Is Pokémon Ultra Pack worth buying right now?

Our current verdict is SKIP (score 22/100). Cash-out EV is $210 on a $250 pack (-15.9% net after the ~85% buyback) — the average rip loses money.

What is the EV of Pokémon Ultra Pack?

The calibrated EV is $248.41 against a pack price of $250.00, with a typical (median) pull of $212.15 across 160 indexed pulls.

What are the real odds of beating the pack price on Pokémon Ultra Pack?

26.9% of indexed pulls met or beat the pack price, and 5.0% returned at least double the price. These are observed odds reconstructed from real pulls, not the posted odds.

What is the typical pull from Pokémon Ultra Pack?

The median pull is $212.15 — half of all indexed rips returned less than that. The single best recorded pull is $1,196.00.

Pokémon

Pokémon Ultra Pack

Pokémon Ultra Pack is a $250 Courtyard Pokémon mystery pack with a calibrated expected value of $248.41, worth $210.15 at its observed 85% buyback — a cash-out ratio of 0.841x (0.994x at sticker FMV), so it currently returns less than its price on the average rip once the buyback haircut is taken. 26.9% of 160 indexed pulls met or beat the pack price. Rip Advisor verdict: SKIP (22/100).

Ranked #50 of 74 ranked packs by cash-out ratio, #11 of 14 Pokémon packs.

This pack is no longer sold on Courtyard — the numbers below are its historical record.

Cash-out ratio

0.841x

$210.15 back on a $250 pack, at this pack's observed 85% buyback. At sticker FMV it is 0.994x.

95% range $190.32–$229.99, clear of the $250 price.

SKIP-15.9% ROI

HIGH CONFIDENCE · 160 pulls (105 effective) · todaySIGNAL Weakening · 15 h ago

Calibrated EV: $248
Cash-out EV: $210
Pack price: $250
Typical pull: $212
Hit rate: 26.9%
Lifetime EV: $263
Pulls indexed: 160
Last pull: 15h ago

01 / Rip Advisor

Is Pokémon Ultra Pack worth it right now?

score 22/100SKIP

050100

Cash-out EV is $210 on a $250 pack (-15.9% net after the ~85% buyback) — the average rip loses money.
Cash-out EV is $210.15, and the sample is precise enough to place it below the $250.00 price: the 95% range is $190.32 to $229.99, which does not include the price.
The typical pull (median) is $212 — most rips return less than the pack price; the EV is carried by rare chase cards.
Recent pulls are averaging 6.2% below where they were 7 days ago. That is what the last week returned, not a reading of what is left — Courtyard publishes no inventory. A drop this size is consistent with the better cards having been pulled, and also with an unlucky week.
Calibrated EV (recent pulls weighted) is $248 vs $263 lifetime — the pool has gotten worse recently.
26.9% of pulls meet or beat the pack price, across 160 indexed pulls.

Downside · bottom-quartile rip

−$91

1 in 4 rips returns ≤ $159 cash — covering 64% of the price.

Upside · top-decile rip

+$89

1 in 10 rips returns ≥ $339 cash. Both figures use the observed buyback ratio.

Log this decision:

Verdict is computed transparently from indexed pulls: cash-out ROI, median pull, 7-day trend, hit rate, and sample size. Redemption shipping (typically $16+) is not included — cards worth less than a few times the shipping cost are usually better instant-sold than shipped. Not financial advice.

02 / Pool signals

What's happening in the Pokémon Ultra Pack pool

Lifecycle stage, health, and chase removals — read from indexed pulls, never guessed.

Recent pulls run 6% below the lifetime average — the observed pool is weakening.

DEPLETING

Recent pulls run 6% below the lifetime average — the observed pool is weakening.

Pro adds the Pool Health score and chase-removal impact.

Not observable: packs remaining, value remaining, and which chases are still in the pool — Courtyard publishes a pull feed, not inventory. We label those unavailable rather than estimate them. Everything above is computed from indexed pulls and EV snapshots; thin or stale data pulls the score toward neutral. Formula

Chase tracker

chase tier ≥ $1,250 · confidence 100%

No chase-tier pulls (≥ $1250) observed in the last 30 days.

