In general, yes. You would have either 121 or 242 different variants for the commons for most sets (depending on if they can appear in reverse order or not, they can for some sets but probably not for all) ,with some exceptions such as Gym Challenge, which has repeated sequences of cards on the sheet and thus fewer possible variants. For the uncommons, there are fewer, as repeated sequences of three on a sheet are relatively common and lots of sequences of three also appear on sheets in the reverse order. Note that with “variant” I mean the exact sequence of cards in a pack, not just the same individual cards.
However, it happens relatively often for cards to be out of sequence, so you occasionally get other variants as well.
Print runs with striped collation (so far verified only for Neo Discovery, but there are also Jungle cards printed in Belgium) have more variants as the stripes can include varying rows of the sheet.
Great thread! I’ll dig into it later, but I looked over the first post to understand the phenomenon you were looking to report on, and this is exactly what had been on my mind recently!
I had this phenomenon on my mind recently because I remember coming across some information that some old Magic sets had essentially “rare-level” uncommons because of their low copy numbers on the uncut sheet, and I’m looking to complete a reverse holo Expedition set and saw that the reverse holo Switch card is pretty expensive for what it is, considering that it’s “just” a common trainer card. I thought this must be because of some arbitrarily introduced rarity due to low representation on an uncut sheet or something. It sounds like you have some information about the reverse holo Expedition sheets and packaging, so I’ll be patiently waiting for that post!
Thanks again for your research!
Neo Revelation
Neo Revelation includes two shining Pokémon as secret rares, so the main question of interest for this set is how rare these cards actually are.
Based on raw data from Youtube videos (10 boxes), it looks like they have the same rarity as the other holos (just like Dark Raichu in Team Rocket), and I would guess they were printed on the same sheet since they have the same holofoil pattern. Creating an extra sheet would have been extra work with no benefit. Since without any artificial rarity difference the holo sheet should have 14 H7 and 2 H6 cards, I am assuming the H6 are the two shining Pokémon (which would amount to 1.309 shining Pokémon per box).
(I don’t assign individual card rarities in the tables for cards of the same category unless there is enough data to back it up, but when cards of different categories such as holos and secret rares are assumed to be printed on the same sheet I will include my best guess in the tables.)
I also reconstructed the commons sheet.
The rarity table looks like this:
Aside from the Shining Pokémon, Neo Revelation is characterized by the fact there are relatively few (13 in total) non-holo rares, giving them quite high pull rates of up to 1:18,2.
The raw data for the holos (with the presumed H6 cards indicated) and rares (with the dashed line showing where the transition from R10 to R9 would occur) is as follows:
The legendary beasts look like they might be of R9 rarity.
The commons sheet looks as follows (dagger marks indicate beginning/end is not known):
† Staryu, Skiploom, Geodude, Snubbull, Goldeen, Remoraid, Zubat, Quagsire, Farfetch’d, Swinub, Slugma, Paras, Old Rod, Smoochum, Aipom, Murkrow, Staryu, Chinchou, Shuckle, Qwilfish, Skiploom, Geodude, Unown K, Remoraid, Quagsire, Snubbull, Slugma, Zubat, Goldeen, Aipom, Old Rod, Farfetch’d, Smoochum, Swinub, Paras, Chinchou, Qwilfish, Murkrow, Unown K, Shuckle, Staryu, Skiploom, Geodude, Goldeen, Remoraid, Snubbull, Zubat, Farfetch’d, Swinub, Quagsire, Slugma, Old Rod, Smoochum, Paras, Aipom, Staryu, Chinchou, Murkrow, Shuckle, Skiploom, Geodude, Qwilfish, Unown K, Zubat, Goldeen, Snubbull, Slugma, Remoraid, Quagsire, Swinub, Aipom, Farfetch’d, Paras, Smoochum, Murkrow, Old Rod, Chinchou, Shuckle, Staryu, Unown K, Geodude, Qwilfish, Skiploom, Zubat, Snubbull, Remoraid, Goldeen, Slugma, Quagsire, Swinub, Farfetch’d, Aipom, Paras, Zubat, Smoochum, Old Rod, Shuckle, Murkrow, Chinchou, Staryu, Unown K, Qwilfish, Geodude, Skiploom, Remoraid, Snubbull, Zubat, Quagsire, Slugma, Goldeen, Aipom, Farfetch’d, Swinub, Old Rod, Smoochum, Paras, Chinchou, Murkrow, Shuckle, Qwilfish, Unown K †
The next set, Neo Destiny, will feature the first cards that are rarer than holos.
Neo Destiny
So far, all the sets discussed here featured basically the same rarity as far as categories of cards go; the fact that the pull rate for holos is 1 in 3 packs is so well known that I didn’t even need to point it out. Of the two sets featuring secret rares, one, Team Rocket, had its only secret rare card printed on the holo sheet, and the other, Neo Revelation, most likely had its two secret rares printed on the holo sheet as well. Aside from the fact that some sets had either 1 or 2 Basic Energy Cards included in place of commons, the whole analysis was focused on the rarity of individual cards.
This changes for Neo Destiny: the set featured 8 Shining Pokémon which had a different holofoil pattern than the regular holos, so they can’t have been printed on the same sheet. So before investigating individual card rarities, we need to do what is going to be standard for most of the sets discussed here in the future, and look at the pull rates of the different categories of cards. This analysis will be based on the statistics from Youtube videos.
For Neo Destiny, things are a bit special though as this is also the first set to include an “error” print run for which the cards were inserted into packs differently (for the moment, I am ignoring extremely rare errors such as the famous Neo Discovery box that contained only “heavy” packs with holos). In this specific case, some boxes contained packs which included both a holo and a Shining Pokémon, the latter taking the place of a common. Of 14 complete box openings I looked at on Youtube, 4 boxes had this error, and all were Unlimited. (I did not observe any packs including both a rare and a Shining Pokémon, or two Shining Pokémon.) This makes it prevalent enough to merit separate discussion.
