Opening a Date A Bullet booster box

 Today's opening is one of a booster box for the Weiss Schwarz cardgame, and more specifically the Date A Bullet expansion.

While I have no intention to actually play the game, I am aiming to collect the series (though those two signature cards will be a hell to get).

I got the cards through Cardmarket, and the box arrived recently, so without further ado, let's open it and the 6 boosters inside, seeing if there are some nice additions to the collecting binder!

 

 

Not a bad haul at all, with some nice foils to replace commons and uncommons, and no double rare cards. 

 

Just a pity I didn`t score the motherload, but we keep trying ;-)

Opening some Date A Bullet boosterpacks for Weiss Schwarz

 Earlier this month, a local visit to Nendo Addicts brought back some booster packs of the Date A Bullet series.

Now, while I don`t play Weiss Schwarz, I am trying to collect a select amount of series from the line, just because I love the anime's they are from.

And to that end, I'm opening these two packs, always in the hope of getting one of the signature cards (chances: slim).  And considering there is barely an aftermarket for the game here in Belgium, I`m also hoping on not to much doubles hehehe.

So, without firther ado, I cut open the first pack, and getting these cards:

The rare of the set, "Zafkiel" Kurumi, is unfortunatly not the signed version, but still a 3.90 euro card according to Cardmarket, so that's not to bad.  And with the Uncommon "Doll Master" Pannier and the Common card In Recollections, Isami I also scored two foils in this pack.

The second pack was then opened, yielding me the following:

Now, the Rare of this pack is nothing spectacular: Predetermined Conclusion, Queen.  While only a 0.25 cent rare, I did also get her Foil version in this pack.  Guess that's both a yay and a nay in one and the same go?  

But in the end, that card, and now the non-foil version of In Recollections, Isami where the only ones to be added to the doubles stack.  And the small series got fleshed out some more once again.

So if you want to pick up those, check out my CardMarket page for them.

Opening 2 Pokemon Vivid Voltage boosters: These are FAKES

 Well, I grabbed these boosters with our left over prize tokens at a fancy fair, during our recent trip to Leuven with Noshi.

And now we are ripping open the booster packs, and see if any gems are hiding in these two little packs.

So, I taped the opening, but then my alarm bells went off, something wasn`t feeling right with these particular cards.  Never the less, I kept the little clip of the opening of the packs, as I was checking them out and after cutting the camera, started to notice all sorts of strange things on them.  But at least it shows these packs actually exist out there...

Because both the packs and the cards are fakes!!!!

I sensed something was off when I only had 19 instead of 20 cards after opening both boosters, and no online code cards.  So I went in to look deeper.

For starters, they feel course and not smooth like a real card, and the colouring of the backs in in various blue hues.  At first I thought they might have been stored badly, but then I went to look closer.

For starters, the booster pack doesn`t have the "6+" age mark above the letter N of Pokemon.

Further inspection on the cards themselves show that some have very vague printings, while other look a bit faded in colour.

But it gets "better" when looking at the rares: the Galarian Darmanitan V actually is a few milimetres shorter then the other cards, while the Orbeetle V is cut wrongly at the bottom.

So these are straight to the garbage can cards, elaborate fakes they might be though!

Opening 3 Yu-Gi-Oh Burst of Destiny boosters

 So, I had this voucher for Game Mania, and no intention of getting any new games, so what to do with them?

Well, I decided to spend it on some Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs.

Now, I don`t play this game really much anymore (or for that matter, any game, I just collect certain Weiss Schwarz series), so I decided to pull them open, and then list the cards on my Cardmarket account.  Hopefully, they sell okay so I can snatch some more WS boosters for my private collection as such.

So, will these packs yield any good value (dreaming of the v2 Starlight rares or the Elemental Hero Stratos is probaby just that, a dream), let's find out!

So, what where the spoils? Nothing fancy as you could see, probably around 4 to 5 euro worth in cards.

Oh well, can`t win them all!

Weiss Schwarz Date A Live booster opening

 Booster pack opening today!

And it's for my very first cards of the Weiss Schwarz cardgame.

I don`t have any plans on actually playing this game, nor collecting full sets.  But I do hope to grab some nice character representations from all the various lines, and if I`m very lucky to actually score some of those autograph cards that are ultra rare scattered in the ranges.

