I’m uploading individual images of cards in my collection to Instagram with a passage about how each card was obtained. One of the cards is the HG&SS Pokémon Collector with a Play! Pokémon stamp. According to Bulbapedia, this was obtainable from “Player Rewards Program 2011-2012 (Tier Two)”.
I have two questions:
- How were these cards obtained through the Player Rewards Program?
- What does “Tier Two” relate to in this case?
If a points system was required, as described by this official page (although I don’t know how relevant this is), how many points were needed to be rewarded with this particular card? How can I find out this information?
Hey, obscure English promos. Don’t mind if I do.
The answer: It’s super vague (kinda)!
I think the first thing you have to know is that the way Pokemon handles player promos is in constant flux. One of the main reasons no one has been able to do a comprehensive list of Worlds promo distribution numbers, for example, is that it changes every year, no one remembers exactly what happened in the past because it changed so often, and there isn’t even a 100% guarantee it was consistent within the year.
But around the 2011-2013 time frame, Pokemon decided they were going to implement another change. It was shortlived, but it made it from these Pokemon Collectors up until the crosshatch promo Pokemon Catchers (though the criteria weren’t the same throughout even this time period). The idea was that you would participate in events like normal and collect both Championship Points and Participation Points. The Championship Points affected your worlds invite, but the Participation Points had a vague implied promise of being relevant by virtue of being recorded. At one point, registration to the now-defunct National Tournament required a certain number of PP, for example.
Then one day, a bunch of people got packs of promos in the mail.
It was seriously that out of the blue. Through deduction and a letter that did its best (wish I had a scan), it seemed as though the top X players that had their Pokemon Organized Play accounts updated with a mailing address received a pack of four promos in a plain white envelope from the company. People hopped on forum boards and FB groups and started posting pictures and I’m certain someone was an exception to every explanation that could be found for what the exact criteria may have been. And we never got a clarifying official statement. Pokemon is notoriously bad about not communicating its decisions to the player base. It’s a meme as old as Pokemon Organized Play.
So to answer and not answer your questions: We don’t know and Tier Two means higher than Tier One as it refers to the mysterious standard. 
The Play Points description you linked is an accurate description of how they were in 2011, but there was never any publicized documentation on the Collectors/Catchers, so it isn’t clear how you could find this information. Somewhere I believe I have the original paperwork that came with the Pokemon Catcher, but I don’t know that I would be feasibly able to locate it at this point in time.
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Thank you for the fantastic response! I was running under the impression it would be hard to know exactly what the criteria for these were, but it’s good to know that these were posted out and very likely has some connection to the points system. I think that’s probably enough for me to come up with a relatively useful description.
I would love to see the paperwork if anyone who did participate at the time is able to dig that out.
I think the description I’ve added to this summarises what you’ve said?
https://instagram.com/p/BvO4Z92HoyQ
If not, please let me know and I’ll get it corrected!