Here is the observed raw data for average pulls per box:
For the “non-error” boxes, there appear to be 3 Shining Pokémon per box, and by default I am assuming 9 holos per box. I would generally not interpret too much into the observed pull rate for holos being a bit lower (4 of 10 boxes had 11 “light” packs) as the sample size is quite small.
For the “error” boxes, it isn’t really possible to say for sure, particularly as the numbers varied between boxes. I will use an estimate with the ratio for the rare slot still being 24:9:3 and an average of 1.5 additional Shining Pokémon being inserted in the common slot per box, or one in 24 packs, which increases the pull rate for Shining Pokémon by 50%, making the average pull rate per card the same as for the holos, but that is really just a guess.
The rarity tables look as follows:
As can be seen, for the “non-error” print runs, the Shining Pokémon set a new record for “rarest card so far”.
The raw data for the holos, rares and secret rares (Shining Pokémon) is shown below, with the dashed lines showing where the transitions from H7 to H6, R7 to R6 and SR14 to SR13 would occur.
I don’t think the low observed pull rate for Shining Charizard is statistically significant. Given how random the selection of U4 and C4 cards appears to be, I wouldn’t be surprised if the selection of the H7, R7 and SR14 were random as well.
The commons sheet is noteworthy because it appears to be a 10x11 sheet and not an 11x11 sheet. I don’t think I made a mistake in reconstructing it, and the 11 C4 cards were exactly the commons which appeared the most in the sample I used to reconstruct the sheet. It looks like this:
† Gastly, Swinub, Mareep, Porygon, Unown S, Hitmonchan, Psyduck, Dark Octillery, Unown V, Phanpy, Girafarig, Vulpix, Heal Powder, Dratini, Venonat, Seel, Exeggcute, Gligar, Sunkern, Totodile, Mantine, Pineco, Unown T, Remoraid, Growlithe, Unown L, Larvitar, Cyndaquil, Mail from Bill, Slugma, Ledyba, Light Sunflora, Swinub, Gastly, Machop, Unown S, Porygon, Seel, Venonat, Totodile, Sunkern, Gligar, Unown T, Pineco, Mantine, Unown L, Growlithe, Remoraid, Mareep, Dark Octillery, Psyduck, Hitmonchan, Girafarig, Phanpy, Unown V, Dratini, Heal Powder, Vulpix, Exeggcute, Seel, Venonat, Totodile, Sunkern, Gligar, Unown T, Pineco, Mantine, Unown L, Growlithe, Remoraid, Ledyba, Slugma, Cyndaquil, Larvitar, Mail from Bill, Machop, Swinub, Light Sunflora, Gastly, Dark Octillery, Porygon, Unown S, Mareep, Phanpy, Hitmonchan, Psyduck, Girafarig, Vulpix, Dratini, Unown V, Heal Powder, Totodile, Seel, Exeggcute, Venonat, Pineco, Gligar, Sunkern, Unown T, Remoraid, Unown L, Mantine, Growlithe, Mail from Bill, Cyndaquil, Larvitar, Light Sunflora, Ledyba, Slugma, Machop †
The uncommons sheet seems to be a 11x11 sheet.
So much for the facts. But what is the explanation behind these observations? Here are my thoughts:
• The “error” packs and boxes feature an “error” which isn’t exactly random. First of all, Shining Pokémon need to be inserted in place of commons. Second of all, these same packs need to receive 6 commons instead of 7. Since I didn’t observe the error in any 1st Edition boxes, this points to it occurring in a late print run, possibly from the time WotC was having the e-series sets printed. These do in fact feature holo cards appearing in one the commons slots, so some sort of mix-up is conceivable. But it may also have occurred intentionally, either to make the Shining Pokémon more easily obtainable, or because too many sheets of these had been ordered printed by mistake.
• The only explanation I can think of for the 110 card commons sheet is that the next set, Legendary Collection, used a 110 cards sheet for the commons and uncommons, and that either some misunderstanding occurred when designing the sheet or it was a test - though why something like that would need to be tested I would not know.
Legendary Collection
Legendary Collection is the set that lies at the beginning of this whole project. It was created by WotC with sealed tournaments (booster drafts) in mind, and the contents of packs are obviously not random - packs include Pokémon from evolution families that fit together. This was done by printing the 36 commons and the 36 uncommons on the same sheet, and inserting 9 consecutive cards from the sheet into booster packs. The 110 card sheet is quite easy to reconstruct (it is shown further below), and it was in fact the first sheet I reconstructed. Using a 110 instead of a 121 card sheet enabled having nearly 3 uncommons per pack on average, and making the uncommons twice as rare as the commons, with the exception of two common trainer cards which appear on the sheet 3 times.
Legendary Collection is also the first sheet to feature reverses. They can be seen as a kind of gimmick to get collectors interested in this set containing only reprints, but they have remained a feature of English TCG expansions ever since. I will have more to say on the rarity of reverses in the future, but for Legendary Collection, things appear quite simple. It seems extremely likely all 110 reverses were printed on the same 110 card sheet and have the same rarity, and it is likely the set size of 110 cards was chosen to fit all on one sheet. It may be possible to reconstruct the sheet, since I have observed booster boxes to consist of a run of 36 consecutive packs which has been “cut” and restacked to make the box unmappable, but I have not attempted doing so.
For the rares sheet, I am assuming a sheet size of 121, just like the uncommons sheet for Neo Destiny and the Expedition sheets I reconstructed.
The rarity table looks as follows:
The reverses set a new record for “rarest card so far” with a pull rate of 1:110,0.