I grabbed the boosters through cardMarket from Spain, at 15 euro for the 3, so let's open these 8 cards each packs up.  And see what we got out of them, and if there is some "value" amongst the non keepers...

 

 

So that's it, the contents of the booster packs.  Looking over the 160 cards list for this series, we have the following worthy pulls for my "to keep" binder... Yoshino and the expensive Tokha.

 

Now to go list the other ones!

Opening Happy Meal Pokemon boosters

 To celebrate 25 years of Pokemon, McDonalds ran an action in which you could get a special series of 50 cards.

Coming with a special promo icon, these cards where sold in Happy Meal boxes, and each booster contains 4 cards.

 

 

The total series consists of the 24 starter Pokemon from all the games so far, as well as Pikachu, and then every card again in holo version.  With Pikachu holo apparently being the rarest of them all.

So over the past period, I spend my lunch breaks grabbing a Happy Meal (farewell BMI), and now I`m going to open up all the packs in this videoclip:

 

 

Although I only got 5 boosters before they sold out at the local McDonalds, this still means some nice cards, though some of them will be ending on Cardmarket...

Firing up those cardgame numbers again...

Okay, so we are all settled in, we have made selections in which armies could move along and which ones went to new owners... and now we have a heap of additional free time (at least until the little hobbit arrives) and a private schedule that is totally overhauled.

I realize I won't be able to get to the club anymore every friday, even though my presence was already slaughtered during the whole renovations and pregnancy cycle... but I need my geek out moment so it's time to go on that occassional draft again.

This will be by participating in MTG game events on low scale left and right, in the beginning by doing drafts and perhaps in the far future playing some standard again, as I'll be rebuilding one of my "25 dollar mono-red deck" decks again to do just that.  No thinking required, just boom boom boom and win or lose in 15 minutes games.  It worked in the past...

I'll also be dabbling my toes a bit in other "sanctioned" cardgames along the road, but all of them will be without any ambition bar trying to get rid off the non used cards along the way, to prevent it all stacking up skyhigh once again as it used to.

It's also something very space efficient to be honest...

The Haul Report 147: Don`t judge...

So this week I decided to re-activate my DCI account, in order to go draft once in a while when Noshi has night shifts, and grab a beer with some old friends as a result.

And recently we've been playing Pokemon GO again for a whole night and day, barely non-stop...

Cards, pokemon, see where this is going... yeah indeed, I`m going to give the game a try again after the smaller part of 20 years, don`t judge.  It`s a social make friends thing...

So I went to Bart Smit who had a sale out on the Pikachu set, and snatched the Shining Legends box as such.  I also took along some boosters, and a small card portfolio for the few tradeworthy things I might amass in the game, probably going to be for Promotional cards over time.  Don`t judge...

The day after, I hopped by Outpost for looking at the scheduled event calendar, and what sort of deck I should build, in true Magic tradition it will be:

1. Mono-coloured, aka less thinking / resource management
2. Cheap
3. probably burn or something

I will probably give it a try in the "League" thing one of these weeks, since their aren`t any draft formats on first sight.

And grabbed some boosters... don`t judge.

So I decided to make a "20 dollar deck" like I did in Magic, cheap for the occassional play, based around some small electric beasties and with zilch expectations due to neither experience in the game, nor of the metagame.  I just want to be able to pop by for a game every now and then and learn the rules...  so yeah, I ordered some loose cards through Cardmarket to that end (the old magiccardmarket, but they changed name as they now cater a whole lot more games.  Please feel free to add me as your "Referal" should you make an account there please, that can get me some cheaper cards).  Okay, perhaps you can start considering judging me...

And ended up with this, all activated now...

Okay, perhaps you can judge...

Pokemon TCG: do or don't?

Okay, so me and Noshi started playing Pokemon GO again.

Or rather, walk marathons in search of the little pocket monsters...

But this might result in a (renewed) intrest in Pokemon the card game, and I'm considering getting the starter Trainer set for 2 players with mini decks, to learn to play.

Wikihow has a decent "How to Play" guide though, found HERE, but the question is mostly that after the whole Magic career, am I willing to invest in a competitive deck once again, or just go with the flow and play some casual League games in the local card chucker den...

