Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Nintendo's Rarity Scheme - AGAIN!

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SteveP

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A couple months ago when the Ruby/Sapphire rarity scheme was changed for EX Pokemon, there was a discussion on this topic. I for one was a bit disappointed at the time, but chose to continue buying the cards, mainly for the reverse foils. However, after buying close to $1000 of both R&S and Sandstorm, I've found it extremely dissatisfying to collect anymore. With regular holos (not including EX) now being twice as rare as during the WOTC-days (there's 1 holo in every six boosters, average - compared to 1:3 before), I've found that my Sandstorm holo collection is half the size as my WOTC-produced holo collections.

Plus, without going into the actual numbers, Nintendo uncommons are now more rare that normal (non-holo) rares.

As a player, I'm very pleased with the new Nintendo sets, as well as the announcements about POP. Nevertheless, I've found it very frustrating to collect the new cards, especially after recently buying 3 booster boxes of Sandstorm and STILL not getting the entire Holo set. Two of my local collecting buddies have also expressed similiar frustrations with completing the set. In fact, twice I've bought between 16 blister boosters from Target and twice ended up with only one Holo/EX. (Makes me wonder if the producer is pilferring from the blisters.)

I think I'll be spending more time on e-bay buying holos in order to complete my future sets. Forget about trying to complete sets by buying lots of boosters!

Anyway, are there any more players out there who also collect and are frustrated like me?
 
Oh yeah

SteveP said:
A couple months ago when the Ruby/Sapphire rarity scheme was changed for EX Pokemon, there was a discussion on this topic. I for one was a bit disappointed at the time, but chose to continue buying the cards, mainly for the reverse foils. However, after buying close to $1000 of both R&S and Sandstorm, I've found it extremely dissatisfying to collect anymore. With regular holos (not including EX) now being twice as rare as during the WOTC-days (there's 1 holo in every six boosters, average - compared to 1:3 before), I've found that my Sandstorm holo collection is half the size as my WOTC-produced holo collections.

Plus, without going into the actual numbers, Nintendo uncommons are now more rare that normal (non-holo) rares.

As a player, I'm very pleased with the new Nintendo sets, as well as the announcements about POP. Nevertheless, I've found it very frustrating to collect the new cards, especially after recently buying 3 booster boxes of Sandstorm and STILL not getting the entire Holo set.
Click to expand...
Yup - me too. Opened 4 boxes and FINALLY on the last one managed to snag the ONLY holo Joelteon out of 4 boxes to finish the set. Managed to get enough of SOME of the rares that I want to use for decks but no more. In the WotC days I could get this many boxes, finish the set and STILL have enough rares left over to trade and build several decks. I fear the rarity scheme is actualy going to discourage younger players from collecting anymore as it is just too durned hard.
 
Hmm, Looks more like the Yu-Gi-Oh Rarity..

Ebay is the way i got for my yu-gi-oh singles, instead of buying boosters where all you get is junk =/. Like wasting 50-60 bucks just to get one card. while on ebay all you pay is like 15-20 bucks =/.

Yeah, I've had problem with the Sandstorm Blisters, I keep getting the same cards in them except for the holo, but i have no problem with that since there are the best rares in the set.
Shifty, Wobbufet and Espeon ^_^.

But, I've had nice luck with the R/S Blisters, Always got holos in there :D.

I've stopped collecting at Neo: Destiny, it was pointless for me to collect anymore because all i do is play the game instead of being a collector. So ya.

~TruK
 
I bought one box each of R/S and Sandstorm -- the first sets I ever bought boxes of. I may not have gotten many good Rares or Holos, but I got enough to figure out some good decks. I often find myself looking at the Uncommons, and seeing potential. Still, in each case, I'm buying singles to augment my pool of playable cards.
 
aren't EX pokemon inserted at random?

maybe i was lucky with R&S. When i bought my first box, i got about 20 something holos, i think close to 25: 14 EX pokemon and the rest were other holos.
I thought they had laxed the rarity structure though when i got a second box, i got about 15 holos, maybe 5 were EX, standard amount i believe, about 12 holos per box.

