Is 151 worth opening? EV, price per pack and the Charizard chase

Verdict

151 is worth opening only in its cheapest formats, and only for fun. As of mid-September 2026 every pack carries about $10.34 of expected raw card value, high for a modern pack, but the set is out of print and the cheapest packs cost about $25 to $29. That puts a cheap mini tin or a booster bundle at roughly 36 to 41 cents of cards per dollar. The Elite Trainer Box, at about $522 for nine packs, returns about 18 cents, because more than half of its price is a premium for the sealed box itself. If you want the Charizard ex Special Illustration Rare, buy the single for about $363.

What 151 is

151 released on September 22, 2023 as a special set in the Scarlet & Violet series (set code MEW), built on the first generation of Pokémon. The printed checklist is 165 cards and the full set is 207. The 42 cards numbered above the printed total are what people open packs for: 16 Illustration Rares, 16 Ultra Rares, 7 Special Illustration Rares (SIRs) and 3 gold Hyper Rares. Below them sit 12 Double Rares, the regular ex cards.

As a special set, its packs came only inside other products. The main ones Pullnomics tracks with a known pack count are the Elite Trainer Box (nine packs), the Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box (11), the booster bundle (six), the Ultra-Premium Collection (16), ten mini tins (two each) and loose packs. The Poster, Binder, Alakazam ex and Zapdos ex Collections are tracked by price only. The set is out of print, so every sealed price includes a premium for the product still being sealed.

The numbers

These are the live set-level figures from the 151 set page.

The median card is worth about 91 cents, 32 cards clear $10 and 12 clear $50, every one of those 12 an Illustration Rare or an SIR. One of every card at market costs about $1,981.

The seven SIRs average about $117 and the 16 Illustration Rares about $48, so those 23 cards hold about $1,584, roughly 80 percent of the set's value. Charizard ex alone is about 18 percent.

Rarity and price do not line up in this set. The gold Hyper Rares are the hardest pull and average about $11, and the Ultra Rares average about $12. Both are worth about a quarter of an average Illustration Rare, which is easier to pull than either.

Sealed EV by product

Sealed EV is the average value, at today's TCGplayer market prices, of the cards a product should contain; the methodology has the formula. Every 151 pack has the same EV, about $10.34, so the only thing separating these products is the price per pack. The cross-set view is the sealed EV board.

The cheapest mini tin (Magneton and Ekans, about $51 for two packs) works out to about $25 per pack and an EV ratio of about 0.41, the best in the set. The dearest tin (Gengar and Poliwag, about $61) holds the same two packs at about 0.34, so buy tins by price. A loose pack is about $27 (about 0.38). The booster bundle is about $173 for six packs, about $29 each, with about $62 of gross EV and a ratio of about 0.36. A typical bundle across the board returns a little under 30 cents per dollar, so this one beats most.

The Elite Trainer Box costs about $58 per pack and holds about $93 of expected cards, a ratio of about 0.18, inside the 15 to 20 cent range normal for the format. Nine loose packs would cost about $242, so roughly $280 of the $522 pays for the sealed box and its extras. The Ultra-Premium Collection (not in the table) is about $921 for 16 packs, also about $58 per pack. The worst product to open is the Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box: about $1,293 for 11 packs, about $118 each, a ratio of about 0.09.

Net EV, which deducts a 15 percent marketplace fee plus $1 shipping on every card worth at least $1, is about $48 for the bundle. Chase share is about 43 percent: that much of the hit value sits in SIRs and Hyper Rares, which most bundles will not contain. The best product to open is the cheapest mini tin on paper and the booster bundle in practice, since it is six packs in one factory-sealed product. Our cost per pack comparison covers how the sealed formats differ.

Chase cards

These are the set's eight most valuable cards right now.

Charizard ex #199 at about $363 is the chase, worth more than the next two cards combined: Blastoise ex #200 at about $134 and Venusaur ex #198 at about $119. Zapdos ex (about $92) and Alakazam ex (about $74) follow, and the last two SIRs add only about $33 between them.

