OK, so my son has a renewed interest in MtG (it ebbs and flows). I purchased an MtG Ravnica Fat Pack for him a couple of days ago and I must say that it is pretty cool. For $30 you get 6 packs, a life counter, 2 card boxes (not deck boxes) with separators, the Ravnica novel, 40 card land pack, and a Ravnica Guide. The Ravnica Guide is what really got my attention, it has a picture of every card in the set with readable text, as well as brief explanations of the new mechanics. Since I compare everything to VS, I thought that this would be a cool way for Upper Deck to get players back to playing who have dropped out for a while (i.e. after being disappointed in a set- see Web of Spiderman or Superman: Man of Steel) Everything that a returning player would need is included in the guide to help get them up to speed quickly. I have never had more than a mild interest in MtG, but I have to admit that this Fat Pack and the Ravnica set as a whole has piqued my curiosity. What do you think?

PS I understand that MtG has done Fat Packs in the past. However, this is the first one that I have purchased.

Well, the closest they've come so far would be the holiday tin sets where you get something that can hold cards/tins, a 'collector card', some boosters, etc.

However, it would be interesting to do some sort of tie in and have a 'phat pack' for starters.

Like say they were going to have a starter for JLA ... you could get 'just' the starter, or a phat pack [or maybe only in the phat pack]

You get a JLA Vs. Injustice Gang starter deck, 4 or 6 packs of JLA boosters, a 'spoiler/checklist/guide' that shows you the cards in the set, some kind of cool 'feature' like deck box, card box, play mat, whatever.

And a comic. Like say ... the first issue of the Rock of Ages storyline.

They do it with the action figures all the time ... you could likely get an issue to be reprinted that ties into the 'theme' of the starter. [Similarly, an issue of Avengers where they fight the Masters of Evil, or an issue of X-Men fighting the Brotherhood, etc ...]

It would involve some legal wrangling to get set-up, but they could at least have some kind 'tie-in' showing the story behind the cards type of thing.

I'll second that. I'd buy at least one of these for each set if they produced them.

you know with Vs sets in the backgrounds , i can normaly tell the story of what is going on.

I thik it would be cool if you got a whole trade paperback in the phat pack.

For the avengers set you could do THe Seige story.

Spiderman was totally the sinester six story, perfered the one by eric larsen.

hell if for green lantern phat pack they could have somehow had the rebirth trade in it, and that was the best and quickest way to get it i would have jumped on that.

for the Jla, Rock of Ages would be perfect.

you would get the Trade a Few Packs, a deck box. the cost woudl come to around 35 dollars but they would make cool gifts.

Or hell make a giant sized 80 page comic of orignal content explaining who the teams are and why they either get along or hate one another.

that could spark some intrest in reading comics from the card players or the other way around.

Aren't they sort of doing that with the Avengers and JLA Deluxe Edition Collector's sets? Granted, they don't have comics or a guide to all the cards, but they have 4 deck boxes, 4 variant extended art promos, and 4 packs all sealed in one package with Alex Ross art... All for the same price of $30.
Well.. I got nothing else...

Sounds like a great idea. The starters just don't seem exciting enough to get people to start playing this game.

Honestly they tie in with comics sometimes like House of M. Marketing opportunities make themselves sometimes Justice comic book meet promo cards from new JLA set.

For anyone not reading comics Justice is a bi-monthly comic painted by Alex Ross (sae guy who did the Avengers playmat and pack art).

I mean that got to be one of the highest selling comics at the moment, the artwork alone would make comic readers out of VS playere. Some comic readers would buy VS just because Ross has artwork in it somewhere.

So I would say Justice #1, 5 packs of JLA, 2 tins and a small book with the rules & info book. All the keywords collected together and a DC team by team breakdown, maybe a small paragraph with a list of the characters that have vs cards & the set their in. Or if you want to make it simpler throw in a cd with the info instead of a booklet.

Take it one step further randomly put cd's with game demos and a card in some comics.

Anyways just throwing some things out. The additional draw to this game is its comic flavor, Upper Deck should really push it with more than just a few figs and comics with a card in them.

I agree that Vs needs something more, especially for newer players.
The box sets that are coming out are great, but still geared for established players. Same with the MOR/MSM decktins.
The starters for MOR, DOR and MSM were good and I have no idea why UDE stopped doing them. They are the most accessible products for new players.
UDE are generally doing a great job, though.

I too like this, I second the idea of the trade paper backs.

MTG also release structure decks along with the Fatpacks so you can quickly get a selection of new cards and figure out their strategies.
My point being, does anyone remember the initial idea that there was to be a Starter Deck released with every booster?

"The current plan is for each expansion to be accompanied by a two-player starter set featuring two of the new teams or factions"

What happend to that? Im glad they made those F4 and Batman decks but they where for begginers, where is the structure decks for the regular players?

If VS started to make Fat packs and Structure decks for each booster then Id definatley buy them as i find it hard to start a new deck in VS without buying a box or two of the set.

Are we still getting those? I saw the ads for those earlier this year and was really excited. I haven't seen them since. Are the Avengers boxes out?

I know I'd buy a whole case of them.

As long as whatever case/tin they packaged enhanced product in was useful for carrying cards - Those marvel tins with the odd shapes were horrible.

Yeah, some additional content NOT designed solely for beginners would be great, but I imagine all of the starters will be pretty watered down...

I like the idea too, it'll answer people who's question of what boosters they need to buy.

But more importantly... what happened to your pelvic thrusting stormtrooper, spideysean102!!!