Pokémon 30th Celebration has only been out for a little over a day, and pull rate numbers are already everywhere.
Depending on where you look, a Futuristic Rare might be listed at one in 99 packs, one in 117, or somewhere considerably wider. RGB Mew is even worse. I have seen numbers ranging from roughly one in 3,200 packs to claims of one in 20,000.
That makes it tempting to wait until there is one agreed upon number for every rarity. I do not think that is going to happen anytime soon, especially for the rarest cards in the set.
The better approach is to look at the opening data we actually have, separate the rates that are beginning to become reliable from the ones that are not, and stop pretending every early estimate carries the same level of confidence.
The good news is that after thousands of packs, we are starting to get a pretty clear picture of most of 30th Celebration.
The Pull Rates Are Not as Different as They Look
The two largest datasets circulating right now are based on more than 4,000 and 6,500 packs.
The 4,063 pack sample recorded Double Rares at approximately one in four packs, Illustration Rares at one in 5.2, Classic Collection cards at one in 9.8, Special Illustration Rares at one in 18 and Futuristic Rares at one in 99.
The larger 6,500 plus pack dataset puts the major rarities at approximately one in four for Double Rares, one in five for Illustration Rares, one in 10 for Classic Collection cards, one in 20 for SIRs and one in 117 for Futuristic Rares.
At first glance, those numbers look different. In practice, most of them are telling us almost exactly the same thing.
An Illustration Rare appearing once every 5.2 packs in one sample and roughly once every five packs in another is not a meaningful disagreement. Neither is an SIR appearing once every 18 packs compared with once every 20.
Random packs are never going to produce perfectly identical results.
If the real SIR rate were one in 20, opening 4,000 packs would not necessarily produce exactly 200 SIRs. One sample could run slightly hot and another slightly cold. That variation is expected.
That is why I would rather use ranges than pretend we already know the exact odds.
The Early 30th Celebration Pull Rate Range
Based on the larger opening samples available so far, this is the range I am comfortable using:
| Rarity | Early Estimated Pull Rate |
|---|---|
| Double Rare | About 1 in 4 to 5 packs |
| Illustration Rare | About 1 in 5 to 6 packs |
| Classic Collection | About 1 in 9 to 11 packs |
| Special Illustration Rare | About 1 in 17 to 22 packs |
| Futuristic Rare | About 1 in 75 to 135 packs |
| RGB Mew | Too early to know |
These are community estimates, not official Pokémon pull rates. The Pokémon Company has not published odds for these rarity tiers.
That distinction is important. These numbers will get better as more packs are opened, and some of the ranges will tighten. But I think we already have enough data to understand how most of the set was designed.
RGB Mew is a different story.
SIRs Look Much Easier to Pull Than Many Collectors Expected
The most important number for the normal chase cards might be the SIR rate.
Multiple opening datasets are clustering around one SIR every 20 packs. Even allowing for some movement as the sample grows, it is becoming difficult to argue that SIRs are exceptionally difficult pulls in 30th Celebration.
That has major implications for singles prices.
There are 10 SIRs in the set, so pulling an SIR does not mean you are pulling the exact card you want. You could still open a significant amount of product without seeing a specific chase.
But there is a big difference between a card being difficult to pull individually because it shares a rarity with nine other cards and the entire rarity itself being extremely scarce.
That distinction matters when evaluating release week prices.
Collectors were paying enormous presale premiums for some of these cards when almost no supply existed. Now thousands of packs are being opened and SIRs are entering the market at a fairly steady rate.
We are already seeing what happens next. Prices that looked reasonable when only a handful of copies existed can change very quickly once the actual supply begins reaching eBay and TCGplayer.
Futuristic Rares Need a Little More Time
Mew ex and Mewtwo ex are more difficult to evaluate.
One large sample produced a Futuristic Rare approximately once every 99 packs. Another estimate puts the rate closer to one in 117.
That is close enough that I am becoming comfortable saying Futuristic Rares appear to be somewhere around the one in 100 pack range, but I would not treat 1 in 99 or 1 in 117 as the definitive rate.
