Are you not getting the cards you need? Are the cards you need holos? Here are some tricks gaurenteed to work.

We’ve all heard of bending the packs, carefully measuring the thicknesses with bulky, weighing them on expensive electronic scales, and looking for the certain pack down from the top of a new box. But the dirty truth behind all of these tricks is that they are not all sure-fire tricks. But, the reason that the trick this article teaches is 100% guaranteed, is based in how Upper Deck Entertainment packages their cards, and a tiny error in their machinery.

Before the trick, I will tell you with the proof, so that you know how and why it works, the flaw. (NB: Although this information may not be 100% accurate, it is enough to prove why the trick works.) Upper Deck uses several different machines to put their cards into their individual packs. One machine will package the packs with just a normal rare, another will do the super rares, another with the ultras, and finally one more for the secret rares. Then, after all the cards have been put into the packs, the packs are all shuffled around and placed into boxes which are shipped to
the card stores

So, before cards can be put into packs, the packs themselves must be printed. And each of these machines will print their own packs, using the three primary colors of pigment: red, yellow, and blue. And that is where the flaw is. If you have a color printer next to your computer, open the cover and you will see four cartridges: red, yellow, blue, and black (which is actually a mixture of the three primary colors of pigment). But your printer can still manage to print any color you name, by mixing the three primary colors in set amounts. But now, try printing a color picture. Go ahead, choose any picture, and print it in color. Done? Now, look carefully at your picture. Do you see a stray red dot where it should be a different color? Maybe a blue one, out of place, or possibly a yellow dot astray? You see? These stray dots are because of slight errors in the print heads of your printer. And fortunately for us, not even Upper Deck’s mega-printers are immune to print head errors. And there is the basis of the trick.

When Upper Deck prints their packs, they do it in bulk, and each packaging machine prints their own packs. Therefore, the packs contain super rares are all the same, the ultra rare packs, while different than the supers and secrets, are all the same, and the secret rare packs are too. Ah, and that means that if there is a tiny error in the machine’s print heads, and a stray mark is left on one of the super rare packs, all of the super rare packs printed that day will have that same mark. Same thing goes for the Ultra Rare packs and the Secret Rare packs.

But, once in a while Upper Deck does fix their print heads, and you will no longer be able to detect the same old mark on the pack. This makes it a bit trickier for us “rare hunters.” Fortunately for us, new errors in the print heads eventually emerge, and another stray dot is left on the new packs, leaving us another detectable spot to help us in our quest for rares. And if you couldn’t already see where I was heading, allow me to present the trick, and specific hints to get it working at optimal efficiency.

The Trick

The trick! Unfortunately, this trick only works for card shops which allow you to look at the packs before you buy them. Some shops put them all in a pile and have you choose the top one. And with my experience, those shops owners are often not-very-nice people. Anyway, you will have to find a shop which allows you to look carefully at the packs pre-purchase, or find a shop where you have enough credit to look through the packs. Shops that work the best are probably 7 Eleven or your local card shop. 7 Eleven works well because most of the cashiers don’t really care if you look through all of their packs. As long as you don’t steal or break anything, they are pretty much impartial. And of course, your local card shop works because you generally know everyone there, and they trust you.

Anyway, when the store owner opens a new box (it doesn’t have to be new, but a new one guarantees that nobody else got to the rares before you), look through it and buy maybe five packs which you think are lucky. Open each one of them carefully. Be sure not to rip the packs except for the top part. If you rip the pack right down middle of the front, the trick is a bit harder to pull off. Also, make sure that you do not throw away any of your packs. This is very important. Now, did you get anything? If not, you are quite unlucky today. Buy packs until you find one with a holo in it. Look at the picture on pack which contained the holo carefully.

look at the entire picture, especially on Yugi’s face, neck, and arms, for a stray red, yellow, or blue dot. But, you are not limited to just Yugi’s body. I only suggested these parts because it is easiest to find the stray marks here. For some packs, these markings may be very obvious.

Another one that requires alluminum foil:

You pick up a pack, and as we all know, the holo is right smack dab in the middle. So, push all the cards to the top of the pack, and push the front four cards to the bottom, leaving the top part of the possible holo on the top of the pack. Now, take the piece of aluminum foil, and put it up to the top of the pack, where the name of the possible holo is. Using your thumb, slowly rub the aluminum foil onto the card. And the properties of your aluminum foil, it will contour to the name of the card, which if a rare, ultra rare, or secret rare, is indented into the card. Therefore, you know exactly which card you are pulling out of that pack. And if there is no imprint of a name, either you missed the middle card, or you have a super rare.

There we have it , two card pulling tricks guaranteed to work...usaully. Personally, I recommend the first one, just because it’s easier to do, and doesn’t require you to carry any extra materials.

There are other tricks, like weighing and measuring, but these arent gaurenteed, and require you to carry extra materails, so it looks more suspicious.

There you go... enjoy.

and carrying tin foil is not suspicious *coughlookatmeimadrugaddictcough* lol
nice article mate

I've tried the tinfoil one, not at a card shop but I brought the pack home, worked for 20 minutes, and, wallah, rare Mystic Swordsman lv.2... Now think of doing that at a card shop, working for 20 minutes, if it's a simple rare, take another one...

