One of Pokémon’s most well-known urban legends is that there’s a rare Pokémon — Mew — hidden under a truck in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue. Where did this come from? No one really knows. When Pokémon Red and Blue were released, the internet wasn’t ubiquitous; you couldn’t even Google things yet. And yet, the rumor spread across schoolyards and, yes, online, that there was a secret Mew under a pickup truck in Vermilion City. There was no Mew, and yet, the rumor persisted. In a similar vein, someone told me as a kid that holding down the B button after throwing a Poké Ball increases the chances of catching a creature. I’ve done this ever since, despite not a single shred of evidence suggesting it actually works.
These urban legends are a big part of Pokémon’s legacy, so it makes sense that the release of Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket would inspire similar theories. Since Pokémon TCG Pocket released on Oct. 30, several urban legends have sprung up around the game: the biggest is a rumored way to increase the chances to pull rare cards. Here’s how it allegedly works: Once you’ve reached the rotating wheel of Pokémon booster packs, inspect each one of them closely. Look for a pack that’s slightly off — wrinkled or bent, not completely straight like the others. The idea is that those slightly off packs have the best chance of including rare cards. Is there anything to it? There’s a bunch of videos of it working for people, but what’s left out is how many crinkled packs they opened that had nothing of value. One popular Pokémon creator, Austin John Plays, opened a bunch of packs and theorized that no, bent packs aren’t better.
The other growing urban legend is with Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Wonder Pick mechanic, which lets people randomly choose one card from a pack someone else opened. When pulling a Wonder Pick, the cards are face-up and spread out on the screen before they flip over and shuffle. The way it’s presented makes it look like, if the animation was slower, that you could follow the card you want to make sure you pick it. Several players tried screen recording the animation then slowing it down to better follow the desired card. Again, there’s a contingent of people convinced this absolutely works — and a group of people who’ve seemingly debunked it.
The big mystery of it all is what makes these sorts of things fun to speculate on; the belief of some hidden, secret way to get a game-changing pull is exciting. Something wild that just miiiiight be true. One big difference here is that Pokémon TCG Pocket is free-to-play; there are lots of ways to easily spend money. These urban legends become quite a bit less fun if people are spending or wasting tons of money to test out the theories.
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