Delta Reign does not release until November 6, but we now know enough about the English set to start looking at one of the numbers that matters most for collectors: the size of the Special Illustration Rare pool.
The set will contain 14 Illustration Rares, 17 Ultra Rares and just six Special Illustration Rares. Mega Rayquaza ex is the obvious headliner, with Mega Golisopod ex and other cards from Japan’s Storm Emeralda expected to fill out the high end of the set.
Six SIRs is not a lot.
That does not automatically mean Delta Reign will have easy pull rates. Pokémon controls how frequently an SIR appears in the first place, and we will not know the real odds until enough English packs are opened.
But a smaller SIR pool does change the math once you actually hit one.
Six SIRs Changes the Chase
There are two different odds collectors sometimes combine when talking about pull rates.
The first is the chance of pulling an SIR from a pack. The second is the chance that the SIR you pull is the specific card you want.
Those are not the same thing.
If every SIR were printed at roughly equal frequency, a set with six SIRs would theoretically give you about a one in six chance of getting a particular card after hitting the SIR rarity. A set with 15 or 20 SIRs makes that individual card considerably harder to hit.
That is why Delta Reign’s six card pool immediately caught my attention.
We still need the first number. If Pokémon makes SIRs substantially harder to pull in Delta Reign, the smaller checklist may not help much. But if the overall SIR rate remains anywhere near previous Mega Evolution sets, chasing a specific SIR could be more realistic than the size of the full set suggests.
For most collectors, that specific card is going to be Mega Rayquaza ex.
Mega Rayquaza Is Going to Control This Set
There is not much mystery about which Pokémon will drive Delta Reign.
Mega Rayquaza is returning to the English Pokémon TCG as the centerpiece of the expansion, and the Japanese Storm Emeralda release has already given collectors a preview of the artwork that should sit at the top of the English market.
Rayquaza also has something most modern chase Pokémon do not have: a long history of expensive cards.
Rayquaza VMAX from Evolving Skies, older Rayquaza EX cards and several vintage era Rayquaza releases have already established the character as one of the stronger collector Pokémon in the hobby. Mega Rayquaza adds another layer of nostalgia for collectors who grew up during the XY era.
That makes the Delta Reign SIR an obvious candidate to become one of the biggest cards in the set.
The mistake would be assuming that automatically means its release price will be justified.
A Smaller SIR Pool Could Put Pressure on Prices
This is where Delta Reign gets interesting.
Mega Rayquaza ex could have enormous demand while still becoming easier to pull than collectors initially expect.
If SIRs appear at a reasonable rate and there are only six possibilities, the number of Rayquaza copies entering the market could increase quickly during release week. Delta Reign is going to be opened heavily, especially with Rayquaza on the packs and product artwork.
That creates two forces working against each other.
Demand pushes Rayquaza higher. Opening volume pushes supply higher.
The first few days usually tell us very little about where those forces eventually balance. Early buyers are competing for a limited number of copies while thousands of booster boxes have not even been opened yet.
That is why I would be very careful with the first market prices attached to Mega Rayquaza ex.
A card can be the best card in the set and still fall significantly after release.
Japan Gives Us a Preview, Not a Price Guide
Storm Emeralda gives us useful information because we already know which cards collectors are gravitating toward. Mega Rayquaza is clearly the centerpiece of the Japanese release, and that is unlikely to change when Delta Reign arrives in English.
What I would not do is take the Japanese price and simply convert it into an expected English price.
The two markets are different.
English print volume is different, grading demand is different and the amount of product opened during the first few weeks can be dramatically different. Japanese prices can help identify which artwork has real collector demand, but they are much less reliable for predicting exactly where the English card will settle.
For Pokeforecast, the Japanese market is most useful as an early demand signal.
The English release will tell us what happens when that demand meets English supply.
The Kyogre Decision Makes the Set Even More Interesting
There is another change to Delta Reign that could slightly affect the chase pool.
The Kyogre Illustration Rare from Storm Emeralda is not expected to appear as a normal Illustration Rare in the English set. Instead, Pokémon is using the artwork as the promo included with the Delta Reign Elite Trainer Box.
For collectors, I like this decision.
Rather than opening packs trying to pull Kyogre, anyone who wants the artwork has a guaranteed route through the ETB. It also gives the Delta Reign ETB a much stronger collector identity than a box containing an unrelated promo.
The Pokémon Center version will be the one I watch most closely once it becomes available. If it follows the normal Pokémon Center ETB format, the exclusive stamped version of the promo could end up being considerably more interesting than the regular Kyogre promo over the long term.
That is a sealed product story worth revisiting when preorders actually open.
What We Still Do Not Know
The most important Delta Reign number has not been revealed yet.
We do not know the actual English SIR pull rate.
Until we have a large enough sample of opened packs, anyone giving precise odds is guessing. The fact that there are six SIRs tells us about the size of the pool, not how frequently Pokémon inserts that rarity into packs.
That distinction matters.
If SIRs average one in 80 packs, six possible cards creates one type of market. If they average one in 300 packs, the exact same six card checklist creates a completely different one.
This is why I would not call Mega Rayquaza easy to pull just because Delta Reign has fewer SIRs.
We need both sides of the equation.
What I Will Be Watching
Once Delta Reign releases, the first thing I want to see is the SIR pull rate across a large number of packs. Small opening samples are useful for getting an early idea, but they can also produce wildly misleading numbers.
After that, Mega Rayquaza’s supply will be the number to watch.
If hundreds of copies begin hitting the market and the price remains unusually strong, that tells us demand is absorbing the new supply. If listings increase rapidly while prices begin falling, the smaller SIR pool may be producing more Rayquaza copies than early buyers expected.
I would also watch the gap between Mega Rayquaza and the other five SIRs.
A huge gap would tell us Delta Reign is behaving like a top heavy set where one card absorbs most of the collector value. A tighter spread would suggest the set has more depth than Rayquaza alone.
Those are much more useful signals than the first few sales on release day.
My Early Read on Delta Reign
Six Special Illustration Rares makes Delta Reign more interesting, but it does not necessarily make it easier.
The smaller pool should improve your odds of getting the SIR you want once you hit that rarity. What we cannot determine yet is how difficult hitting an SIR will actually be.
That is the number that will decide a lot about Mega Rayquaza’s market.
If Pokémon keeps SIR pull rates relatively reasonable, Delta Reign could put a surprising amount of Mega Rayquaza supply into circulation. In that scenario, I would expect the early market price to have trouble holding once release week opening volume catches up.
If SIRs are significantly tougher, the six card pool becomes much less important and Rayquaza could remain genuinely difficult to pull.
Either way, I would not chase the card based on release week hype alone.
Mega Rayquaza can be the best card in Delta Reign without being the best buy on November 6.
