Ascended Heroes Pull Rates Explained: Should You Rip Packs or Buy Singles?

I watched a guy on TikTok open 50 Ascended Heroes packs last week. Fifty. He pulled two Illustration Rares, a handful of ex cards, and exactly zero SIRs. His face at the end said everything. He’d spent somewhere north of $900 at inflated retail and walked away with maybe $120 in cardboard.

And right there in the comments: “ETBs drop Feb 20, I’m going ALL IN.”

Listen. I get the appeal. God packs exist in this set. The Mega Gengar SIR is one of the most beautiful cards Pokemon has ever printed. Every pack you open could be the one. But “could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, and nobody seems to want to talk about what the actual math looks like.

So let’s talk about it. Not just the pull rates, which you can find on a dozen spreadsheets already. The real question: given these numbers and these prices, should you be ripping packs or buying the cards you actually want?

Ascended Heroes Pull Rates by Rarity: What 8,000 Packs Tell Us

Before we get into the decision framework, you need the raw numbers. These come from CardChill’s aggregation of over 8,000 opened packs, cross-referenced with Danny Phantump’s 240-pack controlled test and community-sourced data from Reddit and Instagram. The sample size is large enough to trust.

Any ex or Ultimate Rare: 1 in 5 packs (20%)

This is genuinely generous. One in five packs gives you something that feels like a hit. It’s why Ascended Heroes feels fun to open. You get that little dopamine spike regularly enough to keep going.

Any Illustration Rare (33 total cards): 1 in 9.5 packs

The community calls these the “dopamine machine” of the set, and they’re right. With 33 different IRs in the pool, you’re pulling one roughly every 10 packs. The art is gorgeous, the variety is huge, and the prices on most of them are accessible ($5-$30 range). This is where the ripping experience actually delivers value.

Any Mega Attack Rare (7 total cards): 1 in 40 packs

MARs are the new rarity in this set. One in 40 isn’t bad at all. With only 7 in the pool, you start seeing repeats if you open enough product, but each one feels like an event when it shows up.

Any Special Illustration Rare (22 total cards): 1 in 65 packs

Here’s where the math starts getting uncomfortable. One SIR every 65 packs means you need to open roughly 1.5 booster boxes before you statistically expect to see one. And “any SIR” includes the full range from N’s Zoroark at $170 to Mega Gengar at $836. You don’t get to choose which one shows up.

A specific top SIR (like Mega Gengar ex): approximately 1 in 2,000 packs

Read that again. Two thousand packs. At the ETB-equivalent price of $4.50 per pack, that’s $9,000 in expected spend to pull one specific card. At current inflated individual pack prices of $20 each? You’re looking at $40,000 in expected cost.

God Pack: approximately 1 in 980 packs (0.1%)

God packs are real. They contain a SIR, a MAR, and multiple IRs in a single pack. They’re also a lottery ticket with worse odds than most state lotteries. If you open 10 ETBs, you have roughly a 10% chance of seeing one. Roughly.

English vs. Japanese quick comparison: English packs give you IRs more often (1/9.5 vs 1/11.2 in Japanese), but Japanese packs have slightly better SIR odds (1/58 vs 1/65). God packs are marginally more common in Japanese product (1/850 vs 1/980). Neither version dramatically outperforms the other.

Expected Value Math: What a Pack Is Actually Worth

The average Ascended Heroes pack is worth about $3.90 to $4.10 in expected card value. Here’s how that breaks down:

• EX/UR contribution: ~$2.50 per pack
• IR contribution: ~$1.20 per pack
• MAR contribution: ~$0.80 per pack
• SIR contribution: ~$3.50 per pack (yes, this is the largest chunk, but it’s driven entirely by ultra-rare outcomes)

Wait. $2.50 + $1.20 + $0.80 + $3.50 = $8.00? No. The SIR line is misleading because it’s an average across a massive variance range. Think of it this way: 64 out of 65 packs contribute $0 of SIR value. The 65th pack contributes $170 to $836. When you average that out, it’s $3.50 per pack. But for you, the person opening packs one at a time, it’s either zero or jackpot.

