The English Pokémon card rarity guide

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Arceus

This set, the last of the Platinum series, contains Pokémon LV.X, Shining Pokémon (in the reverse slot) and a subset of 9 different Arceus cards (also in the reverse slot, definitely printed on a different sheet from the reverses as they have a different holofoil pattern). A sample of 14 box opening videos watched on Youtube yields the following observed ratios:

• Pokémon LV.X - 3.00 per box
• Arceus - 8.86 per box
• Shining Pokémon - 0.71 per box (though it is possible I missed one or two, as they look like normal reverses)

Based on this, I would assume the actual ratios to be:

• Pokémon LV.X - 3 per box
• Arceus - 9 per box, i.e. (usually) a complete set (assuming they are printed on a 121 card sheet, they will not all have exactly the same rarity as 121 is not divisible by 9)
• Shining Pokémon - each printed once on the reverse sheet, thus 3 / 121 * (36 - 9) = 0.67 per box

As to the reverse sheet, looking at observed data (a sub-sample of 6 boxes) 25 of the 29 uncommons were printed twice on the sheet, the other reverses and the Shining Pokémon once:

The observed data and the model don’t fit perfectly, but my guess is this is due to the relatively small sample.

The rarity table for this set looks as follows (“SP” - for “special” - designates the Arceus cards):

The raw data for the holos, rares, Pokémon LV.X and the Arceus subset looks as follows (dashed lined indicating where the transition from H11 to H10, etc., would occur):

I would say that Probopass and Sceptile (Green Breath) are likely candidates for the H11 and R7 rarities, though this isn’t certain.

[bk2021]

Just wondering, how many variants are actually possible for the common/uncommon set of cards for any given set?

picture found on Discord from Vivid Voltage

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Check out my post back on March 17 for a detailed answer. For most sets, there would in general be as many variants for the commons as there are cards on the sheet, or in some sets twice that number because cards can be inserted into packs both forwards and backwards (to my recollection I thing this was the case mostly for WotC sets). That would mean 121 or 242 variants in most cases - if it is the former, that means about a 0.8% chance two packs contain exactly the same commons.

There are a few caveats:

• Some sets, like Neo Genesis and Gym Challenge, contain long repeated sequences on the sheet, meaning there are fewer variants.
• Occasionally the sequence gets mixed up a bit, so further variants exist.
• All of this applies to sequential collation, not to striped collation.

For uncommons, the same applies except that having a sequence of two or three cards appear more than once on the sheet happens occasionally, to there might be a bit fewer variants.

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Digression: General information about the HeartGold & SoulSilver Series

This isn’t really a digression, more of an introduction. The HeartGold & SoulSilver Series features a number of new types of cards, namely Pokémon Prime, Pokémon LEGEND and secret rares (the Alph Lithograph cards). In this post, I will go over the box ratios as well as the possible printing configurations for these cards. The pull rates for individual cards, as well as all other facts of interest, I will cover in posts on the individual sets.

I looked at a decent sized sample of box opening videos on Youtube, between 10 and 25 boxes depending on the set. The observed ratios were as follows:

The Alph Lithograph cards are textured, but non-holo, so they must have been printed on a separate sheet of their own. The red Gyarados card (123/123) in HeartGold & SoulSilver base set I am assuming was printed on the holo sheet, so I’m not discussing it here.

The Pokémon Prime come in the reverse slot, but due do different holofoil pattern must have been printed separately from the reverses. There seem to be 6 per box for HeartGold & SoulSilver Base Set, and 5 per box for the other sets.

When looking at the observed ratios, I feel relatively confident that Alph Lithograph ONE (from HeartGold & SoulSilver base set) is more common than Alph Lithographs THREE and FOUR (from Undaunted and Triumphant): 13 in 25 boxes vs 1 in 10 boxes certainly looks like more than a coincidence to me. In my model, I will assume Alph Lithograph ONE is 1 in 2 boxes, the other three 1 in 6 (i.e. 1 per case).

As to the Pokémon LEGEND, I would estimate 3 per box for Unleashed and 2 per box for Undaunted and Triumphant. As to the base set, it could be 3 per box, 3.5 per box or something in between. This is kind of similar to Supreme Victors, where my sample data yielded 3.75 Pokémon LV.X per box on average (I assumed 3.5 in my model). In order to keep my model simple, I will be assuming 3 Pokémon LEGEND per box for HeartGold & SoulSilver base set.

