My young nephew got me interested in this little game (addiction) so I have been helping him out with game rules questions and such by looking around online. As much as I'm fascinated by little transforming marbles, I'm a long time gamer, so I always tend to get wrapped up in the meta-game aspects of whatever I'm playing. For me, the card selection and interaction is where the real 'meat' of the game happens. Sadly, despite its popularity, there does not seem to be a lot of information online about certain aspects of this game. And the cards specifically seem to get ignored.
So I thought I would make a little post here on what I have found from my own personal buys.
I'm sure most of you know how the set numbering works, and the single/dual language variants from the first set, but I haven't seen much information on the holographic, foil, lenticular distribution for the first three sets of 48, so that will be the focus of this post.
In case some of you aren't sure what I'm talking about, here is an example of each from the 'B' set:
The first card, Pyrus 2, is a foil. These don't really look much different, with the lettering and some of the card graphics highlighted with a shiney silver foil. The second card, Darkus 2, is just your normal average card. The third card, Ventus 2 is the lenticular version. None of these really scan that well, but the lenticular cards in particular really look much better in real life, and there is a sort of '2 stage' movement to the cards depending on which direction you look at them from. The last card, the Sub Terra 2, is the holographic card. These cards look sort of like they are covered with shiney broken stained glass, which looks nice until you go and try to read the darn things...
I ended up with lots of cards and no where to store them, so I broke down and picked up a few of the "Card Power House" boxes. Target had these on sale a week or so ago for $10, and for 30 cards and a case, it was a pretty good deal considering that the "Card Power Packs" are $5 each with 10 cards. So for the cost of 2 Power Packs, I figured the case, 10 extra cards and an opportunity to check out what the lenticular cards were like was worth it. The case itself has 2 indentations that hold about 50ish cards in each side. The front of the box is a flap that lifts up and along with the window-boxed top folds back so you can access the cards. The front flap in magnetic and despite there not being any latches or anything, it stays closed pretty good. It is somewhat of a shame you can't put more cards in the box, but they do actually look pretty nice. I was pleasantly surprised.
There is 4 Different "Power House" boxes, each on showing 2 cards, a lenticular and a holographic card. The 4 different boxes based on the showing lenticular cards are : Shun's Launcher, Special Boost, Marionette, and Ventus 2.
The boxes also contain a second lenticular and holo card, 2 foil cards 12 normal ability cards and 12 normal gate cards. All cards are from the first set (no letter) or the B or C set. Also, all cards from the first set appear as the dual-language variants.
There is a minor variation (probably not worth mentioning) on the cardboard half-sleeve underneath the shrink wrap that covers and protects part of the box. The earlier (I'm guessing) variant has a UPC code that ends in R1, a sticker denoting its made in china a dark blue/black background stretching the entire front on the box. The later version (again, I'm guessing) has a UPC that ends in R2, has 'made in china' printed the same as the rest of the info and has a vertical red bar and the right side of the box that includes the label "PYRUS". Hopefully the picture below will better show what I'm talking about.
Now, is there a difference in the contents? Not that I found. I picked up 2 coffers with the red stripe and 2 without, and there was not any noticeable variation in card distribution. I was hoping that the R1 boxes would contain more cards from the first (unlettered) set, but it ended up that one of the red-banded Pyrus boxes actually had the best number of cards from that set. I wish I had tallied up better what I got from each box, but at the time I was not really considering trying to complete a variant set. The last box I opened i did write down the holo/len/foil contents, so to give you and idea: Len Summon Wave (40), Len Marionette (31B), Holo SubTerra 2 (47B), Holo Clean Slate (29B), Foil Power Triangle (38C), and Foil Darkus 2 (45B).
From all 4 boxes (one box of each Lenticular variant) i got:
Lenticular: Masquerade's Throw (29), Summon Wave (40), Sub Terra (47), Marionette (31B), Special Crush (39B), Ventus 2 (48B), Shun's Launcher (31C), and Special Boost (40C).
