It is widely believed that booster packs with a higher weight are more likely to have rarer and more valuable art cards inside. Individual booster packs are frequently advertised on selling sites with the word ‘heavy’ suggesting that the weight indicates there will be special cards inside. We decided to find out if the Brilliant Stars pack weight affects the pull rate.
Our Sample Packs
The Brilliant Stars expansion set was released on 25th February 2022. Booster boxes for this set retailed at £125 or $140.
We purchased two sealed booster boxes and decided to use these for our test. We bought our boxes from different suppliers to ensure they were completely random boxes.
Booster boxes contain 36 booster packs and are factory sealed with a plastic covering bearing the Pokémon logo.
After removing the outer sealed covering we began weighing the 72 packs.
Brilliant Stars Pack Weight
We used a highly sensitive digital scale to get an accurate weight for each pack.
The Brilliant pack weights ranged from 22g to 24g.
22g – 20 packs
23g – 41 packs
24g – 11 packs
The Results
We decided not to log the numbers of non-holo rare, reverse holo, uncommon, common or energy cards. We also decided not to log the colour of the code cards since Trainer Gallery cards could be found in any pack in place of the reverse holo cards.
The 22g Packs
The first Brilliant Stars packs to be opened were the 20 x 22g weight packs. 9 packs had no special art or holo cards. The remaining 11 packs had the following cards:
7 Holo Rare
1 x Torterra 008/172
1 x Infernape 026/172
1 x Empoleon 037/172
1 x Dusknoir 062/172
1 x Torterra 081/172
1 x Bibarel 121/172
1 x Boss’s Orders 132/172
3 Half Art Cards
Granbull V 057/172
Morpeko V 095/172
Arceus V 122/172
1 Ultra Rare Card
Kindler 170/172
1 Trainer Gallery Card
Alcremie TG08/TG30
The 23g Packs
The 41 x 23g weight packs were opened next. 21 packs had no art or holo cards The remaining 20 packs had the following cards:
5 Holo Rare
2 x Galarian Moltres 021/172
Infernape 026/172
Dusknoir 062/172
Lucario 079/172
Boss’s Orders 132/172
5 Half Art Cards
Charizard V 017/172
Simisear V 027/172
Whimsicott V 064/172
Mimikyu V 068/172
Honchcrow V 088/172
1 Full Art Card
Kingler VMAX 029/172
3 Ultra Rare Cards
Charizard V 153/172
Lumineon V 156/172
Cynthia’s Ambition 169/172
6 Trainer Gallery Cards
Jolteon TG04/TG30
Zekrom TG05/TG30
Houndoom TG10/TG30
Eevee TG11/TG30
Umbreon VMAX TG23/TG30
Single Strike Urshifu VMAX TG29/TG30
The 24g Packs
The 11 x 24g weight packs were opened next. 7 packs contained no art or holo rare cards. From the remaining 4 packs we pulled.
1 Holo Rare
Lucario 079/172
2 Half Art Cards
Raikou V 048/172
Flygon V 106/172
1 Trainer Gallery Card
Umbreon VMAX TG23/TG30
Conclusion
From the 20 x 22g packs we pulled 7 Holo Rare cards, 3 Half Art V cards, 1 Ultra Rare and 1 Trainer Gallery card – a 60% pull rate.
From the 41 x 23g packs we pulled 5 Holo Rare cards, 5 Half Art V, 1 Full Art VMAX, 3 Ultra Rare and 6 Trainer Gallery Cards – a 49% pull rate.
From the 11 x 24g packs we pulled 1 Holo Rare card, 2 Half Art V cards and 1 Trainer Gallery card – a 36% pull rate.
The results of our Brilliant Stars pack weight experiment show that it is the lighter 22g packs that have the best pull rate.
Excluding Holo Rares from the results gave a different result with the mid range 23g packs having the best pull rate.
20 x 22g packs we pulled 3 Half Art V cards, 1 Ultra Rare and 1 Trainer Gallery card – a 25% pull rate.
From the 41 x 23g packs we pulled 5 Half Art V, 1 Full Art VMAX, 3 Ultra Rare and 6 Trainer Gallery Cards – a 36% pull rate.
From the 11 x 24g packs we pulled 2 Half Art V cards and 1 Trainer Gallery card – a 27% pull rate.
It should be remembered that only 72 packs were used for this experiment. Using a greater number of packs may give a different result.
