Digital Card Central

Its been a while since I have posted, and I apologize for that. I had some issues to sort through in game, and now that we seem to be making some headway there, I think its time to start going through this more.

Today’s tip is all about pack odds, and how to understand what those mean. Now that Topps has taken to separating out the inserts, its best to understand the way that is going to work when buying packs.

One thing to clarify here – the pack odds are overall, not just for you personally. So if an insert is labeled as 1 in 20 packs, it means that for all the people opening, its 1 of those cards for every 20 packs opened by the population. That means its in your best interest to open when there are a lot of people going at once. Remember the Cinco de Mayo packs for 555 coins? They were loaded because so many people were buying them to suck up the odds.

In reference for the percentages, it looks like the packs are done at a seeding rate. Meaning, that for all packs being opened at once, X% of the cards delivered will have a SR and so on and so forth. One thing that has not been made clear is whether or not the percentages include the inserts themselves. Basically, the seeding could be different for inserts. At the moment 6% chance of getting a SR seems to be the going rate, and if the rate drops below that, its probably better to buy one with higher odds.

Additionally, its good to set yourself up for success, and try to play the odds in your favor. Nothing is fool proof, but its a great idea to follow the basic instructions Topps has given you in the store for each pack. If you dont know what is in a brand new pack – check the news feed article comments. Most likely, people will be talking about what they pull.

Think about it this way – the more coins you spend the more you should get in the pack. Just because a pack promises 40 cards, doesnt necessarily mean you should buy it. Try to get at least something of note when spending more than 5000 per pack. Keep in mind that there were packs offering 3 golds for 7500 back at the beginning of the year, and I thought that was a damn good deal.

Wisely approach your purchases with what you can get out of that pack. If you KNOW no one is opening along side you (its 3am!), its better to understand that the odds COULD be longer.

I have said since the beginning that its more important to build a collection before going fishing for inserts, but I understand it can be very tempting. At least when you play in the casino, its good to know how likely it is that you will win.

The play count and warmup timer can be very difficult to grasp for new players, so I am going to do my best to explain how to use it to your advantage.

Each week, Topps will post in the news feed about the settings for the week. These settings will include the number of plays you get, the warmup time, and the reload time. All three are very important to gameplay.

Number of Plays

This represents the number of lineup switches you can make before having to wait to reload. Its the number at the top of the play screen. If you have 18 plays, you have a lot more flexibility to switch out your cards like mad, but it all depends on how long it takes them to reload, which is another factor. If the reload timer is too long, and you use up all your plays, you will be stuck with your lineup as is. Once the play count hits zero, you are done until more plays generate.

Warmup Time

This is how long it takes for a card to eventually become active in your lineup and start scoring points. The longer the warmup time, the further ahead you will have to plan. If the timer is 10 seconds, you barely need to wait at all, and can sometimes switch in players as the plays are happening to get those points.

Example: you are watching the game as a player hits a home run. With a short warmup timer, you can switch in all his cards before the game updates and get all those points.

If the warmup timer is 60-90 seconds, you almost have to switch people in during the prior inning to avoid missing out on the points that card will score. This is especially important for pitchers.

It also means it will take that long to get them out of the lineup if they are a pitcher getting rocked. So, keep that in mind as you are putting people in.

Reload Time

This is the time it will take for each play to regenerate. The longer the timeframe, the more important it is to manage your switches. Short reload time lets you go quickly through your switches and not be penalized if they need to be taken out. You will have the plays to do so.

I like to have enough plays in the bank to switch out cards if an emergency comes up, and the reload timer plays a big factor in that. It will also play a factor if you have a small number of plays to use and the pitcher has a quick inning. A longer reload timer will prevent you from switching to the new guy in between.

This is one of the toughest elements for new people to grasp, and its even harder to explain in text. Please let me know if you have questions.

I cannot say this enough, Trading is an art.

If you can trade well, you will do well in the game. If you cant trade, its likely you will either need to spend a lot of coinage to get nice cards to score, or you will forever sit at the bottom of the rankings above those who are more skilled at trading.

All that being said – there is one rule you should always abide by: Never get pissed off over a declined trade. Its just not worth it, and you should resist lashing out with every fiber of your being. If you make an offer to someone and they decline, that’s out of your control. If you come back and continue offering cards, expect the person to either continue declining your trades or add you to their ignore list. Just move on and let it go.

If you are making offers on a new card, expect to overpay, so its even more imperative that you don’t freak out when your normal offer is turned down.

It should be clear that all this goes without saying, but for whatever reason, some of the bunters out there just don’t get it. There are always lots of people to trade with, and that is the best part of this game.

Of course, if someone continues pestering YOU with offers, the same concept applies – just ignore and move on. If you want to educate them, fine, just make sure to keep it nice. Not everyone knows what is going on, and even when they do, its always better to take the high road.

Be a good bunter, and in the immortal words of Bill and Ted – Be awesome to each other.

If you are part gamer part collector like me, you have two goals. One I have talked extensively about in collecting and trading, the other not so much. I want to take some time to talk about gathering cards for top gameplay.

