{
  "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/rip-or-hold-sealed",
  "slug": "rip-or-hold-sealed",
  "title": "Rip or Hold? 400 Simulated Packs Settle the Sealed Debate",
  "summary": "We opened 400 packs through our own simulator, sourced pull rates, live card prices, and priced both sides of the oldest argument in the hobby. The answer isn't a side. It's a schedule.",
  "section": "Investment research",
  "published": "2026-08-04",
  "readMinutes": 8,
  "publisher": "moonstone",
  "findings": [
    {
      "value": "$1.25",
      "measures": "the median pack, priced",
      "basis": "almost identical whether the pack cost $6.60 or $44.61"
    },
    {
      "value": "30–81%",
      "measures": "the rip tax",
      "basis": "expected value lost at the register, by set"
    },
    {
      "value": "2–12%",
      "measures": "packs that beat their own cost",
      "basis": "across all 400 opened"
    },
    {
      "value": "$516",
      "measures": "the best single pack",
      "basis": "one Evolving Skies pull, 11.6× its own pack price"
    }
  ],
  "tables": [
    {
      "title": "400 simulated packs · sourced pull rates × live card prices",
      "columns": [
        "Set",
        "Pack price",
        "Expected value",
        "Median pack",
        "Rip tax",
        "Packs beating cost"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Set": "[Journey Together](/set/journey%20together) (in print, 2025)",
          "Pack price": "$6.60",
          "Expected value": "$4.59",
          "Median pack": "$1.37",
          "Rip tax": "30%",
          "Packs beating cost": "12%"
        },
        {
          "Set": "[Surging Sparks](/set/surging%20sparks) (2024)",
          "Pack price": "$8.29",
          "Expected value": "$2.38",
          "Median pack": "$1.22",
          "Rip tax": "71%",
          "Packs beating cost": "6%"
        },
        {
          "Set": "[Silver Tempest](/set/silver%20tempest) (2022)",
          "Pack price": "$14.74",
          "Expected value": "$2.77",
          "Median pack": "$1.27",
          "Rip tax": "81%",
          "Packs beating cost": "2%"
        },
        {
          "Set": "[Evolving Skies](/set/evolving%20skies) (2021)",
          "Pack price": "$44.61",
          "Expected value": "$12.66",
          "Median pack": "$1.25",
          "Rip tax": "72%",
          "Packs beating cost": "3%"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "charts": [],
  "sections": [
    "What a pack is actually worth, measured",
    "Sealed only starts compounding when the presses stop",
    "A schedule, not a side"
  ],
  "method": [
    "Rip side: 100 packs per set (400 total) opened August 4, 2026 through moonstone's public pack simulator, which rolls only published pull-rate studies (each rate sourced and disclosed in the simulator; tiers without a published rate are never rolled). All four sets carry a TCGplayer Infinite study over 8,000 or more packs. The Evolving Skies study measures the alt-art VMAX TIER at 1 in 332 packs and the specific alt-art Umbreon VMAX at roughly 1 in 2,000, with a wide interval whose optimistic end is 1 in 1,000; no rate here is inferred from ours. Every pulled card is priced at its live canonical market value from our price pipeline; commons and unpriced cards count at $0, which makes every expected value here slightly CONSERVATIVE in the ripper's favor being ignored, bulk is worth pennies, not nothing. Sample-size caveat: tail-driven means carry real noise at n=100 (Silver Tempest's mean ranged $2.77–$3.55 across runs); medians and beat-rates are stable and are the figures to trust most. Pack prices are live sealed market prices (box price ÷ 36 where only boxes trade). Hold side: live sealed prices pulled the same day; the 46.6%/yr box and 36.7%/yr pack figures are from our published 30-year study, whose Base Set figure was corrected on 2026-09-22 from a 19.7% that had compounded a pack against a box; the 30th Celebration and Mysterious Treasures moves are current 30-day sealed-market measurements. Retail baselines are MSRP. Nothing here is financial advice."
  ],
  "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file."
}