Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Pokémon TFG - Analysis of figure distribution in boosters

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Archaic

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Original post and discussion on Bulbagarden, where I will continue to provide updates over the next day or so.

As a little bit of backstory....I did work for Croftminster, the local distributor of the Pokémon Trading Card and Figure games here in Australia, demonstrating the game to people at the events held in Brisbane on the 7th and 8th of this month for the Journey Across Oz Pokémon 10th Anniversary tour. Aside from the materials for those demonstrations, which were mine to keep (2 CG starters, and 2 TFG starters. I ended up giving away those two TFG starters piecemeal to the kids at the events after we finished on the Sunday), I recieved an entire carton of Pokémon TFG boosters, containing 4 boxes of 8 boosters, for a total of 32 boosters. As I'd noticed a number of irregularities when purchasing my own boosters in stores (issues with the poison/paralyze counters, which have since been acknowledged by the company, and strange distributions of figures, an issue that's yet to be addressed), I decided to use this carton to do some testing. While the results and conclusions I may draw from a single carton may not be enough to reach any definitive position, it's quite obvious from what I've done thusfar that there are issues that need to be corrected before the sale of this game in America and Japan.

Doing a little test with the boosters I've recieved as payment for my efforts at the Pokétour.

I got 1 carton of 4 boxes of boosters, each box containing 8 boosters. I'll record the results of them after I've opened them below (and since they take a while to open, I'll only open two boxes a day, one morning, one evening), as well as my thoughts on the issue.

Boxes are stacked in layers of 2 inside the carton. Box 1 will be top left, Box 2 top right, and so forth.
Boosters are stacked in layers of 4 inside the individual boxes. Booster 1 is top layer top left, 2 top layer top right, 3 top layer bottom left, and so forth.

Box 1:
  1. Feraligator, Golem
  2. Charizard, Absol
  3. Charizard, Dratini
  4. Charizard, Brock
  5. Spearow, Golem
  6. Spearow, Mudkip
  7. Marril, Mudkip
  8. Marril, Pikachu

To get so many of the same figures, repeatedly, is an issue. There seems to be a case where a booster is likely to contain at least one of the figures from the boosters next to it (in any direction, including the one directly beneath it in the next layer), though it's not 100% guarenteed.

Box 2:
  1. Dratini, Pikachu
  2. Sentret, Marril
  3. Sentret, Zangoose
  4. Marril, Golem
  5. Zangoose, Nidoran M, 2 Paralyze Counters
  6. Sentret, Zangoose
  7. Machop, Misty, Max Revive Trainer Card
  8. Absol, Nidoran M, 2 Paralyze Counters

While we'd already established that Paralyze and Poison counters are getting mixed up in the boosters, it's easy to see here that it's happening for further confirmation. It's interesting that it's taken us this long to get a single trainer card. While they're all labeled as "common", it's highly unlikely anyone will ever complete the full set, with them coming out this rarely. Getting a Misty in one of these boosters makes me slightly confident that most boxes should contain at least one trainer. From experience at the PokéTour though, I know it can't be 100%, as there were at least 2 boxes opened which had no trainers in the boosters whatsoever.

Box 3:
  1. Marril, Murkrow
  2. Absol, Nidoran M, 2 Paralyze Counters
  3. Marril, Zangoose, Max Revive Trainer Card
  4. Sentret, Pikachu
  5. Zangoose, Nidoran M, 2 Paralyze Counters
  6. Marril, Pikachu
  7. Duduo, Dratini
  8. Sentret, Dratini

I lost track of which was Box 3 and which Box 4 overnight. I'm hoping this is Box 4, actually, since if it's Box 3, my growing suspicions that the contents of boosters may be influenced by the contents of the boosters in adjacent Boxes would lead me to suspect that I'm not likely to get anything worthwhile in the last box. It's very significant that out of 16 figures in this box, only 1 was a figure I did not have previously, and only 2 are figures which did not turn up somewhere in Box 2. Furthermore, one of those two figures which did turn up here and not in Box 2, is Murkrow, a figure that can be found in starters.

More to come.
Click to expand...
 
Interesting, but that sometimes happens...
I am just wondering, have you heard about any set after the first?? I only have heard/seen figures for the 1st set... I assume JPN has had some more figs release, however I havent been able to confirm this...
Do you know anything??
LMK,
Drew
 
TDT, it's a little more than "sometimes happens" at this point. While this is my first formal test, informal testing with buying 2-3 boosters at a time (from two different stores thusfar) have produced similar results. Furthermore, at the Pokétour, I personally observed 3 people pull the special "Pearl" Misty figures from boosters we were handing out, all 3 of which came from the same box of 8 boosters. We had similar things happen with other supposedly "rare" figures. This goes way beyond a coincidence.

As far as figure releases, Japan won't even get this set until next year. Australia is the test market, followed by small releases in Europe and South East Asia over the next 2 months, before the final release in America and Japan. It's possible at this stage that Australia will again be the first country to recieve the next set.

PokePop, when I'm finished with it, if you'd like to do that, please feel free to do so. I intend to finish the article tonight and post it to BulbaNews then, so maybe if you'd give it a day or two as an exclusive first there?
 
Archaic said:
TDT, it's a little more than "sometimes happens" at this point. While this is my first formal test, informal testing with buying 2-3 boosters at a time (from two different stores thusfar) have produced similar results. Furthermore, at the Pokétour, I personally observed 3 people pull the special "Pearl" Misty figures from boosters we were handing out, all 3 of which came from the same box of 8 boosters. We had similar things happen with other supposedly "rare" figures. This goes way beyond a coincidence.