My best guess for box ratios is thus as follows:

As final notes to this introduction, I need to say something about how the Pokémon LEGEND and Pokémon Prime were printed.

The Pokémon LEGEND have a border on three sides, while on the fourth side the illustration goes all the way to the edge of the card. They must have been placed on the sheet in a way that the two halves of the Pokémon LEGEND were next to each other, so that a slightly off-centered cut would not leave unwanted colors on the card’s edge.

But with 11x11 sheets being the norm, how were the sheet edges handled? Assuming the top left card on the sheet is a top half, the top right card would also be a top half, meening the illustration would have to go a bit further to the right than the line where the cards were cut.

This creates the next problem, as if all the rows were like this, there would be more top halves printed than bottom halves. That may have been done this way, as a ratio of 11:10 isn’t that unequal; it is even possible that two different sheets were used to address this problem. Another solution would be to have the second row start with a bottom half, but then the illustration would have to go a bit further than the line where the cards were cut on the left as well. I don’t know if space on the sheet would be an issue here.

A final option would be to use a 10x11 sheet.

The three options are visualized below: (1) 11x11 sheet with more top halves than bottom halves, grey edge symbolizing the illustration going beyond the line where the cards were cut on the right; (2) 11x11 sheet with nearly equal distribution of top and bottom halves, grey edges symbolizing the illustration going beyond the linen where the cards were cut on both sides; (3) 10x11 sheet with equal distribution of tops and bottoms.

In my model, I will be going with the third solution, as I find it the most elegant.

As to the Pokémon Prime, I came across the following miscut from the HeartGold & SoulSilver Base Set:

As can be seen, the spacing between cards, at least horizontally, is quite large (the red lines show where the cards would be cut). This is likely to avoid a slightly off-centered card having “spikes” from the neighboring card’s illustration box protruding into it. Unfortunately, it is not possible to tell how the cards were spaced vertically. With the “spikes” not going all the way to the top card border, it might have been possible to use a 11x10 sheet, though they may have gone with a 10x10 sheet as they did for ultra rares in later sets (see my post on Black & White further below). In my model, I will be assuming a 10x10 sheet for the Pokémon Prime to be consistent with later sets.

Edit 2023/09/09: Added information on sheet size for the Pokémon Prime
Edit 2023/11/19: Changed sheet size for Pokémon Prime in model from 10x11 to 10x10

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HeartGold & SoulSilver

There is a lot to discuss for this set. As mentioned in my last post, I am assuming the box ratios to be 8.5 holos, 3 Pokémon Legend, 0.5 secret rares (Alph Lithograph ONE) and 6 Pokémon Prime (which come in the reverse slot). I think it is best to start with the rarity table, and then look at each sheet in order:

There are 13 “regular” holos, plus the Red Gyarados (with Thrash as its first attack). Gyarados is not a secret rare (it is numbered 123/123). The raw data for the holos looks as follows:

The first column of numbers shows the observed pulls from 25 boxes, the second normalizes this data to a sheet size of 121 cards. There are two reconstructions which appear the most plausible: One would be for all the “regular” holos to be printed 9 times on the sheet, and Red Gyarados 4 times, the other would have 12 holos printed 9 times, 1 printed 8 times and Red Gyarados printed 5 times. I went with the second, making Gyarados half as common as the most common holo rounded up.

Next, the rares. In my post on Neo Genesis, I pointed out that that set looked like it had artificial rarity differences between the holos - i.e. some holos were printed fewer than others intentionally, not just in order to fill out a sheet. For almost all other sets looked at so far, I didn’t see any indication of such artificial rarity differences - the Basic Energy Cards in Base Set and Base Set 2, and likely errors such as Dark Vaporeon in some print runs of Team Rocket and Lunatone in Great Encounters being the exceptions. Looking at the raw data for the rares, I think HeartGold & SoulSilver however does have such rarity differences:

The observed pulls for Feraligatr, Meganium and Typhlosion - the final evolutions of the Johto starters, which also feature in the Theme Decks as holos - appear to be too few to be explicable by coincidence. Pichu - a Pokémon which in a way also belongs to a starter family - seems to belong in the same group. Since I have observed similar constellations for some later sets, I don’t think this is coincidence. Thus in my model I am assuming these four cards are printed only 4 times on the sheet - making them half as common as the most common rares, rounded up (of the other cards, I am assuming 3 are printed 7 times on the sheet and 14 are printed 6 times).

