Is Pokémon Ultra (Spicy) worth buying right now?

Our current verdict is CAUTION (score 45/100). Cash-out EV is $228 on a $249 pack (-8.6% net after the ~85% buyback) — the average rip loses money.

What is the EV of Pokémon Ultra (Spicy)?

The calibrated EV is $268.73 against a pack price of $249.00, with a typical (median) pull of $199.30 across 1,693 indexed pulls.

What are the real odds of beating the pack price on Pokémon Ultra (Spicy)?

37.6% of indexed pulls met or beat the pack price, and 8.4% 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 (Spicy)?

The median pull is $199.30 — half of all indexed rips returned less than that. The single best recorded pull is $2,925.00.

Pokémon

Pokémon Ultra (Spicy)

Pokémon Ultra (Spicy) is a $249 Courtyard Pokémon mystery pack with a calibrated expected value of $268.73, worth $227.51 at its observed 85% buyback — a cash-out ratio of 0.914x (1.079x at sticker FMV), so it currently returns less than its price on the average rip once the buyback haircut is taken. 37.6% of 1,693 indexed pulls met or beat the pack price. Rip Advisor verdict: CAUTION (45/100).

Ranked #16 of 74 ranked packs by cash-out ratio, #3 of 14 Pokémon packs.

Buy on Courtyard ↗Opens courtyard.io — PullValue is independent and earns nothing from purchases.

Cash-out ratio

0.914x

$227.51 back on a $249 pack, at this pack's observed 85% buyback. At sticker FMV it is 1.079x.

95% range $213.06–$241.95, clear of the $249 price.

CAUTION-8.6% ROI

HIGH CONFIDENCE · 1,693 pulls (447 effective) · todaySIGNAL Weakening · 6.5 h ago

Calibrated EV: $269
Cash-out EV: $228
Pack price: $249
Typical pull: $199
Hit rate: 37.6%
Lifetime EV: $274
Pulls indexed: 1,693
Last pull: 6h ago

01 / Rip Advisor

Is Pokémon Ultra (Spicy) worth it right now?

score 45/100CAUTION

050100

Cash-out EV is $228 on a $249 pack (-8.6% net after the ~85% buyback) — the average rip loses money.
Cash-out EV is $227.51, and the sample is precise enough to place it below the $249.00 price: the 95% range is $213.06 to $241.95, which does not include the price.
The typical pull (median) is $199 — most rips return less than the pack price; the EV is carried by rare chase cards.
What recent pulls return has been stable over the last 7 days.
37.6% of pulls meet or beat the pack price, across 1,693 indexed pulls.

Downside · bottom-quartile rip

−$120

1 in 4 rips returns ≤ $129 cash — covering 52% of the price.

Upside · top-decile rip

+$135

1 in 10 rips returns ≥ $384 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 (Spicy) pool

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

Fresh data, adequate sample, and recent pulls tracking the lifetime average within ±5%.

HEALTHY

Fresh data, adequate sample, and recent pulls tracking the lifetime average within ±5%.

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 ≥ $1,245 · confidence 100%

6 chase-tier cards left this pack recently, carrying 4% of its observed average. Pro shows which cards and when.

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 · 6.5 h ago

Pull flow has slowed past the usual gap of 49 min, 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 58 days.

Newest pull: 6.5 h; observed
Pull rate: 29.3/day; observed
Pulls, 7d: 208; 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 (Spicy)

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+)46%$253 avg
Modern (2010-2019)21%$335 avg
Retro (2000-2009)20%$267 avg
Vintage (pre-2000)14%$262 avg

Most common sets

Sets these pulls came from.