The commons/uncommons sheet looks as follows:
† Abra, Kadabra, Abra, Drowzee, Snorlax, Drowzee, Gastly, Haunter, Gastly, Slowpoke, Challenge!, Slowpoke, Dratini, Dark Dragonair, Dratini, Magnemite, The Boss’s Way, Voltorb, Pikachu, Tauros, Magnemite, Pikachu, Seadra, Voltorb, Bill, Magikarp, Potion, Psyduck, Golduck, Psyduck, Seel, Dewgong, Seel, Eevee, Omastar, Pidgey, Squirtle, Dark Wartortle, Squirtle, Tentacool, Tentacruel, Tentacool, Potion, Omanyte, Mysterious Fossil, Mysterious Fossil, Kabuto, Onix, Geodude, Graveler, Geodude, Machop, Machoke, Machop, Mankey, Primeape, Mankey, Onix, Potion Energy, Rhyhorn, Sandshrew, Sandslash, Sandshrew, Rhyhorn, Doduo, Dodrio, Doduo, Pidgey, Growlithe, Potion, Charmander, Charmeleon, Charmander, Ponyta, Rapidash, Ponyta, Vulpix, Energy Retrieval, Vulpix, Eevee, Arcanine, Bill, Rattata, Raticate, Rattata, Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Bulbasaur, Caterpie, Metapod, Caterpie, Nidoran f, Nidorina, Nidoran f, Bill, Exeggcute, Meowth, Grimer, Exeggcute, Full Heal Energy, Grimer, Nidoran m, Nidorino, Nidoran m, Weedle, Kakuna, Weedle, Spearow, Fearow, Spearow †
The raw data for the holos and rares is shown below, with the dashed line denoting where the transitions from H6 to H5 and from R7 to R6 would occur.
As usual, there is not enough data to say anything for certain, but I would not be surprised if Charizard, Dark Blastoise and Venusaur were among the H5 cards.
Edit 2023/03/27: replaced ambiguous term “reverse holo” with “reverse”; replaced image for rarity table (reverses abbreviated as “RE” instead of “Rev”)
Digression: A look at the Expedition reverses (and reverses in general)
(General note: I will try my best to avoid the term “reverse holo” as it is ambiguous - it can mean any reverse card, or a reverse card which is a holo in the main set.)
The next set to be discussed here, Expedition, is the second set to feature reverses. Unlike Legendary Collection, the number of reverses (159 - the six Basic Energy cards of the 165 card set do not exist as reverses) is not equal to any regular sheet size; as a matter of fact, 159 cards don’t even fit on one single sheet. In this post I will analyze the rarity of the reverses from Expedition and say some things which apply to future sets as well. I will briefly summarize the results in my next regular post, in which I cover the whole Expedition set.
In general, it is necessary to distinguish between “small” sets, where all the reverses fit on one sheet, and “large” sets, where multiple sheets are required to print them. The sheet size for any sort of foil cards is generally 110 cards (10x11) for the WotC era and the early Nintendo/TPCI era, and 121 cards (11x11) for more recent sets. (As of writing this, I am not quite sure when the change took effect, but I have some ideas how to maybe figure this out.)
All in all, photos of three reverse sheets exist:
- Expedition (“large” set): a proof sheet (i.e. a sheet used for error-checking before giving the go-ahead for the print run) for one of the reverse sheets is documented.
- Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua (“small” set): the Italian reverse sheet is documented (on Reddit). The English sheet is likely the same, though this isn’t absolutely certain.
- Stormfront (“small” set): The English reverse sheet is documented.
In addition, I was able to reconstruct the reverse sheets for the following sets (all “small”):
- Flashfire
- Furious Fists
- Phantom Forces
- Roaring Skies
- Ancient Origins
The principle behind this reconstruction is that all 36 packs in a booster box generally come from a sequence which has been “cut” and restacked a few times to make the box unmappable. The reverses in the box are thus a sequence from the sheet which has been cut and restacked a few times. If I see the same sub-sequence of reverses in consecutive packs more than once, I assume this sub-sequence contains no “cuts”. (This method of course only works if the person opening the packs on video is not shuffling them. It also doesn’t work for “large” sets as the reverses are coming from more than one sheet. And it requires a lot of video footage, so it isn’t feasible for some of the older sets with few Youtube videos around of complete box openings.)
Now, let’s look at which cards are printed twice (and thus are twice as common as the others) on the reverse sheets for the “small” sets (it’s not random!). I will refer to these as “RE2” cards:
- Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua (110 card sheet): 21 of the uncommons, including all the Pokémon, as well as 1 rare (Double Rainbow Energy) have RE2 rarity.
- Stormfront (121 card sheet): some of the uncommons, including all the Pokémon, have RE2 rarity. (The three Shining Pokémon - Drifloon, Duskull and Voltorb - are printed on the reverse sheet with RE1 rarity.)
- Flashfire (121 card sheet): all but one common have RE2 rarity.
- Furious Fists (121 card sheet): most of the commons have RE2 rarity.
- Phantom Forces (121 card sheet): some of the commons have RE2 rarity.
- Roaring Skies (121 card sheet): all of the commons and some uncommons have RE2 rarity.
- Ancient Origins (121 card sheet): all of the commons and all but two of the uncommons have RE2 rarity.
So for the XY era sets, the “extra” spots on the sheet seem to be filled out by rarity, starting by printing extra reverse commons, then continuing with reverse uncommons. For the older sets, this is not generally the case, though the RE2 cards are mostly of the same rarity (the Double Rainbow Energy from Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua being the exception).
Provided there are no cards such as Trainer Gallery, Amazing Rare, Prism Star or similar cards inserted in the reverse slot, the pull rate for reverses in the “small” sets is either 1:110 and 1:55 (older sets with 110 card sheet) or 1:121 and 1: 60,5 (newer sets with 121 card sheet).
