The core rule
A completion tier is a documented claim, not a universal fact
Publishers generally define products, sets, card lists, and rarity or treatment systems—not a single collector-wide “master set.” KLXCards therefore names the scope it can support. A numbered-set tier, pack-pattern tier, released-scope tier, fixed-deck collection, print-run tier, or deliberately limited tier may all be truthful for different releases.
Promos, stamps, errors, regional printings, oversized cards, product-only variants, event distributions, and serialized instances are included only when their physical identity and relationship to the release are supported. A sealed product is never counted as a card merely because it distributes one.
Identity model
Cards, printings, checklist membership, and products stay separate
A canonical card describes the underlying card identity. A collectible printing describes an exact physical version: release, collector number, language, finish, treatment, and supported distribution details. A completion tier selects printings. A sealed product remains a separate commerce and catalog entity.
This distinction prevents a normal card and its reverse, stamped, first-edition, product-holo, or event counterpart from collapsing into one checkbox. It also protects user Owned and Wanted state, which remains private and printing-level.
Evidence hierarchy
Official sources lead; independent evidence fills defined gaps
- Establish the release identity.Confirm factual game hierarchy, release name/code/date, and canonical catalog set.
- Collect first-party evidence.Use publisher checklists, rules, product pages, announcements, event documents, and archived official material where available.
- Compare structured and physical references.Use reputable databases, collector documentation, product lists, and physical-image evidence to detect omissions or convention differences.
- Reconcile every proposed row.Match the supported physical identity to a durable KLXCards printing ID, canonical route, source key, and catalog attributes.
- Publish or fail closed.Release only the tiers that reconcile. Hold an entire guide, or exclude an unresolved expanded group, rather than make a definitive unsupported claim.
Registry results
189 governed release decisions across five games
| Game | Live guides | Held for review | Total decisions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon | 75 | 55 | 130 |
| ONE PIECE Card Game | 1 | 20 | 21 |
| Shadowverse: Evolve | 18 | 6 | 24 |
| Disney Lorcana | 13 | 0 | 13 |
| Palworld OFFICIAL CARD GAME | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Total | 108 | 81 | 189 |
The held count includes only releases explicitly in REVIEW. NOT STARTED releases are not portrayed as researched decisions.
Variable tier structures
The live platform preserves the tier shape of each release
66 live guides publish their reconciled intended scope. The other 42 publish deliberately limited tiers and keep unresolved expanded groups outside every counter, CSV, Binder plan, and completion percentage.
Recovery model
Why some releases published and others stayed held
Publishable limited tier
A verified core tier could publish while unresolved expanded scope stayed excluded.
Quick repair
A bounded identity or surface correction could restore the intended scope.
Major repair
Substantial exact-printing gaps require more catalog work before publication.
Modeling or scope ambiguity
The physical identity or completion boundary remains too ambiguous to publish.
The 42 limited publications and seven repaired releases passed bounded gates. The 64 major-repair and 17 ambiguity cases stayed held. A held release remains a normal catalog release, but has no public Master Set Guide, CSV, Binder View, share workflow, navigation listing, or sitemap entry.
Discrepancy inventory
What the research comparison actually found
The governed inventory contains 1,618 individual discrepancies. The largest normalized categories are shown below; singular and plural forms of the same exact-printing label are combined for readability, and the remainder spans narrower identity, date, treatment, language, product-association, source-version, and counting differences.
| Pattern | Why it matters | KLXCards response |
|---|---|---|
| Promo adjacent to a set | A matching release window does not prove set-tier membership. | Keep outside the tier until exact promo provenance is established. |
| Finish or treatment conflict | One physical printing can be misclassified as Normal, Holo, Reverse, stamped, or a product surface. | Correct the supported printing in place or hold the affected scope. |
| Summary count disagrees with item list | Marketing arithmetic can differ from the actual enumerated cards. | Prefer itemized identities, document the discrepancy, and avoid inventing rows. |
| Multiple physical states share a number | A one-row checklist can hide distinct collectible printings. | Model exact printings separately or hold the expanded tier until that is possible. |
Automation and review
AI and scripts assist the work; they do not own the conclusion
KLXCards uses structured imports, reconciliation scripts, discrepancy reports, catalog tests, route tests, and AI-assisted research and drafting to work at catalog scale. Automation can locate patterns and contradictions, but it can also repeat source mistakes or infer a physical identity that does not exist.
Ken reviews the evidence boundary before publication. Tests then assert tier totals, unique durable IDs, manifest-to-catalog identity, route status, CSV parity, sitemap inclusion or exclusion, and fail-closed behavior. Corrections return through the same evidence and identity checks.
Source policy
What this report is based on
This report summarizes the governed KLXCards release registry, research-status ledger, recovery classification plan, discrepancy inventory, checked manifests, source dossiers, and production route gates as reviewed August 26, 2026. Individual guides retain their release-specific official, structured, collector, and event citations.
Read the permanent source and correction policy · Report a factual correction