“Scarlet & Violet” Booster Pack Configuration Finally Revealed: Major Exciting Changes!

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onMar 7, 2023 at 8:28 AM · 36 Comments

TPCi previously announced that due to global inflation, the price of Scarlet & Violet booster packs would be increasing from $3.99 to $4.49. However, each Scarlet & Violet booster pack would now feature “three guaranteed foil cards” to compensate.

We can now exclusively reveal each Scarlet & Violet booster pack will feature two reverse holo cards and one holo card.

The order and configuration of booster packs will also be changing; each pack will now be ordered with the rarest cards in the back. The order will be: 4x common cards, 3x uncommons, 2x reverse holos, and 1x holo. After this, you’ll find 1x Basic Energy and 1x code card.

This new configuration means TPCi cut two common cards in favor of a second reverse holo and a guaranteed holo.

If you pull either an Illustration Rare or a Special Illustration Rare (both of which are Secret Rares), they will take the place of the second reverse holo slot. They will have single and double gold-colored stars, respectively, for their rarity symbols.

The rest of the Secret Rare cards can be pulled from the holo slot. The holo slot can either contain a Rare Holo, a Double Rare Holo (a regular Pokemon ex), an Ultra Rare Holo (a full art), or a Hyper Rare Holo (a gold card).

Rare Holos and Double Rare Holos will feature single and double black-colored stars, respectively, for their rarity symbols. Ultra Rare Holos will feature two white stars. Hyper Rares will use three gold stars.

From one pack you could theoretically pull 2x reverse holos and 1x Miraidon ex (either its Double Rare, Ultra Rare, or Hyper Rare Holo). In another pack, you could pull 1x reverse holo, 1x Miraidon ex (Special Illustrator Rare Holo), and 1x Skeleredge (Rare Holo). In most packs, you’ll pull two reverse holos and one Rare Holo.

For fans, this new order increases the suspense as you reach the rarest cards at the end of your booster pack. For streamers, the updated card order will make it easier to show the rarest cards at the end of each pack opening. If you still choose to do the “pack trick,” you’ll only have to move the basic Energy to the front of the pack and discard the code card like usual. (Or you can just discard the last two cards of the pack without moving anything.)

TPCi previously announced the end of non-holo rares — all rares and higher will now be foil. This is why every booster pack is now guaranteed to come with one foil card, a first for a normal English set. Rainbow Rares are also gone, to the celebration of many fans.

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I like the guaranteed holo in every pack / the elimination of non-holo rares. that's what made the pokemon go set so fun to pull for me, all the "rare" cards were at least holo or better (and also all the holos were cool pokemon I liked, but that's another variable entirely lol)

i'm also very glad the illustration rares will continue to be in the reverse holo slot!! i'm hoping this will continue to make "alt art" cards more affordable like in crown zenith, and we won't ever have to deal with another set like evolving skies again with 75,000 ultra hyper mega mongo rare $100+ cards that no one ever really stands a chance of pulling... lol
 
And I freakin’ called it…

As Frost mentions this isn’t the boon that TPCi thinks it is, it’ll still be a pain in the butt to complete SV-era sets thanks how packed they are. That said, seeing Illustration Rares taking up the second RH slot despite being bumped up to SR territory number-wise in sets is a bit of a relief.

I suppose we’ll have to wait until prereleases happen later in the month to get a clearer picture of how this change will affect the difficulty in collecting, I’m still hoping that the booster box pulls aren’t as terrible and as flippant as they were in recent sets.
 
One thing that I've noticed in some leaked card lists is that the uncommon/rare rarities now finally match up with Japanese. I saw an English Krookodile as an uncommon, when Krookodile has never been less than a Rare in English. A lot of uncommons in JP sets are converted to rares in English, further reducing the value of english packs. For example, in Vivid Voltage alone, 31 uncommons in Japanese (Samurott, Grapploct, Shedinja, etc) are converted to rares in English.

Not only are we getting more holos and chances at URs, the actual "rare" slot won't be filled with uncommons.

EDIT: The Greavard 105/198 in the Mimikyu ex box is a common and would almost certainly be an uncommon/rare in previous generations.
 
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All a guaranteed holo rare sounds like to me is that regular holo rares will be more worthless than ever as chances are those will become the bulk of the rare pulls, at very best 24 out of 36 packs in a box to mirror the old "1 in 3 chance for a premium card i.e holo rare or better' " rate we had for 25 years. I don't expect them to increase the pull rates for the cards people actually want at all.
 
Frost said:
3 holos per pack when 2 of them are reverses and sets are more stuffed with ultra rares than ever is not the flex they think it is.
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Capitalist: We will remove Rainbow Rare, we will guarantee at least a holo every pack and add an additional reverse holo for a total of three holos.

