Pokémon TCG: Journey Together Pull Rates

To prepare for the release of Journey Together on March 28, 2025, The TCGplayer Authentication Center opened more than 8,000 booster packs.

If Surging Sparks and Prismatic Evolutions broke your heart too many times, I have good news. The pull rates in Journey Together are better than any non-Special Pokémon set released in 2024 (though they're still worse than the more generous rates from the first three Scarlet & Violet sets of 2023).

Illustration Rares and Double Rares Are (Slightly) More Common

Specifically, Illustration Rares appear in roughly 1 in 12 packs in Journey Together(compared to 1 in 13 in Surging Sparks), and Double Rares appear in roughly 1 in 5 packs (compared to 1 in 6 in Surging Sparks).

If you're skeptical that a 8,000+ card sample can show that level of variation, I hear you. Let me show you the math before you pass judgment. These are the pull rates for Journey Together and the last four non-Special Pokémon sets, which all released in 2024.

The pull rate we've calculated for Illustration Rares in Journey Together (8.50%) exceeds the upper limit of all the ranges we've calculated for this rarity in non-Special Pokémon sets from 2024.

With Double Rares, the difference is even more stark:

By contrast, while we did calculate a slight increase in the pull rates for Special Illustration Rares in Journey Together compared to Surging Sparks, the difference is so small compared to our confidence interval that we don't think it reflects a real change—just natural variation in our samples. 

But these improved rates are only part of the special sauce that's going to make Journey Together less nerve-wracking to open. 

Smaller Sets Are Easier to Master

Because Journey Together has only 190 different cards in it (compared to 252 in Surging Sparks), each specific card is going to show up in booster packs more often.

For example, even though the pull rates for Special Illustration Rare cards in general are virtually identical between the two sets, becuase there are only six SIR cards to find in the whole set (instead of 11), you're almost twice as likely to find SIR Lillie's Clefairy ex in a Journey Together pack than you are to find SIR Pikachu ex in a Surging Sparks pack.

With fewer cards to find, collecting one of every card in the set is going to feel much easier with Journey Together than it did for Surging Sparks.

No ACE SPECs Means Fewer Hits (YMMV)

Journey Together is the first Pokémon set since Temporal Forces to not include any ACE SPEC cards, the powerful Trainer and Energy cards with a hot-pink frame that are limited to one per deck.

We've been counting ACE SPECs as "hits" when determining the hit rate of Pokémon sets in 2024. Without them, your odds of finding a hit in Journey Together drop to roughly 16% per pack, down from 20% per pack in Temporal Forces, Twilight Masquerade, Stellar Crown, and Surging Sparks.

That said, if you never cared about ACE SPECs and were only trying to find Secret Rare cards (Ultra Rares and rarer), your odds have slightly improved: up roughly 1% from the 15% we saw in those 2024 sets. That gain comes from the slightly higher pull rates for Illustration Rares.

That's still lower than the 17-18% hit rates for Secret Rare cards we saw in 2023 Pokémon sets like Paldea Evolved, but it shows The Pokémon Company believes it's found a happy medium between the generous rates of those earlier sets and the meaner ones of last year.

Journey Together Pull Rates

Here's a more in-depth look at the pull rates in Journey Together. All the numbers below represent your odds per pack (not e.g. "per box"). We used a 95% confidence interval to generate all the percentage ranges like "20.29% ± 0.85%". The "Per X Packs" numbers are much less precise, and are just meant to make the percentages easier to grok.

The odds on specific cards of each rarity assume an equal population of each card at that rarity. The pull rates for each card we found fit within the 95% confidence interval of an individual card of that rarity, which supports the assumption above.

Note: Your personal experience will vary—that's how randomized booster packs work!

Double Rare (1 in 5)

There are 16 Double Rare cards in Journey Together, all of which are regular-version Pokémon ex cards like Mamoswine ex and Dudunsparce ex. Around 20% of Journey Together booster packs contain a Double Rare in the Rare slot.

Ultra Rare (1 in 15)

There are 11 Ultra Rare cards in Journey Together: eight Full Art Pokémon ex like Hop's Zacian ex, and three Full Art Trainers like Iris's Fighting Spirit. Around 6-7% of Journey Together booster packs contain an Ultra Rare in the Rare slot.

Illustration Rare (1 in 12)

There are 11 Illustration Rare cards in Journey Together, all of which are full-card alternate art versions of normal (non-ex) Pokémon, like N's Reshiram and Articuno. Around 8-9% of Journey Together booster packs contain an Illustration Rare in the second Reverse Holo slot.

Special Illustration Rare (1 in 86)

There are six Special Illustration Rare cards in Journey Together, all of which are full-card alternate art Pokémon ex like Lillie's Clefairy ex and N's Zoroark ex. Around 1% of Journey Together booster packs contain a Special Illustration Rare in the second Reverse Holo slot. Your odds of pulling Special Illustration Rare Lillie's Clefairy ex in any given pack of Journey Together are a small fraction of a percent (0.19%).

Hyper Rare (1 in 137)

There are three Hyper Rare cards in Journey Together, all of which feature golden frames and borders. Two are Pokémon ex like Iono's Bellibolt ex, and the third is Spiky Energy. Less than 1% of Journey Together booster packs contain a Hyper Rare in the second Reverse Holo slot.