The Pokémon Trading Card Game needs to fix its problem with premium cards. Since being introduced, the number of Ultra Rare and Secret Rare Pokémon cards per set has gradually increased. On one hand, this is great news for fans who want to see their favorite Pokémon or characters from the anime series receive special treatment with a Rainbow or Gallery card. However, collectors are finding it too difficult and too expensive to keep up with the high influx of these cards.
For those unfamiliar with how collecting in the Pokémon TCG works, cards are organized into one of three categories: Common, Uncommon, and Rare. Rare is further categorized into four separate groups of increasing rarity, which are Regular Rare, Holo-Foil Rare, Ultra Rare, and Secret Rare. Ideally, dedicated Pokémon card collectors hope to get at least all the Ultra Rares in a given set, as aiming for Secret Rares - the rarest cards of them all - is likely too unrealistic of an objective.
However, recent trends in the Pokémon TCG have made collecting all the Ultra Rares in a set a near impossible task. This is because both the number of cards per set and the proportion of Ultra Rare cards to other cards per set is increasing without the pull rate of Ultra Rare cards being correctly adjusted. The consequence of this set up is that Pokémon TCG card collectors have to spend a lot more money on packs without any real increase in their odds to collect valuable cards.
How Bad The Pokémon TCG’s Ultra Rare Problem Has Gotten
YouTuber Danny Phantump crunched the numbers on the Pokémon TCG’s set releases and Ultra Rares back in 2021, and the results were indicative of how expensive it has become to collect cards. For 17 years, the Pokémon TCG only released between 200 and 600 original cards per year with the number of Ultra Rares per set ranging between 10 and 30. Since 2017, though, Pokémon card sets have only increased in size, resulting in 700 to 1200 new cards every year. The number of Ultra Rares has also been raised, jumping to anywhere between 50 and 110 cards per set. With four sets per year, that means there is around to 200 to 440 Ultra Rare cards for Pokémon fans to collect every single year.
The sheer number of Ultra Rares in the Pokémon TCG - let alone Commons and Uncommons - is enough to make collectors fear for their wallets. However, what has made the situation worse for the Pokémon TCG is that the pulling rate of Ultra Rares has not been correctly adjusted for the new proportion of Ultra Rares to sets. For example, 2022’s Pokémon TCG: Astral Radiance had 246 new cards, of which 58 were Ultra Rares, 26 were Secret Rares, and 30 were Trainer Gallery cards. This meant that around 46% of all available cards (nearly half) in the set were valuable for collectors.
However, TCGPlayer found from a sample size of 8000 Astral Radiance Booster Packs that the pull rate for any of those types of cards was under 32% (less than a third). This showcases just how hard it is for players to get the cards they want when deck sizes grow too big and pull rates do not adjust. If the Pokémon TCG wants to fix this problem, it either needs to decrease set sizes or adjust the pull rates of cards like Ultra Rares to accurately reflect the state of the game.
Sources: TCGPlayer, Danny Phantump / YouTube