It is widely believed that booster packs with a higher weight are more likely to have rarer and more valuable art cards inside. Is this theory true for the Battle Styles expansion set? We decided to find out if Battle Styles pack weight affected the pull rate. At the same time we analysed whether different artworks were more or less likely to contain rarer cards.
Our Sample Packs
Booster packs for the Battle Styles expansion are available as single Booster Packs, in special Collection boxes and tins as well as in Booster Boxes.
A Booster Box is a sealed product containing 36 sealed Booster Packs. We decided that this would be ideal for our experiment.
After unsealing the box we sorted the packs into the four different artworks. We had:
8 packs with Empoleon artwork
8 packs with Urshifu Red artwork
9 packs with Tyranitar artwork
11 packs with Urshifu Blue artwork
Battle Styles Pack Weight
We used a highly sensitive digital scale to get an accurate weight for each pack.
The Battle Styles pack weight ranged from 22g to 24g.
From the 8 Empoleon packs:
2 x 22g
5 x 23g
1 x 24g
From the 8 Urshifu Red packs:
6 x 23g
2 x 24g
From the 9 Tyranitar packs:
3 x 22g
5 x 23g
1 x 24g
From the 11 Urshifu Blue Packs:
7 x 23g
4 x 24g
With the weights logged by pack artwork we began opening the packs.
The Results
All packs had the usual energy card, reverse holo card, 3 x uncommon and 5 x common cards and these were not logged. We also decided not to log the non-holo rare cards. We did log the colour of the code cards – white code cards signify the presence of a holo, half art or full art card, while green code cards indicate no special cards.
The 22g Packs
The first Battle Styles packs to be opened were the 5 x 22g weight packs.
The 2 Empoleon 22g packs contained green code cards and no special art cards.
The 3 Tyranitar 22g packs revealed 2 white and 1green code card. From these packs we pulled:
1 x Tyranitar V 097/163
1 x Exp. Share gold secret rare 180/163
The 23g Packs
Next we opened the 23 x 23g packs
The 6 Urshifu Red packs contained 2 white and 4 green code cards. Inside we found:
2 x Holo cards – Sandaconda 082/163 and Bronzong 102/163
The 7 Urshifu Blue packs revealed 4 white and 3 green code cards. From the packs with the white code cards we pulled:
2 x Half Art V cards – Kricketune 006/163 and Stoutland V 117/163 and 2 Holo cards – Entei 020/163 and Steelix 099/163
The 5 Tyranitar packs contained 3 white and 2 green codes. These revealed:
1 x Tyranitar V Half Art 097/163 and 2 Holo cards – Entei 020/163 and Aegislash 107/163
The 5 Empoleon packs revealed 2 white and 3 green code cards. From these we pulled:
1 x Corviknight Full Art 156/163 and 1 Holo card – Octillery 037/163
The 24g Packs
Lastly we opened the 8 Battle Styles 24g weight packs.
The Empoleon and Tyranitar artwork packs contained green codes and therefor no special art cards.
The 2 Urshifu Red packs revealed 1 green and 1 white code cards. From the white code card pack we pulled:
1 x Victini VMAX 022/163
The 4 Urshifu Blue packs contained 2 green and 2 white code cards. These packs gave us:
1 x Mimikyu V Half Art 062/163 and 1 x Holo – Crobat 091/163
Conclusion
In conclusion our weight experiment suggests that the Battle Styles pack weight makes little difference to the pull rate.
From the 5 x 22g packs we pulled 1 Secret Rare and 1 Half Art card, a 40% pull rate.
From the 23 x 23g packs we pulled 1 Full Art card, 3 Half Art cards and 7 Holo cards, a 48% pull rate.
From the 8 x 24g packs we pulled 1 Full Art card, 1 Half Art card and 1 Holo card, a 38% pull rate.
Does Pack Art Make a Difference?
In addition to examining the pull rate of the different weight packs we also logged results by artwork. Here the results appear more conclusive.
We had 8 packs with Urshifu Red artwork. From these we pulled 1 x Full Art card and 2 x Holo cards, a 38% pull rate.
The 8 packs with Empoleon artwork revealed 1 x Full Art card and 1 x Holo, a 25% pull rate.
The 9 Tyranitar artwork packs contained 1 x Secret Rare card, 2 x Half Art cards and 2 x Holo cards, a 56% pull rate.
The 11 packs with Urshifu Blue artwork revealed 3 Half Art cards and 3 Holo cards, a 55% pull rate.
The results from this Booster Box would suggest that packs with Tyranitar or Urshifu Blue are preferable, however our experiment looking at the pull rate of Battle Styles with a different Booster Box was less conclusive.
