The new wave of LEGO Wizarding World Harry Potter and Fantastic Beast sets are now out, together with the highly in demand LEGO Harry Potter and Wizarding World Collectible Minifigures (71022). As we all know by now, the LEGO Harry Potter CMF 71022 comes with an array of impressively designed minifigs of familiar Potter-verse characters, including a chase minifig of Percival Graves/Gellert Grindelwald. We already reported on its box distribution earlier last month, giving us an idea of the odds of getting that minifigure that you really want.
This time around, an avid collector of this latest LEGO CMF has shared additional info via Reddit that will somehow increase the odds of finding that elusive LEGOF CMF (71022) character that you are looking for. According to Mabubifarti, s/he observes that the way the sixty (60) blind bags of this particular CMF is placed inside its sealed box follows a peculiar pattern. Furthermore, this tendency for a ‘preferred’ arrangement was also observed by Mabubifarti to be applicable to LEGO’s Anniversary Series 18 CMF (71021), particularly in reference to where Series 18’s chase minifig (which is the Classic Police Officer) is located inside the sealed box.
Just in case someone finds it useful, I recorded the order of the minifigures in my Harry Potter CMF box. from lego
Based on the above layout, the upper row of the table represents the back portion of the box, while the row at the very bottom of the table represents the front portion of the box. According to reports from other LEGO Harry Potter CMF collectors, Mabubifarti’s arrangement is quite accurate with 2 other slight variations from the one s/he originally shared. If this is true and you’re still on a mission to complete your very own LEGO Harry Potter CMF (71022), then it will be better to keep in mind that picking up the blind bags from both the front and back end of the box will probably yield a handful of duplicate minifigs. It seems that the best strategy to avoid any unwanted duplicates is to pick things upper column and getting each blind bag per column alternately.
Of course, we must always take such reports with a grain salt, but with almost every collector reporting the same with only slight variations on the preferred arrangement, then it may also prove that such an arrangement does exist. If you’re still in doubt, you should always feel your way through each of the blind bags. The reported blind bag arrangement may only help as far as narrowing down your search, but feeling your way through each of them still gives you a much better chance of landing on that minifig that you really want.
Speaking of feeling your way through each LEGO Harry Potter CMF (71022) blind bag, The Brothers Brick has published an excellent guide that will help you increase the odds of finding that tricky minifig that you really want. Be sure to check out their feel guide before you head to your local LEGO brand store for your LEGO Harry Potter CMF hunt. Alternatively, you may also visit shop.LEGO.com if you don’t mind getting a randomly selected blind bag.
If looking for Percival Graves, he is in the left side of the box (if the box is opened and facing you) within the last 10 bags. I found 5 so far in this spot.
What about the sidecap displays from Walmart that have Harry Potter in the top half and Unikitty in the bottom half?
As far as I know, this rumored arrangement of CMFs only applies to newly opened minifigure boxes. Of course, this no longer applies supposedly once the blind bags are displayed in any other way.