While it usually takes a good few days before we get the more official pull rate numbers for any new Pokémon TCG set, early evidence is showing the 30th Celebration to be the most generous set in years. We’re talking Crown Zenith levels of good pulls, with more than one in two packs having at least an ex card, and the best rates on Special Illustration Rares of all time. And that’s despite this set having half the number of cards in each pack. As a result, for the first time in two years, it means the resale market has absolutely flattened!
The 30th Celebration follows the pattern we’re now seeing every five years, with Pikachu stamps on every card, and a combination of new cards and reprinted classics. The difference this time is that, for the first time ever, international audiences are getting these cards at the same time as Japan, with the bizarre side effect of the rest of the world also getting only five cards a pack, as is the norm in Japan. But despite half the cards from which to hit your luck, the pull rates shown by YouTubers tearing through hundreds of packs are indicating a better than one in two chance of getting an ex or better. And there’s a lot of better.
The 30th Celebration is unique in many ways. Every card in every pack is at least a holo, and every pack comes with a holo energy card, and a guaranteed holo Pikachu from a subset of 30 cards featuring the yellow mouse. There are the now-familiar ex cards, a huge range of Illustration Rares (IRs), Special Illustration Rares (SIRs), and some new Future Rare cards featuring Mew and Mewtwo. But on top of that, there’s also the Classic Collection, 30 fan-favorite cards from across the last 30 years, including the original base set holo Charizard, the Gengar Prime, up to that glorious Magikarp from Paldea Evolved. And then, on top of all that, there are three RGB Mew cards so rare that The Pokémon Company won’t even acknowledge they exist (and might not for months).
A new crown
When Crown Zenith—the climactic set for the Sword & Shield era—first released in January 2023, fans rejoiced. The special set had a hit rate on another level, with a 50-percent chance of finding a V card or better, and had its incredible Galarian Gallery of exceptionally beautiful cards that weren’t impossible to pull. It was so good, in fact, that it caused the opening era of Scarlet & Violet sets to feel anticlimactic and unpleasantly stingy.
In the three years since, those pull rates have only gotten more cruel, with The Pokémon Company International choosing to guarantee a holo in every pack (thus making them bulk) and flooding sets with the new version of ex cards, alongside increasingly rare IRs and SIRs. The latter, the most desirable and intricately illustrated cards, have become so ridiculously hard to find that you’re unlikely to see even one in a 36-pack booster box. I believe I went three sets in a row, opening 50 packs a set, without seeing a single one. And this, of course, has only made the scalping misery that has put the PTCG in a quagmire for two years much worse.
But for now, for this set at least, that’s all changing. And it’s having the excellent effect of already seeing prices tumbling to pre-bubble levels. Even the Future Rare Mew and Mewtwo, initially being priced at around $1,000 on release day, are now selling for around $150. Why? Because people can pull them from packs! Kids and collectors are able to get the cards they want the most, and in a volume that prevents scalpers and resellers from being able to charge ludicrous amounts.
It usually takes two or three weeks from the release day for prices to sensibly level out, so we could see even these numbers come down (or, as the market figures itself out, in some cases go up). Those buying cards to gamble on riches are out of luck, and thank god.
While we need to wait a few days before the usual suspects do their full calculations on 30th Celebration to get official pull rates, the results are there to see on any number of YouTube channels.
The excruciating Leon Hart also opened 151 packs and saw very similar results, pulling both the Mew and Mewtwo Future Rares in under 50 packs. Meanwhile, pull rate expert Danny Phantump has begun his experiments and is seeing great results, with plans to reveal figures on Friday.
DigitalTQ has some early numbers too, but these are based on a far larger 420 packs. This shows the Mew and Mewtwo at an almost 1 percent chance of showing up, which is significantly higher than we were seeing for Hyper Rares in previous sets. Most striking is the frequency of SIRs, which are reported at 5.24 percent, four to five times higher than the rates seen in Scarlet & Violet and Mega Evolution sets over the last four years. SIRs have been limited for so long to around 1 in 80 packs, making them miserable to get hold of, but this has now leapt up to better than 1 in 20 packs.
Illustration Rares, meanwhile, double in frequency, appearing in one in every five packs, rather than every ten. It means if you get an Elite Trainer Box or collection box, there’s a really strong chance of getting at least one gorgeous full art card, making the hobby just so much more fun. And, equally importantly, deflating the power of scalpers and resellers.
There are still those RGB Mews in there, meaning there’s still the thrill of hunting down something extraordinarily rare for those who need it. There are no official figures on these yet, given how few have been pulled so far, but rumors suggest they could be as rare as one in every 20,000 packs.
At bloody last. While there is little reason to believe this could be the beginning of a new trend, given the pleasure of Crown Zenith was immediately shot down by Scarlet & Violet‘s sets, it’s still something to celebrate for now. And it’s a rare joy to see those resale prices plummeting.