And if I do, will Noshi join me, as she likes those anime thingies a lot as well.  Seems some stuff to think about for now...

Postal Arrivals and Flea Market Haul

The past two days have been busy for mister postman, as box after box after envelope where delivered to the doorstep.

But to top it all, I also went to a Flea Market today at Luchtbal, Antwerpen and found some small but nice goodies.

But let`s start at the beginning, as my recent Archonia comic order came is, meaning I now have the full set of all the Lego variant covers.  I initially bought only the issues that had the series I pick up now and then on them, but when seeing how high the Marvel`s from a few years went up in price, I played it safe and sorry and completed the collection for them.

Talking superheroes, some more Overpower cards arrived whom I traded for some Lord of the Rings cards through TradeCardsOnline.

And Chu`s BrickLink order to complete a Harry Potter build was there as well.

But then the big things started to come in, starting off with 3 more Gali`s from the Jurassic World line.

As well as my first ever Catawiki purchase, this 7213 Firetruck and Boat set from 2010, which I payed 35 while it is at least 50 on BrickLink.

So off to the Flea Market then!

My first find where two Yellow Power Rangers figures and a cool Lego The Movie holosticker, putting me down for 2 euro.  Bargain, as I`ll be rather easily be trading those Rangers away again.

The next puchase is all mine, the full series of Earth`s Children, of which 3 of the 5 haven`t even been read.  10 euro was a fair price, battering it down from 15.

The next small score where 5 euro for 7 different action figures.  I love the Homer, and have some nice items with them in the Avatar figure, the Biker Mice and Gambit in peticular.

Of course, I needed to find some Lego, it`s one of those unwritten laws of the universe.  And these two race cars for 2 euro each isn`t a bad bargain.

But the final score is perhaps the coolest, as I found a Thunderbird 1 from the 92 Matchbox line, in great shape and excellent stickers, for only a single euro.

All in all, a great 48 hours ;-)

Yesterday's Haul: a Goblin... and a heap of Marvel cards

Yesterday, the mailman stood by my door with some goodies from exchanges through both Miniature Trading and Trade Cards Online.

Though nothing really THAT spectacular perhaps, these are some nice little thingies for my Geeky collection.

The first, and easiest exchange, was the one through MTO.  I exchanged a series 13 Alien Trooper for a series 13 Goblin.  I like the little vicious looking guys, and since I build in fantasy anyways, the alien guy hadn`t had much going for him anyways, so he is of to sunnier Spain... which probably was to hot for damp cavern loving Goblins anyways.

The other parcel was, well, a little more work.  

I exchanged `some` cards with Brendan, a guy i have been exchanging cards with through TCO for like 3 years now.  I play Magic in mostly drafts and Standard, and don`t look back at the cards once they rotate out.  He collects all series and goes for full playsets where able.

He has a great collection of rarer to find overhere series though, living near that mekka of geekiness across the Atlantic ocean.

So we did another trade, 120 cards of Magic for 120 cards of Marvel OverPower, drawing mostly from the original base set and the first expansion, PowerSurge.  Now, considering we are talking 1 rare, 23 uncommons and for the rest commons each on a one by one basis, one can imagine I was digging through my boxes for almost all afternoon to prepare his parcel.

Yet, in the end, and considering the rare Magic card was an Archmage Ascension, not that sort of top resale or trade value card, I sometimes feel I come out on top on these sorts of exchanges, as OP isn`t easy to find, especially not overhere... 

But it is a set with cool art, it brings back a LOT of youth memories (I actually played this game MORE with my friends then Magic when I was around 14... go figure the popularity of M:tG back then...), it`s a nice set to collect on the off hand and with a decent rate of success, AND I found a way to channel away all those boxes of commons and uncommons a card at a time...

Roight, time to sort out some more stuff, as I got another exchange in negotiating, which should yield me another heap of the OverPower cards...

There is no such thing as a crappy Magic card

Or at least, not in value... In this short opinion piece, I`m taking a look back at how I manage to play `for free` during the year, AND how I can fund my Legodiction with them.

Now, as most know, being a very season bound player for Magic the Gathering, I don`t tend to invest in the next big thing or keep heavy trade binders.

I usually play during the summer months, when the weather is more pleasant to be waiting on the bus at night, but also because other obligations are then far lower in time intensity.  This means I play most of my events usually in the Limited formats, being either Draft or Sealed.

