As the title suggest I’m trying to get clarification from players in the late 2000s/early 2010s about how the Play! Points/Promo System worked exactly. To my understanding you would gain the points and you wouldn’t spend them, but rather depending on how many you earned you would meet thresholds to gain Play! Pokémon promo cards such as many of the ones listed in the Pokumon link below(Thank you @HumanForScale).
This method seems to have only come into practice in the late BW era of early 2013 however, so how were the cards from before then(some pictured below) gained? And how did you rise in the tiers to get more than the energies as eluded to by bulbapedia(Also below)? Insight from players who experienced these systems firsthand would be great if possible. Please let me know if you can.
I played competitively from 2009 - 2012. My LGS used to distribute cards in person like the ones you posted to players. I think people got cards in the mail as well. It was a big deal when certain playable cards were announced as new play promos since it made them more obtainable. Here’s one of my old decks.
Thanks Qwa! Love this deck. Great to see classics like set up Uxie and over eager sableye! I’d love to hear more about your time playing sometime.
I’ve been browsing the pokebeach forums and my search so far has been what you described that they were mailed out. So really I just have to figure out what differentiated getting tier 1 and 2 cards. I’ll give Pokegym a check when I can
I played for a bit during 2012~2013. I played at a league and competed at a Battle Roads tournament.
My local league was open play running on the point system. Points were solely based on matches. I believe it was one point for loss, 2 points for wins. Once you get enough points you get the League Promo for the month, which was usually a cross hatch pattern card like these.
As league owner you had to report each week which players were present and games played if I remember correct.
Timeconsuming job.
But there were also seasons you got them by mail (but only if you had activated your Play Pokemon account). Those were awarded after playing tournaments.
It’s worth noting that all info about the distribution of these promos you find should be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless of if it is from TPCi themselves, from the Gym, or from players who remember. Distribution varied a greatly season by season and country, many leagues/TOs simply ignored TPCi’s rules for giving out promos. The HGSS cross hatch energies with the Pokemon in the background were supposed to be distributed through mail as player rewards, but a PTO I knew was sent box of them. Extra promos were given away indiscriminately at Nationals/Worlds through side events, etc.
Specific to your post, Cynthia and Lucian were mailed player rewards that were supposed to be for playing in certain number of events via play points, Lucian was packaged with Upper Energy, Cynthia was paired with Volkner’s Philosophy. Others I know were SP Radar/Call Energy and Black Belt/Junk Arm. The energies were player rewards, one copy of each was in a cellophane pack. The first one distributed was back in 2007 ish, with the “acid wash” energies. Source: I have sealed packs of all of the above in front of me. Not sure about the rare candies, but I never got them.
Rare Candy/Super Scoop up also by mail after playing enough tournaments.
And yes there was a difference in receiving/awarding promocards.
Outside USA serious differences (getting none of less)
2015-2019 it was on order through the website after reporting the season. But even those days you sometimes didn’t receive anything to hand out to your players.
Over 20 year they never reached a level the players awards were handed out correctly.
Yeah, if I remember right the number of copies league leaders received somehow scaled with players recorded as having played at league. I remember how disappointing the distribution system was, to the point where even getting the promos was a surprise.
Our League Leader at the time said he never got the Uxie packs - definitely not abnormal at the time. Years later League Leader coincidentally remarries to the mom of a close friend of mine. Imagine my surprise to find 2 unopened packs of Uxie in the collection the close friend sold to me in 2022.
Yeah definitely not taking everything I find as exactly how it went down. What I’m happy to say I found at least is how it seems an intended release was supposed to be.
I dont know if this is really info you are looking for but, Many of these promos came in cello packs, though not all
City Championships (10, 25, and 50 card packs depending on the year)
State Championships (10, 25, packs depending on the year
National Championships (only confirmed 10 packs from some years)
All Staff Promos from DP to the end of BW were a 5 pack
Normal League Promos were a pack of 40 up until XY
Victory Medals were packs of 3 medals
Thanks again for all the insights. I’m here to update with how it seems like a normal season of Player Rewards should have been rewarded during a season with 3 tiers of promos. I will illustrate this by giving an example using the 2010-2011 season below
This shows us what would be earned per each tier and though never updated to reflect this the below Pokegym post implies that Pokemon changed the Tier 3 rewards or at the very least added the rewards promos on top of the sleeves in the 2010-2011 Season. To clarify before this in the 2009-2010 Season Tier 1 and 2 followed the above guideline and this is where the Cynthia’s Feelings and Lucian’s Assignment come from. The seasons before this gave out POP series packs as rewards with higher tiers gaining you more.
With all of these points we can see that a normal Play! Pokemon Rewards Program season with every tier having a promo would consist of Pokemon mailing out the rewards you earned at the end of each quarter with tier 3 player’s getting their rewards first. So the 2010-2011 Season I posted above would play out like this.
If you reached Tier 1 you would only get all of the energies as a reward
If you reached Tier 2 you would receive the Plus Power and Pokemon Communications promos along with the energies.
If you reached Tier 3 you would get the Rare Candy Promo along with the tier 1 and 2 rewards. As well as getting all of your rewards first.
As said this is how it seems a season should have been and does not reflect all of the experiences that actually happened for the release of some of these cards. Also worth noting that I am uncertain if each quarter your credits would reset and you could get all the rewards again by gaining credits or if you only needed to reach the tiers once to get the rewards every quarter. If anyone knows let me know!
I hope you all enjoyed this brief history with me.