Ignorant Consumers: YYAAAAAYYYY [CHEERS AND CLAPS]

One capitalist whispering to another capitalist: Increase the set size, increase the price, add more rare cards. They will never know, [Sinister laugh] HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!
 
Frost said:
All a guaranteed holo rare sounds like to me is that regular holo rares will be more worthless than ever as chances are those will become the bulk of the rare pulls, at very best 24 out of 36 packs in a box to mirror the old "1 in 3 chance for a premium card i.e holo rare or better' " rate we had for 25 years. I don't expect them to increase the pull rates for the cards people actually want at all.
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Rare Holos are already at 50 cents. Lowering them to 35 cents to give each pack a guaranteed holo isn't that big of a deal. Also adds a lot of value to casual consumers and children, who don't have "bulk" to begin with.
 
So packs will give less value than ever as the price per pack increases.

Yeah, sounds about right. No sarcasm.
 
Frost said:
So packs will give less value than ever as the price per pack increases.

Yeah, sounds about right. No sarcasm.
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There's more to opening a pack than just the relative value of cards to each other. If every two of three packs needs to have non-holo rare Quagsire and Alcremie, just to keep the prices of Zekrom and Decidueye up 15 cents, why even bother?

I'm not justifying the price increase. Given how much the TCG has boomed I think it would be a gesture of goodwill for TPCi to lower their already insane profit margins on cardboard, but at least they're making things better for everyone with these changes.
 
On one hand it's an upgrade on the other it's probably the worst possible version of what they said they'd do, they should have been specific and said 2 reverse holo slots from the start
 
PartTimeTCGCollector said:
Capitalist: We will remove Rainbow Rare, we will guarantee at least a holo every pack and add an additional reverse holo for a total of three holos.

Ignorant Consumers: YYAAAAAYYYY [CHEERS AND CLAPS]

One capitalist whispering to another capitalist: Increase the set size, increase the price, add more rare cards. They will never know, [Sinister laugh] HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!
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the solution is to never buy packs at all.
just buy cards you want and save the gacha headache.
 
Good news! I would have been a little concerned if the order had been two Holo Rares and one Reverse Holofoil, instead of the other way around, because there are only going to be 8 Holo Rares per Japanese set, plus a few extra from other sources. Scarlet & Violet, for instance, has 21 Holo Rares if I remember correctly… 8 from both Japanese source sets, plus the Paldean starters and box legends. Now, even with a set with 30 or so holos, you’re still going to get most of them in a single booster box. Meanwhile, there are easily over 100 potential reverse holos in every set, making the ability to pull about half the reverse holofoils in the set in a single box a major boon. For the people who get upset about not being able to complete sets, this should be wonderful news, even if obtaining those higher rarity “chase” cards still remains an obstacle to their sense of completion.
As for flexing, I’m pretty sure all that excitement in the article is Water Pokémon Master’s enthusiasm. He’s as thrilled by this news as anyone. :)
 
The first very good thing is the removal of non-holo rares. There really wasn't a great reason to have some rare holographic, and some not.

The increase of reverse-holo slots does actually technically lower the value of the pack, because reverse holos will now drop in price as there will be twice as many of them on the market. That said, the expected value of commons already dropped when Pokemon nuked single prizers and evolution lines almost exactly 4 years ago.

What I'm most excited by is new marking for different types of rarity. It should give a better idea of which slot the card belongs to.
 
I don't actually care for reverse holos. To be completely open, I'm at a point in life where I'm not interested in buying Pokémon cards anymore – looking at pictures of them are fine and I'd rather just play the game virtually through alternate forms – but nothing about this announcement has been second-guessing the decision to wind down on buying packs.

I think there's a lot to be excited about insofar as the product they're putting out – silver borders, an almost-harmonized set numbering system, continuous improvement in translation work, etc. – but I think Frost has it best. Had they announced an increased pull rate on chase cards, they'd have my attention. This is a long, long overdue change – I'm talking a decade and change overdue – so it's hard to get excited about it.

improve the pull rate on chase cards, tpci. they cost you cents to make on the dollars you sell them for
 
DMYSYS said:
I don't actually care for reverse holos.
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I can relate to this part especially. Even though the new reverse designs look better than the current ones, I still prefer non-holo or regular holo over them every time. With that said this change should be a bad deal for me, but I suppose I buy booster boxes for considerably less than MSRP anyway from a trustworthy vendor, so I guess it doesn't affect me that much outside of other products potentially going up in price.
 
When I was little (during the BW Plasma expansions) I really, REALLY liked reverse holos. Fully evolved reverse holo Pokemon would always go at the front of my binder. I don't really care for them anymore but younger kids will probably love this change.

yeah
 
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