Hidden Arsenal 4: This Time It’s Personal!

Jackalope here with a look at the brand new Hidden Arsenal 4 set. I’m deviating from my prior YuGiOh articles as I’m going to crack (open) an entire case of Hidden Arsenal 4 boxes. Let’s take a quick look at the stats on that.

[caption id="attachment_870" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Step 1: Prepare you case for skinning."][/caption]

1 Case of Hidden Arsenal 4 = 12 Boxes = 288 Packs = 1440 Cards.

Now most of you are not opening a case of cards, so why am I going through the trouble of writing this article on this? Simple, my friends: Averages! Yes, when you break a box of cards there is a high degree of randomness to it, but when you break a case you can see trends and averages to better give you an idea of what you can expect out of a box. This might help you decide whether it makes sense for you to buy a box to try for certain cards or to just pony up for the single cards.

[caption id="attachment_871" align="alignnone" width="285" caption="Step 2: Discard the booster skins"][/caption]

Let’s look at some more delicious numbers! In that case of 1440 cards you will get exactly 288 Secret Rare cards and 1152 Super Rare cards. There are 20 different Secret Rare cards in the set and 40 different Super Rare cards in the set so if we go just by averages you should get approximately 14.4 of every Secret Rare and 28.8 of every Super Rare.

Spoiler Alert! It does NOT work out that way.

[caption id="attachment_872" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Step 3: Arrange your card filets in preparation for sorting"][/caption]

“Well Jackalope, how does it work out?” you’re asking, and I am glad you did! Let’s look at a few more numbers, specifically the best and/or most valuable cards in the set and see how many we got:

x7 Dragunity Knight – Trident $ 17.99
x8 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier $64.99
x8 Dragunity Knight – Barcha $7.99
x8 Naturia Landoise $19.99
x12 The Fabled Unicore $5.99
x12 The Fabled Cerburrel $16.99
x15 Jurrac Meteor $6.99
x16 Neo Flamvell Sabre $5.99
x17 Naturia Exterio $4.99

Note that all these cards are valued at or over 5 dollars to show you what “money*” cards you can expect in your theoretical box purchase.

Looking at the numbers we got you can expect one, possibly two of: Jurrac Meteor, Neo Flamvell Sabre & Naturia Exterio. You can with come certainly assume you’ll get one each of these in your box: The Fabled Cerburrel & The Fabled Unicore. And lastly you have a 2/3rds chance of getting the big three, and almost certainly one of the following in your box: Dragunity Knight – Barcha, Dragunity Knight – Trident, Naturia Landoise & Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier.

What does that tell you? Well if you are looking for three Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier cards you would have to buy the equivalent of 5 or 6 boxes to ensure you got them, at a cost of $79.99. That’s quite a hefty price tag as opposed to buying the single cards outright, but in addition you’ll get a whole lot of other cards. You've got lots of options for getting what you want: buying boxes and hoping for lucky pulls will give you lots of extra cards for trading, or you can purchase the individual cards you need.

[caption id="attachment_873" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Step 4: Portion out and serve your collection. Bon Appetit!"][/caption]

Only you can decide whether or not purchasing a box is worthwhile to you, or if buying the few single cards you need to finish your deck fits the bill, but hopefully this shows you the average odds you have of getting the card(s) you’re looking for!

Exit, stage right!

* Money cards refer to the expensive cards out of a set. Those can be valuable due to demand or rarity, oftentimes both.

Please keep in mind all prices are subject to change and these are the prices of the cards as of this writing which was on the day of release for the set.

The Battle of the Box

Jackalope here with another cost/value analysis. This time of an older set. A lot of players and collectors feel that there is less value when you buy an older box and open it. This is for various reasons, but the most commonly held belief is that the longer a set is out, the more of it gets broken (opened) and the more single cards there are in the market. I’m going to do a single box breakdown for you here. This is just one random box that I opened and is not typical of all boxes, but it gives you a good idea what you should expect if you bought a box of YuGiOh 5D's Starstrike Blast.



[caption id="attachment_819" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="So serene, just sitting there…"][/caption] 

[caption id="attachment_820" align="alignnone" width="293" caption="NOM NOM NOM!"][/caption]

Okay, let’s look at what makes up a box:
24 Packs, 9 cards in each pack. Each pack will contain at least 1 Rare card and may contain a foil card.

First-ever Friday Night Magic Tournament - a total newbie perspective

I've been intrigued by Magic: The Gathering for many years, but always hesitant to try it. With  no idea how to approach the game as a complete beginner, I was just afraid to jump in. Because seriously - who wants to purchase cards, then walk up to strangers and risk feeling foolish for not knowing how to play?

Well guys, I'm here to tell you, it isn't like that at all. I had a short learning session at  Comic Con in New Orleans back in January and took home a few promo decks, but I still wasn't quite ready. My fellow blogger and good friend Jackalope has been playing a lot lately, though, and encouraging me to try. After his last post, I decided to go for it. Oh, not at our ToyWiz retail location in NY, but down in Albany, LA at a shop called Chuck's Field of Dreams. Yes, a nice anonymous place to go embarass myself, I thought.

Just so you know, I'm a friendly, but cutthroat player in any game I pursue. Maybe I'll post another day about my history with MMORPGs, for example, but suffice it to say that I probably blow away any stereotypes you might have about female gamers! So jumping into something new is a big deal for me  -  There's no way I'm playing anything without making a serious effort to master it and to be a fierce competitor.