I think i would actually like a strengthening of the rarity structure because i would like to see more value come to the cards ($4-$8 for a mint holo? they've got to bring it back to the minimum $10 for a mint holo). It really isn't totally yugioh-ish. isn't there a potential for 3 holos a pack? 1 normal holo, 1 EX pokemon, and 1 fully holo card? or are there no fully holo ones in this set? (that was Expedition, wasn't it?)
 
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My Sandstorm box came in today...
I ended up getting 95 of the 100 cards, missing only 3 holos and 2 ex's.

Of my 12 Holos (2 were the same card), I got 6 Reverse Holos. So yes, it is 1:6. Not liking that, but it still managed to end up 1:3 if you count Reverse Holo Holos as the same as real Holos. (I'm not completely into collecting as I used to be, so Reverse Holo or not doesn't matter.)

I averaged 1 of each Holo.

For rares, I averaged 2-3 each, so that's definitely not bad. And these are "true" rares, mostly not reverse holos.

Uncommons, I averaged 3 each. Not bad either.

Commons, I averaged 4+.

Statistically, an Uncommon may be rarer than a true rare, but somehow I got enough.

I also ended with 6 ex's in all.
In general, I'm not disgusted or disappointed. I actually got a significant number of decent cards with this box. I love smaller sets. You magically get plenty of what you need in the same sized box. ;)
 
For Sandstorm, Holos are 1:3 and ex are 1:3. From the boxes of Sandstorm i've opened, Holos seem to be 1:6 and ex seem to be 1:6. That's because we've wound up with 12 holos (roughly) per box (so together it is 1:3) with ex cards were half of the total. If it were a real 1:3, ex cards should be only 4 out of your total holo count.

As for the other cards, i believe most of the time, we've gotten at least 1 copy of all the cards in the set. Unfortunately often times the one copy was all we got of a card. And in the case of a common, we'd get 1 copy of a card and 10-15 copies of other commons!
 
Early R/S was the BEST to make sets out of.

Sandstorm is not a winner break. For an 85 box (some higher, some lower) you are short of your set.

Sets go for 89-110 each, minus fees, so you lose. Plain and simple.

Do not break sandstorm for sets if you can help it at all!

That's at least with the coalition I have seen

M45
 
It doesn't make sense not to include EX holos in counting the number of Holos you get. I bought 18 sandstorm boosters last week, and I got 4 regular Holos and 2 EX holos. So without counting the EX holos, I got way below average. But if I count them in, I got 6 holos in 18 boosters, which perfectly matches the 1: 3 ratio of holos we've always had.
 
Well, I did notice it weird that I only got 1 holo and 1 ex-Holo out of 10 packs of Sandstorm I bought a while back.

As a collector, I've frankly been disappointed with the pack rarities ever since Expedition. In the sense that with 1 non-holo rare guarenteed in every pack, plus a reverse holo and possible holo rare in ever 3 packs, the odds of getting 3 rares a pack is fairly high. What makes matters worse is that there is only 2 uncommons per pack. I don't know how many boxes it took for me to get MORE than 1 Uncommon in a particular set. .... I was frankly annoyed when I noticed that Nintendo kept the same deal Wizards had for Expedition-Aquapolis-Skyridge. Rares aren't rare any more. :\

Honestly, I wish they'd go back to rarity ratios like way back when. 9 cards could easily work into 5C-3U-1R, with 1 in 3 rares being holo or ex. And the reverse holo could just be any one of them, as in one card is taken out with 1 reverse holo of the same rarity put in it's place.

We can rebuild the pack. We have the technology....
 
When R/S came out, I kept a ratio of 1 EX in every 2 packs. And when they changed the rarity of them, my ratio changed to 1 out of every 3 packs. I recently bought 10 packs of sandstorm and got 12 rares, 6 holos. My friends have bought boxes and all they get is 12 holos total(EX stand for holo). So I guess I get better odds when I buy individual packs. Maybe I have super luck. All I know is that nobody had any Electabuzz EX in my area and they all bought a box. I buy three packs and I get one. Then they all buy another box. Nobody gets it. I buy 5 packs and get another one. Maybe I do have the lucky charm.

