Digital Card Central

The new series 2 base cards are awesome, mainly because they provide a new group of guys to fill in the days where no one of note was playing. They also provide a new chase, and I know a lot of people are trying to get to max capacity on the new guys quickly. As a result, this could play into the hands of those people who are just looking to start competing.

First off, when the Sunday Brunch pack is made available, make sure you take a look. For the last two weeks, the pack has been relatively all series two, meaning that you can get some pretty valuable cards without trying much. If you have the coins, spend them and maybe buy a bundle to make sure you get some trade bait.

Once you have cards to trade, either from opening regular packs or otherwise, take a look at your lineup. Guys like Darvish, Beckett, and Cueto have been around since day one, so many of the users who are chasing the base cards have TONS of extras to trade of these players. You might be able to get a gold of an existing pitcher for a few cards they might need. Pitchers like Rick Porcello and Phil Hughes are brand new, and therefore valuable despite not being ace quality. Others like Stephen Strasburg and Clayton Kershaw are new(er) and ace quality, so they are big pulls too. However, if you can get 3-4 golds of established cards from series one, why not take what you can get?

I posted an article last week regarding the guys everyone should look to get more of – and I would make sure to make your own list as well. If you are lucky enough to pull a gold of one of the new pitchers, I would look to improve the rest of your pitching staff rather than keep it. The reason being is that these cards will likely be in packs for the rest of the season, meaning their value will eventually die down.

Plus, with new base cards (including some other huge names) being released this week, there is no time like the present. When you have a commodity that people want, its better to give it to them while its still at the peak. Dont wait until everyone has 9 silver Kershaws to look to trade yours. Trade while you can get a few golds for it.

There is one thing that tends to be the case when new users come on board, its who to start and when. Most of the time, they tend to start who they have, and I wanted to give some suggestions on who to trade for to acquire players you dont have. Since Pitchers are the most playable cards in the game for 95% of the people out there, here are my must haves.

Johnny Cueto – Best of the Best

There is no better player in Bunt right now than Johnny Cueto. If you dont have 9 of him yet, start looking. His high amount of Strikeouts, combined with a low ERA is a huge reason why he is one of the leading guys in the game. His WHIP is also ridiculously low.

Mark Buehrle

Talk about a renaissance of sorts – as this guy has put up a ridiculous season. Although he doesnt strike out a lot of people, he doesnt walk many either. He has only had one REALLY bad start during the whole year, and the rest have been good to great. Start looking for his cards.

Stephen Strasburg

New base cards are hard to come by, but with the new MoA set, there is a lot of access to Strasburg without giving up the house. Not only is he 3 strikeouts away from the league lead, but he is on a great trajectory to finish the season stronger than the start. K’s are worth a lot more points than other outs, which makes him VERY important.

Felix Hernandez

Another guy in the MoA set which should make him a bit easier to obtain. Huge amount of strikeouts, low ERA, low WHIP makes him a huge deal. The problem is that he has no boosts yet, which means he may sit on your bench while boosted pitchers play.

Cory Kluber

Under the radar guy who has been stellar minus his last start. He has quietly put up 104 Ks on the season, and has pitched like an ace for most of the year. Because he has no name recognition, most people will give him up for less.

Yu Darvish

This guy is consistent as consistent can be. He strikes out a lot of guys, and rarely falters against teams other than the Athletics. He has been on the books since day one, so his cards are readily available.

Masahiro Tanaka

VERY low ERA, low WHIP, high strikeouts. Not to mention he has been brilliant for almost every start this season. The issue is that everyone knows him, and his release was a big enough deal that people have his cards on lock. May be harder to get.

Pitchers we need to see soon!

Tim Hudson – maybe one of the biggest comeback stories of the year. No cards in the game as of yet.

Scott Kazmir – Lots of comeback stories this year, and Kazmir is one that has been a great player for the As this year. No cards in the game.

Dallas Keuchel – The Astros have been on a crazy streak of great baseball, and he has been a top contributor to their pitching staff. No cards in the game.

A midst the plethora of new packs that have been showing up in the store as of late, there are a few special packs that are only available for certain parts of the day or to certain users. Here is my breakdown of those packs – as best I can be of service. Hopefully this will be able to give you clues as to when they might show up and how to take advantage of them.