I did not look at the uncommons, but reconstructed the commons sheet. Going by set number, the commons alternate between C4 and C3, with the exception that Wooper has C4 rarity. The Basic Energy Cards are printed only once on the sheet (C1), making them rather rare, but keep in mind they were also available in the Theme Decks. The commons sheet looks as follows (though there is a catch):

† Meowth, W Energy, Pikachu, Cyndaquil, Wooper, Girafarig, Ledyba, Caterpie, Snubbull, Hoppip, Koffing, Spinarak, Growlithe, Totodile, Phanpy, Drowzee, Meowth, P Energy, Sandshrew, Sunkern, Magikarp, Mareep, Slowpoke, Jigglypuff, Exeggcute, Vulpix, Sentret, Paras, Wooper, Jynx, Growlithe, L Energy, Cyndaquil, Chikorita, Chansey, Hoppip, Phanpy, Pikachu, Caterpie, Hoothoot, Snubbull, Meowth, Spinarak, Clefairy, Staryu, Sunkern, F Energy, Ledyba, Vulpix, Sandshrew, Koffing, Mareep, Magikarp, Hoppip, Girafarig, Cyndaquil, Sentret, Marill, Wooper, Growlithe, G Energy, Slowpoke, Totodile, Jigglypuff, Jynx, Exeggcute, Drowzee, Paras, Sandshrew, Spinarak, Sunkern, Meowth, Chansey, Chikorita, Vulpix, Snubbull, M Energy, Mareep, Marill, Exeggcute, Magikarp, Ledyba, Hoppip, Clefairy, Phanpy, Jynx, Slowpoke, Chikorita, R Energy, Spinarak, Girafarig, Paras, Hoothoot, Staryu, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Ledyba, Sandshrew, Totodile, Sentret, Koffing, Growlithe, Wooper, D Energy, Caterpie, Drowzee, Cyndaquil, Sunkern, Slowpoke, Exeggcute, Phanpy, Hoothoot, Chikorita, Staryu, Mareep, Chansey, Jynx, Caterpie, Marill, Vulpix, Clefairy †

The catch is that there seem to be some locations on the sheet with a very strong tendency for the cards to get flipped in order, to such a degree that I am not completely sure which is the correct order. I chose the variant which I observed more often. These positions are underlined. Since they are generally 11 cards apart, it looks like a part of one column (possibly one on the edge of the sheet) had a tendency of getting flipped underneith the neighboring column when the cards got scooped up after cutting. Interestingly, it seems not to have affected the whole column, and even more interestingly, I never observed Drowzee and Paras being flipped, despite Cyndaquil and Sentret 11 cards before in the sequence and Mareep and Marill 11 cards afterwards being flipped multiple times in the videos I watched.

The raw data for the Pokémon LEGEND and Pokémon Prime is as follows:

As mentioned in my last post, I am assuming a 10x11 card sheet for the Pokémon LEGEND. I am also assuming the two cards printed 28 times and the two cards printed 27 times are matching pairs of top and bottom halves. For the Pokémon Prime, also as mentioned in my last post, I am assuming a 10x10 sheet.

I did not look at the reverses for this set, not because it wouln’t be interesting, but because I simply didn’t get around to doing it and I would like to get on with this guide. I will only note that Red Gyarados is included among the reverses, but the 8 Basic Energy Cards aren’t.