Holographic: Dan's Throw (30), Evil Power (31), Home Advantage (37), Clean Slate (29B), Updraft (40B), Sub Terra 2 (47B), Dan's Launcher (32C), Bee Striker (47C)
Foil: Darkus (45), Doom Card (46), Special Boost (38B), Darkus 2 (45B), Pyrus 2 (46B), Combo Battle (30C), Triangle of Power (37C), Power Triangle (38C)
So After getting all the variant cards sorted in with my sets, I noticed a few patterns. First off, beyond the 24/24 gate/ability card division, there is the 8/8/8 red/blue/green ability card divisions. Within each red/blue/green division there seems to be a 4/4 normal/variation division. For example, among the red cards, the first 4 (24,25,26,27) never have any special variants, while the final 4 (28,29,30,31) each have at least 1 variant card. Secondly within the last 4 of each set there seems to be a 2/2 split of foil/holo, where the first 2 (28,29) will have a foil variant and the last 2 (30,31) have a holographic variant. Thirdly a few cards may also have a second variant, so a card in the foil division may also have either a holo variant or a lenticular variant.
So, in order to test this idea, I started looking at exactly what cards appear in the "Power Packs" since this is the only other place to get foil and holo cards. If you look at these on the shelf in your local store, you will notice that the 2 showing cards are almost always paired the same way. (This is why if you want a 'Doom Card, you just look for 'Stuck' holo card and partially obscured 'Doom Card' comes with it.) I also did alot of looking online at pictures in online shops or auctions and (since you can see the 2 variant cards in the package) wrote down which sets of cards had which variants to see if matched the pattern. And it actually did.
Here is a partial list of variant sets I found:
Holo/Foil Holo/Foil
1. Rikimaro’s Surprise/ ?? 32/??
2. SubTerra/Masquerade’s Throw 47/29
3. Haos/Clean Slate 48/29B
4. Special Crush/ Darkus 39B/45
5. Stuck/ Doom Card 32B/46
6. Special Boost (which?)/ A Hand Up 38B?/30B
7. Ventus 2/ Dan’s Throw 48B/30
8. Updraft/ Pyrus 2 40B/46B
9. Special Boost/Combo Battle 40C/30C
10. Bee Striker/ Stealin’ 47C/29C
11. Tentaclear/ Circle of Fire 48C/37B
That Combined with the my Coffer Box cards looks something like this:
Each set column has 0-2 letters, the left letter is a foil/holo card from a 'Power Pack' and the right letter is a holo/foil/lenticular card from the 'Card Power House'
F=Foil H=Holographic L=Lenticular
# |Set1_|_B___|__C___
29 | F L | F H | F |
30 | F H | F | F F |
31 | H | L | L |
32 | H | H | H H |
______________________
37 | H | F | F |
38 | F | H* F | F |
39 | | H L | |
40 | F L | H H | H L |
______________________
45 | F F | F | |
46 | F F | F F | |
47 | H L | H | H H |
48 | H | H L | H |
_______________________
Ignoring for a second that really awful looking table, the only exception to the rules is 38B (Special Boost), which may have come from a mistake on an ebay page, someone listed the pack as having Special Boost 38B, when it may have been Special Boost 40C. I don't know, There was no picture for that one so I can't say. A holo 38B would be the only one to break the 2foil/2holo pattern, but holo 40C would fit right in.
Yes, there are some cards missing but I know I have seen most of those in card packs on the shelves. If you have or buy or see variant cards not listed here and are 100% positive of the source, I can add them to the card set lists and table.
So after all that... this is what I have come up with for the Variant Set for the first 3 sets of 48 cards:
Set 1 (no letter)
29. Foil/Len
30. Foil/Holo
31. Holo
32. Holo
37. Foil/Holo
38. Foil
39. Holo
40. Holo/Len
45. Foil
46. Foil
47. Holo/Len
48. Holo
Set B
29. Foil/Holo
30. Foil
31. Holo/Len
32. Holo
37. Foil
38. Foil/(Holo?)
39. Holo/Len
40. Holo
45. Foil
46. Foil
47. Holo
48. Holo/Len
Set C
29. Foil
30. Foil
31. Holo/Len
32. Holo
37. Foil
38. Foil
39. Holo
40. Holo/Len
45. Foil
46. Foil
47. Holo
48. Holo
I think that the 'Power Packs' do not contain any of the secondary variations. Obviously they do not contain lenticular cards, but I also have not seen a pack with one of the 2/2 rule breaking variants. So to get these I guess you need to get the coffers. Are there other 'rule breakers' from the coffers? I don't know, but if you get a coffer and can check against this list I'd appreciate it. Again, this is just my best 'Guesstimate' on the card list, if anyone can add anything, I will try and keep it updated.
~Cheers
Mirth