This of course results in shoe boxes of common and uncommon cards of the not to playable kind, something that tends to happen at drafts, and a collection of what is labelled `crap rares`.  Surely, Planeswalkers and usually the rare lands tend to go for a few euros, but no love is handed out to that poor Tromokratis and his 20 cents value or such.

WRONG

For almost every card, somewhere out there is a collector that looks to complete all the sets, and who is constantly looking around for those cards.  Now, usually people rarely bother hauling them along on trades, and in webstores they tend to go in the 1 euro category, which is not that cheap, considering you can usually get a full playset of those cards on sites like Magic Card Market for half the price.

I personally tend to use the cards I draft and pick and win with the complementary booster on Friday Night Magic`s to be listed right away.  And since my mediocre skills, I rarely get to pick `money rares`.

But on the other hand, since I don`t follow the hypes in Constructed, and just tend to go `boom boom boom` with red, I don`t have any big expenses on new cards every few weeks neither.

This allows me to channel the values I do get to go to other sources, in my case, bricks.  Considering that the value of a playset of common or uncommon `bulk cards` is only a measly 2 eurocents, that doesn`t sound like the effort to sort and list out everything.  But for 2 cents, you also get one single Lego basic brick over on Brick Link.

So that means:

 equals

But this also means:

 equals

If of course you have the luck to pull open some `money rares` on the moment when they are hot and before the set settles in and prices start dropping, the equation goes up far more.  A new and good Planeswalker can easily get you 20 euros on the first weeks, a steady 10 during the set, only to sink after rotation unless it is a classic deckstaple for the eternal formats.

But those are NOT the cards that intrest me actually.  I usually use the TradeCardsOnline website to exchange a heap of cards for Lego Collectible Minifigures.  Because Magic is a hobby that tends to `exist` alongside someones other hobbies, being not that place intensive (if you keep it within reason).

I`m that kind of person that gladly takes over the whole collection of crap commons and such that people tend to throw away because `it is not worth it`.  Friends quitting Magic or just keeping the rares for trade, but not caring about those boxes full of common and uncommon junk?  I`ve always gladly accepted all those cards, and put in the hours and hours of sorting, making playsets, and updating my `have` and `want` lists.  Packing cards up and bringing them to the mail office?  With pleasure, because that means one of the days a parcel of bricks will be falling in my postbox.

Of course, if you`re looking to become a filthy rich card trader, these words weren`t ment for you, but if you`re looking to get a place to save those crap boxes from going on the old paper, contact me and you might as well just give them to me, you`ll get the satisfactory feeling that at some Lego convention, some child is watching some build of which some bricks are there thanks to it ;-)

So yes, if I make the tally this year, my cards have not only gotten me a nice amount of Planeswalker Points, my first two event victories and some nice times, which are rather priceless, but also did they allow me to technically buy the whole year for free on cards, AND gotten me the complete latest wave of The Hobbit sets from Lego.

Not bad for someone with a skill set that is just only above `holding the cards in the right direction`...

GP Utrecht report - a view from the trenches

And so my second GP of my Magic career has come to pass with the Utrecht 2015 Grand Prix, and on the contrary to London two years ago, this one was a whole weekend of card chucking.

Before we start a rather odd tale of very odd games, let`s recap my personal goals. I wanted to go 3 - 6, as my last one was a 2 win GP, and grab 150 Planeswalker Points in the process.

Now, the trip there was already an adventure, Utrecht, and especially the area around the venue, the Jaarbeurs, was a battlefield.  We have driven around the center nearly for an hour, passing our hotel, the NH Jaarbeurs, about 5 times and ended even on a bus road...  but we found it in the end and managed to park the car for 3 days in a garage.  Then it was off to the Burger King for a quick bite, and off to the venue for the first side events.

The first thing I enrolled in was a Chaos Draft.  And something I`ll never do again, at 25 euros, 8 player single elimination, the chances of getting value out of it is rather minimal, my actual best value cards where a Logic Knot and a Terminate, and cry me a river, I went out in round one.

