Why is the Obsidian Flames Pull Rate Important?
The pull rate of a set is one of the most important metrics for any fan of the game. The pull rate is the ratio of packs that have rare art cards to those that don’t. Sets that have a good pull rate tend to be more popular than those with a low pull rate.
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 at most and we wanted to emulate the experience of the average Pokémon fan by determining the Obsidian Flames Pull Rate of three random booster boxes.
The Obsidian Flames Set
The Obsidian Flames Set is the third expansion set of the Scarlet and Violet Series. It was released on 11th August 2023 with a presale price of around £110 ($120). We ordered our boxes from three different suppliers to ensure they were completely random boxes.
New booster boxes are sealed a with clear film covering which has the Pokémon logo imprinted in white.
Each booster box contains 36 sealed booster packs. The booster packs for this set have five different artworks featuring terastalized Pokémon – Charizard, Tyranitar, Dragonite and Revavroom
How good is the Paldea Evolved pull rate?
The Scarlet and Violet Base Series introduced a revamping of rarity categories with each type of rare card having its own unique symbol. Non-holo rare cards were discontinued meaning all rare cards were holographic. For the purpose of our pull rate test we deemed a pull to be an art card – Double Rare, Ultra Rare, Illustration Rare, Special Illustration Rare or Hyper Rare.
The Obsidian Flames Set contains 230 cards and includes 21 Double Rare Cards, 12 Illustration Rare Cards, 6 Special Illustration Rare Cards, 12 Ultra Rare Cards and 3 Hyper Rare Gold Cards.
In addition to logging the overall Obsidian Flames pull rate we also logged the pull rate for each pack art design – Charizard, Tyranitar, Dragonite and Revavroom.
Obsidian Flames Pull Rate Results by Pack Art
Our three booster boxes contained 108 Booster Packs:
27 Charizard artwork, 27 Tyranitar, 27 Dragonite and 27 Revavroom.
Charizard Artwork
Our 27 packs featuring Charizard included 18 that had no art cards.
From the other 9 packs we pulled:
096/197 Vespiquen ex (Double Rare)
102/197 Houndstone ex (Double Rare)
153/197 Melmetal ex (Double Rare)
200/197 Palafin (Illustration Rare)
207/197 Pidgey (Illustration Rare)
212/197 Vespiquen ex (Ultra Rare)
215/197 Absol ex (Ultra Rare)
227/197 Poppy (Special Illustration Rare)
228/197 Charizard ex (Hyper Rare)
This represents a pull rate of 33.3%
Tyranitar Artwork
Out of the 27 packs featuring Tyranitar, 20 packs had no art cards. From the remaining 7 packs, one pack had two art cards making a total of 8 cards pulled:
015/197 Decidueye ex (Double Rare)
135/197 Absol ex (Double Rare)
159/197 Dragonite ex (Double Rare)
203/197 Larvitar (Illustration Rare)
205/197 Scizor (Illustration Rare)
213/197 Glimmora ex (Ultra Rare)
219/197 Ortega (Ultra Rare)
225/197 Pidgeot ex (Special Illustration Rare)
This represents a pull rate of 29.6%
Dragonite Artwork
Out of our 27 packs, 19 packs contained no art cards. From the other 8 packs we pulled:
022/197 Toedscruel ex (Double Rare)
079/197 Miraidon ex (Double Rare)
124/197 Koraidon ex (Double Rare)
201/197 Bellibolt (Illustration Rare)
202/197 Cleffa (Illustration Rare)
215/197 Charizard ex (Ultra Rare)
221/197 Ryme (Ultra Rare)
228/197 Charizard ex (Hyper Rare)
This represents a pull rate of 29.6%
Revavroom Artwork
Our 27 packs featuring Revavroom included 16 that had no art cards. From the remaining11 packs, one pack had two art cards making a total of 12 cards pulled:
033/197 Victini ex (Double Rare)
082/197 Clefable ex (Double Rare)
066/197 Tyranitar ex (Double Rare)
156/197 Revavroom ex (Double Rare)
164/197 Pidgeot ex (Double Rare)
179/197 Greedent ex (Double Rare)
204/197 Houndour (Illustration Rare)
208/197 Pidgeotto (Illustration Rare)
210/197 Eiscue ex (Ultra Rare)
217/197 Pidgeot ex (Ultra Rare)
224/197 Revavroom ex (Special Illustration Rare)
227/197 Poppy (Special Illustration Rare)
This represents a pull rate of 44.4%
Conclusion
From our 108 booster packs we pulled 15 Double Rare cards, 8 Illustration Rare, 8 Ultra Rare, 4 Special Illustration Rare and 2 Hyper Rare cards.
This represents an overall Obsidian Flames pull rate of 37/108 or 34.2%.
When this is broken down by rarity the pull rate from 3 booster boxes is:
Double Rare – 13.8%
Illustration Rare – 7%
Ultra Rare – 7%
Special Illustration Rare – 3.7%
Hyper Rare – <2%
The results analysed by pack art showed that packs with Revavroom artwork had the best pull rate of 44.4%, Charizard artwork came out at 33.3%, while Tyranitar and Dragonite artwork both had a pull rate of 29.6%
Interestingly, the overall Obsidian Flames pull rate is exactly the same as the pull rate for the Paldea Evolved set. This may be coincidence or it may be that Pokémon are trying to streamline pull rates across sets.
As always it should be remembered that the Obsidian Flames pull rate results posted here were taken from a sample of three booster boxes. If the sample were larger with more booster boxes being analysed, the result could be different.
Nice post on Pokemon cards! I’m always eager to learn more about the hobby, so thanks for this! Had a nice time reading it 🙂