DISCLAIMER
I am no expert or ex WOTC employee so my findings here are solely based on some critical thinking and gathering of information. Please don’t open your sealed product because you thought I said it was a good idea. I also do not own any of the images posted here. They were taken from miscellaneous websites and ebay postings for informational purposes.
With the recent discovery of the no damage Ninetales in a brushfire theme deck I got the urge to do some research in an attempt to find a correlation with the types of theme deck packaging and shadowless cards within them.
I was hoping to find at least 100 examples of openings to get a good sample size but through all of my research I only managed to find 63 (not including gold strips). So if you have theme decks that you have opened (and are not already on youtube) please add your info here and I will adjust the findings. Even with just 63 examples I found a decent bit of correlation and I’m hoping this thread will continue to grow and we will get more consistent info.
VARIANTS
First, the different variations. From my research I confirmed 4 types of packaging for the English base set theme decks. The variations come in the form of the cellophane wrap and whether it contains the gold pull tab or not, the image on the back of the box with the 3 cards and the damage counters, and the list of contents on the back of the box, particularly the “damage counters” line.
The 1st variant has a very easy to spot gold line around the top of the box. This is the only indicator currently known to guarantee a shadowless deck. If we look at the back of the box, the middle card in the trio is always placed in front or on top of the two energy cards, the list will always say “10 damage counters” and the damage counters will always be present in the photo.
The 2nd variant has exactly the same features as I mentioned in the first variant however it is missing the gold strip along the top of the box.
In the 3rd variant, the middle card in the image is positioned behind the energy cards. Aesthetically, this is the only difference and in my opinion was most likely a quick edit by WOTC after receiving complaints that the back of the box pictured a 1st edition card but none of the cards inside were 1st edition (just a theory).
The 4th variant has the most differences in that the contents list shows “damage counters” instead of “10 damage counters”, the image on the back does not show the damage counters and the middle card is placed back in front of the energy cards. I believe this change was done in preparation for shipment of the theme decks overseas. The foreign theme decks began to feature the cardboard damage counters instead of the “marble” style ones so they removed them from the image and removed the quantity. The USA distributed decks still contained the marble counters, however. I believe that this variation was the last to happen chronologically and my statistics will support this.
STATISTICS AND CORRELATION
Out of the 63 non variation #1 openings I examined, I gathered the following information:
Overgrowth theme decks opened = 20
Variation #2 - 8 unlimited and 5 shadowless
Variation #3 - 4 unlimited and 1 shadowless
Variation #4 - 2 unlimited and 0 shadowless
Blackout theme decks opened = 12
Variation #2 - 6 unlimited and 1 shadowless
Variation #3 - 1 unlimited and 1 shadowless
Variation #2 - 3 unlimited and 0 shadowless
Zap theme decks opened = 18
Variation #2 - 3 unlimited and 6 shadowless
Variation #3 - 2 unlimited and 0 shadowless
Variation #4 - 7 unlimited and 0 shadowless
Brushfire theme decks opened = 13
Variation #2 - 4 unlimited and 3 shadowless
Variation #3 - 4 unlimited and 1 shadowless
Variation #4 - 1 unlimited and 0 shadowless
Total variation quantities:
Variation #2 - 36/63
Variation #3 - 14/63
Variation #4 - 13/63
Percentage of contents in variations to total quantity:
Unlimited variation #2 - 33.33%
Unlimited variation #3 - 17.46%
Unlimited variation #4 - 20.63%
Shadowless variation #2 - 23.81%
Shadowless variation #3 - 4.76%
Shadowless variation #4 - 0%
I was absolutely unable to find an opening of the 4th variation box that contained shadowless cards. Out of 36 total 2nd variation boxes 41.67% of those turned out to be shadowless. Out of 14 total 3rd variation boxes 21.42% contained shadowless cards. Note that those percentages are likely not the chances of those specific variations containing shadowless cards. Some of the videos I examined were of individuals opening decks with prior evidence that they would be shadowless (i.e. they came from a sealed display box that had no WOTC logos on the wrap). So, those percentages will be skewed in favor of shadowless if you look at them as probabilities. It also is just not a large enough of a sample to make assumptions on probability.
CONCLUSION
With this information, my theory is that these variations happened in chronological order as I’ve presented them. 100% of the first variation containing shadowless cards, 41.66% of the 2nd, 21.43% of the 3rd and 0% of the 4th. This would mean that either the 2nd and 3rd variations overlapped each other as wotc was shipping out the last of the shadowless cards or perhaps there were two different facilities producing these boxes at the same time to keep up with demand which lead to the inconsistency. The 4th variation must have come to market last after all shadowless cards had been expended. This supports the change to reflect the new damage counters used in the theme decks shipped overseas which would have been later in the timeline than the initial shipping across the United States.
I hope I laid this out in a way that was easy to understand. If you managed to read the entire book, you’re a trooper. If you have any statistics to add it would be greatly appreciated! Watching 40+ videos of 12 year old kids opening theme decks grew tiresome very quickly. So, I hope at least one person enjoys this information! Thank you!
