Paradox Rift Illustration Rare Pull Rate — 5.56% per pack (1 in 18)
5.56% of Paradox Rift booster packs contain a Illustration Rare card — roughly 1 in 18 packs. Paradox Rift ships 34 Illustration Rare cards in the pool, so the chance of pulling any specific Illustration Rare is 0.0016 (≈1 in 612). These percentages come from PackRip's own rate table (the same constants the simulator runs on) — they are a model of the product, not a measurement of it. The Pokemon Company has never published pull rates.
Paradox Rift Illustration Rare pull-rate methodology
| Formula | Tier odds = 5.56% per pack; per-card odds = tier odds ÷ 34 Illustration Rare cards = 1 in 612. |
|---|---|
| Assumptions | One independent rare-slot roll per pack; uniform selection within the tier; no pity timers, box mapping, short-print correction, or edition/condition split. |
| Data source | Set checklist and rarity labels from the bundled Pokemon TCG API catalog; tier rates from rareSlotRates(), mirrored from the live pack opener. |
| Update cadence | Regenerated by prerender whenever set metadata, catalog data, or pull-rate constants change. |
| Limitations | This is a theoretical per-pack rate. Real sealed product can show print-run variance, collation quirks, and market-specific edition differences. |
Illustration Rare cards in Paradox Rift
| # | Card | TCGplayer market | Per-card odds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Groudon #199 | $116.83 | 1 in 612 |
| 2 | Plusle #193 | $53.15 | 1 in 612 |
| 3 | Minun #194 | $48.53 | 1 in 612 |
| 4 | Morpeko #206 | $43.01 | 1 in 612 |
| 5 | Steelix #208 | $42.83 | 1 in 612 |
| 6 | Mantyke #189 | $38.01 | 1 in 612 |
| 7 | Aipom #211 | $33.65 | 1 in 612 |
| 8 | Yveltal #205 | $32.90 | 1 in 612 |
| 9 | Swablu #213 | $29.94 | 1 in 612 |
| 10 | Joltik #196 | $29.03 | 1 in 612 |
| 11 | Minior #201 | $25.71 | 1 in 612 |
| 12 | Magby #186 | $20.02 | 1 in 612 |
| 13 | Garbodor #204 | $17.05 | 1 in 612 |
| 14 | Brute Bonnet #207 | $16.97 | 1 in 612 |
| 15 | Gimmighoul #198 | $15.47 | 1 in 612 |
| 16 | Loudred #212 | $15.30 | 1 in 612 |
| 17 | Porygon-Z #214 | $13.14 | 1 in 612 |
| 18 | Wimpod #191 | $12.43 | 1 in 612 |
| 19 | Vanillish #190 | $11.49 | 1 in 612 |
| 20 | Iron Jugulis #216 | $10.84 | 1 in 612 |
| 21 | Snorunt #188 | $10.37 | 1 in 612 |
| 22 | Aegislash #210 | $10.27 | 1 in 612 |
| 23 | Veluza #192 | $10.23 | 1 in 612 |
| 24 | Blitzle #195 | $9.29 | 1 in 612 |
| 25 | Iron Moth #187 | $8.70 | 1 in 612 |
| 26 | Mienshao #200 | $8.39 | 1 in 612 |
| 27 | Toedscruel #185 | $7.43 | 1 in 612 |
| 28 | Espathra #197 | $7.01 | 1 in 612 |
| 29 | Cyclizar #215 | $7.00 | 1 in 612 |
| 30 | Slither Wing #203 | $6.40 | 1 in 612 |
| 31 | Garganacl #202 | $5.69 | 1 in 612 |
| 32 | Dottler #184 | $5.33 | 1 in 612 |
| 33 | Ferrothorn #209 | $5.30 | 1 in 612 |
| 34 | Crustle #183 | $5.18 | 1 in 612 |
How the 5.56% rate is computed
Every Paradox Rift booster pack rolls one rare-slot card (plus uncommons, commons, and energy in fixed slots). The rare slot is itself a weighted random draw across 6 tiers — Rare, Holo Rare, Illustration Rare, and the era's other chase rarities. The Illustration Rare tier captures 5.56% of those rare-slot draws (= 5.56 packs out of every 100). Within the Illustration Rare tier, all 34 cards share the slot uniformly, so per-card odds are 5.56% ÷ 34 = 0.0016 = 1 in 612.
This is the same math PackRip's live Paradox Rift simulator uses to roll packs — open as many as you want for free, watch the empirical hit rate converge to the theoretical 5.56% over a large enough sample. Source code lives in src/utils/packGenerator.ts and the per-rarity drift is build-time-asserted against the published rates so the simulator and this landing page can never disagree.
Cumulative probability — how many packs to hit Illustration Rare
Illustration Rare pulls follow a geometric distribution with per-pack rate 0.055600. The expected number of packs until your first Illustration Rare hit is 18; at 95% confidence you'll have one within 53 packs. Most experienced openers crack a sealed booster box (36 packs) and hit Illustration Rare with probability 87.2% — so the average box yields just over 2.0 Illustration Rare pulls.
Related on PackRip
- Open Paradox Rift packs free — same pull rates, live RNG
- Paradox Rift binder completion calculator
- Paradox Rift per-pack expected value
- Top 25 most valuable Paradox Rift cards
- Every Illustration Rare card across all 140 booster sets