So here’s an example of Prismatic Evolutions Surprise Box value… I was lucky enough to purchase two surprise boxes at MSRP, $23 each. Which is great, Prismatic Evolutions looks like a fun set. But what I forgot about is just how harsh Prismatic Evolutions really is when it comes to pull rates. And bad pull rates means bad value.
Here’s an example of the value you’ll be getting from your own surprise box…
50% of my booster packs contained a Pinsir.
~ 40% contained a Black Belt.
~ 12% contained an ex.
25% contained a pokeball
It’s a ridiculously small sample size but the general idea is true. Prismatic Evolutions is simply a harsh set to collect. There are numerous variations of cards and everything interesting is ridiculously hard to pull. You’ll be opening booster packs forever if you want to collect this set. So that’s fun.
Now let’s look at the pricing for the boxes themselves…
Scalper Price: $100 per box
MSRP: $23 per box
Actual value per box: $6
So in a sense anybody who pays for a surprise box at scalper prices is wasting $94. $94! Do you know how insane that is? Even in our insane times where your average grocery cart costs $200, $94 is obviously no joke. It would’ve been much more valuable to me to simply leave my surprise boxes unopened. I in essence gave up $188 in value!
Now if you are buying from scalpers you should simply stop. You are most likely over enthused and a break should be taken because wow is a lot of money being spent on a really harsh set. It’s just not worth it. Probability says you are NOT going to get a god pack, so put that out of your mind. The probability that you’ll get anything good at all isn’t that great either. Opening booster packs is gambling and you have to chill out on it or else you’ll end up regretting the whole Pokemon hobby. Spending rent on booster packs is not what you want to be doing.
Prismatic Evolutions is a harsh set and while value isn’t everything and people do collect just to collect, you should not be expecting to get value out of surprise boxes.
Surprise boxes are okay purchases at MSRP but suck at any higher price level. That’s what you should be taking away from this.