This is the hidden story of every EV calculation. The average looks fine. But you’re not opening the average. You’re opening a specific box that’s either hot or cold.

A hot box can return 5x your investment. A cold box loses 50% of what you paid. There is no “average” box sitting on the shelf. There’s only the one you buy, and you won’t know which kind it is until you’re done.

At MSRP (ETB at $49.99, roughly $4.55 per pack): EV is roughly break-even. You’ll lose a little or gain a little, and you get the experience of opening.

At current inflated prices ($20 per individual pack from retailers): EV is catastrophically negative. You’re paying a 4-5x markup on a product that barely breaks even at retail. Don’t do this.

The Top 10 Chase Cards and What They Cost as Singles

Here are the most valuable cards in Ascended Heroes right now, with mid-February 2026 TCGPlayer market prices:

Now here’s the number that matters: if you wanted to buy your three favorite cards from this list outright, you’d spend between $500 and $2,000 depending on which three.

If you tried to pull even one specific SIR from packs, the expected cost is $9,000+.

Buying singles is not the boring option. It’s the mathematically sane one.

The Rip-or-Buy Decision Framework

I’m not going to tell you never to open packs. That would be like telling someone to never eat dessert because the nutritional value is bad. Sometimes the experience is the point.

But you should make that choice with your eyes open. Here’s the three-question test I use:

Question 1: Are you paying MSRP or close to it?

If yes, keep going. If you’re paying $20 per individual pack or $140 for an ETB that retails at $50, the answer is already “buy singles.” You cannot overcome a 3x-4x markup with luck. The math will grind you down over enough purchases.

Question 2: Do you genuinely enjoy the rip?

Opening packs is entertainment. It’s a real experience with real emotional value. If you love the anticipation, the reveal, the surprise of finding something you weren’t expecting, that has value that doesn’t show up in EV calculations. If you’re only opening packs because you think it’s a smarter way to get the cards you want? It isn’t.

Question 3: Can you afford to lose 100% of what you’re spending?

Not “can you afford to break even.” Can you afford to get absolutely nothing you wanted? Because that’s a real outcome. You could open $500 in ETBs and pull zero SIRs. The probability of that happening across 10 packs worth of ETBs is actually quite high. If losing that money would hurt, you already have your answer.

If you said YES to all three: Rip packs with a hard budget cap. Set the number before you start. Not “I’ll open until I hit something good.” A specific dollar amount. When you hit it, you stop. Period.

The hybrid approach (my recommendation for most collectors): Buy one ETB at MSRP for the experience. Then take the money you would have spent on a second, third, and fourth ETB and buy your top 2-3 singles instead. You get the fun of ripping AND the cards you actually wanted.

The 60% rule: Never spend more than 60% of a chase card’s market price on packs trying to pull it. If the Mega Gengar SIR is $836, your pack budget for chasing it should cap at $500. Beyond that, just buy the card. (And honestly, even $500 in packs only gives you a tiny chance at that specific card.)

When Singles Are Cheapest: A Timing Calendar

If you’ve decided to buy singles (or at least some singles), timing matters. Ascended Heroes has a staggered product release that creates multiple supply waves, and each wave pushes card prices down temporarily.

Now through Feb 19 (where we are today): Prices have started correcting from the initial hype spike. We’re three weeks into the set’s life. Some singles have already dropped 20-30% from launch-week peaks. Not the worst time to buy, but not the best either.

February 20 (ETB + Mini Tin release): More sealed product hits shelves, which means more packs get opened, which means more singles flood the market. Expect a 10-20% dip on mid-tier singles over the following week. The top chase cards might dip less because demand is stickier, but supply still matters.

March 20 (Premium Poster Collection + Deluxe Pin Collection): Another supply wave. These products contain Ascended Heroes packs and tend to attract collectors who open everything. More singles hit the market.

