We’ve been hunting for Phantasmal Flames packs for weeks now. Every store near us in northeast Ohio has been completely sold out since the set launched, and me and Tanner finally tracked down one store that had some in stock. Five packs. That’s all they’d let us buy. So we brought them home and ripped them open on camera.
Spoiler: the gold Charizard did not show up. Not even close.
The Hunt for Phantasmal Flames
If you’re not in the Pokemon TCG world right now let me catch you up. Phantasmal Flames is the newest set and it features some absolutely insane Charizard cards, specifically a blue and black Charizard and a gold Charizard that collectors are losing their minds over. Problem is the set is basically impossible to find in stores. Tanner and I have been checking every Target, Walmart, and local card shop for like two weeks and coming up empty every single time.
When I found those first two packs a couple weeks ago Tanner wasn’t with me because it was my off week for custody, so I opened them without him and he was NOT happy about that. This was his first real crack at the set and he brought his stuffed friend Steve along for moral support which if you watch our family channel you know Steve makes regular appearances.
We actually started tracking restock patterns because I’m that kind of nerd. The local Target gets their trading card vendor on Tuesday mornings. Walmart is Thursday but the vendor doesn’t always have Pokemon, sometimes it’s just sports cards and Magic. The best luck we’ve had is a local card shop that gets direct allocation from the Pokemon Company, but they limit you to three items per set per customer and their stock sells out within hours of hitting the shelf.
The secondary market is insane right now. Individual booster packs are going for $8 to $12 on eBay when the MSRP is $4.49. Elite Trainer Boxes that retail for $49.99 are selling for $80 to $100. Booster bundles are marked up 50% or more. I refuse to pay scalper prices on principle but I understand why people do it when you literally cannot find the product anywhere else for weeks at a time.
Part of the problem is that the Pokemon Company intentionally underprints certain sets to create scarcity and drive demand. They’ve been doing this since the Evolving Skies era and it works every single time. Phantasmal Flames has some of the most desirable chase cards in years so the demand is through the roof and supply can’t keep up. The distributor situation doesn’t help either because big box stores use third-party vendors who control when and how much product gets put on shelves, and those vendors have their own allocation challenges on top of the supply constraints from the Pokemon Company itself.
What We Pulled (Or Didn’t)
Five packs. Four Cottony promo cards and one Whimsicott. Not a great start on the promos but whatever, those aren’t really the point.
Pack one: nothing. Just some common pulls but there was a Charmander with really nice art that I actually liked. Pack two: nothing again. Got an Eternatus which looked cool but no hits. Pack three: Tanner ripped it down the middle like a maniac, still nothing. Pack four: I thought I saw some texture on one of the cards and got my hopes up for about half a second before reality crushed me. Nothing.
Pack five was supposed to be last pack magic. Tanner was calling for the gold Charizard. I was hoping for at least a SIR or something to make the video worth it. We got a Flygon. A regular Flygon. Not even a reverse holo or an ex or anything interesting.
Five packs, zero hits. We got absolutely wrecked.
Understanding the Actual Pull Rates
Here’s the thing nobody tells you before you start ripping packs: the odds are genuinely terrible and understanding them actually makes the hobby more enjoyable, not less. Let me break down what we know about Phantasmal Flames pull rates based on data collectors have been compiling since the set launched.
A standard booster pack has 10 cards. You’re guaranteed at least one rare in the reverse holo slot but that rare is usually just a regular holo or a common rare that’s worth about 25 cents on the secondary market. The hit cards, the ones people actually want, are the ex cards, the full arts, the special illustration rares also called SIRs, and the hyper rares including the gold cards everyone is chasing.
Based on community tracking data from sites like PkmnCards and PokeBeach, the approximate pull rates for Phantasmal Flames look something like this. An ex card shows up roughly every 4 to 5 packs. A full art trainer or Pokemon is about 1 in 15 packs. A special illustration rare comes in around 1 in 30 to 40 packs. And the gold cards including that Charizard that Tanner wants are estimated at somewhere between 1 in 60 and 1 in 80 packs depending on the data set you look at.
So when Tanner and I opened 5 packs and got absolutely nothing, that’s completely expected statistically. We’d need to open somewhere around 60 to 80 packs just for a reasonable shot at pulling one gold card. At $4.49 per pack that’s $270 to $360 worth of packs for ONE chase card. When you frame it that way, buying the single card on the secondary market for $150 to $200 is actually the financially rational choice. But honestly where’s the fun in that? The whole point is sitting at the table together and ripping them open.
This is why I always tell people on my channel: if you’re opening packs purely to hit specific chase cards, you’re going to be disappointed more often than not. The hobby is about the experience, the artwork, completing sets, and especially when you’re doing it with your kid, just having fun together. The chase cards are a bonus when they show up, not the point of doing it.
