Any tips for getting a Pokémon Center ETB on launch? — Delta Reign

General Question
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1

Hello folks! It’s been a little while since I last posted but I’m still lurking around. It has been brought to my attention that the upcoming Mega Evolution: Delta Reign set is bringing my darling whale back as a full art promo, with two variants actually. A regular ETB promo and a stamped version for the Pokémon Center exclusive ETBs.

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I’m not that well-versed in buying modern product but I have heard that it can an absolute massacre, especially for limited or exclusive releases. Nevertheless I would like to at least attempt to grab one of these boxes. Getting both promos at once as well as some packs and stuff I can share with my brothers sounds like a better deal than waiting and picking up the stamped one for as much as the entire box, if past promos are anything to go by. But that would mean actually trying to catch it on time and queue up to buy one, which I have no experience with except seeing what others have said about how awful it is.

Has anyone here actually tried to get one of the Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Boxes? Or succeeded in getting one? I’d love to hear some tips and tricks if anyone has any, all I really know is that pre-orders tend to open a couple months before the set release and sell out almost instantly. I’d appreciate any help or advice I can get! :blue_heart: :orca: :pink_heart:

2

Sign up for a discord notification service, Rattle Pokemon’s one is free. They notify you on drops.

3

befriend a botter

4

Recently it has been easier to preorder the ETBs but you do need to be available to get in the queue and wait for a while during what are normal working hours for most people.

It also seems to be much more reliable to wait in the queue on a computer than with a cell phone.

Good luck

5

Fyi we are now in the pre order window :call_me_hand:

6

20-30 mins before a drop, log into the site and start browsing around. Click random products, add random stuff to the cart. Their bot detection software will detect that you are most likely a real person and once the new items drop, you will have little to no issue adding the newly dropped items to your cart and checking out. Solve captcha slowly and click the captcha images in different areas of the individual squares. All of this stuff matters when it comes to bot detection software. Your mileage may vary of course but I have had success with this method in the past.

7

Preorder window? Like, the preorders could start any day now? Wow I assumed it wouldn’t be until next month.

I did join that Rattle Pokémon server you mentioned and got the roles for PC items and restocks. I also asked the people there about the ETBs and the first guy who answered said it would be easy with plenty of time while everyone else seemed like they were preparing me for war :rofl:

8

Before the drop? From what I was reading I assumed the drops were kinda random, and with the notification that would only tell me that it’s already started, no? I’m down to prep beforehand but I don’t know how to anticipate an incoming drop.

9

I’ve gotten every PC ETB I was able to queue for in a reasonable time, never had any problems.

As long as you’re getting restock notifications (discord/twitter, easy to find), able to get to a computer within maybe 20-30 minutes of the queue opening, and available to wait on that computer for 1-2 hours in the middle of a weekday you’ll be fine. That is the biggest hurdle, especially because you likely won’t know for sure when the drop is going to happen. Sometimes people will figure out that a drop is happening, but won’t know what is dropping.

Sometimes life gets in the way and you’re at work or busy and you can’t get on in time, so tough luck. But PC ETBs for new sets are much easier than random PC drops. The other issues come with navigating PC’s very sensitive bot detection as @Lemon mentioned.

Some tips:

  • Queue on a computer, not your phone (most phone browsers autorefresh)
  • Don’t use a VPN
  • Click slowly and don’t rush
  • Keep an eye to see if you need to redo a captcha every now and then
10

You can have as many as you want, just pay market price.

11

Give them to me for safekeeping.

12

Pokemon Center drops tend to follow a specific pattern, like usually on the day of the release it will drop at Noon Eastern time from what I recall.

13

From now until mid September

14

Well, that… went about as poorly as it could’ve, I think. I was ready to go all morning. I signed in ahead of time, I had stuff in my cart, I was moving around the site slowly and looking at stuff to not seem like a bot. Then when the queue finally dropped it was just… nothing.

My brother got in, but I refreshed the page and it was just the regular site. New tab, regular site. Follow the discord link, same thing. Whole new window, close and reopen the browser, nothing. I eventually got in by opening it in a different browser but of course I didn’t have my account saved there and all of that prep was wasted.

Whatever, I’m in the queue now, brother is in the queue, it’s fine. So we wait, and the estimate keeps jumping ahead. Went from like, six hours, to four, to three, two, etc. I think it was an hour twenty in total before my brother got in, and I was twenty minutes behind him. BUT at two minutes left on his queue the discords sent messages out that the ETBs were gone :melting_face:

But they also said that it was very strange for them to go so quick, so I stayed on just in case. My queue wrapped up, I got in, and they were still out, of course. So I clicked around for a little bit and low and behold, the whole site went down and started throwing maintenance screens :person_facepalming:

Eventually managed to get back in… right as it put me in a new queue, but the rest of the stuff sold out in the meantime so what does it even matter? I guess I have to hope they’ll do a restock at some point, or that the promos won’t be worth that much second-hand :pensive_face:

15

Fix’d