Edit 2023/09/09: Changed sheet size of Pokémon Prime to 10x11 (see introductory post on HeartGold & SoulSilver Series above)
Edit 2023/11/19: Changed sheet sized of Pokémon Prime to 10x10 on second thought (see introductory post above)

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Unleashed

As mentioned in my introductory post to the HeartGold & SoulSilver Series, I am assuming the Pokémon LEGEND to still be 3 per box, the Pokémon Prime reduced to 5 per box, and the secret rare (Alph Lithograph TWO) reduced to 1 in 6 boxes. If this guess is correct, it would make this the rarest category of card so far, though not the rarest individual card (the Gold Stars were usually about 1 in 3 boxes, but there were 2 or 3 of them in each set). The rarity table for Unleashed looks as follows:

The raw data for the rares, Pokémon LEGEND and Pokémon Prime looks as follows (since there are 11 holos in the set, I am assuming they all have the same rarity; the raw data gives no indication of it being otherwise):

(The dashed lines, as usual, indicate where the transition from R8 to R7, etc., would occur.)

There don’t appear to be any artificial rarity differences, and Steelix and Tyranitar, the two rares included as holofoil cards in the theme decks, certainly don’t appear any rarer than the other rares.

I did look at the reverses for this set, and my best guess is all 28 reverse uncommons as well as 10 reverse commons were printed twice on the sheet:

One final thing which applies to the sets from this series in general and which I haven’t mentioned so far is that Pokémon Prime can appear both in packs with holos and with non-holo rares, but don’t typically appear alongside a Pokémon LEGEND.

Edit 2023/8/8: Corrected the rarity table (old version incorrectly still had 6 Pokémon Prime per box instead of 5).
Edit 2023/09/09: Changed sheet size of Pokémon Prime to 10x11 (see introductory post on HeartGold & SoulSilver Series above)
Edit 2023/11/19: Changed sheet size for Pokémon Prime in model to 10x10 (see introductory post)

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Undaunted

We have now reached the final countdown of the last three sets of the vintage era. The box ratios for Undaunted are similar to those for Unleashed, but as explained in my introductory post on the HeartGold & SoulSilver series, I estimate the ratio of Pokémon LEGEND to be reduced from 3 per box to 2.5 per box. The rarity table looks as follows:

The raw data for the holos, rares, Pokémon LEGEND and Pokémon Prime looks as follows (dashed lines indicating where the transition from H13 to H12, etc., would occur):

I see no indication of artificial rarity differences. As to the reverses, I looked at a small sub-sample (see below):

With 80 different reverses in the set, two possible sheet compositions would be to print either all 26 unsommons as well as 15 commons twice (model 1), or all 29 commons and 12 uncommons twice (model 2). However, neither model fits the observed data, so it looks to me like the RE2 cards are some other kind of mixture of reverse commons and reverse uncommons. As to the fact I observed vary few reverse rare holos, I would simply attribute that to the small sample size.

Edit 2023/8/8: Corrected the rarity table (old version incorrectly still had 6 Pokémon Prime per box instead of 5).
Edit 2023/09/09: Changed sheet size of Pokémon Prime to 10x11 (see introductory post on HeartGold & SoulSilver Series above)
Edit 2023/11/19: Changed sheet size of Pokémon Prime in model to 10x10 (see introductory post)

[bk2021]

Darkness Ablaze Uncut V Sheet

14 Vs - each appearing 7x with Butterfree and Croat appearing 8x

[Dyl]

Francesca Pont is going to be in some trouble…

[bk2021]

Just found it interesting that the V sheet is 10x10 but the Evolving Skies reverse holo sheet was 11x11.

EDIT:

There are 132 possible reverse holo cards in EVS and 66 (half) are present on the uncut sheet.

There are 112/121 clearly identifiable cards with another 4 likely and 5 unseen. Of those, every common and uncommon are repeated once with the exception of 4 of them.

Every single rare and holo only have a single appearance with 2 rares being repeated once.

It’s likely that the 5 unseen cards compromise of the remaining 4 C/U cards and 1 rare.

Which means that all reverse holo rares are actually twice as rare as C/U and R is split between the two.

What is presumably on the second sheet are 41 of the remaining C/U repeated once for 82/121 slots, 25/121 slots being R/H for a total of 107/121 slots and then 14 rare cards being repeated once, which could be all 13 and an additional one from the first sheet or a holo repeated once.

Kind of a weird split.

[bk2021]

She deleted her post so I replaced the picture with another link but should’ve saved her post because it was of higher quality lol.

[sturzflugbombardieru]

The sheet composition is very interesting, I haven’t looked at it in detail yet. As to sheet size, It’s probably down to the fact that for the V’s, the illustration kind of goes all the way to the edge, so they need a bit more spacing between the cards in case they aren’t cut perfectly centered.

