Frequently Asked Questions

Expected value is the average amount of card value you get from opening a single booster pack. It combines two things: how much each card is worth, and how likely you are to pull it.

If a pack has an EV of €5.00 and you paid €4.00 for it, the math says you come out ahead on average. If the EV is €3.00, you're better off selling the pack sealed.

For each rarity tier in a set, PackVerdict calculates:

Here's a real example using a set with 5 rarity tiers:

The percentage next to each rarity shows how much of the total value it contributes. In this example, SIR cards drive 46% of the pack value even though you only pull one every 32 packs.

PackVerdict compares the EV per pack to your cost per pack:

For example, if your ETB cost €45 and has 9 packs, your cost per pack is €5.00. With a pack EV of €4.11, you lose about €0.89 per pack on average.

All card prices come from the Cardmarket API, updated every 6 hours. Cardmarket is the largest TCG marketplace in Europe. PackVerdict uses the 7-day average sale price for English cards and the lowest near-mint price for language-specific pricing (German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese).

On Cardmarket, card prices vary significantly by language. English cards are typically the most expensive because of higher global demand. German, French, and other European language cards often trade at a discount. PackVerdict lets you switch between languages to see prices for your specific market.

Pull rates are compiled from community data: large-scale pack opening videos, community surveys, and verified datasets. For newer sets (Scarlet & Violet, Mega Evolution), pull rates are well-documented. For older sets (Sword & Shield, Sun & Moon), rates are approximations based on available data and era-level patterns.

A pull rate tells you how often a card of a specific rarity appears in packs. For example:

The higher the number, the rarer the card. A card with a 1 in 500 pull rate is 100x harder to find than a 1 in 5.

Every sealed product contains a specific number of booster packs. PackVerdict multiplies the pack EV by the number of packs to get the total expected card value, then compares it to the product price. An ETB with 9 packs at €4.11 per pack has a total expected card value of €36.99.

PackVerdict needs price data for a meaningful portion of cards in the set. If fewer than 10 cards have prices (typically right after a new set launches), the verdict would be unreliable. Once more cards get listed on Cardmarket and prices stabilize, the data fills in automatically.

Not currently. The EV calculation only considers cards pulled from booster packs. Promo cards, coins, sleeves, and other accessories included in products like ETBs and collection boxes are not factored in. This means the actual value of a product may be slightly higher than shown.

No. EV is a long-run average, not a guarantee for any single purchase. Opening one ETB could give you amazing pulls worth hundreds, or it could give you nothing above a few euros.

Think of it like this: if you opened 100 ETBs from a set with positive EV, you'd expect to come out ahead in total. But any single ETB is a gamble. EV tells you whether the odds are in your favour, not whether you'll win this time.

Because EV accounts for probability. A card worth €300 with a 1 in 500 pull rate only contributes €0.60 per pack (€300 / 500). Meanwhile, a €10 card you pull every 9 packs contributes €1.11. High-value chase cards are exciting to pull, but common hits drive more of the pack's expected value.

Card prices are refreshed every 6 hours via the Cardmarket API. Pull rates are static and updated manually when new community data becomes available or when a set's pull rate structure is confirmed.