Yu-Gi-Oh! splits differently from every other game on this list, and it comes down to one structural fact: Konami prints far more rarity tiers than anyone else, and the gap between the top tier and everything below it is enormous. A core set case is 12 boxes of 24 packs, 288 packs total, and the overwhelming majority of what comes out is Common. The split lives or dies on how you handle Ultras, Secrets, and the ultra-short-print tiers above them.
The rarity ladder
A modern core set typically runs Common, Rare, Super Rare, Ultra Rare, Secret Rare, with Ultimate, Ghost, Collector's, Starlight, and Quarter Century Secret Rare appearing depending on the product line. A workable weight sheet:
- Common — 0.2
- Rare — 0.4
- Super Rare — 1.0 (baseline)
- Ultra Rare — 1.6
- Secret Rare — 2.2
- Ultimate Rare — 3.0
- Collector's Rare — fixed cost
- Ghost Rare / Starlight / Quarter Century Secret Rare — fixed cost
Everything from Collector's Rare upward is a fixed-cost card in practice. These are pull rates in the range of one per several cases, and prices routinely run into the hundreds. No weight you pick will be fair to both the puller and the rest of the table.
Playability drives price more than rarity
This is the Yu-Gi-Oh!-specific trap. In most TCGs, rarity correlates reasonably well with price. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, a Super Rare hand trap that every deck plays three copies of can be worth more than a Secret Rare that nobody runs. Ash Blossom-tier staples have historically outpriced most of the chase slots in their own sets.
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, ask 'is it played?' before you ask 'is it rare?' The weight sheet handles rarity; you have to handle playability yourself.
Two ways to deal with it. The simple approach: add a 'Staple' rarity row at a weight between Ultra and Secret, and use it for any card the group agrees is a competitive staple regardless of its printed rarity. The precise approach: put staples on fixed cost at market. Groups that play competitively usually prefer fixed cost, because those are the cards people actually want and they are the ones most likely to cause an argument.
Playsets change the assignment logic
Yu-Gi-Oh! decks run up to three copies of a card, so unlike Magic or Pokémon your participants are not just collecting singles — they want playsets. A single copy of a staple is worth meaningfully less than the third copy that completes someone's set. Case Split does not model this directly, but two conventions work:
- Claim-order priority: whoever claims the first copy of a card gets right of first refusal on copies two and three at the same weight.
- Playset bundling: log a completed playset as one card entry with three times the weight, or with a fixed cost at the market price of a playset.
Decide which convention you are using in the Terms & Conditions field when you create the case. This is the single most common source of post-open disagreement in Yu-Gi-Oh! groups.
Worked example: a $620 core set case
Three people split a 12-box core set case at $620. They use the weight sheet above plus a Staple row at 1.8. One Quarter Century Secret Rare comes out, agreed at $180, claimed by Carla as fixed cost.
After all 288 packs, weighted totals land at Ana 88.4, Ben 79.2, Carla 84.6 — total 252.2. Fixed costs are $180, leaving $440 to split. Ana pays (88.4/252.2 × $440) = $154.24. Ben pays $138.19. Carla pays $180 + $147.60 = $327.60. Total: $620.03.
Structure decks, tins, and mixed lots
Yu-Gi-Oh! groups often split mixed lots — a case plus a couple of tins plus a structure deck or two. Add the full cost of everything to the case cost, log the tin and structure deck contents as cards with appropriate weights, and it all balances. If the structure decks are being taken whole by one person rather than split, treat each deck as a single fixed-cost card at its purchase price. That way the buyer pays exactly what it cost and the rest of the pool is unaffected.
Bulk policy
A Yu-Gi-Oh! case produces thousands of Commons. Most groups do not want to log them individually and should not try. Set Common to weight 0 and agree on a bulk policy in advance: sold as a lot with proceeds split evenly, rotated between participants case-to-case, or given to whoever wants to sort them. Whatever you choose, write it in the Terms field so it is settled before there is a mountain of cardboard on the table.