Degrees of rarity?

[ScythKing]

I just opened 5 boxes of EX. Yup 5. I got 0 Hariyama #H8, 0 Delcatty #H5, 2 Blaziken #H3, 3 Camerupt #H4, 1 Swampert #H13, 1 Sceptile #H11. Yet I got 6 Aggron #H1, 5 Gardevoir #H7, multiples of every EX card - the lowest count was 4 except for of course 1 Sneasel EX, 1 Mewtwo Ex, 1 Hitmonchan EX ... you get the picture - lots of the stuff that'll never see play and precious little of the really good cards. C'mon! *16* Nosepass, 12 Sharpedos, 10 Blaziken, 8 Seakings, 9 Weezings for my non-holo rares? But only 4 Pelippers. I got a ridiculous amount of darkness, steel and rainbow energy - 4 Linoones.
I could go on but it seems like they know what cards are really good and then make them even rarer than the others that are supposedly at the same level. It has NEVER taken me more than 5 boxes - even with the massive eCard sets - to get a complete set with plenty of good cards left over to build decks and trade with. I'm still 2 cards short of a complete set - a whopping 109 card set including energies - and not enough of the more desirable cards to build a single deck that I had planned on.
I'm really steamed! I got so durned tired of seeing Nosepass, Seaking, Weezings and rainbow energy I wanted to start tearing them up.
Grrrrr - anyone else feel this way?

[GymLeaderPhil]

A friend of mine bought around the same amount of boxes and walked off with nearly twenty seven Breloom.

Obviously something is up, in fact it states on the back of the pack "Premium Card Odds 1:27 cards." What exactly are premium cards? It's certainly not ex Pokemon.
-Phil

[Jeremy Badeaux]

I'm pretty sure you're right about the changes mid-rarity.

My brother has been getting aprox. 1 dark energy in every third pack(not to mention the rainbow and metal).

Also, I've noticed that around Dragons Alley there are easily around twice as many of any given ex pokemon as there are Mewtwo EX's.

[Android17a]

I have found Energy Search in about 1 in three packs I've opened, so far. I also have too many Ralts.

[Omega Ant]

I haven't noticed what you are all talking about (as I bought only a few because it just came near me ). But , did you all noticed that you get only 1 rare 2 uncommon and 6 common ?! That makes me so angry ! WOTC changed the amount from 11 to 9 but that was fine because they added 2 rares :D ! Now that there's only 1 rare it's not worth buying a booster as it was before .

And , if what you all say is true than EX boosters are definitly not worth buying (as they were before - I'm not saying not to buy at all ).

Something should be done . I wanted to complain about this to nintendo but I found no way to cantact the company .

Maybe a couple of complaint letters will make them put 2 rares or at least make them put 11 instead of 9 . And if what u say is true then maybe they'll stop (though I'm not sure this is true ) .

[kingkyle3]

Yeah I know what you mean. I've opened up a box and had a ton of bralooms, metal & dark energy and sceptile yet no holo Blazikens or other holo foils...Don't know if it;s bad luck or what buy something is up.

-DA king

[NoPoke]

I too have noticed that the distribution of cards is very uneven: certainly not a uniform random distribution. I got fed up seeing metal energy as my rare and similarly with multiples of the same reverse foil cards.

Still only have one Lumm berries :(, but managed four Holo Delcattys :).

This was from early USA boosters where the EX cards were included as rares rather than premiums. I don't know if the very uneven distribution of cards was fixed in subsequent print runs. I do know that the EX cards became premium cards in later print runs.

The 9 cards are either

C C C C C U U Rev Rare ( 2 out of three packs like this)
C C C C P U U Rev Rare (1 in three packs like this)

depending upon which booster you get you may have the EX included in either the set of Premium cards or as part of the normal rares.

slightly better that 1in3 odds of a double rare pack. Not sure of the odds of a tripple rare pack (something like 1in12.)

[Gym Leader Blaine]

At the Salt Lake City R&S Challenge this weekend I saw a ton of the players pull Rainbow, Metal, and Dark Energies, which is good for the booster deck building that was used in the Challenge but not for use players that have been playing for awhile. We all should have tons of these energies already. It would be nice if they didnt put as much of these energies in the booster packs. I wonder if Sandstorm will also have them? I hope not.

[NoPoke]

Good Point GLB: skewing the distribution so that the rare energies occur more frequently certainly helps with limited play.

Does make the set harder to collect though :(

If the distribution really is skewed then it would be nice to know as this does influence your play indraft formats.

[Gym Leader Blaine]

I Just hope they dont skew the distribution of the rare energies in Sandstorm cuase of the prerelease tournament limited play. Have we heard if Rainbow, Metel, or Dark energy will even be in the set or not yet?

[ScythKing]

Originally Posted by GymLeaderPhil

A friend of mine bought around the same amount of boxes and walked off with nearly twenty seven Breloom.

