Pokémon TCG · sv8 · 2024-11-08
Surging Sparks — Booster Box (36 packs)
Where the value comes from
| Tier | Odds / pack | Avg card value | EV / pack | Priced | P(≥1) / product |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Double Rare | 16.9% | $1.37 | $0.23 | 99.9% | |
| Illustration Rare | 7.7% | $8.84 | $0.68 | 94.3% | |
| Ultra Rare | 6.7% | $3.73 | $0.25 | 91.9% | |
| ACE SPEC Rare | 5.0% | $1.37 | $0.07 | 84.4% | |
| Special Illustration Rare | 1.1% | $68.70 | $0.79 | 34.1% | |
| Hyper Rare | 0.5% | $21.35 | $0.11 | 17.4% | |
| Bulk / regular cards | 61.9% | ≈ $0.01 | — | — |
Expected hits per product: 13.70 (counting every tier the pull-rate table enumerates). The Bulk / regular cards row is the rest of a pack — commons, uncommons and plain rares worth about a cent — shown so the odds add up to the whole pack.
What are the odds you profit?
EV is the average; this is the distribution. 20,000 simulated openings of this exact product, using the same sources, odds and prices as everything above.
Same assumptions as the EV: odds are uniform within each tier (real sets short-print their biggest chases, so true odds are usually a touch worse than this), cards sell at today's market price, and selling costs nothing. Read it as a ceiling, not a promise.
Chase cards
34 priced · biggest hits first
$283.85
$174.04
$119.19
$89.02
$36.04
$35.95
$33.01
$30.95
$30.69
$26.02
$22.76
$20.02
$13.86
$13.15
$12.21
$11.25
$10.79
$10.08
$9.54
$9.36
$9.32
$9.21
$9.14
$9.13
$8.89
$8.28
$8.01
$8.01
$7.57
$7.35
$6.69
$5.71
$5.40
$5.23Each tile: card value (top-right), then the odds of pulling that exact cardfrom a single pack — shown as “1 in N packs” and as a percentage (the same number, two ways). Per-card odds assume every card in a tier is equally likely — no public data quantifies short prints. See methodology.
Is it worth grading?
PSA US fees, approx · Jul 2026What a PSA 10 sells for vs the raw price plus PSA's fee — the upside if the card grades a 10. The odds of actually getting a 10 are a separate column, still pending.
| Card | Raw | PSA fee | PSA 10 value | Net if 10 | Chance of 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pikachu ex #238 | $283.85 | $79.99 (Regular) | $938.42 | +$574.59 | 34%n=30,197 |
| Latias ex #239 | $174.04 | $79.99 (Regular) | $515.23 | +$261.20 | 35%n=20,221 |
| Milotic ex #237 | $119.19 | $79.99 (Regular) | $299.25 | +$100.07 | 38%n=15,291 |
| Pikachu ex #247 | $89.02 | $79.99 (Regular) | $353.59 | +$184.59 | — |
| Durant ex #236 | $36.04 | $79.99 (Regular) | $93.33 | $-22.70 | 40%n=3,324 |
| Hydreigon ex #240 | $35.95 | $79.99 (Regular) | $116.29 | +$0.36 | 39%n=9,992 |
| Latios #203 | $33.01 | $79.99 (Regular) | $286.47 | +$173.47 | 27%n=27,242 |
| Alolan Exeggutor ex #242 | $30.95 | $79.99 (Regular) | $129.02 | +$18.09 | 38%n=9,154 |
| Pikachu ex #219 | $30.69 | $79.99 (Regular) | $177.13 | +$66.45 | 44%n=23,388 |
| Lisia's Appeal #246 | $26.02 | $79.99 (Regular) | $91.37 | $-14.64 | 30%n=7,243 |
| Ceruledge #197 | $22.76 | $79.99 (Regular) | $214.11 | +$111.36 | 33%n=17,940 |
| Jasmine's Gaze #245 | $20.02 | $79.99 (Regular) | $75.55 | $-24.46 | 31%n=4,383 |
Net if 10= PSA 10 value − raw − fee, the gain assuming a perfect grade (an upper bound — most cards won't 10). Chance of 10is this card's own PSA population — of every copy graded, the share that came back a 10 — and it drives the graded EV toggle instead of one flat assumption. Read it as a ceiling, not a coin flip: it counts cards people CHOSE to submit, which skews toward good copies, and a card pulled from a pack today may fare worse. A “—” means too few graded copies to quote. PSA 10 prices come from Scrydex and PokemonPriceTracker. Fees exclude shipping and use the cheapest PSA tier for each card's declared (graded) value. PSA paused its cheaper Value tiers in June 2026 under a grading backlog, so Regular ($79.99) is the current floor — grading a card much under ~$100 rarely makes sense.
How many packs for…
No number of packs guarantees it — that is what a -73.9% market ROI pays for.
TCGplayer Authentication Center study, read directly from the primary article (Peter Day, updated 2025-02-27): more than 8,000 Surging Sparks booster packs opened, per-tier rates published with 95% confidence intervals — Double Rare 16.94% ±0.79, Illustration Rare 7.67% ±0.56, Ultra Rare 6.74% ±0.53, ACE SPEC 5.03% ±0.46, Special Illustration Rare 1.15% ±0.22, Hyper Rare 0.53% ±0.15. The study also explicitly validates the uniform-within-tier assumption our per-card odds rely on: every individual card's measured rate fit within the 95% CI for its rarity. Version 1 of this table used ThePriceDex's republished figures (sample undisclosed, capped low); they match this study exactly, so the numbers are unchanged — only the provenance and confidence improved.
Sources disagree
- Special Illustration Rare: we use 1 in 87 packs · 1 in 71 packs (500 packs, 22% apart)
We show the spread rather than pretending the community agrees.
Market price history
27 days · 2026-07-29 → 2026-08-25Daily median of eBay-sold (PriceCharting) sealed prices. Updates each time the price job runs.