Twitter Pack

Cost: Usually around 5000
Cards: 5
Contains: Base and inserts
Odds: Increased above normal pack pulls
Entry point: Survey form from @ToppsBunt, plus follow on Twitter

Im not going to do a write up of every pack, but this is easily one of the most popular packs in the game. It has great odds, and limited amounts of packs. However, the cost varies and is usually a pretty good buy for what you get. I would buy a few if you have the chance and the coins.

Instagram Pack

Cost: Usually around 7000
Cards: 5
Contains: Scarce and Super Rare Base
Odds: Excellent
Entry Point: Survey from @ToppsBunt, plus follow on Instagram

Similar to the Twitter pack with increased odds on very rare base. The cost is significantly higher (usually), but still a very good buy.

Morning Caffeine Pack

Cost: Usually around 2500
Cards: 5
Contains: Base cards of all rarity
Odds: Increased above normal pack pulls
Entry Point: AM users – avail usually before 10am

Sunday Brunch Pack

Cost: Usually around 2000
Cards: 5
Contains: Base of all rarity, last time with a focus on Series 2
Odds: Normal pack odds
Entry point: Sunday morning

Last time this pack was released, there were mostly series 2 base cards in the packs, cant tell you how awesome that was. Because so many people were buying at once, the odds were amazing to pull multiple golds per pack. This wasnt limited to a certain number of packs, so you could buy to your hearts content. Awesome.

Happy Hour Pack

Cost: Usually around 1000
Cards: 5
Contains: Base of all rarity
Odds: Increased above normal pack pulls
Entry point: Afternoon around 5pm (happy hour)

The biggest reason to buy the special happy hour pack was because of the reduced cost. At 1000 coins per pack, you could easily stock up on base and get the increased odds that arent available most other places. Again, because it wasnt limited to a certain number of packs, you could buy until you were out of coins without worrying about missing out.

Weekend Warrior Pack

Cost: Usually Around 1000
Cards: 5
Contains: Either all pitchers or all hitters (depending)
Odds: Bit below normal pack pulls
Entry Point: Weekend timer

VIP Packs

Cost: Varies by level of VIP (Gold was 2500)
Cards: Varies by level of VIP (Gold was a single card)
Contains: Varies by level of VIP (Gold was all super rare base and a few inserts)
Odds: N/A
Entry Point: VIPs only

Diamond Pack

Cost: Usually around 12000
Cards: 50
Contains: Base and some inserts
Odds: Normal pack odds, if not decreased slightly
Entry point: released at discretion of Bunt team

Black Pack

Cost: Usually around 10000
Cards: 1
Contains: READ ANNOUNCEMENT USER COMMENTS BEFORE OPENING
Odds: N/A
Entry Point: released at discretion of Bunt team

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I apologize if I missed some of the special packs that pop up, but these are the regulars. Topps has been known to celebrate all sorts of stuff, like a special NYC and Wrigley pack as well, but those have both only been done once or twice.

Trading has become difficult as of late, and I know that Topps Bunt has already addressed a lot of it on Twitter saying that the next update will likely have fixes. Not only does it take forever to load the trader card sheets, but there are glitches along the way.That being said, here are some ways to survive in the meantime.

Long Load Times

As much as I hate to say this, I have almost stopped making offers due to the long loading times. The tough thing is, the higher the collection score (and therefore number of cards) the person has, the longer it will take to load their cards to make an offer. Same thing goes for you too – the more cards you have, the longer it will take to load.

If you dont mind putting up with the loading times, you deserve quite the award. If you dont want to deal with it, its almost better to have everyone make offers by posting more in the fan feed and fielding offers. Of course, it will require you to sort though countless weird offers from new users, but that will happen regardless. Easier to decline/ignore and move on.

Trade Auto Accept Glitch

If you arent familiar with this glitch, its time to become familiar. Basically, on a few occasions, the game has been known to auto accept a trade you didnt want to accept. This happens when you accept another offer in queue, and another pending trade is accepted instead. This has led people to make bogus offers with the hope that the glitch happens, and that is NOT a good thing.

The only way to guard against it is to be careful with trades in your queue, and make sure to add ignore to seasoned traders who offer you crazy trades that dont seem to be in the realm of normal sanity. They are trying to take advantage of the glitch in most cases. If they have a ton of completed trades, and they are offering you a silver for 9 inserts, that’s an issue. People who are brand new may not know what they are doing, so dont hold it against them like you would a veteran Bunter.

