It's hard to get that New Card Smell Headache off of singles. A box almost ensures it ;)

Is it more cost efficient to you? YES, $60 and under a box over the counter is a good deal, and it kinda helps my local guy.

Do you like to try out lots of different deck ideas? OF COURSE! Playing the same decks all the time is boring.

Do you collect and buying boxes makes that easier to do? Yes, but y'know this could be a hit or miss experience.

Prefer boxes - My son and I like buy as many boxes as we can afford. Then we start the bidding process on what teams we will each take. Play the teams mono. Figure out which ones we like then fill in with singles.

Buying Singles may be more cost effective to you and on some scale your local store, but it isn't cost effective to the game. Distribution being based on pre-orders means that your local retailer will have less if people don't pre-order the product in boxes.

I like to try out alot of different decks and often find buying 3-4 boxes enough to get a playset of everything i need. I then will buy singles in order to create decks with cards i don't have thereby supporting my local retailer as well.

Buying boxes makes collecting really easy. I often have found with 3-4 boxes i will collect all i need. I will only usually need to purchase 2 money rares cuz i will have pulled one or two and usually that is the limitation of the weakness in buying boxes.


HERE is the STRENGTH of BUYING BOXES...

When i purchase boxes i often end up with multiples of cards i don't need or multiples of rares that i will have too many of. I am then able to use those rares to trade for cards i need and/or sell them to my local shop or trade them for cards i need.

I just dont get the point in purchasing singles period because ultimately you are hurting the game if that is all you do to support the game.

If you get lucky when opening a box, you will get enough trade value to cover the cost of the box.

The last NEW box of cards I opened was DCL, and I pulled a Superman MM, Black Manta, Foil Charaxes and Batman among other things...those cards MORE than paid for the box I paid $100.00 for.

And while I enjoy buying cards as cheaply as possible, with the shorter print runs, it will ALWAYS pay off to get a box over singles. Singles markets, by nature, are inflated in prices: people generally break out singles to sell because they can make their investment back.

If you bought a box of MUN and did not open it (I do not have that kind of willpower) imagine what you could sell unopened packs for when the set sold out.

Anyone play Magic back when the LEGENDS set was new? Do you remember paying $7-$10 a pack to try to get a Mirror Universe when the set was out of print? This situation has not been something we have had to deal with since the print runs have always been greater than the demand for the game. As much as I hate to say it, shorter print runs help good singles maintain their value.

At that point I would have had to drop the game. $7-$10 a pack = HOLY CRAP. I mean I like Vs and all but if it ever got that out of hand I would sell what I have and just let the game go.
later,
Kj

At that time, the card referenced, Mirror Universe, was worth something like $65.

And it wasn't UDE that set the prices that high, it was the person who was smart enough to have out of print stock, and was willing to sell it.

I feel the closest to this we ever got with Vs was when EoME was still modern and silver age...the X-Men set kept its value for a long time after the next couple sets came out because of EoME and the fact that pulling one was worth approximately $30. (I know that right before MTU that I was still finding X-Men boxes for $85-$90.)

I love to play with older cards & the Super-Cross Over format is awesome.

Sho' 'nuff!!

See, I personally buy boxes instead of singles usually, because economically it gets you more cards, if not better cards always, to buy by the box. I'm more inclined to buy a box and make do than to build a deck with such a specific recipe that I have to buy the cards I want. There have been exceptions, of course, since the Legends sets were pretty awesome but nearly impossible for me to pull what I wanted after like 5 or 6 boxes of each.

The reason I ask, though is because I know of areas that have been hurt by players buying boxes, which is the shop keepers fault, but if a player bought the only box in stock, then other players either simply lost out, or had to wait, and then had to hope they got their before the guy buying boxes. But since the shop keeper has to place his orders before hand, he has no idea how much he will actually sell and that means he doesn't want to over order and get stuck with two handfuls of product that nobody wants.

It is just such an interesting series of dynamics that I was pondering how much it has changed over the years.

It was bizarre 10 years ago to think of somebody buying an entire box of booster packs. Now, it is perfectly normal for even the child players to get boxes of cards as gifts and what have you.

How much different will it be in another 5 years?

In 5 years something like: "So, how many pallets of the next Versus DC set are you buying?"

A good store owner knows how many boxes of existing product he carries in his store.

New product -- they get a pass because it's hard to gauge interest, but if you have a group of regulars who play X game semi-periodically... you SHOULD know how much of a new set to carry.

I'm not sure if dynamics has changed all that much in 10 years. I remember selling Pokemon at ABOVE retail (like $7 a pack) and could blow through boxes daily. It was so bad trying to get them from distros I would go down to a WoTC retail store, buy the 1 box limit for MSRP + Tax and then resell them at my store with a warning for customers to buy them at the WoTC store like I did.

And if you're only willing to pay slightly above wholesale for boxes of a set for a game... chances are that game will not be around very long if it's not one of the Big 3.

KJ,
I KNOW you didnt forget about buying boxes from your friendly neighborhood HOBBY SHOP for $67, right???

I personally buy boxes cause we dont sell singles, and I have to support the store I play at/judge for. Now if after a couple boxes, drafts, attempts at trading I dont have a card I need, I will sometimes buy a couple of cards online but I dont really spend more than $20 doing so.

Gabe,
I didn't even know THS sold them that freaking cheap. Wow...Want to go halfs on one:).
See you Thursday,
Kj
P.S: I will be there for The Release Celebration next Saturday to by the way=).

I agree that a good shopkeeper has his ear to the ground and knows the pace his product can and will sell at.

Sadly, not all of the HNICs in Berkeley can make good decisions in those regards.

And as players, the more previews the better a set does I think. Or at least, it gives players more indication on how much they want to buy.

The $67 is the price for preorders. I've already got 2 ordered so I think I'm good. BTW as long as the shop gets them on time we'll practice for the release celebration next thursday with one of my boxes(you all of course dont get to keep the cards, but do get first dibs on trading or just plain getting stuff out of the boxes).