[bk2021]

I did, haha. Also managed to find the missing 9 cards on Facebook but have left them marked with numbers.

Here it is:

Green just means the first appearance and also that it appeared twice.
Blue means rare or holo and only appeared once. If in bold and italics means it appeared twice.

Breakdown:

Ones without colour are on a second unrevealed sheet.

Why they chose to do it like this is interesting. There are 52 C+U on this sheet whilst only 41 C+U on the other one.

Also 14 R+H here and 25 on the other.

[bk2021]

Also wondering whether the VMAX/FA/AA sheet for ES was 100 or 110 or 121 cards.

I found a number of miscuts on Reddit and am wondering whether the whole sheet can be reconstructed lol. Given that if some part of the sheet is miscut, then the whole sheet is and should be somewhere out there.

It would make sense if it were 121 because there are 15 VMAX and 38 FA/AA in the set, so a 121 sheet means the VMAX would all appear 3x and the rest 2x (but I think in a 20-30k pack opening, the data had Copycat and Zinnia appearing at a higher rate than the rest of the FA/AA, VMAXes were not tracked).

[sturzflugbombardieru]

As to the choice of cards on the sheet, I did look and saw that basically every other card (according to set number) which exists as a reverse in on the sheet, with some irregularities. The first one is that Hitmonchan, which follows Marshadow if you leave out the ultra-rares, is on the sheet, with Marshadow not being; it then continues for a while with every other one on the sheet - Galarian Zapdos, the next one according to set number, is not on it.

The topic is very interesting, and I plan to look at it in detail the next time I get to a set which required printing more than one sheet for the reverses.

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Triumphant

For this penultimate set of what I personnaly would define as the vintage era, there is, like for the last set, not that much to say. As explained in my introductory post on the HeartGold & SoulSilver Series, my estimate for the box ratios is 9.33 holos, 2.5 Pokémon LEGEND and 0.17 secret rares per box, as well as 5 Pokémon Prime (in the reverse slot). The rarity table looks as follows:

As can be seen, the pull rates for the Pokémon Prime (labelled SP for “special” in the table) are lower than in the previous two sets, and lower than in the HeartGold & SoulSilver base set, since there are 8 instead of 6 of them in the set and only 5 per box on average.

As to the holos, rares, Pokémon LEGEND and Pokémon Prime, the observed pulls from a (small-ish) Youtube sample are shown bellow - the dashed lines indicating where the transition from H11 to H10, etc., would occur:

I see no indication of artificial rarity differences.

As to the reverses, I compared the observed pulls (from a sub-sample of 4 boxes) with a model (labeled model 1) in which all 30 commons an 1 uncommon appear twice on the sheet (see below):

It doesn’t fit that well, so I am inclined to think that the RE2 cards are a mixture of reverse commons and reverse uncommons, but I can’t say anything for sure.

Edit 2023/09/09: Changed sheet size of Pokémon Prime to 10x11 (see introductory post on HeartGold & SoulSilver Series above)
Edit 2023/11/19: Changed sheet size of Pokémon Prime in model to 10x10 (see introductory post)

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Call of Legends

For this final vintage era set (as defined by me, at least), I looked into things a bit more deeply. For one, I reconstructed the commons sheet; for the other, I basically reconstructed the reverses sheet and mapped the box as well. (I say “basically” because a small segment of the sheet I only saw in one box, and I didn’t catch the overlap at the end, but I am quite confident I got it right.)

But first, a few notes about the set. It contains commons, uncommons, rares and rare holos (one in every 3rd pack) but no ultra-rares of any sort in the rare slot. It does, however, include a subset of 11 “Shiny Legendaries” in the reverse slot; since they have a different holofoil pattern than the reverses, they were obviously printed on a separate sheet. They are very consistently two per box. Finally, the set includes the eight Basic Energy Cards, however only as reverses. They were printed on the reverse sheet. Here is the rarity table:

As can be seen, the Shiny Legendaries (labelled SP for “special”) are pretty rare, rarer than any Pokémon LV.X, though not as rare as the Gold Stars in general or most of the Alph Lithograph cards. I am assuming all 11 were printed 11 times on a 121 card sheet.