Obviously something is up, in fact it states on the back of the pack "Premium Card Odds 1:27 cards." What exactly are premium cards? It's certainly not ex Pokemon. -Phil

The premium cards were the EX - HAH! I'll trade anyone 2-fer EX cards (excluding Hitmo, Mewtwo, and Sneasel which I got precious few of) for any of the holo rares I mentioned. Ditto for the steel, rainbow and darkness energy which I will go 3-fer. No kidding.
Oh yeah - I got boatloads of Breloom too - but at least that's playable so I didn't complain.

[DARKGeNGaR094]

This isn't just a Nintendo thing. Anyone ever looked at WotC distribution? In the beginning of Aquapolis, Scizors were incredibly common, I got about 3/4 in a box, now you only get 1/2. Every set has it's common-rares. I know someone who got 4 sudowoodos out of about 6 neo 3 packs (so I gave him an opened and resealed gym heroes pack with 1 of my too many spare sudowoodos in :D for his birthday:D). I got loads of DGatrs in Neo4 and far too many IOInvention and LMachamps.
And BTW Why are you complaining about too many Nosepass, Blaziken and Sharpedo. They're some of the best rares in the set!

[ScythKing]

Originally Posted by DARKGeNGaR094

And BTW Why are you complaining about too many Nosepass, Blaziken and Sharpedo. They're some of the best rares in the set!

It's more a matter of too many of this - very little of that. Besides - I may have different ideas about a particular cards desirability *cough - NosePass - cough*. Also -f the market is flooded with a gazillion Brelooms then what do I have to trade with? Rarity and trade-ability presume on the distribution being fairly even so your rares are worth the same as any other rares. I don't think that will be the case with these cards.
I will try and do a quick breakdown on exactly what we got in the 5 boxes I opened later tonight. Anyone else with breakdowns are welcome to chime in.

[ScythKing]

I won't list the uncommons and commons - even though I feel shorted on Birches... I also did not count the reverse holos as they are supposedly random.
Holos
2 x Blaziken
3 x Camerupt
2 x Slaking
1 x WailLord
4 x Aggron
3 x Mightyena
3 x Gardevoir
5 x Manectric
3 x Dustox
1 x Beautifly
3 x Sceptile
0 x Delcatty
0 x Hariyama
0 x Swampert
Total = 30

EX Pokemon
1 x Hitmonchan
1 x Chansey
1 x Mewtwo
1 x Sneasel
5 x scyther
4 x Magmar
5 x Electabuzz
5 x Lapras
total = 23

non-holo rares
12 x Blaziken
14 x Breloom
14 x Donphan
16 x Nosepass
12 x Pelipper (erroneously reported at 4 earlier due to a certain youngster glomming them for his decks :-)
11 x Sceptile
12 x Seaking
15 x Sharpedo
13 x Swampert
16 x Weezing
total = 135

finally:
14 Rainbow
12 Steel
15 Darkness
total = 41

Leaving 4 unaccounted for rares and my son swears he had at least 3 packs with no rares. I had a few myself that were packed weird like the rare was #3 in the pack, cards upside down, 4 uncommons - no rare (I did have one), the foil was in the front. So there are some "quality" issues with the packs.
So I guess I can't complain too loudly about the non-holo rares but I am steamed about the holos still. Ridiculous! I don't even want to get into the uncommons because like I said - I know I got shorted on the Birches big time. Now the funny thing is I had several packs where there was both a non-holo and a holo rare. I had a few where I had both AND a reverse foil rare. But as I said I did not count them because they are not supposed to count against the rare distribution. So why am I short on my rares? - about half of the rares were EX cards. A total of 53 holo cards where I should have been expecting 60. If you look at the distribution it's almost like I got shorted 7 EX cards (whup-de-do).

[Baboon]

Statistically, you won't get an exact same number of everything, but I definitely know what you mean. I *only* got 5 Nosepasses, like 4 Brelooms... etc, etc. =\\ But only 1 Holo Delcatty, only 1 Mewtwo ex, and so on.

And as for the Energy, they really should not have as many as they do. I opened 40 EX packs, and pulled like 8 or 9 total of the Special Energy. =\ [EDIT: actually, it's 10: 4 Rainbow, 3 Dark, 3 Metal] That doesn't SOUND like a lot, but it's 10 rares that could have been good Pokemon. (Wouldn't be as frustrated if they weren't reprints, since like everyone already HAS a mountain of Dark/Metal/Rainbows from the Neo1, E1, and E2 printings...)

[viper111]

A friend of mine who won a box of ruby/saphire cards from the challenge pulled out 12 holos, 2 of each ex pokemon except hitmonchan so that would be a total of 14 ex pokemon. I don't know how nintendo allocates their rarity but so far it has been generous to the packs I have already opened. I have opened 2 boxes so far.

[SlimeyGrimey]

There is also one other thing I have noticed. It was very frustrating for my brother when he opened his 16 packs of R/S from the challenge. HE ONLY GOT TWO HOLOS! (Magmar ex, Camerupt) I also noticed that with my box I got ONE HOLO IN THE FIRST THIRTEEN PACKS! We also have huge numbers of Camerupt. I also got 2-3 of each uncommon (except for only 1 Birch) and 3+ of each non-holo rare. The way this set is organized there is almost NO WAY to get a decent card base of it.

