My first introduction to collectable card games was in high school by my band director. He introduced me to this game called Magic the Gathering. Which lead to me forcing my mom to take me to a game store to by cards. And building the crappiest of crappy decks.
Let's be honest: what is deck theory anyway?
Obviously, I had no clue how to build a deck or what cards I needed or really anything other than tapping land to bring out creatures.
I would learn and thus began my love/ hate relationship with collectable card games. (Spoiler alert: I sold all of my Magic cards at a Gen Con because none of my friends played it and it was too expensive to keep up with). I played the hell out of the 7th Sea card game and Legend of the Five rings.
And it was great.
Until it wasn't.
The biggest problem with collectable card games is just that: collecting the cards. Blind packs are literally the worst form of gambling I can think of. And this is coming from the girl who would open a couple of cases of packs to fill the binders of her game store.
It was fine in college when all of my friends played the same games and we all had different decks with different needs. It made it easy to trade with each other to get what we wanted, but once we moved out, not so much.
It's one of the reasons I love the way Fantasy Flight Games does their Living Card Games. I know what I'm getting in each pack and I can pass on them if there's nothing for my deck. I don't have to wish and pray that I get that Crane card I need to round out my deck. Oh no, I know it's in that Dynasty Pack.
Which is great for me. It allows me to buy what I want, when I want, without spending an arm and a leg on opening pack after pack with nothing to show for it or paying secondary market prices. I wish more game companies would do this, but I understand how blind packs generally bring them more money.
But let me know, which do you prefer: blind packs or knowing what you're getting?
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