Welcome to the official Pokémon Forums!

Click here to review our official Rules & Guidelines.

Are Coin Flips Working Correctly?

Hey all,

I have been running a deck that flips a lot of coins. But I feel like it is not 50/50 at the moment. Noticed it last night in particular when I was 0-6 on Cyllene in a tournament match.

Then I saw a prominent YouTuber mention it.

So started saving game logs today and noticed that only 10 out of 29 coin flips were heads.

So I have two questions:

1. Anyone else noticing this?

2. How big of a sample size do I need to collect to see if it's an issue? 100? 1,000?

Thanks

Comments

  • clasingla
    clasingla Member Posts: 3,153 ✭✭✭✭✭
    2500 Comments 500 Agrees 250 Likes 50 Answers

    I feel with some coins I use I get more heads and some coins I use I get more tails

  • Mod_Bee
    Mod_Bee Moderator Posts: 455 mod
    100 Comments 25 LOLs 5 Answers 25 Likes

    Hello, I recommend opening a ticket with the support team. You can do so by visiting https://support.pokemon.com/ then click the Pokémon Trading Card Game Live link. From there click "Contact Us" Thanks!

  • clasingla
    clasingla Member Posts: 3,153 ✭✭✭✭✭
    2500 Comments 500 Agrees 250 Likes 50 Answers

    Do at least a quarry of 100 dice flips

  • Mister-Burkes
    Mister-Burkes Member Posts: 114 ✭✭
    10 Comments First Answer First Anniversary 5 Agrees
    1. I haven't noticed it, but getting 10 out of 29 is pretty unlucky. About 4% chance.
    2. The more, the better.

  • TheJeffers
    TheJeffers Member Posts: 1,336 ✭✭✭✭✭
    500 Agrees 1000 Comments 250 Likes 250 LOLs

    It is possible there could be a bug. But equally humans do not have an appreciation for true randomness. In a truly random system, a coin could land on heads 500 times out of 500 tosses. Ironically this leads to games implementing non-random systems to average out results and "feel" more random to human players.

    Every card game's digital client has people complain about this issue at some point, be it the card shuffler algorithm, coin tosses, dice rolls... any simulation of randomness. The results come out against the player a seemingly unfair amount of times, and people start complaining about bugs and rigged opening hands.

    Again, there could be a bug. Or you just had a run of bad luck with a random system. Your sample size is too small to tell.

  • Snorlax622736
    Snorlax622736 Member Posts: 52
    10 Comments First Anniversary 5 Agrees 5 Likes

    Update: Currently 16 heads out of 47.

    Wugtrio I am giving up on you.

  • PachirisuFan1
    PachirisuFan1 Member Posts: 187 ✭✭✭
    100 Comments 25 Likes 25 Agrees 5 Answers

    Respectfully, the inconsistency of relying on coin flips is why people don't usually run decks that rely on flipping coins. It's fun when the rng cooperates, but when it gets bad it usually gets really bad. it's also why you hardly ever see cyllene in decklists - the risk of wasting your supporter for the turn on a double tails flip is a lot to justify.

    i've had rough luck with coin flips before but, at the very least, it does sometimes land on heads,

  • Not-A-Hamster
    Not-A-Hamster Member Posts: 1
    First Comment

    After playing a Wugtrio Mill deck alot it seems like the coin flip is about 30% Heads and 70% Tails.

  • OlderAngel11
    OlderAngel11 Member Posts: 1,642 ✭✭✭✭
    500 Agrees 1000 Comments 250 Likes 25 Answers

    Sometimes I lose a lot of coin flips, but I don't play decks that rely on them, so I'm not that informed on coin flip rates.