But what about the “large” sets? Since they can’t be reconstructed, we can’t know for sure what the pull rates are. In this rarity guide I will generally assume all the reverses are printed on multiple sheets which are inserted at the same rate (e.g. on two sheets inserted in every other pack, or three sheets inserted in every third pack), and treat the multiple sheets as one (220, 330, … or 242, 363,… card) sheet in the analysis. Other, more gimmicky solutions are conceivable, though (see The 101 Common Problem - The Collation Project covering the “101 common problem” for example).
If we look at Expedition, this would mean WotC had the following options:
• Two sheets, with pull rates of 1:220 (RE1) and 1:110 (RE2)
• Three sheets, with pull rates of 1: 165 (RE2) and 1:110 (RE3)
• Four sheets, with pull rates of 1:220 (RE2) and 1:146,7 (RE3)
• Five sheets, with pull rates of 1:183,3 (RE3) and 1:137,5 (RE4)
• etc.
As can be seen, while using an infinite number of sheets would lead to all reverses having the same rarity, adding an additional sheet does not always make the rarity distribution “smoother”. The solution with four sheets just adds a bunch of RE3 cards but there are still some RE2 left, since 159 cards will not all fit three times on four 110 card sheets, and the solution with five sheets is still not as good as that with three sheets.
So, for Expedition, WotC probably used either two sheets (the simplest solution) or three sheets (slightly more complex, but “smoother” rarity distribution). I think they went with the second option.
If we look at the known proof sheet (see image below, taken from Uncut Sheets), we can see it consists of a sequence of 49 cards (red line denotes its end), then - if we assume the second and third from the bottom left, which are not visible, are a Dugtrio and a Squirtle (marked with red circle in first sequence) - another sequence of the same 49 cards (second red line denotes its end), and then 12 more cards, four of which (Pikachu, Magikarp, Abra, Corsola) appear in the two sequences, six of which (Shellder, Clefairy, Meowth, Goldeen, Cyndaquil and Charmander) do not, and two of which are not visible (though one looks like it could be a Water-type Pokémon).
Since the repeated sequence contains both Dragonite (holo and non-holo, though it isn’t possible to tell which is which), both Dugtrio and both Poliwrath, it is very unlikely WotC used only two sheets; in this case you would expect all the rare holos and their non-holo rare copies to appear on the reverse sheet as RE1, not RE2 - and certainly no cases where both variants are RE2!
This leads me to the following (hypothetical) reconstruction with three sheets:
- The first sheet consists of 55 cards printed twice
- The second sheet consists of 55 cards printed twice
- The third sheet (the one of which an image exists) consists of 49 cards printed twice, and the 12 RE3 cards which have appeared twice already on one of the three sheets.
Pikachu, Magikarp, Abra and Corsola are definitely RE3, and Shellder, Clefairy, Meowth, Goldeen, Cyndaquil (Tackle), Charmander (Tail Rap) and the unknown Water-type Pokémon would also be RE3 if my guess is correct. I would also guess two unknown RE3 cards are reverse commons.
While I have not yet looked at raw data (observed pull rates from Youtube videos) of the reverses for all sets (and probably won’t do so in the near future unless another pandemic lockdown comes around), I have done so for a select handful, Expedition being one of them. The objective was to check if the observed share of reverses of holos, rares, uncommons and commons is consistent with expectations. For Expedition, it more or less is, as the following table shows:
Finally, to answer the comment from @bbobrob about the reverse Switch being quite expensive: I do not have any reason to believe there are any “artificial” rarity differences among the reverses. In fact, WotC seems to have gone the extra mile to reduce non-artificial rarity differences by printing the reverses on three sheets as opposed to two. Since it is a Trainer card, I would guess Switch has RE2 rarity (1:165 pull rate), but that is only a guess. I also don’t think rarity differences which aren’t common knowledge could affect the price of a card, nor do I think the price for the likely RE3 reverses I identified is likely to drop whatsoever as a consequence.
Edit 2023/03/29: corrected error pointed out by member below regarding hypothetical sheet composition; minor change in wording
Edit 2023/04/16: corrected information on reverses from Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua to reflect that one RE2 cards is infact a reverse rare
Really interesting research here! I had to read it a few times to fully understand and even then, I still don’t quite fully understand some parts (I think I get all the stuff about the Expedition reverses, but I didn’t quite get how you could reconstruct the reverse sheets for the XY sets from patterns of sequences of reverses from opening videos). You must have sifted through a lot of footage for all the raw data you have (for all the sets you’re providing analysis on, not just the one in this particular post).
I’m really quite surprised at how much information you can reasonably surmise just given one image of the uncut sheet of Expedition reverses–but it makes a lot of sense to print them in the manner that you laid out. One tiny thing: in your hypothetical reconstruction, the first and second sheet of 55 cards printed twice would take up the whole 110 spaces on the sheet right–there shouldn’t be an extra space for an extra 1 card?
I really thought this would be the reason for the higher cost of the reverse Switch. It may not have been common knowledge, but I was reasoning that, because Expedition has been around a long time, maybe people somehow intuitively figured out it was harder to find than other reverses, and the price just followed. But maybe people just really like this particular Switch card or something 
Anyways, lots of really great information and research here! And thanks for the tag!
Thanks for pointing out the error, I fixed it! There is of course no extra card on the first two sheets, 55 + 55 + 49 = 159.
As to why reverse Switch was expensive: It was (and maybe still is?) tournament legal for a very long time (I don’t play the game currently and don’t know what the exact rule is for using older cards). Some players like to flex expensive cards in their decks, and a reverse Switch from 2002 would be good flexing material.
Expedition
After looking at the reverses from this set in detail, it is time to look at the whole set. The first thing that needs to be mentioned is that for this set, card rarities change with respect to earlier sets:
- Every pack now contains a regular rare. Holos are still one in every three packs, and they take the place of a common.
- The number of cards per pack is reduced from 11 to 9, the cost of the licence for the e-reader technology being given as the reason back then.