Removals are facts; what's left is not. Each row is a unique graded card observed leaving this pack, so it is no longer in the pool — though a card can return after a buyback, which is why re-listings are flagged. We show no “chance it remains”: Courtyard publishes pulls, not inventory, so that number would be guesswork. Formula

Signal lifetime

SIGNAL Weakening · 15 h ago

Pull flow has slowed past the usual gap of 2.9 h, so this read is ageing faster than the pack is producing evidence. At the observed pull rate, half the evidence behind this read is replaced in about 19 days.

Newest pull: 15 h; observed
Pull rate: 8.2/day; observed
Pulls, 7d: 99; observed
Half-life: Pro

Aged, not predicted. Half-life counts how fast new evidence arrives, measured from real pull timestamps — it is not a forecast of where EV is heading. We publish no EV-drift half-life because our snapshot history is still too short for a regression to mean anything. The seeded placeholder points this note used to warn about have been flagged in the database and excluded from every chart, trend and score, so what you see plotted is observed data. Note the headline EV is decay-weighted, so it reacts to new pulls sooner than this whole-sample horizon implies. Methodology

03 / Contents

What has come out of Pokémon Ultra Pack

The eras, sets and cards this pack has actually produced. A record of past pulls — Courtyard publishes no inventory, so this is not a statement about what is left.

By era

Cards seen range from 1996 to 2026.

Current (2020+)49%$248 avg
Retro (2000-2009)19%$284 avg
Modern (2010-2019)19%$278 avg
Vintage (pre-2000)13%$269 avg

Most common sets

Sets these pulls came from.

Pokémon Sword and Shield Crown Zenith4%$200 avg
Pokémon Meg EN-Mega Evolution3%$250 avg
Pokémon SV-P Promo3%$197 avg
Pokémon Mew EN-1513%$295 avg
Pokémon SM Black Star Promo3%$240 avg
Black Star Promos2%$205 avg
Pokémon Asc EN-Ascended Heroes2%$237 avg
Pokémon Game2%$204 avg

Cards seen most often

Named on 98% of readable pulls. The rest do not print a card number, and without one the card cannot be told apart from the set name.

Pikachu3%$316 avg
Charizard3%$230 avg
Espeon2%$261 avg
Mega Venusaur EX2%$235 avg
Aerodactyl V1%$207 avg
Articuno1%$206 avg
Blastoise1%$432 avg
Eevee1%$208 avg

Built from the 160 indexed pulls of this pack so far — a record of what has come out, not a promise about what is left.

04 / Floor safety

Pokémon Ultra Pack floor safety & buyback reality

The two ways average EV lies to you — how top-heavy the pack is, and what FMV actually converts to in cash — then which exit pays most.

In Pokémon Ultra Pack, the top 2% of pulls account for 9% of all pulled value — low dilution. Value is spread fairly evenly across the pool, so the average is close to what a typical rip returns. The observed instant-offer ratio is 85% of FMV, which is the cash number every verdict on this page already uses.

Floor safety

low dilution

9% of everything this pack has paid out came from just the top 2% of pulls. Value is spread broadly across pulls, so the average sits closer to the typical rip here than it does on a top-heavy pack. It still sits above the median — check both.

Buyback reality

84.6% of FMV observed

Across 157 indexed pulls that carry a recorded bid, a $100 FMV pull cashes out around $85 if you instant-sell — in line with the platform's 84.6%. This is the figure every verdict on the site multiplies by.

Holding, listing, or physically redeeming can beat the instant offer — but redemption shipping (typically $16+) eats small wins.

Net exit value

157 paired pulls · 98% bid coverage · confidence 100%

Instant-selling the average (mean) pull here returns $223.82 — $40.74 below sticker FMV (15.4% haircut). That figure is the average of bids we actually recorded, not the platform rate applied blind.

Pro compares all three exits side by side, with the redemption breakeven and the value-by-value haircut curve for this pack.

Bids are recorded, resale is not. Instant-buyback figures are real offers captured at index time and can move. Redemption shipping starts near $16 in the US, is higher internationally, and is charged per shipment — batching pulls lowers it. We publish no resale estimate, liquidity score, or time-to-sell, because no such data is available to us. How buyback works

05 / Observed odds

Pokémon Ultra Pack odds — observed, not posted

Reconstructed from real pulls, so it shows what has actually been coming out — posted odds can't do that. It is a record of pulls, not a count of what is left.