The Illustration Rares are the dependable part of the set: Charmander #168 at about $94, Squirtle about $90, Pikachu #173 about $82, Bulbasaur about $80 and Psyduck about $63. Each Kanto starter line shares one illustrator across its three art cards: miki kudo for the Charmander line, Mitsuhiro Arita for Squirtle and Yoriyuki Ikegami for Bulbasaur (see the artists index). As singles the Charizard line costs about $517, the Squirtle line about $285 and the Bulbasaur line about $240. All three Charizard art cards together cost about the same as one sealed Elite Trainer Box.

Below the art cards, the best Ultra Rare is the full-art Charizard ex #183 at about $40, and the best Hyper Rare is Mew ex #205 at about $26.

Pull rates

151 has its own measured rates, not an era average: midpoints of published pack-opening datasets (TCGplayer opening counts plus community counts), collected in September 2026. The methodology lists the sources.

The last column scales the odds to 36 packs, which for 151 means six booster bundles. One bundle averages 0.75 Double Rares (1 in 8 packs), 0.5 Illustration Rares (1 in 12) and about 0.4 Ultra Rares (1 in 16). About 70 percent of bundles contain at least one hit above Double Rare, so three in ten contain nothing better than a regular ex.

The SIR, at 1 in 32 packs, is the main chase tier. The chance of at least one is about 17 percent in a bundle and about 25 percent in an Elite Trainer Box. In dollars, 32 packs is a little over five bundles, about $920, to average one SIR worth about $117. The Illustration Rare slot is the bigger earner: a $48 card every 12 packs contributes about $4.00 of each pack's $10.34, against about $3.64 from the SIRs.

An SIR is not the Charizard. If the seven were printed evenly, which the datasets do not confirm, a specific one would be about 1 in 224 packs: about 37 bundles, roughly $6,500 at today's price, for a $363 card.

Who should open it and who should buy singles

If you play the game, buy singles: the regular ex cards are Double Rares averaging about $2.76.

If you are building the set, buy singles. The $1,981 that buys one of every card would buy between 11 and 12 bundles, about 69 packs. On average that yields about two of the seven SIRs and five or six of the 16 Illustration Rares, duplicates included.

If you want Charizard ex, or any one art card, buy it.

If you like opening packs, 151 is a friendly set for it: an SIR turns up about every 32 packs, against every 75 to 90 in Temporal Forces, Twilight Masquerade and Stellar Crown, and the Illustration Rares are worth real money. Budget it as entertainment. A $173 bundle gives back about $62 of cards on average, and less after selling costs.

If you own a sealed Elite Trainer Box, opening it swaps a $522 item for about $93 of expected cards.

How to buy it cheaper

On every 151 card page and sealed product page you get the TCGplayer market price, the price history, the figure that counts as 12 percent below market, and two eBay buttons. The first runs an eBay search limited to Buy It Now listings from US sellers, leaves out proxies, lots, code cards and look-alike products, sorts by price plus shipping, and caps the item price at 12 percent under market. The second runs the same search without the cap. Both are affiliate links. The block below opens eBay searches for 151's main sealed products, each one already capped under its below-market price.

The cap applies to the item price, so add shipping yourself. A listing earns the below-market label only when the landed price, item plus shipping, comes in 12 percent or more under market. For the bundle that means about $152 delivered. Seller "was $X" discounts count for nothing. If the capped search on the booster bundle page comes back empty, nothing is listed below market at that moment: open the uncapped button to see what everything is listed at, then use eBay's own "Save this search" so eBay emails you new matches.

For singles, condition matters, because site prices are raw Near Mint. Under the Deal Score method on the methodology page, a Lightly Played copy is measured against 85 percent of market, so a Lightly Played Charizard ex SIR must land near $272 to count, against about $320 for a Near Mint copy. eBay's Authenticity Guarantee covers trading cards sold for $250 or more in the US, which includes this card.

Bottom line

151 packs hold about $10.34 of expected cards and cost about $25 to $29 in the cheapest formats, so opening them returns roughly 36 to 41 cents per dollar at best and about 18 cents through an Elite Trainer Box. Friendly pull rates and valuable Illustration Rares make a bundle or a cheap mini tin a reasonable thing to open for fun, not a way to get cards. For Charizard ex, a starter line or the full set, open the card pages from the 151 set page and use the eBay buttons there to look for copies listed under market.