See, as much as I despise the practice, I can't agree with this.
As far as Wizkids is concerned, every piece in those packs gets them $3. Actually less, when you consider that the store takes their profit from that, and factoring in the cost of production and shipping. So really, it's not as if cherry-picking a Loki has now somehow ripped the company off $40 or more. That's purely a secondary market price, which has no bearing on Wizkids' bottom line. Besides, as already mentioned here, many of these cherry pickers have no clue about the individual value of certain figures, and are just as likely to be looking for a Thor or Iron Man.

This...quoted for truth...

But wizkids is to blame for making the chases (in general, as far as i know this avengers sets only have 1 chase) and releasing different product at different places.

That doesn't give people the right to rip open sealed product.

Except you're not cheating. Again, TARGET ALLOWS YOU TO DO THIS.

I'm sorry; did you type that with a straight face?

WizKids/NECA ABSOLUTELY, with sincerity of purpose, designed Loki to be as strong as he is, and they ABSOLUTELY, with sincerity of purpose, made him a chase figure limited to 1 copy per case. If it was just another $2.99 figure it would have been at the same fixed rarity as the rest of the figures in this set. WizKids/NECA knew exactly what they were doing by a) making him extraordinarily powerful, and b) limiting his distribution to 1 per case.

The goal was unquestionably to drive the sales of this set. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if WizKids/NECA's bargaining statement in convincing Target to carry this merchandise included a phrase along the lines of "...and not only will it sell because it's Avenger's Movie related...it will also strongly appeal to the core crowd of current HeroClix players because we included a super-powerful figure in the cases, and limited it to only 1 per case!"

-nihil

Are you kidding? I used to see this when TRU stocked Xplosion back in the day - ripped boosters to get at the good stuff. Usually they ripped a hole right in the middle of the booster to see all four figures of the pack. And you know what happened? TRU stopped carrying Heroclix.

This time around, I'm sure Target won't care enough to stop carrying these, as the profit margins are probably good enough to overlook the problem. But this issue has happened in the CCG and Sports Card world for years, so why are blind packed figures any different?

i agree with that, but when every piece in a 30 piece set is opened, someone walks along says o all i want is the loki and won't buy anything else, then 29 singles get left un-bought. its not the price of loki, its the fact that all anyone wants is loki, so when the rest lie opened, no one wants them and doesnt buy them...

But only someone that was standing there watching would know it even happened, so they wouldn't know the Loki was already gone....

And yet Wizkids/NECA still views it as a 2.99 MSRP figure. If people only picked the chase figure and left the rest they'd lose money. Cherry picking is wrong but the chase figure doesn't change whether it happens or not.

I agree with the posters on here that say opening blind product to see what's in it is a disgrace regardless of who does it. There is no way to justify it. It happens all of the time with other product as well in mass market stores. If you say it doesn't hurt anyone, that's just a lie that people tell themselves when they are doing something wrong. Damaging product like this costs every consumer more for what they buy because a store has to make up for the lost revenue from product that they can't sell.

I did not know that...

Even if that is true it still seems wrong, and just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

I mentioned I pulled Loki first and got replies, can't remember who maybe they were joking, to return the rest the stuff and buy a set off E-Bay. Shoot I coulda gone back and bought the other feed then returned one later after replacing one pack.
Instead I called my buddy and let him know our area had been hit with Gravity Feeds. Woulda bought him one but he wanted 1-10 so I was gonna sell him one of my sets. Then he found out how great Loki is and wanted his own feed.
I don't know how many times I'd buy SWM stuff and find it'd been opened and returned with figures swapped. Got so bad I opened my packs at the courtesy desk to insure they'd take them back when the pack was tampered with. Target will simply tape boosters up and put them back on the shelf if someone returns them.

Except they do get bought by people who want the 201-210 set.

Cherry picking isn't bad. Why should I pay for something I don't want? If I want a certain figure, I'll find it. Either way, Target and WizKids is making money right? And I walk away with a figure I want. Its win for all of us.

I wanted Iron Man and Tony Stark the most. So you see something wrong me cherry picking those? Thats your business. But I choose how I spend my money, not you.

The 201-210 set is readily available to anyone who goes on hcrealms or ebey for cost or nearly at cost. If someone just wanted that set they would have no need to buy them blindly at target. Blind purchases are made for the possibility of getting something worth more than what you bought it for, the chase. It's exciting to try to pull the chase and rewarding if you actually get it.

Trying to justify Cherry picking because Target condones it or because you think customers will still purchase the left over boxes is not right. You will never convince an honest person otherwise.

I bought a few today and thought I checked them pretty well for opening, but when I looked at them later, they had double tape on them, and it was very well done.

Well, I got the Hulk and Thor, the main two I wanted.