Opinionated
09-14-2009, 06:35 PM
Alright, now I'm sure that we've got people here on AF with their fingers in the pie of collectible games. Call it Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, Monsterpocalypse, Pirates of the Cursed Sea, or even(possibly) Warhammer or Warmachine.
And your options for these come in two flavors(possibly excepting the last two names on that list): Random booster packs and the individual units. So... in total, when the day is done, which do you buy more often?
Now I know that there are pros and cons to each strategem, and here they are, as I see them.
Boosters:
Pros:
- You get a feel for the expansion as a whole, including what other colors/factions/whatevers are doing here, not just yours. You may find that one thing that convinces you to dabble in another faction/color/whatever through a booster pack.
- Economy: I don't know the exact numbers, but I think in most cases, buying 15 MTG cards in a booster is cheaper than buying 15 individual cards, especially when you factor in rarity.
- Christmas Day, man! The anticipation, the eagerness, that thumbing through of things and imagining strategies and beatdowns is, I think, as much a part of collectible games as the actual game itself.
Cons:
- What you get is random. You may get something that helps you, you may get absolutely nothing that helps you, or even interests you, which means you've either got pretty little things on your shelf/ in you binder or trade fodder.
- Hunting through boosters to find that one specific thing that will help you do so much because you saw it online and you're sure that it'll be totally awesome and it's not that rare which means you should easily be able to get it in a pack or two but you've bot a dozen and bupkiss. You've been there.
Individual Units:
Pros:
- Economy! Just buying that one thingamabobber is going to be a lot cheaper than hunting through boosters to find it, and will save you on the time and money.
- Getting older Whatchamacallits is going to be easier, if you're looking for a card from, say... the Portal 3K expansion of MTG(Which you shouldn't be, those cards suck), I highly doubt that stores are going to still be sitting on booster packs for you. Buying the individual cards is just going to be easier.
- Filling your your deck/army/navy is also going to be much simpler if you can just buy it on it's ownsome instead of going through the frustration of fingering through God knows how many packs.
Cons:
- Unless you finger through page after page of websites, you can lose that sense for what everyone else is doing with the expansion, just focusing on how it's helping you and your specific deck/army/navy.
- You lose Christmas, man. You lose Christmas. You're going down a cold and lonely, logical path.
And your options for these come in two flavors(possibly excepting the last two names on that list): Random booster packs and the individual units. So... in total, when the day is done, which do you buy more often?
Now I know that there are pros and cons to each strategem, and here they are, as I see them.
Boosters:
Pros:
- You get a feel for the expansion as a whole, including what other colors/factions/whatevers are doing here, not just yours. You may find that one thing that convinces you to dabble in another faction/color/whatever through a booster pack.
- Economy: I don't know the exact numbers, but I think in most cases, buying 15 MTG cards in a booster is cheaper than buying 15 individual cards, especially when you factor in rarity.
- Christmas Day, man! The anticipation, the eagerness, that thumbing through of things and imagining strategies and beatdowns is, I think, as much a part of collectible games as the actual game itself.
Cons:
- What you get is random. You may get something that helps you, you may get absolutely nothing that helps you, or even interests you, which means you've either got pretty little things on your shelf/ in you binder or trade fodder.
- Hunting through boosters to find that one specific thing that will help you do so much because you saw it online and you're sure that it'll be totally awesome and it's not that rare which means you should easily be able to get it in a pack or two but you've bot a dozen and bupkiss. You've been there.
Individual Units:
Pros:
- Economy! Just buying that one thingamabobber is going to be a lot cheaper than hunting through boosters to find it, and will save you on the time and money.
- Getting older Whatchamacallits is going to be easier, if you're looking for a card from, say... the Portal 3K expansion of MTG(Which you shouldn't be, those cards suck), I highly doubt that stores are going to still be sitting on booster packs for you. Buying the individual cards is just going to be easier.
- Filling your your deck/army/navy is also going to be much simpler if you can just buy it on it's ownsome instead of going through the frustration of fingering through God knows how many packs.
Cons:
- Unless you finger through page after page of websites, you can lose that sense for what everyone else is doing with the expansion, just focusing on how it's helping you and your specific deck/army/navy.
- You lose Christmas, man. You lose Christmas. You're going down a cold and lonely, logical path.