Thus, each pack contains on average 4 2/3 commons, 2 uncommons, 1 rare, 1/3 holos and 1 reverse.
As far as the sheets go, I wrote about the reverse sheet above. I was able to reconstruct the commons sheet, and determine the number of times each card appears on the uncommons sheet - which is kind of surprising as there are only two uncommons per pack, but the fact that this is a large set makes it easier. Raw data confirms the results. As usual, there is not enough data to say anything conclusive about the rarity of individual rares and holos.
The rarity table looks as follows (“O” for “other” denoting the six Basic Energy cards which are contained only in the Theme Decks of the Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge sets):
The RE3 reverses marked with a question mark are RE3 if my theory about the sheet composition described in the last instalment of this guide is correct.
The reconstructed commons sheet looks as follows:
† Koffing, Squirtle (Headbutt), Geodude, Tauros, Cyndaquil (Singe), Full Heal, Diglett, Qwilfish, Pikachu, Shellder, Cyndaquil (Tackle), Squirtle (Wave Splash), Spearow, Cubone, Magikarp, Vulpix, Krabby, Ponyta, Switch, Caterpie, Machop, Hoppip, Houndour, Poliwag, Rattata, Goldeen, Charmander (Tail Rap), Bulbasaur (Sleep Seed), Totodile (Paralyzing Gaze), Ekans, Abra, Gastly, Totodile (Surf), Moo-Moo Milk, Mareep, Caterpie, Cubone, Dratini, Abra, Tauros, Moo-Moo Milk, Goldeen, Full Heal, Clefairy, Oddish, Ponyta, Potion, Vulpix, Moo-Moo Milk, Geodude, Marill, Squirtle (Headbutt), Mareep, Totodile (Surf), Poliwag, Chikorita (Hypnotic Gaze), Switch, Bulbasaur (Sleep Seed), Diglett, Machop, Rattata, Chikorita (Razor Leaf), Charmander (Tail Rap), Hoppip, Pikachu, Gastly, Koffing, Bulbasaur (Tackle), Cyndaquil (Singe), Meowth, Krabby, Geodude, Ekans, Cyndaquil (Tackle), Shellder, Corsola, Houndour, Larvitar, Charmander (Gnaw), Magikarp, Bulbasaur (Tackle), Pidgey, Energy Search, Ponyta, Pikachu, Shellder, Hoppip, Ekans, Magikarp, Clefairy, Meowth, Goldeen, Cyndaquil (Tackle), Charmander (Tail Rap), Abra, Corsola, Gastly, Energy Search, Squirtle (Headbutt), Diglett, Machop, Rattata, Qwilfish, Squirtle (Wave Splash), Spearow, Totodile (Paralyzing Gaze), Krabby, Marill, Pidgey, Bulbasaur (Tackle), Energy Search, Clefairy, Oddish, Potion, Corsola, Chikorita (Hypnotic Gaze), Chikorita (Razor Leaf), Meowth, Larvitar, Dratini, Charmander (Gnaw) †
The raw data for the holos and rares looks as follows (dashed lines denoting where the transitions from H4 to H3 and from R4 to R3 would occur):
The following observations can be made:
- The RE2 reverses set a new record for “rarest card so far” with a pull rate of 1:165.
- All 10 known or likely RE3 reverses are reverses of C3 commons, so maybe the other 2 are, as well.
- While there are likely no artificial rarity differences, the size of the set and in consequence the fact that cards appear at most 4 times on any sheet leads to larger differences in individual card rarity than in older sets. (This phenomenon can be extrapolated to some modern sets with very large numbers of ultra-rare cards; the rarity differences between these will likely also be non-negligible even when no artificial differences exist.)
- Despite the large sample of 10 boxes, no holo Charizard (or holo Fearow) was observed pulled. This is almost certainly not statistically relevant.
The lower the number printed on a single sheet, the greater the difference right? (on a large scale)
Exactly. The reverses in Expedition (RE2 and RE3) have big differences in pull rate, the Shining Pokémon in Neo Destiny (SR13 and SR14) very small diffences.
Aquapolis
Aquapolis is the penultimate set released by WotC. It is the first set to include Crystal Type Pokémon as secret rares. With 337 cards (including 151 reverses) it was by far the largest set up to then (combining two Japanese expansions) and has a rather confusing numbering system: The rares, uncommons, commons and secret rares are numbered 1/147 to 150/147. The holos are numbered H1/H32 to H32/H32. In addition, four cards - three commons and one uncommon have two variants which only differ in their e-reader data (numbered 50a/147 and 50b/147, etc.). There are 151 reverses - for all of the rares, uncommons and commons (including the variant cards), but not for the holos and secret rares (unlike Expedition, which had reverses of both the holos and the rares, and unlike Skyridge, which include reverses of the secret rares).
I am assuming the Crystal Type Pokémon were printed on the same sheet as the holos, just like Dark Raichu was in the Team Rocket set, and just like I am assuming Shining Magikarp and Shining Gyarados were in Neo Revelation. I am rather arbitrarily assigning them H3 rarity.
The only sheet I reconstructed was the commons sheet. There are no artificial rarity differences, not even for the three cards which have two variants with different e-reader data.
For the reverses, the raw data from 7 observed boxes is 27% reverse rares, 40% reverse uncommons and 33% reverse commons. Thus I am assuming the set used three sheets for the reverses, with most cards having RE2 rarity (printed a total of 2 times on the sheets) and 28 cards (likely reverse uncommons) having RE3 rarity (printed a total of 3 times on the sheets), which would amount to 29% reverse rares, 38% reverse uncommons and 33% reverse commons.