As to the reverses, 21 of the 25 reverse uncommons and 5 reverse commons were printed twice on the sheet, all other cards (including the Basic Energy Cards) once.

The raw data for the holos and rares looks as follows (dashed lines indicating where the transition from H6 to H5, etc., would occur):

I don’t see any clear patterns.

The commons sheet looks as follows:

† Cyndaquil, Misdreavus, Slowpoke, Pidgey, Totodile, Mareep, Relicanth, Snubbull, Chikorita, Teddiursa, Clefairy, Magmar, Phanpy, Vulpix, Magikarp, Cyndaquil, Eevee, Houndour, Mawile, Koffing, Totodile, Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Pineco, Tangela, Mareep, Slowpoke, Snubbull, Eevee, Relicanth, Misdreavus, Phanpy, Pidgey, Magikarp, Hitmonchan, Koffing, Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Hitmonlee, Houndour, Totodile, Pineco, Clefairy, Mawile, Tangela, Magmar, Vulpix, Mareep, Teddiursa, Slowpoke, Chikorita, Pidgey, Relicanth, Hitmonchan, Snubbull, Phanpy, Misdreavus, Cyndaquil, Mawile, Eevee, Magikarp, Houndour, Slowpoke, Magmar, Koffing, Totodile, Vulpix, Tangela, Clefairy, Teddiursa, Pineco, Hitmonlee, Mareep, Chikorita, Phanpy, Relicanth, Cyndaquil, Pidgey, Snubbull, Slowpoke, Misdreavus, Hitmonchan, Houndour, Totodile, Magmar, Chikorita, Vulpix, Pineco, Clefairy, Magikarp, Koffing, Mareep, Tangela, Eevee, Teddiursa, Mawile, Hitmonlee, Phanpy, Cyndaquil, Relicanth, Totodile, Magmar, Houndour, Misdreavus, Vulpix, Hitmonchan, Slowpoke, Magikarp, Clefairy, Pidgey, Mareep, Snubbull, Teddiursa, Phanpy, Eevee, Hitmonlee, Tangela, Mawile, Chikorita, Koffing, Pineco †

The reverse sheet, with a pretty high degree of certainty looks like this:

† Mareep, Smeargle, Koffing, Vaporeon, Sage’s Training, Hitmontop, Tangela, Grass Energy, Ninetales, Cheerleader’s Cheer, Mawile, Cleffa, Hitmonchan, Lost World, Tyrogue, Lugia, Croconaw, Meganium, Lightning Energy, Houndoom, Chikorita, Magmar, Snubbull, Bayleef, Pidgey, Quilava, Snorlax, Pachirisu, Fighting Energy, Riolu, Magby, Research Record, Slowpoke, Vaporeon, Umbreon, Skarmory, Clefairy, Dialga, Mime Jr., Donphan, Darkness Energy (Basic), Typhlosion, Espeon, Teddiursa, Fire Energy, Zangoose, Flaaffy, Kyogre, Seviper, Professor Elm’s Training Method, Psychic Energy, Copycat, Granbull, Jolteon, Houndour, Deoxys, Professor Oak’s New Theory, Slowking, Hitmonlee, Vulpix, Lost Remover, Totodile, Leafeon, Metal Energy (Special), Phanpy, Pidgeotto, Darkness Energy (Special), Snubbull, Eevee, Interviewer’s Questions, Rayquaza, Flareon, Quilava, Ho-oh, Water Energy, Dual Ball, Cyndaquil, Magmortar, Bayleef, Magikarp, Weezing, Sage’s Training, Feraligatr, Metal Energy (Basic), Mime Jr., Cheerleader’s Cheer, Mismagius, Teddiursa, Seviper, Research Record, Lucario, Copycat, Donphan, Forretress, Misdreavus, Palkia, Interviewer’s Questions, Croconaw, Tangrowth, Gyarados, Flaaffy, Professor Elm’s Training Method, Mr. Mime, Ursaring, Riolu, Jolteon, Pineco, Dual Ball, Clefable, Professor Oak’s New Theory, Eevee, Ampharos, Vulpix, Magby, Jirachi, Magikarp, Groudon, Pidgeotto, Relicanth, Pidgeot, Flareon †

I say "with a pretty high degree of certainty, because I actually didn’t observe the overlap of both ends (Mareep and Flareon).

