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by The Second Best of Noahs Second Country. . 193 reads.

The 6 Ws of TCALS - Part 1

Hi, Noahs Second Country here. A lot of people are confused as to what TCALS, pull events, etc. is all about. I hope to cover some common questions in this two part dispatch.


What?
TCALS (Not to be confused with TCALC) stands for at least one of the following:

The Cards Anti-Laundering System
Trading Cards Anti-Laundering System
Trading Cards Anti-Laundering Service
The Cards Anti-Laundering Service

For clarity, I personally use Trading Cards Anti-Laundering System. It is a system that increases the probability of a card being pulled when certain conditions are met. It has more recently been utilized to duplicate cards through pull events.

A pull event occurs when a card is put at auction and people open as many stored packs as they can in an attempt to pull the card during this time of increased pull odds*.

*Note that the presence of the auction does not necessarily mean the the card is more likely to be pulled - more on that in part 2
Where?
The… marketplace?



Why?

The Trading Cards Anti-Laundering System was, in the words of Ballotonia, “put in place to make transferring value from puppets to main nations more difficult, the idea being that heisting would be more likely this way and thus making transferring value more costly..” Ballotonia also claims “ The concern was it being too easy to transfer value. Note that the gift system (paying junk value) was implemented at the same time, so it is clear to me that some level of value transfer was deemed OK in the design at that time.”

In other words, transfers, even on a low owner card, still have some inherent level of risk to them. This is why mass copy transfer cards like this one have so many copies. Since they are traded often, TCALS produces more copies over time.



Who?
Who uses TCALS? At this point, most card players have been affected by the impacts of this system, whether it is through deflation, heists, etc.. Transfers between nations are essential to farming, even on a small scale, though they can be a daunting task as a result. Have you ever noticed that someone inevitably pulls the 1 owner card you are transferring 3 bank on? It’s not a coincidence. Furthermore, with TCALS being utilized for card duplication purposes, multiple widespread effects have been observed, including:
  • Pulling the card itself, which is a boost to DV, can be sold for bank, etc.. Since we cannot control who pulls the card, this can happen to anyone at the right time.

  • In many cases, card crashes. Due to the nature of supply/demand, many people may try to sell off their newfound wealth, overwhelming the demand significantly. The additional copies can also be used maliciously, as seen through the actions of Leto and others.

  • The duplicated copies are circulated throughout in trades or direct sales, in exchange for bank and other cards not associated with TCALS at all. For example, Noahs Second Country traded 30 legendary cards for a copy of Soops when it was still valuable.

  • Through unnoticed, impromptu pull events nations may be able to increase or create a monopoly on a card. For example, N00027 generated 2 additional copies of Altmer Dominion a while back, now they are the farmer with the most copies of the card.

  • And of course, TCALS has shifted card culture in itself. Farmers try to always have packs allocated for pull events at any moment, and when notable cards go up farmers are often seen spam opening packs in an attempt to get the card. Not to mention the drama stirred up by differences of opinion over events like the Pergamon Pull Event, TBH Card Raid, and more.



When?
TCALS was implemented very early in cards following the April Fool’s event. TNP started doing pull events without bidding, but perhaps the most important date in this timeline is in late March of 2020, where Recuecn made the following observation in the Cards Discord:
perg: last bid change, 39 minutes ago. Last find: 39 minutes ago.
OT: last bid change, 38 minutes ago. Last find: 32 minutes ago.

September 29, 2019: Pergamon is found while being sold for 1000
January 26th, 2020: TNP’s pull event on NASTIC 2
February 23, 2020: TNP event with HMS Unicorn and NERVUN S2
March 29, 2020: TNP event with Pergamon and Old Tyrannia S2
April 10, 2020: Week long Valentine Z auction comes to an end
April 17, 2020: Pull Event on NERVUN
April 20, 2020: Noahs Second Country pull event on Anime Daisuki
April 26, 2020: TNP event with Escade S2 and Soops S1
April 26, 2020: Feu de Glace, Refuge Isle, 9003 pull event on Pergamon and Mindless Contempt
May 5, 2020: Leto pull event on Mindless Contempt
May 6, 2020: Noahs Second Country pull event on Noahania, Noahs Second Country S1, Giovanniland adds Giovanniland
May 10, 2020: TNL pull event on Abacathea S2
May 11, 2020: Noahs Second Country event on NERVUN S2
May 18, 2020: Noahs Second Country event on Seanat
May 24, 2020: TEP Pull Event with 1 Infinite Loop. 10KI Adds Wordy and Gluuland, Noahs Second Country adds Noahs Second Country and Giovanniland adds Giovanniland
May 27, 2020: N0027 event on Altmer Dominion
May 31, 2020: TNP event with Solorni, Testlandia S2, Anime Daisuki. 10000 Islands adds Alkasia and Kozmix, Noahs Second Country adds Legendary Cards.
May 31, 2020: During the TNP event, TBH adds Testlandia S1, Old Tyrannia S2, Testlandia S1, TGU News, Frattastan II, Soops, HMS Unicorn, Tupelope, Queen Yuno S2.



How?
This is the biggest question, and we can investigate this by looking towards various events. There are clearly multiple variables that go into this… and I will attempt to explain some conclusions we can make in part 2 of this dispatch, to be titled “Mythbusting with TCALS” sometime in the near future.

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