[GOROY]

I have the same problem, pack after pack, breloom after breloom,scytherex after scytherex.When the ex pokemon were easier to get, it seemed like the holos were too, now I can't get anything good! :(

[treecko_332]

Has anyone consirdeder buying packs, not boxes. I have only bought 30 packes and am only missing 5 holo-rares, 1 EX-rare, 2 rares and 2 uncommons :( and then I will have the complete set.

[UncleBob]

I have to agree, I buy packs and get a relativly good distribution of cards. It seems to me, though, when I buy large amounts (10+) of packs at one time (from one box) I seem to get more duplicates than when I purchase a few packs here and a few packs there... I've noticed the same thing with the Animal Crossing e-cards.......

Anywhoo, I've wondered if this was something WotC (and now Nintendo) did to discourage people from buying boxes... but we will never know...

However, I'll point out that it's called a *TRADING* card game... so get your butts over to the trading board... ScythKing, I think I have a few of those you listed you were looking for from EX/RS (of course, it helps that I don't want *any* of the holo/foil cards....) Unfortunatly, my cards are in my g/f's car right now and she's not here so I can't double check.... I'll let you know as soon as I can...

[Shining Umbreon]

I got 1 box. I don't know if I can remember everything that was in it, but I'll put down everything I can(holos and rares only). Lessee.....

Holos:
1 Aggron
1 Beautifly
1 Blaziken
1 Camerupt
2 Delcatty
1 Dustox
1 Gardevoir
1 Manectric
1 Mightyena
1 Sceptile
1 Swampert
2 Chansey EX
1 Electabuzz EX
2 Hitmonchan EX
2 Lapras EX
1 Magmar EX
2 Mewtwo EX
2 Scyther EX
2 Sneasel EX

Rares:
2 Blaziken
1 Breloom
1 Donphan
1 Nosepass
2 Pelipper
2 Seaking
2 Sceptile
2 Sharpedo
1 Swampert
1 Weezing
2 Darkness Energy
2 Metal Energy
2 Rainbow Energy

I think that's all. I may have left something out(though I don't think so), but I'm absolutely sure about what's there. I thought it was a pretty nice box. Just 1 box and I only needed 3 holos to finish the set(now I only need one :)). I did notice uneven distribution in the commons and uncommons, but at least I got all of them this time.

[Red5bv06]

Ok, I had 2 boxes.
Here's what I got (not counting reverse holos):

Holofoils:
2 Aggron
1 Beautifly
0 Blaziken :angry:
1 Camerupt
0 Delcatty
0 Dustox (but 1 RH)
2 Gardevoir
1 Hariyama
1 Manectric
1 Mightyena
2 Sceptile
1 Slaking
0 Swampert (1 RH)
0 Wailord (1 RH)

Rares:
5 Blaziken
6 Breloom
7 Donphan
5 Nosepass
5 Pelipper
8 Sceptile
6 Seaking
6 Sharpedo
5 Swampert
6 Weezing
5 Darkness
2 Metal
4 Rainbow

EXs:
1 Chansey EX
1 Electabuzz EX
0 Hitmonchan EX
2 Lapras EX
4 Magmar EX
0 Mewtwo EX (augh!!)
2 Scyther EX
2 Sneasel EX

So, 2 boxes, and missing 4 cards (including RHs, 7 not including). That sounds pretty bad, but when you look at it, the distribution is pretty even. I wish I had gotten more holos, though.

[SteveP]

FYI, the R/S rarity scheme is ALL MESSED UP. At first, the EX cards were normal rares (like the rare energies). Now, they're premium rares (like holo Blaziken). Plus, in the second print run, the chances of pulling a particular normal rare (1:13) are higher than pulling a particular uncommon (1:17). THAT'S JUST NOT RIGHT!

I bought my initial R/S boxes from the first print run and was extremely happy with the distribution of EX and Holo cards. I competed my set quickly. However, after buying a few packs from the second print run (where EX cards are now premiums), I've stopped buying R/S. Although the second print run might be nicer for draft tournaments, it's rarity scheme is certainly not very nice for collectors.

[DOMCGI]

I would like to support the uneven disturbution.

My nephew and I get a total of 32 packs from the Ruby and Sapphire Challenge. We get 6 non-holo Blaziken, 5 non-Holo Sceptile, 7 Darkness Energy, 0 Metal energy.

I get 7 Holo (including EX) and no duplicate.

I believe each batch of shipping could has their own pattern of card. In this Ruby/Sapphire Challenge shipped to Toronto, Darkness Energy and Blaziken is the hottest card.

Wizard of the Coast have the same problem but not as serious as now in Ruby/Sapphire. (I once hear that Ruby/Sapphire is still printed by WOTC, but I cannot confirm) I still recall I don't get the "COMMON" Spearow #130 and Squirtle #131 after opened 2 boxes of Expedition boosters.