An interesting observation about “mapping” the boxes: While Great Encounters, the other set I mapped, showed a specific pattern for the placement of the holos which wasn’t just every third pack in the sequence, for Call of Legends it simply is every third pack in the sequence. Each of the two stacks of packs seem to get “cut” exactly once before being inserted into the left and right sides of a booster box. The Shiny Legendaries are always either 15 or 21 packs appart from each other in the sequence, and they are always located in packs containing a non-holo rare.

This concludes the first part of this guide. I plan to continue with the Black & White Series, generally keeping the same method but forgoing for most part the analysis of the reverses.

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Black & White

After a bit of a pause, I am back to cover the newer sets, which I consider to be “modern” for various reasons: They are still tournament-legal in the Expanded Format, the set numbering is the same as for the most recent sets, and by the end of the Black & White Series, the sets generally featured “regular” Ultra Rares (Pokémon-EX, Pokémon-GX, Pokémon-V), Full Arts and Secret Rares, as is the case today. The newest Scarlet & Violet Series sets brought a number of changes, so maybe some day we will consider Gens 5 to 8 to be “mid era”.

For most of the sets so far, I have looked at the reverses, trying to guess which kind of cards were printed how many times on the sheet (or sheets). From now on, I am only going to do this for those sets where this question seems particularly interesting. Likewise, as for all post-WotC era sets, I have looked at the commons sheet only in certain cases. Thanks to that, I will mostly only be using data that I have already compiled, which should allow me to concentrate on documenting it rather than compiling even more data.

As a further note, I have compiled a bit more data on older sets, PokeRev did some opening streams of vintage booster boxes and I also found some more videos online, so I plan to update the raw data for individual cards for some sets in the near future. Nothing has changed though as to my estimates of the pull rates. When I do so, I plan to add a changelog to the introduction post.

This being said, it is time to look at Black & White Base Set. This was the first set to feature Full Art cards, though they differ from contemporary Full Arts in that they aren’t textured (the first textured Full Arts appeared in Next Destinies). The set also featured a Secret Rare (Pikachu), obviously printed on a separate sheet due to its holofoil pattern. Finally, the set featured Basic Energy Cards. The pull rates are as follows:

-Two (i.e. both) Full Arts per box.

-As to the Secret Rare, I would guess one in every other box. My sample from Youtube yielded 7 Pikachu from 14 boxes. For Noble Victories, which similarly featured a Secret Rare Meowth, it was 6 from 14 boxes. Now, later sets generally have a secret rare in about one in three boxes, but I figured that for Black & White and Noble Victories, one in two boxes is the best estimate.

-The Basic Energy Cards are printed once each on the commons sheet, which I reconstructed.

Now, for the Full Arts it is necessary to give some thought about how they were printed - namely, what the sheet size was. With the illustration going all the way to the card boundary, you would expect them to be spaced a bit further apart than normal cards, so that there is a bit of margin when cutting them to avoid aesthetically unappealing bits of the neighboring cards appearing on the card border when centering is not perfect. And in fact, there are images of modern Ultra-Rare sheets which are 10x10 - see Rattle’s video, and the Darkness Ablaze Pokémon-V sheet, both posted on this thread by @bk2021.

However, there are images available online showing a 11x11 sheet featuring Full Art Mewtwo EX and Regigigas EX from from next destinies. It is obviously not a finished product, as the set contains six different Full Arts and not only two; also, if you look at closeups (see below), you will notice the cards aren’t textured, and they are missing the card text:

The cards appear extremely closely spaced. While I wasn’t able to find any good images of miscut Full Arts (or uncut sheets other than this proof sheet) from the Black & White Series, I did find the following two examples below, from Furious Fists and Phantom Forces:

The red lines show where the cards should have been cut approximately. There is more spacing here. As a consequence, I have decided I am going to assume the use of 10x10 sheets for the Full Arts of the Black & White and X & Y Series, and regard the 11x11 sheet with Mewtwo and Giratina as a failed experiment. (I will also be assuming the regular Pokémon-EX to be printed on 10x10 sheets, I will possibly include a image or two when I get to covering Next Destinies.