April 24 (Booster Bundles + ex Boxes): This is the big one. Booster Bundles are historically the most-opened sealed product because they’re pack-dense and often available at reasonable prices. This will likely be the largest single supply injection for Ascended Heroes, and I’d expect it to mark the lowest point for most singles.

The Phantasmal Flames precedent tells the story: ETBs launched at $150-200 on the secondary market and settled to around $82 within a few months. Sealed prices stabilize. Singles prices drop. Patience is not sexy, but it pays.

My suggestion: set price alerts on TCGPlayer for the specific cards you want. Decide now what you’d pay for each one. When (not if) prices hit those targets, buy without hesitation. Don’t wait for the absolute bottom because you’ll never time it perfectly.

Buy, Watch, Skip: Your Ascended Heroes Cheat Sheet

BUY NOW:

• Illustration Rares under $20 that you actually love. There are 33 of them, pulls are frequent, and prices are accessible. These are the best value-for-money cards in the set right now.
• An ETB at MSRP ($49.99) if you find one on Feb 20. Best rip experience per dollar in this set.

WATCH (buy after April supply wave):

• SIRs in the $150-$250 range (Feraligatr, Zoroark, Clefairy). Likely to dip further as more product opens through spring.
• Mid-tier MARs. Supply hasn’t peaked yet.

SKIP:

• Any sealed product above MSRP. EV is already razor-thin at retail. Paying a scalper premium on top of that is lighting money on fire.
• God pack gambling. I know the YouTube thumbnails are electric. The 1/980 odds make scratch-off lottery tickets look reasonable by comparison.
• Individual packs at $20 from retailers gouging on the current supply shortage. Wait for ETB day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the god pack odds in Ascended Heroes?

Approximately 1 in 980 packs, or about 0.1%. To put that in perspective, if you opened one pack per day, you’d expect to see a god pack roughly once every 2.7 years. They exist. They’re just not something you can plan around.

How many packs do I need to open to pull a specific SIR?

For any SIR, the expected number is about 65 packs. For a specific SIR like the Mega Gengar ex, you’re looking at roughly 2,000 packs. At ETB pricing, that’s over $9,000 in product. At inflated individual pack prices, it’s closer to $40,000. The card costs $836 to buy outright.

Is the Ascended Heroes ETB worth it at $49.99 MSRP?

For the experience? Yes. It’s 11 packs with competitive pull rates and nice accessories. For pure expected value? It’s roughly break-even. You’ll sometimes profit and sometimes take a loss. If you enjoy opening packs and can afford to treat it as entertainment rather than an investment, an ETB at MSRP is the best sealed product to buy in this set.

Will Ascended Heroes card prices go up or down from here?

Most singles will continue trending down through April as successive product waves (ETBs, Mini Tins, Booster Bundles, ex Boxes) increase supply. A few key chase cards might hold better due to collector demand, but the general trend for mid-tier and lower-tier cards is downward until supply peaks. The best buying window for singles is likely late April to early May.

Are Ascended Heroes pull rates better than Prismatic Evolutions?

Illustration Rares are more frequent in Ascended Heroes (1/9.5 vs roughly 1/12 in Prismatic). SIR rates are similar (1/65 vs 1/60-70 in Prismatic). God pack rates are comparable (1/980 vs 1/900-1,000). The biggest difference is that Ascended Heroes has 295 cards total with 22 SIRs, making the pool wider. More hits overall, but harder to target a specific card.

Prices sourced from TCGPlayer market data, mid-February 2026. Pull rate data from CardChill (8,000+ packs), Danny Phantump (240-pack test), and Reddit community aggregation. All prices and rates are subject to change as more product enters the market.

Related reading:

• Ascended Heroes ETB Buying Guide: Where to Buy on Feb 20
• Most Valuable Ascended Heroes Cards
• Ascended Heroes Product Release Schedule 2026
• Ascended Heroes Legal Date: March 6 Buying Guide
• PSA Collectors Club: Worth It in 2026?
• How to Grade Pokemon Cards: PSA vs BGS vs CGC
• TCGPlayer Price Trends: February 2026