Pokémon SM Black Star Promo3%$255 avg
Pokémon Sword and Shield Crown Zenith3%$209 avg
Pokémon Game3%$362 avg
Pokémon Pre EN-Prismatic Evolutions2%$247 avg
Pokémon Rocket2%$242 avg
Base Set2%$302 avg
Pokémon Meg EN-Mega Evolution2%$227 avg
Pokémon Dri EN-Destined Rivals2%$281 avg

Cards seen most often

Named on 96% 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%$375 avg
Charizard2%$489 avg
Charizard EX1%$354 avg
Mewtwo1%$205 avg
Mimikyu1%$161 avg
Venusaur1%$260 avg
Pikachu EX1%$327 avg
Blastoise1%$238 avg

Built from the 1000 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 (Spicy) 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 (Spicy), 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

84.7% of FMV observed

Across 1,654 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

974 paired pulls · 97% bid coverage · confidence 100%

Instant-selling the average (mean) pull here returns $233.99 — $42.57 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 (Spicy) 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 1,693 indexed pulls, 37.6% returned at least the $249 pack price and 8.4% returned double or more; the single best recorded pull is $2,925.

Under $1250.0%· stable
$125 – $24962.9%▼ 7.9pt · 48h
$249 – $498 · beats the pack28.7%▲ 8.8pt · 48h
$498 – $1,245 · big hit7.5%▼ 2.5pt · 48h
$1,245+ · chase0.9%▲ 1.6pt · 48h

Observed across 1,000 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 (Spicy) rip simulator

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

Packs to rip5Hoping for

Averaged over

$268.73 per pull

Cost: $1,245
Expected cash-out: $1,138
Expected net: -$107
≥1 hit chance: 88.8%

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 400 pulls behind the hit chance are unweighted either way, and the 85% buyback is applied to both. Averages describe many rips — any single rip can land anywhere on the distribution.

Monte Carlo · 10,000 trials

Packs5

P(profit) 30.6%

Mean net −$83

Cost $1,245

Worst 5%: −$519
Bottom quartile: −$347
Median: −$173
Top quartile: +$70
Best 5%: +$670

Bootstrap resampling of 1,000 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 (Spicy) pulls

2014 Pokémon XY Promo #90 Pikachu - Battle Festa (PSA 8 NM-MT)

$2,925PSA 8 NM-MT

2026 Pokémon Asc EN-Ascended Heroes #284 Mega Gengar EX - Holo Special Illustration Rare (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$1,812PSA 10 GEM MINT

1999 Pokémon Game #4 Charizard - Holo Shadowless (PSA 5 EX)

$1,721PSA 5 EX

2017 Pokémon Sun & Moon Shining Legends #78 Mewtwo GX - Holo Secret (PSA 9 MINT)

$1,569PSA 9 MINT

2000 Crossing the Ruins... Umbreon - Holo (CGC 10 GEM MINT)

$1,540CGC 10 GEM MINT

1999 Pokémon Game #15 Venusaur - Holo Shadowless (PSA 9 MINT)

$1,514PSA 9 MINT

2019 Pokémon SM Black Star Promo #SM169 Eevee & Snorlax GX - Holo Full Art Tag Team Tins (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$1,500PSA 10 GEM MINT

2019 Pokémon Sun & Moon Team Up #191 Eevee & Snorlax GX - Holo Full Art Secret (PSA 10 GEM MINT)

$1,390PSA 10 GEM MINT

08 / EV history

Pokémon Ultra (Spicy) EV over time

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

Calibrated EV currently sits at $268.73, above the $249 pack price, and has moved down 2.5% over the last 7 days.

0.914xCash-out ratio

09 / Quick answers

Pokémon Ultra (Spicy) — quick answers

Is Pokémon Ultra (Spicy) worth buying right now?: Our current verdict is CAUTION (score 45/100). Cash-out EV is $228 on a $249 pack (-8.6% net after the ~85% buyback) — the average rip loses money.
What is the EV of Pokémon Ultra (Spicy)?: The calibrated EV is $268.73 against a pack price of $249.00, with a typical (median) pull of $199.30 across 1,693 indexed pulls.
What are the real odds of beating the pack price on Pokémon Ultra (Spicy)?: 37.6% of indexed pulls met or beat the pack price, and 8.4% 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 (Spicy)?: The median pull is $199.30 — half of all indexed rips returned less than that. The single best recorded pull is $2,925.00.

10 / Pull log