I simulated how many Pokémon Pocket booster packs you’d need to open to collect every card in each set.
Each boxplot shows the distribution of total packs required across repeated simulations (each dot = one run, 25 runs for each set).
At the bottom are the corresponding booster pack designs.

Data & Method:

  • Pull rates for each rarity were taken directly from the Pokémon Pocket app ("god packs" and "baby packs" were implemented).
  • For each set, I repeatedly simulated random pulls using those rarity probabilities until all cards were collected.
  • The boxplots summarize how many packs were needed across all simulations.
  • For sets with multiple booster artworks (e.g., Genetic Apex), I didn’t separate artwork-specific cards (like Pikachu variants), which might slightly inflate the total pack count.
  • Example video shown for Deluxe Pack EX (bottom): each image = one pull.

Tools: Python.

Edit : I'm trying to crosspost it to r/PTCGP, but they currently do not allow crossposts.

Posted by Coti_ledon

4 comments

  1. Actually kinda cool to visualise like this. The Deluxe pack being a massive outlier *and* limited to just 30 days is a shame. Collectors are gonna have a big ol’ gap after this month is done with or there’s gonna be a lot of value on those cards trading wise when it’s gone.

    Should also be noted that you get 2 free packs a day, so yeah if you don’t pay, this can look impossible.

  2. I don’t know if it would change much but you could implement an early stop when [total amount of pack points] > [total pack point value of missing cards]

    I’d actually be pretty interested in how much the results change

  4. How many would you need if you were two people opening, trading each other for cards you are missing.

    Twice as many? Maybe you need to get that one rare card twice.

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