The rarity table looks as follows:
The commons sheet looks as follows:
† Porygon (103b), Exeggcute (Continuous Eggsplosion), Voltorb, Doduo, Kangaskhan, Nidoran m, Paras, Wooper, Miltank, Houndour (Singe), Sentret, Porygon (103a), Horsea (Bubble), Psyduck, Ponyta, Mr. Mime (95a), Spinarak, Drowzee (74b), Phanpy, Larvitar, Oddish, Goldeen, Eevee, Vulpix, Hoppip, Houndour (Feint Attack), Mr. Mime (95b), Exeggcute (Growth Spurt), Grimer, Magnemite, Chansey, Mareep, Sneasel, Slowpoke, Drowzee (74a), Hitmontop, Cubone, Smeargle, Pinsir, Onix, Remoraid, Aipom, Mankey, Hitmonchan, Growlithe, Chinchou (Jolt), Tangela, Tentacool, Horsea (Reverse Thrust), Lickitung, Chinchou (Float), Bellsprout, Togepi, Scyther, Kangaskhan, Voltorb, Porygon (103b), Nidoran m, Doduo, Exeggcute (Continuous Eggsplosion), Sentret, Miltank, Paras, Houndour (Feint Attack), Hoppip, Vulpix, Grimer, Exeggcute (Growth Spurt), Mr. Mime (95b), Mareep, Chansey, Magnemite, Drowzee (74a), Slowpoke, Sneasel, Hitmontop, Porygon (103a), Houndour (Singe), Wooper, Spinarak, Ponyta, Horsea (Bubble), Drowzee (74b), Mr. Mime (95a), Psyduck, Eevee, Oddish, Phanpy, Goldeen, Larvitar, Pinsir, Aipom, Smeargle, Remoraid, Cubone, Onix, Growlithe, Tentacool, Hitmonchan, Tangela, Mankey, Chinchou (Jolt), Chinchou (Float), Mr. Mime (95b), Hoppip, Houndour (Feint Attack), Vulpix, Chansey, Grimer, Magnemite, Exeggcute (Growth Spurt), Drowzee (74a), Sneasel, Slowpoke, Mareep, Hitmontop, Scyther, Lickitung, Togepi, Horsea (Reverse Thrust), Bellsprout †
The raw data for the holos and rares (with dashed lines denoting where the transition from H4 to H3 and R3 to R2 would occur) is as follows:
There are two observations I would like to add:
- When looking at the contents of booster boxes (which I haven’t discussed much here), it springs to the eye that the number of Crystal Types varies a lot in the sample (one box had three, two had two and four had zero). This may be because they were distributed very irregularly on the uncut sheet. Skyridge is much more consistent when it comes to this, most boxes containing 1-2 Crystal Type Pokémon.
- When reconstructing the commons sheet, I noticed the cards have a tendency to appear out of sequence much more often than for any other set I looked at. I don’t know why this is the case. I am confident I got the card rarities correct and the sheet practically correct, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the reconstructed sheet contains a minor error or two because of this.
Edit 2023/04/16: minor edit to text about the reverses
Edit 2023/05/03: edited table with raw data for rares to distinguish between different versions of Houndoom, Lanturn and Exeggutor
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
Ex Ruby & Sapphire
Ex Ruby & Sapphire is the first set released by Nintendo, after WotC lost their licence to produce the TCG outside of Asia. Nintendo (and its successor, TPCI) are a lot more strict with information control than WotC, so there aren’t many images of uncut sheets around for the post-WotC era. However, I did manage to gather enough information to get a pretty good idea about how the cards were printed:
- While I didn’t reconstruct any sheets for Ex Ruby & Sapphire, I did reconstruct two commons sheets for other Ex Series sets, namely those for Ex Sandstorm and Ex Unseen Forces (as well as those for a handful of more modern sets). They are 121 card sheets, so I am assuming all other non-holofoil sheets are also 121 card sheets (though of course, exceptions are always possible - look at Neo Destiny for example). I don’t have any plans to reconstruct any more commons sheets for the moment, but may do so if I find the time and interest.
- The only holofoil sheet of this era for which I found images online which showed the sheet width is the Italian reverses sheet for Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua. It is a 110 card sheet. By contrast, the reverses for Stormfront (released in 2008) were printed on a 121 card sheet, as were Promos DP08-DP10 (Torterra LV.X, Infernape LV.X and Empoleon LV.X, released in 2007). The most likely point at which the switch from 110 to 121 card sheets happened is in my opinion at the beginning of the Diamond and Pearl Series, allowing all 119 reverses of Diamond and Pearl base set to be printed on one sheet. I plan to look at the reverses from at least some of the sets, in the hope that the share of reverse commons, uncommons, rares and holos from sample (Youtube) data will help indicate if a 110 or 121 card sheet was used - similarly to the way I tried to figure out how many sheets were used to print the reverses for Aquapolis and Skyridge. As to the other holofoil sheets - holos, Pokémon-ex and Gold Stars, I will for the sake of simplicity assume that they used the same sheet size as the reverses, i.e. if I think the reverses sheet size goes from 110 to 121 cards, I will assume all other holofoil sheets do at the same time, though of course this is by no means assured.
This said, it is time to get to the rarity table. The set had an “error” print run (I use the quotes since I don’t know if the error was intentional). This “switcheroo” was discussed on the PokeGym forums:
- Nintendo's BIG R&S Switcheroo Snafoo! | The PokeGym
- Weird Ruby and Sapphire collation... | The PokeGym
The error affected the first print run and was corrected for later print runs. Instead of inserting 6 holos and 6 Pokémon-ex per box (all of them in the common slot, just like the holos for the e-series sets) it inserted 12 holos in the common slot and 12 Pokémon-ex in the rare slot. I don’t know if it is possible to tell which print run a box was from by its outside. The rarity tables look as follows:
Both print runs are weird if you think about it. First of all, by making holos (14 different cards) and Pokémon-ex (8 different cards) both 1:12 packs, the Pokémon-ex are actually more common than the holos, which kind of devalues them. Second of all, for the “regular” print run, the rares are more common than the uncommons (1 of 13 rares per pack, vs 2 of 34 uncommons per pack)!
