Collecting the entire set of cards in Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket’s limited-time Deluxe Pack EX poses a daunting challenge, with estimates suggesting that players might need to open upwards of 2,000 booster packs. The Deluxe Pack EX features the most extensive collection of cards for any booster set in Pokemon TCG Pocket to date, and several factors complicate the collection process even further.
The Deluxe Pack EX was revealed about a week ago and became available at the end of September. It includes the return of multiple cards from the game’s inaugural year, including special art variants, and stands as the first temporary expansion booster, available for only 30 days from its release.
The Cost of Completing the Deluxe Pack EX Card Collection
While this limited-time pack grants players a chance to acquire 353 basic cards they might have missed earlier, plus 26 special card variants, the collection process demands a significant number of Pack Hourglasses. One player conducted simulations totaling 10,000 trials, posting results on Reddit, and found that in order to collect every card of one to four-diamond rarity, one should expect to open an average of 1,536 packs; there’s a 99 percent chance that the last required card would be acquired between the 1,437th and 1,640th pack opened. Cards pulled from the Deluxe EX Pack only count for that specific Dex, not from the original sets, and conversely, players will not receive credit in the new Dex for cards obtained from the first 11 sets.
Things become increasingly complex when considering the 26 cards of one-star rarity or above. To complete every entry in the Deluxe Pack EX card list, the mean average number of pack openings balloons to 2,197 packs, with a 99 percent confidence range estimating the total at between 2,078 and 2,321 packs. This total is also impacted by a downside of the Deluxe Pack EX, which provides only four cards per pull, rather than the usual five.
Free-to-play players can only open two packs every 24 hours, allowing a maximum of 60 pulls during the pack’s availability; thus, collecting every card necessitates heavy utilization of Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Pack Hourglasses. These hourglasses reduce the cooldown period for opening packs by one hour. When factoring in Wonder Picks, the odds of gathering every card drop significantly, requiring about 400 packs, though the cost of the hourglasses needed for this task would still total roughly $260.
