I am just 26 cards away from completing my full playset of Disney Lorcana’s The First Chapter. To break that down, I just need 10 rares and 16 legendary cards, and I’ll have four of every card in the set, which will allow me to 🎃build any deck I could possibly want to build. Ultimately my goal is to collect five of each - one holographic of every card to put in a master set binder, and four additional copies to be used for deck building. But four of each is my short term goal, and all I really need in order to play whatever deck I choose. As I near completion of my collection and look back on what it took to get here, I’m starting to wonder if I can keep this up for every Lorcana expansion going forward.
I can’t quantify exactly how much I’ve spent to build this collection, but Iꩵ know it’s a lot. I started with one of each starter deck as part of the review process (courtesy of Ravensburger, cheers) then at Gen Con I managed to buy three booster boxes at $144 each. When the game hit my LGS, I played in five starter deck tournaments, picking up another starter deck and a booster pack each time.
Since then I’ve played two sealed events that got me six packs each, and I’ve attended seven other constructed events, which earned me between one and three packs each time. I’ve managed to find a total of five packs from big box stores and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:one gift set from Disneyland. Altogether I would estimate that I’ve opened roughly 125 packs. At $6 per pack that’s $750, but I know my per pack price h❀as been higher than that thanks to event fees and infꦚlated LGS prices. The total could be closer to $1000 and I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’ve also done a ton of trading, which has helped considerab꧃ly. Gen Con was a bit of a free-for-all because no one had any idea what the value of each card would be. Everyone was trading rare-for-rare, and some people were just giving me cards for free. I’ve made some good trades at my LGS, and quite a few bad ones, but I feel like in the end 🐭I’ve come out ahead.
And while $750 sounds like a lot for a mostly-complete set (and it is) I wouldn’t have necessarily done better just buying singles, which is usually sound advice when it comes to collecting TCGs. Buying all the cards to build a meta deck, such as Ruby/Amethyst control, would cost around $450 on TCGPlayer - and that’s for just 60 cards. Just buying a set of Rapunzels would cost you at least $240. I’ve got a few big-ticket cards left to acquire, including a co🎐uple Rapᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚunzels, but I don’t mind spending more to get everything. Plus, I just love opening packs.
The First Chapter is special. It’s the first set of Lorcana cards ever printed, and if I’m thinking long term, having a full collection feels like a safe investment. Whether I keep it as a memento or sell꧑ it in 20 years, I’m happy knowing I’ve secured my own little bit of♔ history for this game. But now that spoilers for the first expansion, Rise of the Floodborn, are coming, I have to start thinking about what kind of collector I intend to be.
Collecting an entire playset of every single expansion isn’t reasonable. Someone that’s focused on playing the game would inve💫st in getting the cards they needꦉ to build the decks they want, while someone focused on collecting would try to collect one of every card. Trying to do both is whale behavior, and as a humble game journalist paying for California rent, I just can’t justify making that kind of investment four times a year. Unless…
It’s a tough question that I suspect a lot of Lorcana players are going to have to face in the coming months. I love the flexibility of having a full playset. I want to be able to build and test any deck that pops into my mind without having to make concessions and substitutes for the cards I don’t have. I also appreciate the security of having all the cards now in the event that less popular ones become more useful later. In a couple years when all the TFC packs are gone, I don’t want to find out that Te Ka is suddenly a top-tier card that’s going to cost me ꧒a fortune to acquire. Having full playsets now make it much easier for me to keep up with the meta as it evolve.
There’s also an element of FOMO. I don’t want to feel like I’m taking my foot off the gas just as Lorcana is getting started. Rise of the Floodbo💖rn is going to double the pool of available cards, and undoubtedly have a major impact on the entire game. I don’t want to fall behind right out of the gate, but how invested can I realistically be for the first expansion, the tenth expansion, or the 50th expansion?
A lot of new TCG players, like me, are going to find out exactly what kind of collectors they are when Rise of the Floodborn launches in November. It was easy to justify going hard on The First Chapter, but as I think about how Lorcana is g✅oing to fit into my life long term, there’s some difficult questions I’ll need to answer. I’m probably going to have to make peace with not having five copies of every card ever made. As ridiculous as it sounds, that’s a hard pill to swallow right now.