Digital Card Central

If you are like me, the completion of week 10 in the app is an event that you have been waiting for.  Not only is it when the first leg of the marathon ends, but it marks a pretty important milestone for many users. If you havent experienced the marathon in other games, it can have some pretty large impacts that might be felt until the final hurdle in week 30. I wanted to take some time to break it down.

Awards

We all wonder what is coming for the awards. We are all curious to see what the cards look like, what the subjects are, and of course whether or not the value is all that we put into it. Ill save you the trouble on that last part – award cards are never going to repay the effort or investment you put in. If you are looking to get a card that is worth more than Vintage Han, or Widevision Obi-wan, you should stop now. Its not going to happen.

Value of the Award Cards

The award cards, from my experience, are fun. They can be extremely valuable, sure, but they arent meant to be payment for your time and effort. There is a thing that most fail to understand, and it has to do with the experience of the game itself. People like ripping packs, and they love trading. Because award cards dont come from packs, some people dont care as much about them. Similarly, because the big three are the big three, those cards will always have a reputation of being the most valuable cards in the game. Nothing will change that.

Ongoing Marathon

Just because the first leg is over, doesnt mean its time to trade away all your cards in preparation for the next leg. Because there is a 30 week marathon in place, all cards must be kept in your collection until that is over. You can decide to only chase the one leg at a time, which might be the only option for some people, but I would at least try to make it work.

There will be an award for weeks 11-20, but to get the reward for 1-30, you need to have all the cards at once. That 30 week reward is going to be a very low count card, especially with how many people drop out along the way. Again, where is the fun in hanging up the lightsaber 1/3 of the way through?

Value Leading Up to the Award

This is where things can get NUTS. I remember back in Bunt and Huddle, people started scrambling about a week or two before the payout. They were giving quite a bit for the early cards that people missed, which in this case is already a TON. If you are hoarding, and want to make sure that you get your value, week 10 is the time to sell off your stash.

Although weeks 5-10 havent been all that valuable in many of the chases, there are a lot of reasons why they will be valuable leading up to the end of the marathon. Its worth your time to beat the rush and stock up just for that time frame.

Week 11 and Beyond

DO NOT expect that week 11 will be worth as much as week 1.  There were sets of very specific circumstances that led to week 1 being what it is, and that is very unlikely to be repeated. Although card counts may fluctuate, NOTHING will ever replicate what happened when the game first launched.

Instead, plan out which of the marathons you will want to continue. Its going to be 5 times as expensive, as there will not be 5 weeks of opening the 1k packs to keep everyone’s cost down.

Overall, its not about looking at a price guide or trying to figure out where you stand in the grand scheme of things. Just try to have fun, as that is what these marathons are meant to be about.

Let me start this off by saying how impressed I was with the response we got from the team after last week’s horrible situation with the Vintage release. I feel like the team was put in a really unfortunate situation with the server crash, and they did everything right. They refunded coins, they took the card out of the chase, and they apologized…profusely. All good.

That being said, there is still a huge issue that comes around every Thursday. Vintage is the Sig equivalent in the game, but its more than that. So much more than that, I would actually go as far as saying that there is no more important card series in any of the four apps. When Bunt puts out a new sig, the app doesnt crash. Many will want it, many will chase it, but it doesnt do what Vintage does.

When you see the reaction that people have to Vintage, it has to do with the fact that every user in the game has no other outlet for their presence in the app. Collecting is all there is. As a result, the best series cause a lot of traffic that Topps needs to be better prepared to handle.

Once Vintage Han and Obi Wan Kenobi WV both started creeping up over 100 dollars in value on the secondary market, the release traffic increased. When people figured out you could pull the best card in the game from the cheapest pack in the game, everything changed. The entire user base planned their Thursdays around Vintage, because the best was easily attainable. Could you blame them? The set is the best selling example in the Topps Digital Universe!

When the pack switch happened, most users had to make a choice. Either spend a lot of money chasing all the sets like before, or pick a favorite and focus on that one. Guess what most people chose? Topps likely felt that the pricier chase would discourage enough people from opening that the servers could take it. At the same time, they decided to release a Vintage card that only had 1250 copies, which brought all those people back in. How could we not try for the lowest count card in the marathon? Everyone who decided to leave the chase was sucked right back into the riptide.

The difference of last week versus prior weeks is that you also had a new load of fresh meat from the Android launch that also wanted to get in on the action. That meant that even if some people had left the chase, they were likely replaced by the new users.

Overall, Vintage is a beast that needs to be planned for, and I hope there is someone at Topps who is trying to work through a strategy. In fact, they may not want to take all the frenzy away, as that is part of the allure of the set. Maybe they just need enough relief that it doesnt crash the game. How do you do that?

