Pokemon Celebrations card pull rates exposed: Shiny Mew, Charizard odds

Brent Koepp
Pokemon Celebrations TCG set promotional poster

A Pokemon TCG shop has revealed the pull rates for the Pokemon Celebrations card set. Here are your odds at pulling a base set Charizard or the highly coveted golden Shiny Mew.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, The Pokemon Company has released a special TCG set called Celebrations. The new expansion offers reprints of some of the game’s most sought-after collectibles – including the wildly popular Base Set from 1998.

Fans wondering what their odds are of pulling rare or classic items from the release are in luck. One store has opened a ton of packs and has given a detailed breakdown of how hard each Pokemon card is to actually pull.

Pokemon Celebrations wallpaper
The October TCG set is a reprint of retro Pokemon cards.

Pokemon Celebrations pull rates revealed

Not counting product promos, there are roughly 50 cards total in the Celebrations expansion. While half of the set is new, the other half is made up of reprints of 25 classic Pokemon cards from the last 25 years.

Pokemon TCG store ‘CardSupply‘ broke open Celebrations booster packs from various sealed products to get an analysis of the pull rates. The site focused only on the classic and rare cards, as the main set is common.

While this is an approximation as packs are random, you get a pretty clear picture of what fans can expect from the the 25th Anniversary set. Below is the shop’s findings after opening over 778 packs in total.

Top 11 rarest Pokemon Celebrations cards

Interestingly, Tapu Lele GX from Guardians Rising was the hardest Pokemon card to pull coming at 1 out of 259 odds. Second place was Mewtwo EX with a 1 out of 130 rate. Finally in third is the gold Shiny Mew Secret Rare at 1 out of 129.

When it comes to the Base Set starters, Charizard continues to reign supreme as the rarest of the bunch, with its re-print coming in at 1 out of 97.

Here are the the top 11 rarest cards overall:

11. Charizard

Pokemon Celebrations Charizard Base Set


  • Pokemon Card set: Base Set (1998)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 97.3

10. Luxray GL Lv.X

Pokemon Celebrations Luxray Card


  • Pokemon Card set: Rising Rivals (2009)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 97.3

9. Reshiram

Pokemon Celebrations Reshiram Card


  • Pokemon Card set: Black & White (2011)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 97.3

8. Zekrom

Pokemon Celebrations Zekrom card


  • Pokemon Card set: Black & White (2011)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 97.3

7. Xerneas EX

Pokemon Celebrations Xerneas card


  • Pokemon Card set: Black & White (2011)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 111

6. Umbreon Gold Star

Pokemon Celebrations Umbreon Card


  • Pokemon Card set: POP Series 5 (2007)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 111

5. Shining Magikarp

Pokemon Celebrations Shining Magikarp Card


  • Pokemon Card set: POP Series 5 (2007)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 111

4. M Rayquaza EX

Pokemon Celebrations Rayquaza Card


  • Pokemon Card set: Roaring Skies (2015)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 111

3. Shiny Mew (Gold Secret Rare)

Pokemon Celebrations Shiny Mew Gold Card


  • Pokemon Card set: Celebrations (2021)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 129.7

2. Mewtwo EX

Pokemon Celebrations Mewtwo EX card


  • Pokemon Card set: Next Destinies (2012)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 130

1. Tapu Lele GX

Pokemon Celebrations Tapu Lele GX card


  • Pokemon Card set: Next Destinies (2012)
  • Celebrations Pull rate: 1 / 259

It should be pointed out that Pokemon cards are, of course, completely random. So trying to find an exact pull rate that is 100% accurate is impossible. It’s still interesting though to see an analysis from a company that has opened hundreds of packs.

Based on the results, it appears that the Celebrations TCG expansion is pretty generous. According to CardSupply, the worst Elite Trainer Box only had five “dud” booster Packs out of the 10 included inside. The set seems like the perfect way to celebrate the Nintendo series’ 25th anniversary.