Basic Energy cards are printed on a separate sheet and take up the last common slot in every third pack.
I only found one video of an “error” box being opened on Youtube. The 12 Pokémon-ex appearing in the rare slot aren’t in any way correlated with the card in the final common slot - it can be a common, a holo or a Basic Energy card.
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex is as follows (dashed lines denoting where transitions from H8 to H7, R10 to R9 and EX14 to EX13 would occur):
The small sample size (only four boxes in total) means the data isn’t statistically significant. In general, there aren’t that many Youtube videos of early Ex Series boxes being opened.
The reverses in the sample were 12% reverse rare holo, 11% reverse rare, 35% reverse uncommon and 42% reverse common/Basic Energy. The sample is too small to say for sure which reverses have RE2 rarity. It may be 9 reverse commons (which would yield a distribution of 13% reverse rare holo, 12% reverse rare, 31% reverse uncommon and 45% reverse common/Basic Energy) or maybe the RE2 cards are a mixture of reverse commons and reverse uncommons (which is against my standard working hypothesis, but is definitely possible, as is shown by the reverses of Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua).
I did not look at the commons and uncommons. For the Basic Energy cards, Lightning Energy appeared the most often, just like in Gym Heroes and Neo Genesis.
Edit 23/04/11: edited text on reverses to reflect possibility RE2 cards may be a mixture of reverse commons/reverse uncommons
Edit 23/04/16: edited text on reverses again to highlight that the RE2 cards being a mixture of different rarities has occured in a different set
Ex Sandstorm
The card rarities for Ex Sandstorm are basically the same as for Ex Ruby & Sapphire, except that the set contains no Basic Energy cards and there is no “error” print run. The rarity table looks as follows:
Just like with Ex Ruby & Sapphire, the Pokémon-ex are more common than the holos, and the rares are more common than the uncommons.
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex is as follows (dashed lines denoting where transitions from H8 to H7, R10 to R9 and EX16 to EX15 would occur):
Despite the sample being larger than for Ex Ruby & Sapphire, no definitive conclusions can be drawn.
I did not look at the uncommons, but was able to reconstruct the commons sheet. It looks as follows:
† Psyduck, Duskull (Haunt), Mysterious Fossil, Marill, Growlithe, Root Fossil, Cyndaquil, Natu, Slakoth, Ekans, Lotad (Tackle), Sandshrew, Spearow, Aron, Trapinch, Shroomish, Cacnea (Poison Sting), Wailmer, Ralts, Cacnea (Poison Payback), Skitty, Pikachu, Wingull, Cyndaquil, Zigzagoon, Duskull (Surprise), Omanyte, Seedot (Tackle), Dunsparce, Lotad (Rain Dish), Claw Fossil, Growlithe, Onix, Mysterious Fossil, Sandshrew, Eevee, Marill, Shroomish, Natu, Root Fossil, Ekans, Seedot (Surprise Attack), Psyduck, Slakoth, Duskull (Surprise), Seedot (Tackle), Aron, Marill, Spearow, Psyduck, Dunsparce, Trapinch, Omanyte, Eevee, Lotad (Tackle), Wailmer, Cacnea (Poison Sting), Pikachu, Wingull, Duskull (Haunt), Skitty, Cacnea (Poison Payback), Natu, Zigzagoon, Lotad (Rain Dish), Shroomish, Ekans, Claw Fossil, Onix, Mysterious Fossil, Growlithe, Root Fossil, Sandshrew, Cyndaquil, Slakoth, Ralts, Pikachu, Spearow, Eevee, Trapinch, Seedot (Surprise Attack), Dunsparce, Wailmer, Onix, Wingull, Lotad (Tackle), Zigzagoon, Omanyte, Claw Fossil, Cacnea (Poison Payback), Mysterious Fossil, Marill, Seedot (Tackle), Ekans, Natu, Aron, Skitty, Duskull (Haunt), Cyndaquil, Shroomish, Psyduck, Growlithe, Root Fossil, Cacnea (Poison Sting), Slakoth, Ralts, Duskull (Surprise), Spearow, Sandshrew, Pikachu, Trapinch, Lotad (Rain Dish), Wailmer, Dunsparce, Wingull, Omanyte, Zigzagoon, Eevee, Seedot (Surprise Attack), Onix, Claw Fossil †
As with Skyridge, the commons chosen to appear once fewer on the sheet were Pokémon with two versions in the set.
As for the reverses, the sample yielded 16% reverse rare holos, 10% reverse rares, 34% reverse uncommons and 40% reverse commons. The RE2 cards may all be reverse commons (which would yield 13% reverse rare holos, 12% reverse rares, 30% reverse uncommons and 45% reverse commons), but given the size of the sample (252 packs) I would almost be inclined to say it is more likely that they are a mixture of reverse commons and uncommons.
Edit 23/04/16: edited text on reverses to reflect likelyhood RE2 cards are actually a mixture of reverse commons and reverse uncommons
Ex Dragon
There are two points of interest to cover for this set. The first is the fact that for the first print run, one of the reverses (TV Reporter) was omitted from the print sheet. For the second print run (according to some accounts, the print run intended for distribution outside the US), it was included. The second is that this set, while it generally has the same rarity set-up as the previous two, has three secret rares: Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard - the rarity of which needs to be discussed.
