Masterset Calculator
A masterset means one of every card in the set. Set your cost per pack, choose which rarity tiers you want every card from, and the calculator estimates how many packs — and how much money — it takes to finish. Everything is built on the early 80-pack sample behind our Delta Reign pull-rate page, gathered 4 days ahead of the 6 November 2026 launch — so as we fold in more opening data and the official checklist, this number updates with it.
Delta Reign hasn’t launched yet (6 Nov 2026), so there’s no confirmed street price — this defaults to Pokémon’s standard $4.49/pack MSRP (~$161.64 a booster box). Swap in your real cost once packs are actually selling — the total scales straight off it.
Toggle the tiers you want every card from. Turn on the gold MHR for a “true” masterset — one card, but ~770 packs on its own.
| Tier | Cards | Per pack | Packs to finish | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illustration Rare (IR)Bottleneck 14 Illustration Rares, secret-numbered 104-117 (e.g. Pincurchin 109/103, Groudon 111/103). 6.25%/pack. | 14 | 6.3% | 728 ~90%: 1,095 | $3,270 |
| SIR (Special Illustration Rare) 6 Special Illustration Rares, secret-numbered 135-140 at 2.5%/pack — includes Raikou ex (136/103) and Mega Rayquaza ex (138/103). Default off to keep the headline realistic, like 30th Anniversary's FUR tier. | 6 | 2.5% | 588 ~90%: 970 | $2,640 |
| Ultra Rare (UR) 17 Ultra Rares, secret-numbered 118-134 — full-art Trainers, Mega-ex pulls and the set's 3 special Energy cards all share this tier. The biggest secret pool at 10%/pack, but also the most distinct cards to clear. | 17 | 10.0% | 585 ~90%: 864 | $2,625 |
| Mega Hyper Rare Exactly 1 Mega Hyper Rare exists in the whole set — Mega Rayquaza ex (141/103), the sole card at this tier. Not yet pulled in our 80-pack sample; rate is an estimate. Rarest slot, default off. | 1 | 0.50% | 200 ~90%: 450 | $898 |
| Standard ex (Double Rare) 10 standard ex interspersed through the 103-card main set (001-103), including Mega Rayquaza ex itself. The most common hit (25%/pack), so it completes fastest. | 10 | 25.0% | 117 ~90%: 182 | $526 |
Each row is what that tier alone would take to complete. Your masterset finishes when the slowest included tier does, so the headline number tracks the bottleneck row (highlighted) — the others fill in well before it.
How to Read the Number
The calculator gives you two headline figures, and the gap between them is the whole point:
- Average (expected) — if you could run the masterset attempt many times, this is the typical pack count. It is the mean, and for a task like this the mean sits well below what most people actually experience.
- ~90% confidence budget — the pack count that finishes the set in about 9 of 10 attempts. This is the number to actually plan around, because completion has a long right tail: the unlucky runs are much longer than the lucky ones.
Multiply either by your cost per pack and you have the money figure. The tool defaults to Pokémon’s standard MSRP (~$4.49/pack) since Delta Reign hasn’t launched yet, but the honest input is whatever you actually pay once it’s on shelves.
The Stats: Why It Costs So Much
Completing a set is a textbook “coupon collector’s problem.” The counter-intuitive part is that the last few cards cost far more than the first many, and that is exactly what makes a masterset so expensive. Here is the reasoning the calculator uses.
For a rarity tier with n distinct cards, where each pack has probability P of yielding some card from that tier, the expected number of packs to collect all n is:
That trailing sum (the harmonic number) is why the tail hurts. When you have 13 of 14 Illustration Rares, almost every IR you hit is a duplicate. You have to wait — on average — for 14 more IR pulls just to see the single missing card. Since an IR only shows up in 6.25% of packs, that final card alone can cost roughly 224 packs.
A worked example on the confirmed per-tier card counts, for every tier:
| Tier | Distinct cards (n) | Per-pack rate (P) | ≈ Packs to complete |
|---|---|---|---|
| IR (Illustration Rare) | 14 | 6.25% | ~728 |
| SIR (Special Illustration Rare) | 6 | 2.5% | ~588 |
| Ultra Rare | 17 | 10.0% | ~585 |
| Mega Hyper Rare (est. rate) | 1 | 0.5% | ~200 |
| Standard ex | 10 | 25.0% | ~117 |
These are the per-tier figures the calculator sums up. The n-values are confirmed against the official checklist; the Mega Hyper Rare per-pack rate is the least-settled input (0 pulls in 80 packs — an estimate, not a measurement) and the SIR rate rests on just 2 pulls.