What Makes This Set Special
Every Pokemon set has chase cards but Phantasmal Flames hit different for a few reasons. The blue and black Charizard illustration rare is genuinely one of the best-looking cards the Pokemon Company has ever produced. The full art style uses a completely new texture technique that catches light in a way previous sets haven’t managed to pull off. When I saw the Japanese version of this card online before the English release I immediately understood why collectors were losing their minds over it.
The set also has a strong supporting cast beyond just the Charizard. The Flygon ex illustration rare, the Gardevoir special art, and the Umbreon cards all have legitimate collector appeal and secondary market value. This isn’t a one-card set like some previous releases where only the top chase card holds value and everything else tanks within a month of release. There are probably 8 to 10 cards in Phantasmal Flames that will hold or gain value over the next year which is unusual and makes it a better set overall for both serious collectors and people who just like having cool-looking cards in their binders.
For Tanner specifically the appeal is much simpler. He likes Charizard because Charizard is cool and it breathes fire. He likes the shiny gold cards because they’re shiny. He doesn’t care about market value or pull rates or set composition analysis, he just wants to open packs and see what’s inside. And honestly that’s the purest form of the hobby and I try really hard not to let my collector brain and my investor brain ruin it for him.
The Retail Hunting Game in 2026
Finding Pokemon cards at retail in 2026 is a completely different experience than it was even two years ago. The pandemic-era chaos where people were literally getting into physical fights at Target over card restocks has mostly calmed down, but product availability for hype sets is still wildly inconsistent especially in smaller markets like ours in northeast Ohio where we don’t have specialty game stores on every corner.
The best strategy I’ve found is building relationships with your local card shops. Big box retail is a total crapshoot because you’re competing with bots that track restock schedules and resellers who show up right at opening. But a local card shop owner who knows you and your kid will sometimes hold product for regular customers or give you a heads up text when a shipment is coming in. That’s exactly how we scored those five packs for this video. The owner texted me when they arrived and I drove over during my lunch break to grab them before they were gone.
Online retail is another option but you have to be careful with it. The Pokemon Center website is the most reliable source for MSRP pricing but products sell out in literal minutes during hype releases and restocks. Amazon and TCGPlayer are fine for buying singles and older sealed product but current-set sealed product is almost always marked up significantly above MSRP. I’ve also seen straight-up counterfeit product on Amazon, especially from third-party sellers, so always check seller ratings and reviews carefully before buying sealed Pokemon product online.
Teaching Tanner About Collecting
One of the things I genuinely love about this hobby is that it’s teaching Tanner real concepts without him even realizing he’s learning anything. When we talk about pull rates we’re doing probability and statistics. When we compare prices between sealed product and singles we’re doing basic economics and value assessment. When he organizes his binder by set number he’s practicing sequential ordering and categorization. When he trades cards at school he’s learning negotiation, fair value, and how to walk away from a bad deal.
I bought him his first real binder and we organize his pulls together after every opening session. He’s got his commons sorted by type, his holos in top loaders, and his best pulls in penny sleeves inside the binder pages. He takes it to school sometimes and trades with his friends at lunch. Came home the other day and told me he traded a holo Machamp for a reverse holo Eevee because and I’m quoting him directly here, Eevee has more evolutions so it’s worth more. Kid’s not wrong honestly.
The custody battle stuff is always in the background of everything I do with Tanner whether I want it to be or not. Every card opening, every Target run, every time he falls asleep on the couch while we’re sorting through bulk commons together, I think about how close I came to not having any of this. Three months without seeing him during the worst part of the legal fight. Supervised visitation where my parents had to be in the room just so I could see my own son. All because of accusations that turned out to be completely baseless. Now he lives five minutes away and we open Pokemon cards together on weekday nights in his Pikachu pajamas. That’s what fighting for custody looks like when it actually works out. Not every dad gets this outcome and I never ever take a single one of these moments for granted.
Why We Keep Doing This
Here’s the thing though and this is what I try to tell people when they ask about the card opening videos. The pulls aren’t really the point. I mean yeah it’s exciting when you rip a good card and Tanner goes crazy, but what I actually care about is that we’re sitting at the table together on a weekday night, he’s in his Pikachu pajamas, we’re both talking trash about promo cards and getting hyped over artwork on commons.
After everything I went through fighting for 50/50 custody and spending what I spent to get time with my kid, nights like this where we’re just hanging out opening Pokemon cards are exactly what I was fighting for. Even when we pull absolutely nothing.
We’re almost at 200 subscribers on the family channel now which is cool. If you want to see more of me and Tanner opening cards and doing dad stuff the link is in the description. And if we can ever find more Phantasmal Flames packs in our area we’ll be back to chase that gold Charizard again because Tanner is NOT letting this go.