As we have seen with Bunt and Huddle this year, there is a lot of ways to supplement daily coin bonuses without buying in. One of those is to buy with real money, and the other is to pick up cards in packs/trades that have coin awards attached to them. These “coin cards” can range from minor inserts to major sigs, and all of them have a different behavior in the economy.

Cards Only Valuable Because of the Reward

There are groups of cards that have no real play value and no real collection value, but have huge coin bonuses attached to them that make them very much worth acquiring. The best cards like this are ones that can provide a big award with a collection of just one card, most notably the Rising Stars or Monday Night series. Although there are season long chases that also contribute to value in some cases, there are also a lot of reasons why the coin reward is the only thing making them worth the chase.

Around week 3 or 4, Huddle started tying these boosted award payouts to cards to help spur a need to pick them up. These awards are worth the trouble, as they can usually get you a few packs worth of cards. That is big, and very welcome. I am all for it, regardless of the frenzy it causes.

Advice: If you want the card because its your team or your favorite player, WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE AWARD. The card’s value will plummet and should be easy to trade for.

Cards Valuable With or Without Reward

In recent weeks, we have seen Milestone cards and sigs also carry similarly big awards, which is an awesome added perk to include for cards that are already valuable. People will want these cards even without a reward, and its great to see that they are carrying through with the big bonuses.

Although it does add some extra chase to the card, it isnt so much so that you cant overcome it with a few extra inserts in trade. If you are in the market to trade for sigs, you likely have enough to make up the difference caused by the added coin bonus. Not a big deal at all.

The Milestone cards are a new add to Huddle this year, and for those team collectors, they bring a need to collect them all. We are going to see a lot of them, because the NFL has many records that can be broken any given week. The bonus attached to them make them very valuable.

Advice: If you are in the market for one of these cards, you will have to give up more. Not only are the cards boosted for play, but the coins make them a tough get.

Set Cards Valuable Because of a Collection Reward Bonus

We are starting to see more sets being released, but not as much chase because of the need to pick up all the boosts. This makes some of the set cards extremely valuable because of how few people might be opening those packs. Many of the sets can carry big reward cards and coin bonuses, which make them even more worth picking up as a result. It creates a situation where everyone is fighting over a small pool of cards, which is a very good thing for value.

The boost cards fall within this category for a few reasons. First, they have the reward card at 5.5x play, which means that even the worst card in the collection is going to take a lot. The added 15k coins only sweetens the pot further. Be careful in giving up the house, because some of the boosts are not worth their weight after the reward goes out.

Advice: Set collecting is a tough go sometimes, and though its a lot of fun, it can cost a lot. Be conscious of what you are giving up to get each card. I have learned the hard way.

I really think that after a period of questioning the plan for Huddle in 2014 with the boosts, things are starting to settle down. The chase element of all these cards adds a lot of wealth to the game, and when there is more wealth, there are more cards in circulation. I like this a lot.