and Blaster was pulled from Legacy for an early release in Kingdom under wave 5. I am uncertain as to what the repacks are for each wave.
Recent leaked reports indicate that may not be happening anymore.
Also, retailers are stupid and splitting wave 4 makes little sense since retailers will shift to Legacy after the New Year. Same thing happened with wave 5 of Siege where waves were tweaked/added "due to retailer demand" and the last waves were basically absent a meaningful retail presence.
Or even just going with Kingdom releases, there's Blackarachnia, Airazor, Warpath, Huffer (wave 3, to not be alongside Pipes), and Cheetor (wave 4, to not be alongside Shadow Panther).
Cheetor and Warpath were brisk sellers in wave 1 in my area. I just don't get why Hasbro is running Arcee again.
When a figure shelf warms a lot they tend to be reclaimed by hasbro and repacked as an attempt to push the remaining units at a later date while also clearing up shelf space for more new product. These are the same Arcees that shelf warmed earlier this year and last year in earthrise if you were lucky enough to find wave 2.
The reason Sunstreaker and Cliffjumper aren't coming back is because they sold out and did not need to be repackaged.
That's not how it works. Hasbro doesn't take back old toys, ship them to Vietnam, put them in new packaging and ship them BACK with new toys in the box.
The reason we aren't seeing any pre-Kingdom deluxe being used as refresher material is because it would take time and resources to develop the packaging and approvals that Hasbro probably feels isn't necessary at this stage. It's quicker to rerun an existing product than to redevelop a refresh (especially given the likely limited time frame to work with given what we know about the line's development cycle).
Earthrise wave 3 was basically non-existent at US retail. Pretty much anyone, but especially Trailbreaker and Sunstreaker, would likely have done FINE as a refresh.