As far as figure releases, Japan won't even get this set until next year. Australia is the test market, followed by small releases in Europe and South East Asia over the next 2 months, before the final release in America and Japan. It's possible at this stage that Australia will again be the first country to recieve the next set.

PokePop, when I'm finished with it, if you'd like to do that, please feel free to do so. I intend to finish the article tonight and post it to BulbaNews then, so maybe if you'd give it a day or two as an exclusive first there?
Click to expand...

I think JPN already has the first set, I beleive they got it over a year ago. I know this, cuz some of my friends bought JPN Boosters of the Figures...

What I meant by sometimes happens is the following. Sometimes when a game is first released, the distributation of the rarities or certian items, is skewed cuz they dont know what they are doing for the first set. I would assume as sets get released I would think it would get better,
I beleive 1st Ed Base Boxes Were That... I have opened 2 and both had 2 of more than 3 cards... So I think it is just sometimes the first sets,
JMO,
Drew
 
This is true also for the 1-figure boosters made for Italy and France.
We opened 40 boosters, and many boxes had 2, 3 or even 4 of the same figure.We didn't find any trainer (though they are available also on 1-figure boosters), and we did find only a few rare figure, and no EX figures.
They removed the rarity symbols from the figures, while they were printed on the prototypes we had, but it seems they didn't remove the rarity scheme instead.
We don't have Crystal or Pearl Pokémon in our markets.
We did find instead a good number of Trainer cards, but the counters were mixed up just like Archaic pointed out.

And then, the thing "How to get bases and rings out of the starter sets?" is starting to come out as a rant... Expected, I hope PUI will add them on the boosters from now on....

And, DarkTwins, the games isn't out yet in Japan nor in USA... maybe your friend has prototypes, or some similar products...
 
archaic said:
To get so many of the same figures, repeatedly, is an issue. There seems to be a case where a booster is likely to contain at least one of the figures from the boosters next to it (in any direction, including the one directly beneath it in the next layer), though it's not 100% guarenteed.
Click to expand...

Statistically a pair of figures have a 3/7 chance of being adjacent by your definition of adjacent. Given that there are duplicates (pairs,tripples, etc) then I'd be surprised if you didn't find adjacent duplicates. With only three duplicates in a box the odds become 6/7 that you will find an adjacent pair.


I'll comment further once more data points are available. But I should add that you need to think how these compare to the POP booster packs. The POP packs really are random with differential rarity. The last thing I would wish for is that the figure game boosters are random.

For any one interested in the statistics look up the "Coupon Collector Problem" on the net.
 
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My forth box is up on the Bulbagarden thread now. None of the figures found in it were figures I hadn't found in one of the previous boosters in this carton.
As food for thought for others following this, there are 42 figures in this set total (plus an extra 6 "Crystal" versions of the EX rares, an extra 10 "Pearl" figures of the normal rares, and an extra Referee figure that's only available in the 9 figure starter sets). Out of the 64 figures pulled from the boosters, only 16 of the figures in the entire set were represented.

As for my final version of the article, it will be delayed for a few days. Another person here in Australia apparently bought/recieved either a whole carton, or few boxes, or at least a large number of boosters from the same carton (There's only one store he's purchased this from, and I know how much stock they've gone through), and he's telling me everything he's pulled out, once he finishes opening them all (which will take a while, with how difficult they are to open). He has given me the following incomplete list of the boosters he's opened thusfar however...and frankly, this is worrying. If this is true, there are *significant* problems with the distribution of these figures. I might as well recommend people buyout a store if they manage to pull a valuable rare, if it's this likely for them to turn up.

  1. Eevee (Pearl sub-set version), Groudon
  2. Eevee (Pearl sub-set version), Kyogre
  3. Brock (Pearl sub-set version), Lugia
  4. Brock (Pearl sub-set version), Lugia
  5. Brock (Pearl sub-set version), Lugia
  6. Golem, Ho-oh (Ho-oh was apparently broken when the booster was opened)
  7. Brock (Pearl sub-set version), Lugia
  8. Eevee (Pearl sub-set version), Groudon
  9. Ho-oh, Golem
  10. Ho-oh, Kyogre
  11. Murkrow, Kyogre
  12. Murkrow, Groudon
Click to expand...
 
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Yikes, that doesn't make for good rarity. I am sure they will fix this by the time it gets around to the US markets.
 
TheDarkTwins said:
I think JPN already has the first set, I beleive they got it over a year ago. I know this, cuz some of my friends bought JPN Boosters of the Figures...
Click to expand...


JPN has yet to get the TFG. I think that they get it after the US does.
 
then what were those japanese figures that seemed to be part of some kind of game?
My son has a Blastoise from that set
 
does anyone here know how to play the game? im so excited to know how we play it

BTW how much does it cost? if it's expensive then i shall hope for a online TFG (just like tcg):biggrin:
 
I believe Japan has had boardgames involving Pokémon miniatures before, and they've certainly had other Pokémon mini's before, but nothing like this game.
FYI PokePop, I intend to put up the full article on BulbaNews tonight. If you could wait until Monday your local to put it up here, that would be appreciated.

A brief description of how the game is played can be found in my original preview of the game on BulbaNews.
 
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