Villager Hunting on Mystery Islands
June 21st, 2020
There's nothing like the sight of a recently kicked out villager's empty plot in the morning! It can mean only one thing: 🎉 Villager hunting time! 🎉
Villager Hunting in Animal Crossing New Horizons is essentially gambling... You fill your pockets with stacks and stacks of Nook Miles Tickets, only to go purchase more because you just can't get your "fix".
But... is it at all worth it? I spent an entire day and 46 Nook Miles Tickets looking for someone on my dream list of villagers to find out. Here's a recap of my day:
Narrowing down my "Dream List"
The first step of Villager Hunting is to have a Dream List. You could be going for any villagers you think are cute, a specific species, or those found on the Villager Popularity List. I tend to take the popularity list into account, but mainly go for cute/unique villagers.
During this run, I was looking to specifically find a cute Snooty or Jock villager, as I already had multiple Peppy and Normal personalities on my island of Unchartia.
I would've settled for:
Dom
Genji (the empty plot was in my zen garden area next to Pekoe!! He would've be perfect.)
Bam (my initials are BAM, and he's cute...)
Ankha (or any cat, really)
Judy
Rudy
Freya (my cat's name is Reya...)
Olivia
Or, you know, Raymond or Marshal would've been cool, too.
Early hope...
With my "Dream List", and the above mentioned popularity list in mind, I started my journey.
Flora was the first villager I encountered. She's really cute, and apparently most people like her... but... I already had two Peppy villagers, so I moved on.
Melba was the fifth villager I encountered. So. Insanely. Adorable. But... I didn't take her because I already had two Normal villagers.
I skipped two cuties because early on, I had hope that maybe, just maybe I'd encounter one of my dream villagers.
Things turn grim...
After the first five islands... things went downhill. I kept encountering animals who would probably haunt my dreams if I didn't ask them to move to my island. But. I pushed on. I used 35 Nook Miles Tickets before dinner... and Flora and Melba seemed like such a cute, but distant memory.
Final push...
I had 10 NMTs left. I was getting desperate. My "Dream List" increased to an "anyone in the top 4 tiers" list. But luck just wasn't on my side.
On the 9th ticket of my last stack, I climbed to the top of Mountain Island. I took a deep breath as I approached the top.... to find.....
Pietro! Of all villagers. But... I didn't want to take my chances with that last NMT. Pietro is scary, cute, and popular (probably for being hated...). I decided to welcome him to Unchartia. Because, well... someone needed to live near the carnival themed area.
Lucky stars...
When I returned home, there were shooting stars lighting up the skies of Unchartia! I made a few wishes. Annnd... the next morning I encountered none other than....
Ankha! So, I guess settling for Pietro wasn't that bad. I was able to get rid of another villager I didn't like by replacing Winnie with Ankha!
With 46 NMT, encountered:
🏝️ Money Rock Island: 3 times (6.5%)
🏝️ Bamboo Island: 7 times (15.2%)
🏝️ Finned Fish Island: 1 time (2.2%)
🐻 Repeat Villagers: 6 times (13%)
I did not stop to hoard resources other than sharks on Finned Island, money on Money Rock Island, DIY Recipes and furniture items in trees... and this adventure literally took me an entire day. Villager Hunting is an addictive part of Animal Crossing.