As far as Youtube videos go, I was only able to find three videos of complete box openings. In this sense, it is one of the two worst-documented sets around, the other being Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua. In the small sample, two boxes contained one secret rare each, and one contained two. This overall rarity of about 1.33 secret rares per box is consistent with what was written in old threads on the PokéGym, namely that the secret rares had about the same rarity as the other holos:
- Do u get only one of charmander, charmelon, or charizard in Dragon set one per box? | The PokeGym
- The So called secret rare | The PokeGym
In my “best guess” model, I am assuming H7 rarity for all three of them (the other holos being either H7 or H8) due to my gut feeling, even if H8 rarity would actually better fit the (very small) sample data:
7 appearances * 3 secret rares / 110 cards on sheet * 6 holos per box = 1.145 secret rares per box
8 appearances * 3 secret rares / 110 cards on sheet * 6 holos per box = 1.309 secret rares per box
These things said, here are the rarity tables:
Reverse TV reporter is a RE0 card in the first print run, meaning it wasn’t on the sheet. It is worth noting how incredibly common the non-holo rares actually are - this comes from the fact that there are only 10 of them and there is one in every pack.
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex (with the dashed lines denoting where the transitions from H8 to H7, R13 to R12 and EX13 to EX12 would occur) is given below, though it is basically meaningless due to the small sample size:
For the reverses, the same sample yielded 11% reverse rare holos, 11% reverse rares, 29% reverse uncommons and 49% reverse commons. This would fit very well with the 23 RE2 cards being commons (expected distribution: 11% reverse rare holos, 9% reverse rares, 29% reverse uncommons and 51% reverse commons).
I did not look at the commons and uncommons.
Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua
When looking at this set, I noticed I had made a mistake with the reverses: The RE2 cards are in fact not all reverse uncommons, there is one reverse rare (Double Rainbow Energy) printed twice on the sheet. This led me to update the text of some of the older posts above. My general working hypothesis for the future will still be that the “extra” spaces on the reverse sheets are filled in one rarity at a time, unless there is evidence to the contrary.
Beginning with this set, holos and Pokémon-ex started appearing in the rare slot again instead of in the last commons slot, as had been the case since Expedition. Also, Pokémon-ex became rarer, and holos more common. Thus, a box generally contains 24 non-holo rares, 9 holos and 3 Pokémon-ex.
The set contains two secret rares. One (Absol) is a box topper (not obtainable in packs and thus designated “O” for “other” in the rarity table). As to the other, Jirachi, the (very small) sample of 3 booster boxes opened on Youtube yielded 2 Jirachi (both from the same box). The upshot of the discussion on the PokéGym forums (The So called secret rare | The PokeGym) isn’t really conclusive, but I will assume Jirachi has the same rarity as the other holos and is a H8 card. To quote the forums, its “secret rare, not super rare”. (Spoiler for the future: the next secret rare holo, Here Comes Team Rocket! from Ex Team Rocket Returns, isn’t just secret rare, it is also super rare.)
The rarity table looks as follows:
As can be seen, the Pokémon-ex are now rarer than the holos, and the rares aren’t as common than in the first three ex-Series sets, but they are still more common than some of the uncommons.
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex is shown below (dashed lines indicating where transitions from H9 to H8, R11 to R10 and EX16 to EX15 would occur), but just as for the previous set (Ex Dragon), the sample is too small to draw any conclusions.
I didn’t investigate the commons or uncommons.
As to the reverses, the sample yielded 9% reverse rare holos, 10% reverse rares, 51% reverse uncommons and 30% reverse commons, which is in very good agreement with the Italian reverses sheet of which various images can be found online (Reddit - Dive into anything, but also other pages showing the part of the sheet not visible on this image). Thus, I am assuming the English sheet is the same as the Italian one, with 21 of the 22 RE2 cards being reverse uncommons, and one (Double Rainbow Energy) being a reverse rare.
Update notice: I just added an addendum to my post on Jungle, regarding a third variant (printed in Belgium).
Ex Hidden Legends
Ex Hidden Legends has basically the same card rarities as Ex Team Magma vs Team Aqua. The only difference is that 3 of the 9 Pokémon-ex (Regirock, Regice and Registeel) have a cracked-ice holo pattern, meaning they were printed on a separate sheet from the other Pokémon-ex. In a somewhat larger sample than for the earlier Ex Series sets (8 boxes for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex and 7 for the reverses), the cracked-ice holofoil Pokémon-ex have a consistent rarity of 1 per box, the other (cosmos holofoil) Pokémon-ex a consistent rarity of 2 per box. The rarity table looks as follows:
EXa is the sheet for the cosmos holofoil Pokémon-ex, EXb that for the cracked-ice holofoil Pokémon-ex, and O is the box topper (Groudon).
The raw data for the holos, rares and Pokémon-ex is given below, the dashed lines indicating where the transition from H8 to H7, R11 to R10, EXa-19 to EXa-18 and EXb-37 to EXb-36 would occur:
The sample isn’t large enough to say anything for sure, but for the holos and rares, I feel it is large enough to say that the H8 and R11 cards are most likely cards in the upper parts of these tables.
As usual for post-WotC era sets, I didn’t look at the commons and uncommons.
The analysis of the reverses is of interest to see if the holofoil sheets being used are still 110 cards sheets or if a transition to 121 card sheets has occurred. In the table below, I compared the observed data with the expected result if either a 110 or a 121 card sheet was used, the “extra” spaces being filled in one rarity at a time (in this case, reverse uncommons first):
The 10x11 (110 card) sheet fits betters, though it is quite possible the extra spaces were filled in with a mixture of reverse uncommons and reverse commons.
For this reason, am sticking with 110 card sheets for modelling all holofoil cards. Looking into the future, I have analyzed some data for Ex Delta Species and Ex Power Keepers, and in both cases I am also leaning towards 110 card sheets being the best fit. So probably, I am going to model all Ex Series sets this way.
Have you seen this video?
Rattle pointed this shot out, and made me wonder about the sequences you were talking about.
It seems like they put the same cards in each section? But that doesn’t make sense since randomising the sheet would be pointless if they are going to lump all the same cards together later.