First you have to assess your collection. Its actually good to have multiple copies of some cards, especially starting pitchers. I would take an inventory and see which pitchers you need to get to 9 copies (the maximum amount of cards you can play at once).

Here are some pitchers I would chase – strike out guys with low ERAs:

• Cueto
• Darvish
• Lester
• Leake
• Teheran
• Samardizja
• G Richards
• Scherzer

All these guys are readily available in the game and can get you to a ton of points if you have multiple copies. When they start – have them in the lineup starting with the top level and work your way down.

1. See who is starting on MLB.com and at what time
2. If you have more than 9 of one player, start your golds, then your silvers, reds and then greens before you add commons
3. If you are planning to play along while the game is going on, see who is on the field – consider all players who are currently pitching as one – start with gold and work your way until you hit common.
4. Consider WHIP as a good statistic for points potential (lower the better), including K/9 and other stats like total strikeouts.
5. Remember to keep enough plays in your queue so that you can change out a guy if he gets rocked, or has bases loaded and no out.
6. Feel free to take risks like starting guys with high ERAs and WHIPs, but monitor the games closely to avoid major negative point damage.

Pitchers score the most points for getting outs and getting strikeouts. Any type of extra base hit will severely detract from point totals as long as the pitcher is in your starting lineup. Home runs are killers, so if a pitcher has a propensity to give up the long ball, STAY FAR AWAY.

The most important thing is to not give up on a pitcher who has one bad inning. It will happen. There will be at least one per game, and if you can get him out of the lineup as its happening, you can easily avoid the negative points.

At a minimum, check your line up with each new phase of the daily schedule, which will allow you to score the most points possible for switching out your guys. Once the first round of games is done, take all those pitchers out of the lineup and put in the next round of starters.

To trade for pitchers, you will likely need to go 3 hitters to 1 active starting pitcher. More if they are starting that day, or are a good pitcher.  Plan ahead and ask for guys who are pitching the next few days. Offer your cards above 10 copies for the ones you dont have.

If you have more questions, let me know.

A lot of new bunters out there always want to know about inserts. In fact, I would go as far as saying that without inserts, this game would only be half as popular. Any time you involve collecting into any circumstance, rarity and vanity are two things that every company should be well aware of when creating new programs. Topps has built a community around this concept.

Gameplay

Inserts rarely have any help in a game, minus a select few. Almost 95% of them score at 1x base scoring, and there is only one in the game so far that has permanent 3x scoring (David Wright). That says a lot about how important these cards are. If they dont provide any type of gameplay advantage, the rarity is really one of the only drivers of why people want them. Considering many people will give up many top gameplay cards to secure them, Inserts are almost counterproductive to playing the game well.

Vanity

Collectors in any industry love to show off their goods. They want the best, the most, or the scarcest collection out there, and will stop at nothing to put it on display for the world. In previous versions of the game, you had a starting 9 that was visible to all users as your profile. It became almost like a showcase for your best cards during non-gameplay hours, and it has since been replaced by displaying “Locked Cards.”

Sigs are easily the most coveted cards in the game, and its not even a competition. It mirrors real life in a number of ways, as autograph cards are usually the real cards everyone wants. It becomes a status symbol, as you cant be seen as a vet user without at least one highly coveted sig in your collection. Until that point, you are just seen as another newbie player. Its funny how that works, because there are many players who dont care about them, and end up ranked very high at the end of each week. Pretty stark contrast, something that I love about this game.

The rarer the card, the more coveted it is, even more so if it is a pack pulled example. That’s just the way Bunt works, and I love every minute of it.

Yesterday, Topps announced the rewards in place for the VIP cards that were given out for April. This was done in Huddle Last year, but there were no physical manifestations like a card or something like that. For the football version, you had to buy at least the 100k or 250k coin bundle at one time to become a VIP, and you got special rewards for doing so. Nothing like this, but it was still cool.

Push Notifications For New Packs and Sales

This was never a big deal for me, especially because they always came late. In Bunt, I would actually say this could work against you, as its not really a good idea to buy packs BEFORE everyone else starts buying. You want to buy when everyone else is buying to help your odds.

Special Card Rewards

For the 3 people that hit diamond level, they get a 1/1 card for a player of their choice. THAT is awesome. I mean, like enough to make me want to buy in at that level. For the black rewards, they get a special 3x diamond boost, and gold will get a special gold SR. The card rewards are a great idea, and I have no issue saying that this program has just become that much more impressive. People in app were thinking its just a normal SR gold, but I have to believe its not. The cards in our profile are there for a reason, they should eventually have a player attached to them.

Promo Codes

For Black and Diamond level VIPs – they will receive promo codes to redeem for packs, which I assume will either be a few normal packs or a select few other packs special for those levels. Not bad at all.

How Do I Become a Rewards Member?

Topps hinted that it is in regards to the amount of money you spend in the app, but I think its more complicated than that. Because of the way it was done in Huddle, I have a feeling its more related to the level of bundle you buy. If you buy the bigger coin bundles, I am pretty certain you should qualify – 100K and above. That’s just my theory. Lots of people buy the 20K bundle, which adds up, but I dont think that’s the hook. Just a guess.

More as the rewards come through on the news feed.