Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Nintendo's Rarity Scheme - AGAIN!

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Yeah, with the E-sets, triple rare packs were not that hard to come by. I don't know if it was just my bad luck or whatever, but I really don't feel I got as many triple packs in my EX2 box. I got some double rares, a bunch of singles, but triples are just not that common anymore.
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Unrelated Baboon thought:
*If only we'd be back at 11 cards a pack, THEN they could balance out the Uncommons more... Add another Common and Uncommon to each pack...*
 
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Usually I buy by the box but I spent some extra winnings today & bought 2 packs of Sandstorm. Just lucky I guess on these pulls.
1st pack - Holo Kabutops EX, Reverse Rare Candy & Rare Multi energy.
2nd pack - Holo Ludicolo, Reverse Rare Zangoose & Rare Multi energy.
 
With the later Wotc sets and the current Ex sets when I open a booster its the Uncommons I look for first!

Sad aren't I!
 
i also understand that. i found it odd that i had more rares than uncommons. I guess if the amount of uncommons was high in a set, it'd be rarer to get the uncommon than the rare. what were the number of uncommons in the past sets?
 
Sandstorm has 13 rares and 34 uncommons. (See NoPoke's math.) With 1 rare and 2 uncommons per boosters, the chances of pulling a particular card are:

1:13 (7.7%) for a particular rare

1:17 (5.9%) for a particular uncommon

So, if you hit the odds perfectly, it would take you 17 boosters to get 1 copy of each uncommon in the Sandstorm. However, it would only take you 13 boosters to get 1 copy of each rare.
 
Returning to SteveP's original post...

The above maths suggest that if the distributions are random then we should complete the Nintendo sets much quicker that the Wotc sets. Annecdotal evidence suggests that this is not the case. So what is going on?

I haven't done the math behind establishing a confidence limit on how many boosters you would have to open to complete say the set of rares. (Trying to remember how to do that :( ) But a key assumption is that the distribution of cards is random, ie each card is equally likely and that boosters are uncorrelated. I strongly suspect that the boosters in a box are highly correlated. Now if only I can remember how to put some numbers to my suspicions.
 
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Im with Steve on this one. Since it is so hard to get the rare foils that you need I have stop trying to put sets together. I use to keep a binder that had one of every complete set in it. It was nice to use to build decks and good card reference for tournaments. I could complete a set with 2 or 3 boxes, but now it is almost impossible to do for me less then 5, so I have just stop trying. Now I get the cards I need and trade for the ones I want.
 
Still working out how to do the statistics. When the next person opens a box could they post the contents in premiums and rares obtained.

I suspect that the contents of a WotC display are correlated. So if you buy individual boosters the sets are hard to complete but if you buy by the display/case you were rewarded with complete sets.
 
NoPoke, do you mean specifics on every Rare we got? If so... my Sandstorm box...
(RH means Rev Holo form, without RH means regular.)

1 RH Armaldo
1 Cradily
1 Flareon
1 Jolteon
1 RH Lunatone
1 Lunatone
1 RH Mawile
1 RH Sableye
1 RH Seviper
1 RH Shiftry
1 Solrock
1 Zangoose
2 Arcanine
3 Espeon
2 Golduck
3 Kecleon
3 Omastar
1 RH Omastar
4 Pichu
1 RH Pichu
3 Sandslash
3 Shiftry
2 Steelix
3 Umbreon
2 Vaporeon
3 Wobbuffet
3 Multi Energy
1 Aggron ex
1 Kabutops ex
1 Raichu ex
1 Typhlosion ex
2 Wailord ex

If you didn't want specific cards, well, too late ;-p
 
OKAy....

I've just been working on the premiums at the moment:

Statistical analysis agrees that those cards could have been obtained from a random distribution.

The particular pattern with one duplicate and 10 other premiums will occur 12% of the time.

here are some other patterns for your enjoyment:

2% : 111111111111
12%: 21111111111 (ie Baboons)
25%: 2211111111 (this is the most likely !)
20%: 222111111
11%: 321111111
9%: 32211111
6%: 22221111
4%: 3111111111
2%: 3222111

and then lots and lots of rarer patterns.

So if the 21111111111 pattern occurs more than 1 in 8 displays then the packs within the displays are not random.


Anyone care to estimate how many packs you have to open to complete the whole set 90% of the time?
 
Commons sense says the print runs are collated. Printer plates are "set in stone." I'd assume the plate designer (Nintendo) does a pseudo uniformly random distribution of the cards and lays them out in this distribution on the printer plates.

Now, what happens when the cards are cut from the card stock and packaged? Is the original printer plate distribution maintained? Without observing the process or buying a large sample (a few sealed cases), it's impossible to know.

Nevertheless, I don't like the overall rarity scheme. Plus, I'm having very bad luck buying singles, and VERY BAD luck buying blisters at Target. Finally, my local card shop has said that either 1) they won't be opening and selling any more Nintendo singles, or 2) they'll be raising the prices of the holos and EX cards. So, Ebay looks like the place to go to complete my sets after buying a box or two. In the past, I usually bought a whole case when a new release came out. I haven't done that since Skyridge (I haven't bought a Nintendo-produced case).
 
Well I don't know about common sense :D but it would make commercial sense to reward the players and collectors that buy by the display/case with complete sets. I know that Wotc did this with at least some of their games.
 
I've seen ONE Cacturne... I didn't see one opened at all at the SS prerelease I went to... but I didn't see everyone open their prizes, but up until the prize thing no one had gotten a cacturne. I've bought probably close to 100-150 packs of Sandstorm and not gotten one cacturne which is a pain in the butt. EX pokemon are no problem for me I seem to open them all the time, it's the holos I can't get.
 
YoungJohn, the EX Pokemon in Sandstorm average 6 per box, and the Holos average 6 per box. With 8 EX and 14 Holos in Sandstorm, odds are that after you buy 4 boxes (144 boosters), you'll get 1.7 of each Holo and 3 of each EX (close to twice as many EX Pokemon). FYI, the EX Pokemon in the Japanese sets were actually MORE rare than the Holos. Nintendo USA reversed that rarity.
 
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