Around the time the slowdown started happening around the release of the Jawas card, something changed. It further changed a week or two later as well. They started announcing when the card was going to hit. I remember seeing TOPPSSTEVE tweet out that Vintage was dropping in such and such minutes for the first time, and loved it. No longer would I have to sit there and refresh all day. What I didnt realize, if I can see it, so can everyone else. It created some major traffic just from that.

Then when Master Access was granted an hour early, and announced in the app, the rest of the users saw what the twitter users were seeing. That was the first time opening a pack took 30 seconds per swipe.

If I am Topps, I dont announce it. I forgo the Master pack access in the name of server strength. Just drop it without warning, and there wont be traffic until everyone sees the article/push. Traffic will spike regardless, just not the the traffic jam from before. The servers should be able to withstand it.

Another main issue is the card count. There is no reason to continue card counts at or around 2000. Vintage will have value regardless, so its time to start increasing things for the sake of the game. Each card until week 10 should have a minimum of 3000 copies, even though these examples wont be as valuable as the older cards. I think it also goes without saying that even at 1500 copies, these examples wont be as valuable as the older cards. Why even try to recreate the magic, when you can have thousands more fishes trying to get a bite? It might also open more time for the big spenders to have an opportunity to do what they do best – spend money. The lower the card count, the less amount of time the card will be in packs. More time in packs means more bundles purchased. The card has enough popularity that a 3500 count will still encourage the same behavior.

I believe that the count contributes as much as the notification methods, and its a big reason why everyone needs to consider the best way to deliver the goods. Hell, offer a lottery if you want. Have people buy entries into the contest over the course of Wednesday. 5000 a ticket, and you can buy as many as you want. 3000 tickets will be pulled, and those people get the card(s). Its not even close to a favorable situation, but it prevents last week from happening. It also gives a chance to reward people in other ways. Include coin prizes and other card prizes in the giveaway. Who knows?

Overall, I dont like the Vintage release and I havent for weeks. Its stressful, its frustrating, and it takes more patience than should ever be necessary. My nerves are shot after its over, even more so if I get shut out. I dont feel like that is an experience that should have to happen in an online game. There has to be a better way, and I challenge everyone and the Topps team to find a way to make it work.

Over the last few months, we have seen our fair share of inserts released in a “timer” format instead of card count format that limits circulation. Because of certain elements involved, these types of things can have a very large impact on value, and I want to talk about what that might mean.

Timer Insert Pack Format

Here is how it works, although there may be variations along the way. Basically, there is a pack available for only a certain amount of time. The card counts on the inserts in the packs have no limits, but the timer can definitely keep things contained, or blow it up depending on time released, character popularity, and word of mouth.

So far, we have seen the timer format with the Force Awakens cards, Green base parallel inserts, commemorative cards, and classic art cards. They have also used the timer format for the recently released Mint Press cards, but there are card counts that present a limit in those situations.

Timer Insert Value

Here is where things can get dicey. The longer the cards are available with no count, the more the card count will increase. Because people tend to want to get in as early and often as they can, the packs will sell very quickly.

The higher the card count gets, the more availability will be able to meet the demand in the trade economy. I have seen the commemorative cards get so inflated that they dont justify the investment in pulling them from packs, but I have also seen how the demand can increase regardless of count.

Strategy

Its easy for me to say that the best strategy is avoiding these cards until you know the value. I know its not that simple. If you wait, its entirely possible that the value will skyrocket to the point where you missed out on a great card.

Instead, I would pay close attention to the article. If you see that a set will have multiple bursts in the store, like we saw with Commemorative, see what happens in the first grouping before diving in. If you see that the card has a huge card count, its probably better just to pick one up through trades. This goes doubly so if the pack odds are really low. Many of the commemorative cards, classic art cards and the like are very easy to obtain via trade, as long as you have a nice insert to give. Some of them have a count close to 10k, which is very high.

If the first burst does not give much of a card count, you might want to jump in on a few packs, depending on the time when the packs hit the store. If something is released late at night, its going to have a lower count than during dinner time. Not as many people are on at that point.

With Greens, look at the character and the time in which it is released. Because you usually have 2 hours to gauge value, check the card count after the first 30 mins and the first 60 minutes. At that point, you should have a good idea what the count looks like.

For any card, counts over 5000 is really high. Anything below 2000 is right in that solid value range. If it is a popular character, that might have a different effect on the value too.

Bottom line, be strategic with your coin spending. Dont just buy packs just to buy, as that will get you in trouble with how much you have available when something really nice comes out.