How Pull Rates Work (and How to Read Them)
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Quick answer
Pull rates are community-observed frequencies, not official odds. Read them with sample sizes, expect huge variance on single-card rates, and never treat any rate as a guarantee.
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Most TCG publishers never publish odds, so the community counts openings. That data is useful — if you read it correctly.
Where the numbers come from
Aggregators tally thousands of recorded pack openings and report frequencies: “1 SIR per 135 packs.” Larger samples make tier-level rates fairly stable, but individual-card rates (one specific SIR among twenty) carry far more noise. TCG Comp always shows the sample size and marks demo data explicitly.
The math that matters
The chance of at least one hit in n packs is 1 − (1 − p)ⁿ. At 1-in-100, opening 100 packs gives about 63%, not 100%. Doubling packs never doubles certainty — the curve flattens. Our pack odds calculator does this for any rate.
What pull rates cannot tell you
Your box is not an average. Boxes above and below the average are both normal, and no product owes you a hit. Use rates to compare sets and set expectations — never to justify spending you would regret on a zero-hit outcome.
Frequently asked questions
›Are pull rates the same in every product of a set?
Generally packs of the same set pull alike regardless of the box they came in, though some products (special collections, jumbo packs) have distinct structures. Check per-product data where available.