Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: Astral Radiance, pokemon, pokemon cards, Pokemon TCG, Sword & Shield

Pokémon TCG Pull Rate Quest: Astral Radiance – Final Findings

Too often, Pokémon TCG influencers will rush to make a sweeping statement about a new set's pull rates. It's going to be interesting to see how the latest set, Sword & Shield – Astral Radiance, is seen because it has a special Trainer Gallery subset consisting of Character Cards, Character Super Rares, Full Art Trainers, and Black and Gold VMAXes that can be pulled in the Reverse Holo slot along with the new card type Radiant Pokémon. This increases the number of pulls that one can expect to get in a Sword & Shield – Astral Radiance opening. In the interest of dispelling the idea that we can establish pull rates so early in a set's existence, I'm here with Pull Rate Quest, a series at Bleeding Cool where I open Pokémon TCG sets to show that you win some… and you lose some. I love the idea that openings like this can help show people what to expect in a set, but remember… a lot of it comes down to the luck of the draw. For this series, I've opened up six Sword & Shield – Astral Radiance booster boxes to take notes on the rates. In this finale of Pull Rate Quest for this set, let's discuss my findings.

• THE KEY FINDING: What makes Sword & Shield – Astral Radiance unique?
  • The biggest change that Sword & Shield – Astral Radiance brings to the Pokémon TCG is Radiant Pokémon. This is a new card type that features Shiny Pokémon and can be pulled in the reverse holo slot. There are three in this set: Hawluncha, Greninja, and Heatran. Now, the direct previous set Sword & Shield – Brilliant Stars introduced the Trainer Gallery subset which includes Character Rares, Character Super Rares, Full Art Trainers, and Black & Gold Secret Rares. This continues into Astral Radiance. These cards are also pulled in the Reverse Holo slot. A major focus of mine in Pull Rate Quest was to compare boxes of Astral Radiance to Brilliant Stars in order to determine if the presence of Radiant Pokémon subtracted from the Trainer Gallery hits or Reverse Holo hits. The former would be horrible. The latter? Terrific. It turns out that every single box I opened of Astral Radiance had Trainer Gallery hits on par with a Brilliant Stars box. We can safely say that Radiant Pokémon do not take away from the Trainer Gallery hits.
• OVERALL RATES: Does this stand up to the rest of the Sword & Shield era?
  • I find that overall, Astral Radiance pull rates are consistent with similar sets of this type. That puts it above sets like Rebel Clash and Vivid Voltage which do not have subsets, and on par with sets like Brilliant Stars, which do. The number of hits that the main numbered set yielded also is directly on par with every Sword & Shield-era set that I have examined in this way.

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