Pokémon TCG · sm8 · 2018-11-02
Lost Thunder — Booster Box (36 packs)
Where the value comes from
| Tier | Odds / pack | Avg card value | EV / pack | Priced | P(≥1) / product |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra Rare | 15.4% | $32.19 | $4.95 | 99.8% | |
| Hyper Rare | 2.3% | $52.51 | $1.20 | 56.4% | |
| Bulk / regular cards | 82.3% | ≈ $0.01 | — | — |
Expected hits per product: 6.35 (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
50 priced · biggest hits first
$242.51
$225.08
$157.40
$107.92
$103.44
$96.92
$95.55
$94.27
$79.97
$79.11
$78.73
$76.43
$56.23
$52.57
$46.92
$46.10
$40.79
$37.26
$34.97
$34.45
$33.56
$33.28
$30.92
$25.35
$24.53
$22.31
$20.61
$19.66
$16.43
$14.53
$13.19
$12.10
$11.55
$11.06
$10.48
$9.94
$9.90
$9.59
$9.12
$9.10
$9.02
$8.57
$8.00
$7.87
$7.15
$6.46
$6.12
$5.74
$5.58
$5.18Each 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mimikyu-GX #226 | $242.51 | $149.00 (Express) | $2,135.96 | +$1,744.46 | 31%n=569 |
| Lugia-GX #227 | $225.08 | $149.00 (Express) | $1,928.82 | +$1,554.74 | 32%n=2,365 |
| Professor Elm's Lecture #213 | $157.40 | $79.99 (Regular) | $858.01 | +$620.62 | 31%n=1,138 |
| Lugia-GX #207 | $107.92 | $79.99 (Regular) | $1,494.20 | +$1,306.30 | 26%n=2,079 |
| Mimikyu-GX #206 | $103.44 | $79.99 (Regular) | $1,076.72 | +$893.30 | 28%n=517 |
| Shuckle-GX #215 | $96.92 | $79.99 (Regular) | $452.14 | +$275.24 | 40%n=340 |
| Suicune-GX #220 | $95.55 | $79.99 (Regular) | $805.96 | +$630.42 | 25%n=667 |
| Tyranitar-GX #223 | $94.27 | $79.99 (Regular) | $735.82 | +$561.56 | 31%n=881 |
| Whitney #214 | $79.97 | $79.99 (Regular) | $281.94 | +$121.99 | 33%n=1,376 |
| Zeraora-GX #221 | $79.11 | $79.99 (Regular) | $374.77 | +$215.67 | 41%n=386 |
| Mina #211 | $78.73 | $79.99 (Regular) | $271.17 | +$112.46 | 28%n=849 |
| Alolan Ninetales-GX #225 | $76.43 | $79.99 (Regular) | $562.96 | +$406.55 | 38%n=489 |
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 -85.4% market ROI pays for.
Sun & Moon era estimate, ANCHORED to the one primary measurement that exists for the era: the Elite Fourum tally of Sun & Moon base (sm1) at n=7,020 packs, which measured Holo GX 11.15%, full-art Ultra Rare 4.22%, Rainbow 1.47% and Secret 0.81% - so ultra_rare 15.37% and hyper_rare 2.28% on our tiers. Those figures are applied here in place of the previous unsourced 18%/3% aggregate. CONFIDENCE STAYS LOW, DELIBERATELY, for two reasons. First, this is a measurement of a DIFFERENT SET: no counted study of this set was found, and Sun & Moon sets are known to vary - the same thread reports Cosmic Eclipse (sm12) at roughly 28% overall against sm1's 17.65%, which if real would mean later sets in the era are considerably richer than this table assumes. Second, even the sm1 anchor is video-sourced and unauditable (see the sm1 table's note). A dedicated 2026 research pass across five search angles found NO other primary, sample-sized study for any Sun & Moon set.
Market price history
4 days · 2026-08-14 → 2026-08-25Daily median of eBay-sold (PriceCharting) sealed prices. Updates each time the price job runs.