Subject: Re: What's the best booster set? Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 20:14:23 -0700 From: Michael Bahr Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.misc MTGmaster3 wrote: > > >If I were to buy a booster box (a whole box of boosters), which would be > >the best (considering that I'm a beginner and don't have a very large > >base)? I was thinking either Tempest, or Exodus. Any thoughts? Oh, and > >exactly how many cards come in a booster box? Thanks. > > TEMPEST!!! (the set of gods. well in T2 at least) Agreed. Well, about the quality of Tempest, anyway. The box itself ain't so hot, though. Here's what's up with buying boxes. For the store, I go through about thirty boxes of product each week. About seven or eight get cracked for singles, the rest sell for drafts, but I get to see the contents either way, and we DO keep track. Tempest: The best four rares in T2 (well, pre-US) but 110 rares in all and fully 70 of them suck. The big four: Pool, Scroll, Death, Tradewind. In the sorting algorithm, Death is alone and the other three are together. There are three types of Tempest boxes. Occasionally a piece of one box sneaks into another due to end of/beginning of/whatever on the press run sort, but here they are: 1. Contains Pool, Scroll, and Tradewind. 2. Contains Death, and other stuff like Verdant Force and Scroll Rack. 3. Contains 99% shit, and has rares like Avenging Angel and Meditate. Therefore, buying a box of Tempest has a 33% chance of being awesome, a 33% chance of being acceptable, and a 33% chance of sucking. I would rate a Tempest box as a B-. Stronghold: Sorting anomalies have produced repetitive rares in an evenly curved box batch, and flat distrubition throughout in the rest. There are therefore two types of Stronghold boxes... those with no Mox Diamonds (roughly 30%), and those with one or more (70%). That 70% is comprised of roughly 60% with one Mox, 7% with two, and 3% with THREE MOX DIAMONDS. Yes, it HAS happened. These are approximations, but they're not too far from the truth, as Wizard's Tower has opened dozens and dozens of boxes of Stronghold for singles. I would rate a Stronghold box purchase as a B, only because you will get tons of (choose any two: Wall of Blossoms, Crystalline Sliver, Spike Feeder, Warrior Enkor). The uncommon sorting is very clumped and you're unlikely to get even assortments of those four. Other uncommons are in their respective clumps as well but who notices the shitty cards. :) Exodus: Very flat distribution. A typical Exodus box has one triple, three doubles, and the rest single rares, and is missing only two to three "significant" rares from the set. The fact that out of the Big Five rares you're likely to get four, makes a box of Exodus an A- purchase. Possibly the most solid purchase out there. The big five are Recurring Nightmare, Survival of the Fittest, Cataclysm, Hatred, and Spike Weaver. And there are other good rares beyond those, too. Urza's Saga: So far we're finding certain things come together, and certain things apart. Unlike Tempest, there's no "dog" box. The three assortments include: 1. Serra Avatar and Thran Quarry 2. Tolarian Academy and [Stroke of Genius or Sneak Attack] 3. Time Spiral and [Stroke of Genius or Sneak Attack]. Those in brackets have appeared a couple of times in each assortment per iteration, so we're still investigating. The fact that you're bound to get SOMETHING good, as well as plenty of playables, and relatively few lowest-tier rares in the set (Rune Lands and Brand, anyone?) makes an Urza's Saga box an "A" purchase. Fifth Edition: Nobody likes 5th. It's a fact. But more and more when we open 5th boxes, we get this outstanding distribution! It's so flat, there's no apparent grouping like with the other standalones. (Is this because it's such a large set, with dimensions unlike the others?) A given box of 5th will give you about a dozen good rares, a dozen average, and a dozen bad. For the average player this actually turns out really good: you get important utility stuff like Birds, Disks, Necro, Wrath, Geddon, Quake, Bad Moon, Ball Lightning, Painlands, City of Brass, etc. Plus in an average box you get a nice flat ONE of each uncommon, missing generally very few if any from the set. Here at the Tower, nobody will touch the packs of 5th, but everyone wants the singles... and every box we open is top-notch. Wizards REALLY fixed the sorting in this set. If you got into Magic a long time ago and already have older versions of Disks, Wraths, Birds, etc then it's a "C" purchase, otherwise a solid "A". Older boxes: I don't recommend. Though it'd be cool to build a Bloom deck on the cheap, now that it rotated out. :) -- - Mike Bahr - Wizard's Tower Gaming Center in Mesa, AZ (602-962-0151) - http://www.goodnet.com/~emerald/ - Magic, AD&D, SWCCG/STCCG and more! - Magic: the Gathering "Duelists' Convocation Level 2 Certified Judge" - d u r n i k@g o o d n e t.c o m - If it's nae Scottish,it's CRAP!