Why is the Temporal Forces Pack Weight Relevant?
Bulk Pokémon cards are made from card stock, while foil art cards have a layer of holographic material. Due to the extra layer of material in art and holographic cards it is popularly thought that booster packs with a higher weight are more likely to have rarer and more valuable art cards inside. Individual booster packs are frequently advertised as ‘heavy’ suggesting that the higher weight indicates there will be more art cards inside.
Historically, the weight of a booster pack has made a difference in some sets, however, the Pokémon Company has worked hard to try to minimise the weight difference of booster packs. This article seeks to analyse the Temporal Forces Pack Weight to see if heavier packs do make a difference in this set.
Temporal Forces Pack Weights
We purchased three sealed Booster boxes to use for our test. We used a highly sensitive digital scale to get an accurate weight for each pack. The weights ranged from 22.58g to 22.77g. We rounded the weights to the nearest 0.05g giving us 4 different weights – 22.60g, 22.65g. 22.70 and 22.75g.
In total there were:
22 x 22.60g packs
42 x 22.65g packs
35 x 22.70g packs
9 x 22.75g packs
Temporal Forces Pack Weight Results
We decided not to log the numbers of reverse holo, holo rare, uncommon, common or energy cards, but have included ACE SPEC cards.
The 22.60g Packs
The first Temporal Forces packs to be opened were the 22 x 22.60g weight packs. 11 of the packs had no art cards. From the other 11 packs we pulled:
081/162 Iron Crown ex
111/162 Scizor ex
122/162 Miraidon ex
162/162 Neo Upper Energy
167/162 Incineroar ex
186/162 Iron Leaves ex
188/162 Gouging Fire ex
191/162 Iron Crown ex
193/162 Gengar ex
199/162 Eri
205/162 Walking Wake ex
The 22.65g Packs
The 42 x 22.65g weight packs were opened next. 27 packs had no art cards. From the other 15 packs we pulled:
022/162 Scovillain ex
034/162 Incineroar ex
038/162 Gouging Fire ex
050/162 Walking Wake ex
060/162 Wugtrio ex (2)
099/162 Iron Boulder ex
108/162 Farigiraf ex
120/162 Koraidon ex
157/162 Prime Catcher
175/162 Mudsdale
177/162 Gastly
178/162 Megagross
216/162 Iron Crown ex
The 22.70g Packs
The 35 x 22.70g weight packs were opened next. 19 packs contained no art cards. The remaining 16 packs included:
012/162 Torterra ex
025/162 Iron Leaves ex
050/162 Walking Wake ex
104/162 Gengar ex
111/162 Scizor ex
120/162 Koraidon ex
123/162 Raging Bolt ex
152/162 Hero’s Cape
153/162 Master Ball
167/162 Litten
168/162 Snom
184/162 Drampa
198/162 Ciphermaniac’s Codebreaking
210/162 Eri
The 22.75g Packs
Finally we opened the 9 x 22.75g weight packs. 5 packs contained no art cards. The remaining 4 packs included:
141/162 Awakening Drum
163/162 Shiftry
170/162 Bronzor
172/162 Cutiefly
Conclusion
Our concluding pull rate results are given as percentages. It should be remembered that with any probability calculation the most accurate results will be from those groups with the higher number.
From the 22 x 22.60g packs we pulled 11 art cards – a 50% pull rate.
From the 42 x 22.65g packs we pulled 14 art cards – a 33.3% pull rate
From the 35 x 22.70g packs we pulled 14 art cards – an 40% pull rate
From the 9 x 22.75g packs we pulled 4 art cards – a 44% pull rate
Given that results are more accurate with higher numbers of packs, the results of our Temporal Forces pack weight experiment gives a relatively consistent pull rate across the four weight groups.
It should also be noted that there was only a 0.19g difference between the lightest and the heaviest pack in three booster boxes so without an accurate weighing scale the difference would not be noticeable. This small difference in weights follows the Paradox Rift pack weight test where differences were also very small. It does seem that Pokémon are working hard to make the weight of all their packs the same.
It should also be remembered that only 108 booster packs were used for this experiment. Using a greater number of packs may give a different result.
