If I were to buy an unopened box of a set, say Dark Beginnings 1 for instance, is it guaranteed to have at least 1 of every card in the set? I got that impression from a few ads I had seen a while back, but I'm suspecting it isn't the case -- that the odds are in favor of it, but it is not a guarantee. Anybody know for sure? What about hobby boxes?
Buying a full box
- Thread starter JOls
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chaosruler
New Member
Nope, there's no guarantee of that, especially with the # of cards in DB1/DR1, etc.
-chaosruler
-chaosruler
There is no guarentee of anything in a box.
Let's take any of the newer sets for example. There are 35 Common cards, 14 Rares, 7 Super Rares, and 4 Ultra Rares. That's 25 Rare+ cards. While the box is likely to get you at least 1 of every common, being as there are only 24 packs in the box, you're not going to pull the remaining 25 cards you'd need (and that's assuming you got a VERY good pull with no duplicates). Your odds are considerably worse with Dark Beginnings or Dark Revelations.
Also (again with the newer sets), if you look on eBay, you can usually find people selling the entire set for about the cost of a Box to Box and a half.
Let's take any of the newer sets for example. There are 35 Common cards, 14 Rares, 7 Super Rares, and 4 Ultra Rares. That's 25 Rare+ cards. While the box is likely to get you at least 1 of every common, being as there are only 24 packs in the box, you're not going to pull the remaining 25 cards you'd need (and that's assuming you got a VERY good pull with no duplicates). Your odds are considerably worse with Dark Beginnings or Dark Revelations.
Also (again with the newer sets), if you look on eBay, you can usually find people selling the entire set for about the cost of a Box to Box and a half.
John Danker
Administrator
From experience over the last 4 years or so I can give you a pretty good idea of what it takes to get every card in a new set.
When a new set comes out through Pre-Release judging and buying a box or two when they become available I usually end up with 2-3 boxes of a new set from the get go. The result of that usually leaves me 2-7 cards short of the full set.
At this point it's pretty useless to buy additional boxes. I'm money ahead to trade or buy singles rather than buy more boxes only to get, if I'm lucky 1-2 more of the cards I didn't have before.
When a new set comes out through Pre-Release judging and buying a box or two when they become available I usually end up with 2-3 boxes of a new set from the get go. The result of that usually leaves me 2-7 cards short of the full set.
At this point it's pretty useless to buy additional boxes. I'm money ahead to trade or buy singles rather than buy more boxes only to get, if I'm lucky 1-2 more of the cards I didn't have before.
There really are no guarantees, especially with the larger sets like DB1-2 and DR1-2. However, since they brought the amount of cards in the sets down to 60 cards starting back with Soul of the Duelist it has been easier to get nearly the entire set of cards from one box. I usually buy at least one box from each set and out of the 60 card sets I have usually been on average about 4 cards shy of the whole set each time. But that is just from my own personal experience.
if buying on ebay...
since the subject of 'buying a box' came up, make dead certain that you're purchasing a SEALED box. there's a lot of unscrupulous resellers out there who will advertise a 'box', but it's an opened box of 24 assorted boosters that have been weighed to take the foils out. i've seen this happen to a lot of people, so only bid on auctions that specify sealed boxes. unless you don't like holos.
and yeah, you'll never get an entire set out of one box. does everyone collect full sets? i don't think i own a full set of anything, in ANY of the games i play.
since the subject of 'buying a box' came up, make dead certain that you're purchasing a SEALED box. there's a lot of unscrupulous resellers out there who will advertise a 'box', but it's an opened box of 24 assorted boosters that have been weighed to take the foils out. i've seen this happen to a lot of people, so only bid on auctions that specify sealed boxes. unless you don't like holos.
and yeah, you'll never get an entire set out of one box. does everyone collect full sets? i don't think i own a full set of anything, in ANY of the games i play.
Dillie-O
Council of Heroes
hehe, I've thought about a full set, but sometimes the money to put those together and find shops that will sell/trade commons is rough.
I guess I'm just burned...growing up I shelled out a good $100+ bucks to hand collect a '91 Donruss Set only to have it worth $30 because it was a lousy year and I didn't have the "Elite" cards...one of the first glimpses of the foils for you young 'uns out there 8^D
I guess I'm just burned...growing up I shelled out a good $100+ bucks to hand collect a '91 Donruss Set only to have it worth $30 because it was a lousy year and I didn't have the "Elite" cards...one of the first glimpses of the foils for you young 'uns out there 8^D
Hmmm... Box sucks, you will most likely get lots and lots and lots of duplicate common cards. I personally feel it's a waste of money as there are other people opening boosters to sell their useful cards. If I were you, I would just purchase from them (as long as you do not mind to be second-handed stuff).
Actually, the reason I'm getting a box is to save money.
To keep my kid practicing his handwriting skills during the summer, I'm giving him a booster for every 8 pages he finishes. He absolutely hates writing, so I had to come up with a really good incentive. I figured out his rate of work and decided that he'll have about 25 boosters by the end of the summer. So I showed him what was in Dark Beginnings 1, and MOST of the cards were cards he wanted, including the exodia pieces. Sure, I ran the odds -- wrote a program to do the monte carlo method of figuring out what his llikely pulls were. He's likely to end up with 2 of the pieces in one box. And I let him know that, and he's saving up to buy the other 2 (he has the head piece already). I save about 50 cents a pack by buying a full box instead of individual packs.
