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. Here are the results of our Crown Zenith pack weight analysis.
Our Sample Packs
The Crown Zenith expansion set was released on 20th January 2023. As a special expansion set, booster packs are not sold separately and can only be obtained by purchasing special boxes and tins.
The set contains 160 cards plus a Galarian Gallery of 70 art cards. Galarian Gallery cards take the place of Reverse Holo cards so a pack can have more than one art card.
We purchased five sealed Elite Trainer Boxes to use for our test. The Elite Trainer boxes each contain 10 booster packs giving us a total of 50 booster packs to analyse. We bought the products from two different suppliers to ensure they were completely random boxes.
Although a huge number of packs should be opened to get a truly definitive answer to this question, most people only buy one or two booster boxes and we wanted to emulate the experience of the average Pokémon fan.
After removing the booster packs from the boxes we began weighing the 50 packs.
Crown Zenith Pack Weight
We used a highly sensitive digital scale to get an accurate weight for each pack. The weights ranged from 21.85g to 22.54g. We rounded the weights to 1 decimal point giving us 5 different weights – 22.1g, 22.2g, 22.3g, 22.4g and 22.5g.
The numbers of packs within each weight category were:
22.1g – 11 packs
22.2g – 9 packs
22.3g – 11 packs
22.4g – 9 packs
22.5 – 10 packs
The Results
We decided not to log the numbers of reverse holo, holo rare, uncommon, common or energy cards.
The 22.1g Packs
The first Crown Zenith packs to be opened were the 11 x 22.1g weight packs. Interestingly, there were no art cards in any of these packs.
The 22.2g Packs
The 9 x 22.2g weight packs were opened next. 8 packs had no art or special cards The other pack contained Glacian V 038/159.
The 22.3g Packs
The 11 x 22.3g weight packs were opened next. 2 packs contained no art or holo rare cards. From the remaining 9 packs we pulled.
1 x Duraludon V 103/159
1 x Elesa’s Sparkle 147/159
1 x Fire Energy 153/159
1 x Manaphy GG06/GG70
1 x Toxtricity GG09/GG70
1 x Comfey GG14/GG70
1 x Pikachu GG30/GG70
2 x Arceus VSTAR GG70/GG70
The 22.4g Packs
The 9 x 22.4g weight packs were opened next. 1 pack contained no art or holo rare cards. From the remaining 9 packs we pulled:
1 x Rayquaza VMAX 101/159
1 x Rayquaza VMAX 102/159
1 x Radiant Eternatus 105/159
1 x Fighting Energy 157/159
1 x Pikachu 160/159
1 x Kricketune GG02/GG70
1 x Lunatone GG17/GG70
1 x Suicune GG38/GG70
1 x Zamazenta V GG54/GG70
The 22.5g Packs
The 10 x 22.5g weight packs were the last packs to be opened. 3 packs contained no art or holo rare cards. From the remaining 7 packs we pulled:
1 x Zamazenta V 098/159
1 x Rayquaza V 100/159
1 x Darkness Energy 158/159
1 x Thievul GG17/GG70
1 x Bidoof GG29/GG70
1 x Mareep GG34/GG70
1 x Deoxys GG46/GG70
1 x Hoopa V GG53/GG70
1 x Adaman GG57/GG70
Conclusion
From the 11 x 22.1g packs we pulled no art cards – a 0% pull rate.
From the 9 x 21.2g packs we pulled just 1 art card – a 11% pull rate
From the 11 x 22.3g packs we pulled 9 packs had art cards, 3 from the main set and 6 from the Galarian Gallery – an 81% pull rate
Of the 9 x 22.4g packs, 8 had art cards, 5 from the regular set and 4 from the Galarian Gallery – a 88% pull rate
7 of the 10 22.5 packs had art cards, 3 from the main set and 7 from the Galarian Gallery – a 70% pull rate
The results of our Crown Zenith pack weight experiment appears to show that heavier packs have a better pull rate than lighter packs. However, there was less than 1g difference between the lightest and the heaviest pack so it is clear that Pokémon are trying to balance pack weights. Additionally, because Galarian Gallery cards may be the second Art Card pulled in a pack this could account for the heavier packs having a greater pull rate.
It should also be remembered that only 50 packs were used for this experiment. Using a greater number of packs may give a different result.