THIS SO TOTALLY WORKS!
On 1st ed Cybernetic revolution packs there is sometimes an out of place red dot ont the Cyber end dragon's right wing. Everytime I open 1 of those BANG BANG, a holo :shock:

Another one I dscovered...

The last couple of numbers on the bar code will be different for holos.

0.0 Bar Codes are the easiest To spot Geee, Thanks I got A Holo today and it was because I read these. Thanks.

A way I find it best to do, is keep the packs and label them. So if you got an ultra rare in a pack, use a permanent marker and write ultra rare. Keep the packs for referance, and if you want to get a holo out of a certain pack, just look at the bar code, or for dots.

Theres dots on the bar code? weird..rofl

i've tried this it dont work

I just looked at empty packs I have one on the MFC i got a holo in, I can see like 2 small dots on the barcode.

ooo hmm never tried that

That is just too cool. Thanks.

The dots aren't on the bar code. The dots are on the picture on the front of the pack. The bar code number is different for the packs that have holos in them. For example:

A Metal Raiders pack without a holo - Bar code number = 53334 27098

A Metal Raiders pack with a holo - Bar code number = 53334 27101

Isnt the Bar Code different on every pack? :blink:

It is on different sets, for instance:


SOD - Rare - bar code - 53334 34184 Holo = 53334 ?????
ROD - Rare - bar code - 53334 38661 Holo = 53334 ?????

ok So basically you look at more than two packs and whichever has a different bar code is a Holo? That doesnt sound real, but Ill try it. And what about the Dot one?

On the bar code one you have to find a holo in a pack randomly, and then you can look at the bar code and take a pack that has that bar code. This does not work on packs inside cardboard cases. As for the dots, you pull untill you find a holo, and then look at the picture carefully for little dots. any pack that has dots like it will be holo.

dude....
i bought one pack...
pulled a cyber dragon
i bought i because it had adot on the wing <3
cheers for the article

yea...meez got to tryz this..

Why, thank you.

Yea, Im gonna try ASASP.

everyone should definatly try the dot trick, it works almost 100% of the time

Wow, cool, this trick really does work. I bought 5 packs of EEN randomly at Walmart yesterday. I pulled 3 rares a super and an ultimate. Then, after reading this article, went back to look at the packs, and sure enough, there is a stray smudge on Shining Flame Wingman's crotch (lol).

As for the barcode thing, does that only work with older packs? And what about ULT rares? Is there a separate machine that prints them, or do they use the now retired SCR machine?

Also, is there a way to tell what variant card you will get in the Special Edition packs? I'd like to know since EEN-ENSE is coming out next week.

[EDIT] Okay, maybe that smudge I found was just a fluke. I went back out to the same Walmart today looking at both racks of EEN, trying to find packs with the same smudge. To my surprise, none of the remaining packs had the smudge. Maybe my "smudge" and everyone else's "dots" are completely different. What do the dots look like? How big are they? Can you only find them if they came out of a box and not the ones like you can buy at Walmart or Target? Someone please help me!!!

Also, how does the barcode trick work? does it only work on packs that came originally from boxes as well? I've bought the majority of my packs from various Walmarts, and so far I've looked through all of my packs (I've kept them all, LOB-EEN), and I've only found 1 pack from MFC that has a different barcode. I assume since it was on top that it was DMG that I pulled from that particular pack. That is the only pack that I have found so far that actually has a different barcode than the rest.

I'm sooo confused! Someone help me![/EDIT]

The bar - code works for really rare cards, and as for the smudge, the pack you bought might have been the only one that had a holo out of all of them. also, the smudges arent awlays in the same place, sometimes they move a little bit.

ok to clear this up

i had some serious trouble back in the usa because they package their cards differently (they have them in little cardboard things)

this sucks because sometimes the little red dot is on the back of the pack.

the red dot is about the size of a full stop (you americans call it a period i think)

to repeat myself
about this size .........................................................

the smudge trick works as well, my friend bought a EEN pack, and it had a bladeedge in it, ultra rare, the pack had a small smudge, that wasnt the same color as the surrounding color, and the bar code had like 3 3s and 4 4s.(whoa long sentence)

The packs with cardboard in the back are called a blister pack. Only some are packaged that way. Buy normal ones. Much better =o

A good thing to know, these trickd do not work on blister packs.

That's not cool. I have no where to buy anything but the blisters. It's not fair!!! :tears:

If anyone finds a way to tell rares from the blisters, then please post here! Also, if anyone finds a way to tell cards from EEN, also post here. I really want to know.

ummm...

you could try the weight scale trick on blisters

That would require an expensive scale, and I don't think that that trick works 100% of the time.

no it works 100% unlike the others whick do not always work

it does require a fairly expensive scale but it is worth it

Does anyone know how much the scale goes for and where I could get one?

There has to be an easier way to pull holos from blister packs. . .

Has anyone found the pack defection for EEN yet? Please tell me this flaw is on the front of the package. . .

most of the old packs have the dots on the back

most of the new 60 card packs have the dots on the front

Okay, but where exactly is the dot on the EEN package?

for a super rare on EEN there will be purple dots all over flame wingman.

what about ultra cus im really dying to get a shining flare wingman

I have only bought one elemental energy pack, so I don't know.

most een packs have purple dots around flame wingman so you would best just look for a red dot >.<

Ummmmmmmmm....................................Must......get......... Cybernetic ............Revolution