Odds, Slots & Pools

This is the part of Creator Studio that confuses most first-time creators. The key is that a pack does not choose directly from every card at once.

Selection order

For each Pack Slot, the game:

1. rolls the slot's appearance chance;
2. chooses a rarity using that slot's relative rarity weights;
3. filters variants by the optional group or pool;
4. chooses an eligible variant using chance within that rarity;
5. applies duplicate protection when possible.

Appearance chance

Appearance chance answers: Does this position exist in this pack?

• 100%: always adds a card.
• 50%: appears in about half of packs.
• 1%: a rare bonus position.

A ten-card pack normally has ten guaranteed slots. A surprise insert can be an eleventh slot with a lower appearance chance.

Rarity weights

Weights are ratios, not required percentages. 75 / 25 behaves the same as 3 / 1.

If a slot has:

• Standard: 75
• Rare: 25

then it chooses Standard roughly three times as often as Rare over many tests.

Chance within rarity

This chooses a specific variant only after rarity has already been selected. A Holo variant with weight 1 is not automatically a one-percent pack pull. It competes against the other eligible variants in the selected rarity.

Groups and pools

A group is an optional exact text label. It lets one project contain several subsets or product-specific pools.

Example:

main-set
starter-only
promo-only

The card or variant label and the Pack Slot filter must match exactly. Leave the filter blank when every otherwise eligible variant may appear.

Duplicate protection

Duplicate protection tries to avoid two variants of the same base card in one pack. It only works when the eligible pool contains enough different base cards.

Why a slot is empty

Check in this order:

1. Is appearance chance above zero?
2. Does the slot have at least one positive rarity weight?
3. Does at least one variant use that rarity?
4. Is that variant pack eligible?
5. Does the group match exactly, or is the filter blank?
6. Does the variant have a positive chance within rarity?
7. Is duplicate protection asking for more unique cards than the pool contains?

Test statistically

Open one visual Test Pack first. Then simulate 100 packs to find structural problems and 1,000 packs to evaluate the long-run rarity mix and average raw value.