MY tip? Pull the packs out and shuffle them before picking the packs to choose. Trust me, it has paid off in the end. My friends all have bought boxes and I have been the only one not to, yet I have the biggest collection of holos/EX. And just to add, I haven't bought a box each in individual packs either. Maybe half a box in individual packs.
 
Interesting comments. Thinking about it a bit more, I think I became a bit spoiled when WOTC released Expedition/Aquapolis/Skyridge and you could easily get at least one version of some rares (holo rare, non-holo rare, reverse-holo rare).

yah TRUkid, regular-holos have the same rarity as super-rares in YuGiOh (1:6 I think). And Meganium, I agree, E-bay is much more economical to complete the new Nintendo sets.

Nick, I like the 5/3/1 idea. It would certainly solve the problem with uncommons being more rare than non-holo rares. But, I still don't like how Nintendo changed the EX rarity scheme since the first printing of R&S.

BJJ, yah, with 14 holos and 8 EX in Sandstorm, you SHOULD get 7-8 holos and 4-5 EX per box on average, not 6 & 6 like it is now.

So, TRUkid also had bad luck pulling rares out of the blisters. Anyone else? I'm really thinking that either the producer is shorting us, or the producer REALLY collated the holos badly. Personally, I'm staying away from the blisters when Dragon comes out (if Nintendo keeps up this ridiculous rarity scheme).
 
If you want rare try finding a free-retreat Maril in the International packs!

Also the R&S International packs never had the EX pokemon classified as 'rares' they were always part of the premium cards.

Open 3 packs and on average you get...

1 premium foil
3 reverse foils
3 rares
6 uncommons
14commons.

for a total of 27 cards.
----------------------------

RS has
22 premiums
13 rares
34 uncommons
40 commons

Sandstorm has
21 premium
13 rares
34 uncommons
33 commons

Expedition has
32 premiums
38+2 rares
22+16 uncommon
44+5 uncommon (the basic energies were never in the boosters)


-------

So what are your odds on opening a pack of getting any particular card?

R&S
premium 1:66
rare 1:13
uncommon 2:34 (ie 1:17!)
commons 14:120 approx 1:9

Sandstorm
premium 1:63
rare 1:13
uncommon 1:17
common 14:99 approx 1:7

Expedition
premium 1:96
rare 1:40
uncommon 1:19
common 14:147 approx 1:11

All of the above assumes that cards within a particular clasification are equally likely.

Note that in every case the Nintendo card is Easier to get that the equivalent from Wotc. Nintendo did go a bit mad in making rares slightly easier to get than uncommons. FWIW I think that what is hapening is that we are seeing our collections completing in a different order and erroneously concluding that the uncommons must be harder to get hold of under Nintendo rather than the correct conclusion that the rares and premiums are much easier to find. Nintendo are giving us a realy good deal on the rares!
 
Edited No need for rudeness. Please keep to the topic at hand and not interject with your personal jealousies.

....ILL JEALOUSLY YOU!!!
 
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eBay is the best way to get ALL the cards you need -- not only for set finishing but deckbuilding as well. Why do you think all the Gardevoir EX's are heading over $8? (YGO's staples cost WAY more -- Pokemon is a much more economical game to play)
 
NoPoke, I can't argue with your math. But, remember how fun it was to open Expedition boosters? You also got a rare with every holo, and possibly a reverse-holo rare. Oh well, I've just been spoiled I guess. I'm just finding out how more economical e-bay is compared to buying boosters, something that many of you have already known for a long time.
 
Well with the reduction in the number of rares in the set a triple-rare pack is less likely with Nintendo that Wotc. However though the tripple rare seems lke a good deal the Nintendo sets are actually superior value for money.
 
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