Lack of Scroll Assist on the Side of the Card Sheet

This has to be one of the most annoying things, but we have been assured that the little dots for scrolling between rarities will be back shortly. In the meantime, the search feature at the VERY tip top of the card sheet will be your best friend.

Almost in anticipation of this happening, Topps has done a really good job tagging each card for easy search. You just have to know what you want. You can search for rarity like typing “Super Rare” in the box, or other things like that. I have often suggested that its better to use the search anyways for people who have a ton of cards.

If you dont know what you want, make sure to set the sort to only display cards you need, which isnt many if you are someone who has a ton. Annoying, I know.

If you have other tips and tricks for trading until the next update – Im all ears! Any good comment I will add to the article. Who knows – maybe one of you has figured it all out!

Besides adding a lot of new players to Bunt over the last few weeks, Topps has also been adding a ton of new cards to the game as well. Aside from a slew of new players that have previously been exclusive to insert sets, they have added these guys to all levels of rarity as well.

The reason I want to write about this new line of base cards actually has nothing to do with their playability in the game. Its basically to notify all the readers that they will likely need to treat some of these new cards as inserts for lack of a better term. The main reason stems from all the gamers that want to stack up their collections to have enough of the new guys for their points production.

As a point of reference, by now, most of the top players are so flushed with the first series of cards, that many can play 9 golds of a player at once and still have a ton of cards left over. With the new cards, it may not be the case, as there just hasnt been as much time to pull them from packs or trade.

With the trading scene affected by game glitches that prevent easy loading of the card sheet, the cards are almost more valuable. So many people have chosen to avoid trading until the load times are fixed in the next update (hopefully!), that it becomes that much more difficult to obtain new cards.

I was lucky enough to pull a Stephen Strasburg gold near the release of series two, and I had to lock it immediately because of how many trade offers I was getting. Although the card’s value will decrease as people open packs, I had to keep it for my own gameplay.

That’s why these cards will be tough for everyone to come by for right now. Just dont be offended when people ask three to one on trading these new ones.

With Bunt now available for all Android users in the google play store, a few good things are going to happen. One, there will be more people to open packs and obtain the cards for trading. Secondly, there will also be some new sets that will likely be made to capitalize on these new group of rookies.

One of them has already shown up on the card sheet as the “Men of Action” set, which is 3 top line pitchers available in a special pack for Bunt Rookies. Although it is not confirmed that this is ONLY available for Android users, it is confirmed that vet players will not be able to purchase the pack they are housed in.

The cards look pretty cool, even though I am not a huge fan of the name of the set. Kershaw, Strasburg and King Felix are all pitchers that new users will want quite a few cards of, and it helps that they are available as an exclusive insert. New rookies to the game rarely have anything of value to trade for cards that will score them the points they need to feel “important” enough in the game. As we saw with Bunt On Deck, veterans of the game will want the cards for the coin bonus. That creates a demand for these players, and that is a very good thing for rookies looking to get involved in Bunt long term.

If a player comes on board and sees that they do not have the firepower to secure their favorite players, they will leave. At first, because the points are not of the utmost importance, they will try to get the guys they like. That’s what happened to me, but it was a bit of a different game back at the beginning of 2013.

With these inserts in their back pocket, most people will be happy to give them exactly what they are looking for.

What does this mean for you? A veteran, a more experienced player, or a rookie? Well, a lot actually. Although I dont want to say you have a responsibility to educate, its basically what it is. If someone offers you a terrible trade, and you can see that their collection score is below 30, they are likely one of these new users from the Android Launch. Take a second to leave a note and dont decline the trade immediately. Not saying you have to be Mr. Rogers here, but make sure they understand the trading atmosphere.

Most importantly, be nice. Dont be a complete jerk like some people were to me when I first came on board. Responding with “LOL!” on those trades just makes someone feel horrible, and most of the time they dont get the joke at their expense. Something like “Hey, I know you are likely a new user, just wanted to let you know this probably isnt the best trade to offer. I would have offered something like XXXX.” Can be a huge help.

Just thought I would throw that out there, because I have woken up to 15-20 new trades over the last few days. If you are reading this site – you were a new user once, and may be one now. This is our opportunity to show them exactly what the Bunt community is all about.