Booster pack

In collectible card games and collectible miniature wargames, a booster pack is a sealed package of cards or figurines, designed to add to a player's collection.

Booster packs generally contain a relatively small number of items (6-19 for cards; 3-8 for figurines), randomly assorted. Booster packs are the smaller, cheaper counterparts of starter packs, though many expansion sets are sold only in boosters. While booster packs are cheaper than starter packs, the "price per item" is typically higher.

Booster packs are generally priced to serve as good impulse purchases, with prices comparable to a comic book and somewhat lower than those of most magazines, paperback books, and other such items.

In many games, there is a fixed distribution based on rarity, while others use truly random assortments. When the distribution is based on rarity, booster packs usually contain one or two rares, depending on the game, while the remainder are of lesser rarity.

Examples of booster pack sizes of different collectible games

*
** 15 cards per booster - 1 rare, 3 uncommons and 11 commons; Core Set boosters contain a basic land as one of the commons. Starting with the Shards of Alara expansion, boosters will contain 1 basic land, 10 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 card that can be either a rare or a mythic rare.

* Call of Cthulhu Collectible Card Game
** 11 cards per booster - 1 rare, 3 uncommons and 7 commons. Recently, the game switched to non-collectable expansion packs called Asylum Decks.

* Lord of the Rings, The
** 11 cards per booster - 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 7 commons. There is a one in seven chance that a special foil card takes the place of the rare.

* Duel Masters
** 10 cards per booster - not guaranteed to contain rare cards, although more than one is possible in a booster. If a booster does contain such a card, it will be either uncommon, rare, very rare, or super rare.

* Pokémon
** 9 cards per booster - 5 commons, 2 uncommons, 1 reverse holo, and 1 rare. Became 10 cards after the release of Diamond and Pearl with 3 uncommons instead of 2.

* Yu-Gi-Oh!
** Normal OCG booster pack: 5 cards per booster - not guaranteed to have rare cards.
** Normal TCG booster pack: 9 cards per booster - 1 non-common card (can be rare, super rare, ultra rare, and in some cases, secret rare or ultimate rare) and 8 commons.

* Doctor Who - Battles in Time
** Normally 9 cards per pack - 8 commons and 1 rare, with a 1 per 6 packs chance of a super-rare card, a 1 per 24 packs chance of an ultra-rare card, and a 1 per 1000 packs chance of the Golden Ticket.