The reason is simple: there are far fewer Futuristic Rare observations.
If you open 6,500 packs and something appears every five packs, you have more than a thousand observations to work with. If something appears roughly every 100 packs, you may only have around 65.
A few additional hits or misses can move the estimated rate much more dramatically.
For now, I think a range of roughly one in 75 to one in 135 is more useful than attaching a precise number to the rarity.
What is becoming clear is that Futuristic Rares are legitimately difficult pulls. They are substantially scarcer than SIRs, and there are only two of them.
That gives Mew and Mewtwo a much stronger scarcity argument than most of the regular chase cards in the set.
It still does not mean their release week prices are sustainable.
RGB Mew Is Where the Numbers Fall Apart
This is the part of the pull rate discussion where I think collectors need to be particularly careful.
One of the largest detailed samples tracked 4,063 packs and found one RGB Mew.
It would be very easy to take that result and publish:
RGB Mew pull rate: 1 in 4,063 packs.
That is not what the data proves.
One hit is simply not enough information.
The collector behind that dataset calculated that the actual rate could plausibly be somewhere between roughly one in 700 and one in 23,000 packs based on the sample.
That is an enormous range, but that is exactly the point.
We do not know yet.
Another dataset covering more than 6,500 packs has been widely reported as producing a rate of roughly one in 3,200. Meanwhile, the claim that RGB Mew is a one in 20,000 pack pull continues to circulate throughout the hobby.
None of those numbers should be treated as an established pull rate right now.
The 1 in 20,000 figure is particularly problematic because it has spread quickly despite never being confirmed by Pokémon. It appears to trace back to an alleged print facility source, and there is still uncertainty over whether the claim referred to any RGB Mew or one specific color.
That difference alone would completely change the math.
Until substantially more RGB Mews are pulled from documented openings, I would not attach a specific pull rate to them.
Rare Cards Need Much Bigger Samples
This is one of the easiest things to miss when looking at pull rate charts.
A 6,500 pack sample sounds enormous, and for common rarity tiers it is.
For something that appears once every four or five packs, it gives us a lot of useful information. Even an SIR at roughly one in 20 produces hundreds of observations across samples that large.
But if RGB Mew really is a one in several thousand pack card, 6,500 packs is not a huge sample anymore.
You may only be looking at one or two hits.
That is why two legitimate opening datasets can produce dramatically different RGB estimates without either one being wrong. The card is simply too rare for the available sample to tell us much yet.
We need more packs.
Pull Rates Are Already Affecting Prices
Before release, collectors were trying to price cards without knowing how much supply would actually exist. A beautiful card with enormous demand can justify a high price, but scarcity still matters.
Now we are learning that many of the regular chase cards are not nearly as difficult to pull as their presale prices implied.
That does not make them undesirable. It changes the supply side of the equation.
If SIRs really settle somewhere around one in 20 packs, thousands of additional copies are going to enter the market as 30th Celebration continues to be opened. The individual chase cards will still have different prices because demand for Mew, Pikachu, Gengar and other popular Pokémon is not equal.
But rarity alone will not be enough to support some of the prices we saw before release.
Futuristic Rares are different because the supply appears substantially tighter.
RGB Mew could be in another category entirely.
We just do not have enough evidence to know how far apart those categories really are yet.
My Read
I would not call the 30th Celebration pull rates confirmed.
I also would not say we know nothing.
After thousands of packs, the Double Rare, Illustration Rare, Classic Collection and SIR numbers are starting to cluster closely enough that we can make useful estimates. Futuristic Rare is beginning to take shape too, although I want a larger sample before narrowing the range.
RGB Mew is the one I would ignore almost every definitive number for right now.
The card may ultimately prove to be one of the rarest modern Pokémon cards we have seen. It may also turn out to be considerably easier to pull than some of the early claims suggest. Both possibilities are still consistent with the limited data available today.
That uncertainty matters when copies are already selling for thousands of dollars.
For now, the most accurate RGB Mew pull rate is not one in 3,200, one in 4,063 or one in 20,000.
It is too early to know.