The rarity table for Black & White is shown below. In addition to the number of times cards from specific sheets are inserted in the sequence, and the pack pull rates, I decided to add the box ratios in the table as well:

Notice how the Full Arts are actually more common than the holos, kind of similar to how Pokémon-ex were more common than holos in the first three Ex Series sets.

The raw data for the holos and rares looks as follows (dashed lines indicating where the transition from H11 to H10, etc., would occur):

I see no indication of any artificial rarity differences.

The commons sheet looks as follows:

† Timburr (Pound), Pansage, Woobat, Patrat (Tackle), Snivy (Leaf Blade), Scraggy, Oshawott (Tackle), Water Energy, Timburr (Low Kick), Pidove, Minccino, Panpour, Blitzle (Rear Kick), Energy Search, Oshawott (Razor Shell), Purrloin, Switch, Patrat (Hyper Fang), Joltik (Stun Needle), Potion, Sandile, Tepig (Take Down), Lightning Energy, Zorua, Deerling, Lillipup (Collect), Venipede, Darumaka, Blitzle (Stomp), Woobat, Lillipup (Pickup), Ducklett, Klink, Pidove, Scraggy, Pansear, Joltik (Leech Life), Psychic Energy, Solosis, Blitzle (Rear Kick), Snivy (Tackle), Timburr (Low Kick), Tepig (Tackle), Petilil, Patrat (Tackle), Pansage, Sandile, Oshawott (Tackle), Minccino, Switch, Timburr (Pound), Panpour, Fighting Energy, Purrloin, Snivy (Leaf Blade), Potion, Patrat (Hyper Fang), Darumaka, Klink, Woobat, Lillipup (Collect), Tepig (Take Down), Venipede, Energy Search, Zorua, Oshawott (Razor Shell), Tepig (Tackle), Blitzle (Stomp), Darkness Energy, Lillipup (Pickup), Snivy (Tackle), Timburr (Low Kick), Ducklett, Pidove, Joltik (Leech Life), Deerling, Joltik (Stun Needle), Solosis, Woobat, Timburr (Pound), Oshawott (Tackle), Scraggy, Switch, Metal Energy, Sandile, Petilil, Patrat (Tackle), Potion, Minccino, Pansage, Purrloin, Energy Search, Zorua, Pansear, Patrat (Hyper Fang), Panpour, Snivy (Leaf Blade), Blitzle (Rear Kick), Tepig (Take Down), Grass Energy, Joltik (Stun Needle), Pidove, Oshawott (Razor Shell), Solosis, Switch, Lillipup (Collect), Darumaka, Snivy (Tackle), Deerling, Joltik (Leech Life), Tepig (Tackle), Venipede, Energy Search, Fire Energy, Lillipup (Pickup), Petilil, Blitzle (Stomp), Ducklett, Potion, Klink, Pansear †

Edit 2023/09/07: Added sentence highlighting that the Full Arts are more common than the holos in this set.
Edit 2023/09/09: Corrected mistake in rarity table (previous version had full arts on a 10x11 instead of a 10x10 sheet).

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Emerging Powers

The box ratios for this set are basically the same as for Black & White, except the set has no secret rares. Here is the rarity table:

The raw data for the holos and rares looks as follows (dashed lines indicating where the transition from H13 to H12, etc., would occur):

With the holo and rares sheets being designed in a way to minimized duplicates, a box has a good chance of containing the entire set (except reverses); the holos, rares and full arts have very similar pull rates. And that is all there is to say about this set.

Edit 2023/09/09: Corrected mistake in rarity table (previous version had full arts on a 10x11 instead of a 10x10 sheet).

[sturzflugbombardieru]

Noble Victories

This set has the same box ratios as Black & White - at least I am assuming the secret rare Meowth has the same rarity as the Pikachu in Black & White. The rarity table looks as follows:

Since the set has five full arts (the previous two had two each), the full arts are now rarer than both the holos and the secret rare. The raw data for the holos and rares looks as follows (dashed line indicating where the transition from H10 to H9, etc., would occur:

Edit 2023/09/09: Corrected mistake in rarity table (previous version had full arts on a 10x11 instead of a 10x10 sheet).