Over the last two weeks, there has almost been a complete paradigm shift in the game, which is the direct result of the inserts being split into certain packs. I relate this to different “products” in real cards, but it has also impacted value within the trading ranks.

Because of the packs being separated out, we are forced to consider pack cost and odds when trading cards in our trades. In fact, it almost increases speculation on true value in a lot of different ways. If the pack costs a lot of money and the odds are long, a card could be common and yet still valuable due to the availability in a pack that no one buys.

Trout 4x Boost is a great example. The pack costs 12500 coins, and the odds are 1:270 packs. It would be one thing if the pack had normal odds, but SR come at 3% of the time instead of the standard 6%. At five cards, this is pretty insane. Add in that the main insert is 1:270 packs and all of a sudden we have a supply issue. These cards are going to be insanely rare because fewer people can afford the pack, fewer people that CAN afford the pack will buy it, and when they do, the odds are longer than ever.

The Trout fire boost is just a simple example, but you can see where I am going with this, and we will need to adjust our gameplan. A smaller example would be the mascot cards, or even the recent Bowman Draft cards, as all have been relatively long odds. The difference is that the pack costs were normal, which led to more availability for those cards.

REMEMBER: I am not saying to demand sigs for your inserts pulled from these packs unless the card is on that level. A Trout boost is definitely sig worthy, but the others are likely not.