So, the only information that I know (but am not entirely confident in) about this card is that it was awarded to the “top winners” (or top three winners?) in the Beat of the Frontiers mini tournament, which was held to promote the Beats of Frontier set. I searched through the forum and found an archived link listing all the (~240) locations that held this event:
It seems that some locations had two divisions- one for older and another for younger- while some only had a single division. I don’t know if the card was distributed in other events, like the gym challenges, or if the shops only held one mini tournament or held multiple in the same day.
I asked about this card in the Discord and someone mentioned that they see the card occasionally in card shops in Japan.
Im curious about the origin of this promo and am also wondering if I was looking in the wrong places for this card. I know that Drifblim isn’t the most popular Pokemon and the card isn’t incredibly valuable so it is possible that people who have the card are not motivated to sell. I’m unsure if the distribution is truly relatively low and if that combined with the other points is why it was difficult for me to find a raw copy online.
As of now, I was able to find a good deal on Ebay for a graded copy from an English collector. However, I was hoping to pick up a raw copy since it last sold on Mercari JP 4 months ago for $50 (and was paired with the Battle Tower promo). I tend to stick with Ebay, English Mercari, Mercari JP, and Pokemoncfj ( I’m skeptical of Yahoo Auctions) for my cards. So, for future reference, are there any other online places that are great for shopping for Japanese promos? Or are the places I listed the only places were English collectors can buy Japanese cards online?
@cardstockpile, Thanks for your response and that resource! That estimated distribution would explain a lot of the difficulty in finding a raw copy.
Since someone on Discord mentioned that they have seen the card pretty regularly (could be subjective, we may differ on what we consider to be regular) in Japan, I assumed the distribution would be higher. I wasn’t sure if the criteria for store tournament prizes were standardized across the selected stores. So, I wasn’t confident if the card was given to the top three winners at all approved stores or if that was the criteria for specific stores and other stores gave it to anyone that won a single battle.
The only info I was able to find was from a Japanese blog that was used as a source for an article on Pokumon. They appeared to really involved in the TCG and wrote anout the event a day before it started. So, it seems credible. They mentioned that the card would be given to 1-3rd places but, ad mentioned before,I wasn’t sure if prizes for official store tournaments in Japan were standardized. Especially since the archived link with the list of approved stores showed that some of the other rules for participating weren’t standardized (different sets used, different card limitations, etc).
Here is an link to the archived Japanese blog in the event someone in the future wants to check out that page.