The second side event I had registred for was the Foiled Again.  At 20 euros for a Sealed, you`re basically playing for free as boosters at retail cost me 4 euros a piece, and every participant received a free promo, this months FNM Bile Blight.  If you got 2 wins out of 4 you`d get two boosters and more promos, but at 0-2 I was spend and dropped even though I had a minimal chance for the prices.  I just wanted to eat, and the hotel restaurant had a very good restaurant.

After some testing that evening, I knew my deck was pretty safe against Mono-Black (yes, I have Torch Fiends in my sideboard, and they would prove their worth). The new hype Rabble Red is chanceless under normal draw conditions, I can 60/40 win game one, then switch in 3 Circle of Flames for 3 of my one drops and mulligan if needed to 3 down, as long as I have a single mountain, a Circle and another land, the game ends on turn 2.  The Hail the Hydra deck also for some reason has big issues winning against my concoction, as in 10 test games vs Glenn, I went 8-2.  No idea why though, it just works for some bizare reason.

So it was the big day, and it turned out to be `one of those days`.  I lost fair and square to some players who where just better then me, but I also lost two games in particular in very, VERY frustrating ways.

In one match, we where at 1-1 when he goes Supreme Verdict, then lays down an elvish mystic.  I am at 7, he at 1 at that moment.  I got 8 land on the table, so any creature or burn coming of the deck is a win, even a Fanatic for 1 is sufficient.  I got beaten to death in 7 turns by an attacking Mystic...  as I drew 7 lands, resulting in 15 out of 20 being on the table and losing the match.

Another frustrating game was when also at 1-1, he was at 4, I at 20.  I had already played all my 3 damage burns, and he was building an army with Nissa, while my small creatures couldn`t attack lest be blocked to death, so they where on damage control duty.  Either one of my Mizzium Mortars, Fanatic of Mogis or Stoke the Flames, all still in the deck, would nail it, and there where only 21 cards left in my library, so chances looked good.  So enter the draw steps for the following turns... Cackler, Mountain, Nyktos, death... AARGH.

And my 3rd win?  In the final round, number 9... my opponent didn`t show up...

Frustrating, very frustrating... but at least I have the Batterskull Promo and have my foil signed by the present artist, Filip Burburan, for my signatures map.

But after that, we went out for drinks and very, very good ribs in the Utrecht centre, and it all ebbed away, so after another very short and interrupted night, we went back in to play the Standard event and grab some points hopefully.

Going in 3-3 at the end, it was a good game that polished up my mood a lot, and while the designated driver was still doing a draft, I went in for a quick Standard pick up side event.  In this, you play with 8, single elimination.  Winning your first match gains you 2 boosters, ending second yields 4 and winning it gives you 6 boosters of M15.

My first match up was a Mono Black deck, so I went to the second round smoothly with 2-0.  There I faced off against a... mono black deck and a quick 2-0 later, I suddenly found myself playing a Jund deck for the win.  I won the first game with a bit of struggling and a top deck fanatic, but then in game two he got mana issues and I actually won the second event of my whole Magic career, within a month of the first.  Topping this off, it also yields a quick 30 Planeswalker Points.

So I got 6 boosters, that yielded a not great, but not to bad either bunch of cards:

So after three days of battling and trading, we returned back to Antwerp with a decent amount of Planeswalker Points, and my (only barely) eyed 3 wins.  Which should have been some more if I didn`t have one of those days, but in all honesty, day 2 was never an option.  I`m just glad I didn`t face Blue Devotion...

At the time of writing this, the PWP site hasn`t updated with the GP itself, only the side events, but from those I already hauled in 84 points. The GP normally should add 136 more to that tally, so scoring over 200 points also already secures my ticket for the WMCQ`s of 2015, so I`ll be back on that battlefield after having to pass them next week due to not qualifying (I haven`t played much in 2014, 3 or 4 events only) and not going to be able to attend the last chancers on saturday (I can`t get it sold to the GF to be out for another weekend again).

And now, I can start aiming my sights on the rotation of the cards, as I will probably be already dismantling my deck of Ravnica block cards and put in fillers of Theros for now until Khans hit... it was a fun deck, it did it`s job, and the Torch Fiend was definitly my last minute stroke of genius as no Bow nor Whip has annoyed me over the whole weekend... and no opponent saw that counter coming either... He is a stayer in the sideboard, as the new Perilous Vault is making it`s way into decks as well...