The Bottleneck Explained
Notice the tiers finish at wildly different rates — and not in the order their per-pack rate alone would suggest. Standard ex is done in ~117 packs despite being the most common hit, because there are only 10 distinct cards to find. Mega Hyper Rare finishes in ~200 packs even though it’s the rarest per-pack, because there’s only 1 card. Illustration Rare, despite a higher per-pack rate than SIR (6.25% vs 2.5%), takes the longest of all — ~728 packs — simply because there are 14 distinct IRs to collect versus SIR’s 6. The masterset only completes when its slowest INCLUDED tier does, which is why the headline number tracks the bottleneck (the highlighted row in the calculator), not the sum of every tier.
With the default tiers (ex + IR + UR), the bottleneck is the 14 IRs at 6.25% per pack — roughly 728 packs (~20 boxes) on their own. Toggle on the 6 SIRs or the single Mega Hyper Rare and the headline number does not move — both finish faster on their own (588 and 200 packs respectively) than the Illustration Rares do, so Illustration Rare stays the bottleneck no matter which optional tiers you add. The only way to shift the bottleneck is to uncheck Illustration Rare, which would hand it to Ultra Rare (~585 packs) instead.
Three caveats keep this honest, and the calculator states them inline:
- Independence assumption: the model treats each pack as an independent draw at the average rate. Real print runs cluster hits, so a live attempt can over- or under-shoot.
- Mega Hyper Rare’s rate is an estimate: it had 0 pulls in 80 packs (expected, since only 1 card exists at that tier), so its ~0.5% per-pack rate is modelled from comparable sets, not measured — it will be replaced the moment a confirmed pull is logged.
- Some cards aren’t pack-obtainable: the set’s 8 promo cards (MEP 111-118, separate numbering) come bundled with specific products — Elite Trainer Box, Pokémon Center ETB, blisters, Build & Battle Box — not standard packs, so a true 100% masterset needs those singles on top of any pack count.
The bottom line: Delta Reign’s early numbers look like a typical modern SV/ME-era set — a steady ~9 ex a box — but a masterset is decided by its most numerous rare tier, not its rarest-per-pack one. Illustration Rare, not Special Illustration Rare or Mega Hyper Rare, is what actually drags a Delta Reign masterset out, because 14 distinct cards at 6.25% takes longer to clear than 6 cards at 2.5% or 1 card at a fraction of a percent. For nearly everyone, opening to a point and then buying the singles you are missing will be far cheaper than ripping to completion.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many packs to complete a masterset?
About 728 on average for the default tiers (ex + IR + UR), bottlenecked by the 14 IRs — and closer to 1,095 to be ~90% sure. Toggling on SIR or the Mega Hyper Rare does not raise either number, since neither is the bottleneck. The calculator shows the live figure and lets you add or drop tiers.
How much will it cost?
Enter your cost per pack — it multiplies straight through. At the ~$4.49 MSRP that’s roughly $3,270 average and ~$4,920 for the ~90% budget, before Delta Reign even launches on secondary-market pricing.
Why is the last IR so expensive?
Coupon-collector math: once you own most of a tier, nearly every hit is a duplicate, so the final missing card can take as many packs as the first several combined. Illustration Rare has the most distinct cards (14) of any tier below SIR, so despite a higher per-pack rate than SIR, it’s where most of the masterset’s cost actually lives.
Can I finish a masterset from packs alone?
No — the set’s 8 promo cards (MEP 111-118) never come from standard packs; they’re bundled with specific products (Elite Trainer Box, Pokémon Center ETB, blisters, Build & Battle Box). The calculator prices the pack-obtainable tiers; the rest must be bought.
Disclaimer: All figures are modelled estimates from 80 packs; the per-tier card counts are confirmed against the official checklist but the per-pack rates (especially SIR and Mega Hyper Rare) carry real variance at this sample size. The model assumes independent packs at the average rate and equally likely cards within a tier; real openings can over- or under-shoot. The Pokémon Company does not publish official pull rates. This is not financial advice.