Winter Box Sale Analysis: An Early Holiday Surprise

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Well, Niantic just gave us an early Christmas present with these good box sales. It uses the winter themed box sprites first seen in December 2016, and the Special Box is now named “Winter Box”.

Winter Great Ultra
Premium Raid Pass 3 5 14
Super Incubator 4 12
Incubator 2
Star Piece 2 10
Incense 1 2
Lucky Egg 10
Lure Module 2
Price 480 780 1480
Box value analysis
Coins Saved per Box (Incubator & Raid Pass) 120 520 2320
Coins Saved per Box 307.5 815 3570
Percent Discount (Incubator & Raid Pass) 20.00% 40.00% 61.05%
Percent Discount 39.05% 51.10% 70.69%

Before the verdict, I would like to reiterate that I chose to not use the standard price of Lucky Eggs, Incense, Lure Modules, and Star Pieces, since the comparison should be more on the price of buying in bulk. It would be misleading to compare it to the base price which is in principle designed to be more expensive than bulk to encourage consumers to spend more. That being said, I used the bulk price of these items when buying an 8-item bundle.

Quick links to related guides:

Our Verdict

Apart from the Great Box, these boxes are generally good. The Ultra Box is back on its tip-top shape, and the Winter Box (formerly known as the Special Box) is not that bad either considering its target audience. While the Great Box might not be the best, it does have its niche (like in past Great Boxes). Most of the players should be happy with these boxes.

Winter Box

This is another solid box, even with the name change. The Winter Box, like the Special Boxes before it, are really aimed at those players who really don’t want to spend that much on the game. It’s not the best in terms with savings, but you save 120 coins when you only consider the Incubators and Raid Passes. If you can spend more than 480 coins, I suggest you push for the Ultra Box, which we will get to later.

Great Box

Niantic released another disappointing Great Box. Historically, this isn’t the worst, but there are better Great Box deals in the past, to the point that it beats Ultra Box outright. Only opt for this box if and only if you can’t afford to spend 1480 coins. Interestingly enough, the Incense and Lure Module combo makes this Box a niche for those who want to get the most spawns/catches. All 4 items of this box guarantee at least a chance at a Pokémon catch/hatch.

Ultra Box

This has been one of the best Ultra Boxes in a while. If you consider Raid Passes alone, the difference of 80 coins get you 12 Super Incubators, so hardcore raiders might want to get these Ultra Boxes in bulk. While the Lucky Egg might not be enticing for Level 40 players who aren’t really interested in grinding for more XP, the Star Piece will win those players out, especially since additional Stardust can help you prepared for Trainer Battles, specifically powering up Pokémon and mass trading for the elusive Lucky Pokémon.

Overall thoughts

I’ve been doing the analysis for a while now, and I noticed that Niantic usually release bad boxes right after releasing good ones, so I think this is the best time to stock up on Incubators and Raid Passes for you to prepare for the rest of Generation IV. Remember that every baby Pokémon except Riolu and Budew are still unreleased. That’s 6 Baby Pokémon you need to hatch to complete the Sinnoh Dex, which will definitely take awhile, and some Generation IV Pokémon might even be only available on raids like Shinx and initially Buizel.

What will I buy? Ultra Box, so I can stock up on Super Incubators and Raid Passes. How about you? If you would buy a box, what would you buy?

Author & tags

Ysmael
Ysmael
Avid Pokémon Fan since 2000

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