Across 160 indexed pulls, 26.9% returned at least the $250 pack price and 5.0% returned double or more; the single best recorded pull is $1,196.

Under $1250.0%· stable
$125 – $25073.1%· stable
$250 – $500 · beats the pack21.9%· stable
$500 – $1,250 · big hit5.0%· stable
$1,250+ · chase0.0%· stable

Observed across 160 indexed pulls — what actually came out of this pack, independent of the posted odds. The 48h column shows tier drift: a falling green tier means fewer of the good cards have come out lately — which may mean they are running out, or may just be a quiet 48 hours.

06 / Simulator

Pokémon Ultra Pack rip simulator

What ripping 1–20 packs looks like, using this pack's actual pull distribution.

Packs to rip5Hoping for

Averaged over

$248.41 per pull

Cost: $1,250
Expected cash-out: $1,051
Expected net: -$199
≥1 hit chance: 79.1%

Recent pool: pulls are weighted so newer ones count for more, the same basis as this pack’s headline, verdict and the budget tool. The 160 pulls behind the hit chance are unweighted either way, and the 85% buyback is applied to both. These two disagree here: -$39.85 per pack recent-weighted against -$27.32 all-time. The pool has moved, so which number you want depends on whether you think the recent run continues. Averages describe many rips — any single rip can land anywhere on the distribution.

Monte Carlo · 10,000 trials

Packs5

P(profit) 23.9%

Mean net −$132

Cost $1,250

Worst 5%: −$419
Bottom quartile: −$331
Median: −$210
Top quartile: −$11
Best 5%: +$434

Bootstrap resampling of 160 observed pulls with the 85% cash-out applied. Every pull is drawn with equal probability, so this is an all-time average: it will sit below the headline whenever the recent pool has run better than the lifetime one, and above it when the reverse is true. It also assumes the pool doesn't change as you rip — for top-heavy packs the downside is understated once the grail leaves. Estimates, not financial advice.

07 / Big hits

Biggest Pokémon Ultra Pack pulls

2009 Pokémon Movie Commemoration Random Pack #011 Spiky-Eared Pichu (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$1,196PSA 10 GEM MINT

2013 Pokémon Black & White Shiny Collection #021 Shaymin EX - 1st Edition Holo Full Art (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$866PSA 10 GEM MINT

2026 Pokémon Cri EN-Chaos Rising #122 Mega Greninja EX - Holo Mega Hyper Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$809PSA 10 GEM MINT

2020 Pokémon Swsh Black Star Promo #020 Pikachu - Full Art Figure Collection (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$799PSA 10 GEM MINT

2013 Pokémon Black & White Legendary Treasures #114 Reshiram - Full Art (PSA 9 MINT)

$675PSA 9 MINT

1999 Pokémon CD Promo #9 Blastoise - Holo CD Promo (PSA 9 MINT)

$655PSA 9 MINT

2025 Pokémon Sv11w-White Flare #174 Reshiram EX - Holo BW Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$596PSA 10 GEM MINT

2016 Pokémon XY Breakpoint #120 M Scizor EX - Holo Full Art (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$564PSA 10 GEM MINT

08 / EV history

Pokémon Ultra Pack EV over time

Snapshot per scraper run. The dashed line is break-even — EV above it is +EV.

Calibrated EV currently sits at $248.41, below the $250 pack price, and has moved down 6.2% over the last 7 days.

0.841xCash-out ratio

09 / Quick answers

Pokémon Ultra Pack — quick answers

Is Pokémon Ultra Pack worth buying right now?: Our current verdict is SKIP (score 22/100). Cash-out EV is $210 on a $250 pack (-15.9% net after the ~85% buyback) — the average rip loses money.
What is the EV of Pokémon Ultra Pack?: The calibrated EV is $248.41 against a pack price of $250.00, with a typical (median) pull of $212.15 across 160 indexed pulls.
What are the real odds of beating the pack price on Pokémon Ultra Pack?: 26.9% of indexed pulls met or beat the pack price, and 5.0% returned at least double the price. These are observed odds reconstructed from real pulls, not the posted odds.
What is the typical pull from Pokémon Ultra Pack?: The median pull is $212.15 — half of all indexed rips returned less than that. The single best recorded pull is $1,196.00.

10 / Pull log