos (also all of them Delta Species) as well as for Gyarados Gold Star. That Gyarados was printed on the same sheet as the holos is obvious from a post on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonCardValue/comments/vnu9zd/gyarados_gold_star_is_it_miscutmisprint_look_at/) about a Gyarados with a telltale sliver of yellow holofoil at the bottom of the card. While the picture (see below) doesn’t show it that well as the card is sleeved, the title of the post is very clear: “Gyarados Gold Star: is it miscut/misprint? Look at holo on bottom edge. Value?”
That leaves only the question of what rarity the Gold Stars have, and this is a question I can’t answer with certainty. My guess is cards from the Gold Star sheet (containing Mewtwo and Pikachu) are still 1 in 3 boxes (108 packs), and the Gyarados Gold Star is a H1 card, printed only once on the holo sheet, though I wouldn’t rule out H2 rarity either.
Here are the rarity tables (“SP” denoting the holofoil Energy Cards and “O” the last box topper printed to this date, Mew):
If Gyarados Gold Star is indeed printed only once on the holo sheet, it would be the rarest card so far (discounting the holofoil Energy Cards from the error boxes, which were apparently not omitted completely, but inserted in place of the Gold Stars).
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex is as follows (dashed lines indicating the transition from H7 to H6 etc.):
Of the holofoil Energy Cards, Water and Lightning Energies were the one I observed the most of. I did not look at the commons or uncommons.