And duplicates aren't that bad. Sometimes you need two or three of the exact same thing. I wouldn't mind 3 copies of Nimble Momonga, or 3 copies of Giant Germ, or senju, Sonic Bird...actually, I would mind 3 copies of Sonic Bird, having two already... But multiples of in-demand limited cards like Cyber Jar, Magician of Faith, etc. are good for trades to get what you want.
To keep my kid practicing his handwriting skills during the summer, I'm giving him a booster for every 8 pages he finishes. He absolutely hates writing, so I had to come up with a really good incentive. I figured out his rate of work and decided that he'll have about 25 boosters by the end of the summer. So I showed him what was in Dark Beginnings 1, and MOST of the cards were cards he wanted, including the exodia pieces. Sure, I ran the odds -- wrote a program to do the monte carlo method of figuring out what his llikely pulls were. He's likely to end up with 2 of the pieces in one box. And I let him know that, and he's saving up to buy the other 2 (he has the head piece already). I save about 50 cents a pack by buying a full box instead of individual packs.
And duplicates aren't that bad. Sometimes you need two or three of the exact same thing. I wouldn't mind 3 copies of Nimble Momonga, or 3 copies of Giant Germ, or senju, Sonic Bird...actually, I would mind 3 copies of Sonic Bird, having two already... But multiples of in-demand limited cards like Cyber Jar, Magician of Faith, etc. are good for trades to get what you want.
JOls said:
I can all but guarantee you that you will end up with all 4 Exodia limbs from a whole box, probably 2x over. They are uber-commons, at least they were for me. And if you don't, PM me and I'll hook you guys up. A kid without an Exodia set brings a tear to my eyes
Also related to this thread is something I've been working on regarding entire cases of cards ... once the eBay auctions wind down and I've tallied everything up, I plan on writing an article about the experience
Suffice it to say that even with a CASE of cards you're not guaranteed to get a complete set (although I did, but barely). I think everyone will be rather surprised with the outcome!daivahataka
Gold Member
Well with the newer 60 card sets you've better than average odds on it, I got all FET from 4 boxes, all bar 1 of TLM from 3 boxes (got a 4th but didn't get the card I wanted, instead the next box in the case had itdjp952 said:I can all but guarantee you that you will end up with all 4 Exodia limbs from a whole box, probably 2x over. They are uber-commons, at least they were for me. And if you don't, PM me and I'll hook you guys up. A kid without an Exodia set brings a tear to my eyes
Also related to this thread is something I've been working on regarding entire cases of cards ... once the eBay auctions wind down and I've tallied everything up, I plan on writing an article about the experience
[for those who're wondering how I know I bought the case and am selling on the packs to people at ~62-71% of the normal price per booster for Ireland, they know how I get over people skimming the boosters so they know they can trust me]).With the older sets the secret rares would make it incredibly difficult to complete a set from just one case.
daivahataka said:Well with the newer 60 card sets you've better than average odds on it, I got all FET from 4 boxes, all bar 1 of TLM from 3 boxes (got a 4th but didn't get the card I wanted, instead the next box in the case had it
With the older sets the secret rares would make it incredibly difficult to complete a set from just one case.
Haha, yeah that reminds me of my legendary story with the IOC box.
I bought an IOC box to get an Envoy and/or the DMoC. Didn't get ANY of those. The best card I got was a Dark Mirror Force, which sucks anyway.
I was the laughing stock of my club for weeks.
masterwoo0
NINJA4LIFE
It took me roughly 3-1/2 boxes of FET to get a complete set... But, if memory serves me correctly, I think I traded some of the cards trying to get "other cards", only to get the card I traded for in the next box, and then, need to get the cards I traded back again...
What a vicious cycle!!
What a vicious cycle!!
daivahataka
Gold Member
And hence why I only trade cards which I have more copies of than I can use in a deck.masterwoo0 said:
Well, it took all of his summer vacation to do it, but my son finally earned every pack in the dark beginning 1 box. The final result? 5 exodia pieces (two right arms, two left legs, one right leg, already had the head, but no left arm ) Hopefully he'll be able to do an Exchange to get the left arm. For the rest of the box, it was about 20 cards short of having every common. But he did get Suijin, Kazejin, and Sanga, three other cards he was really hoping to get. He also got some much needed staples. Definitely worth it, at least to him. The remaining 20 commons aren't ones he cares about anyway. The incentive worked, his writing improved dramatically over the summer. Now he's eyeing the DB2 box, but he's on his own for that one.
) Hopefully he'll be able to do an Exchange to get the left arm. For the rest of the box, it was about 20 cards short of having every common. But he did get Suijin, Kazejin, and Sanga, three other cards he was really hoping to get. He also got some much needed staples. Definitely worth it, at least to him. The remaining 20 commons aren't ones he cares about anyway. The incentive worked, his writing improved dramatically over the summer. Now he's eyeing the DB2 box, but he's on his own for that one.daivahataka
Gold Member
Have heard quite a few people say they were looking for the left arm, for some reason it seems to be more difficult to get.JOls said:Well, it took all of his summer vacation to do it, but my son finally earned every pack in the dark beginning 1 box. The final result? 5 exodia pieces (two right arms, two left legs, one right leg, already had the head, but no left arm
The Advocate
The Prosecutor
I'm always very disappointed when I buy a box, especially now that they added the Ultimate Rares; the last 2 boxes I bought I beat the odds and pulled 7 and 8 Super/Ultra Rares however, when you added in the repeats and the Ultimate Rares I got big holes in the sets. They were POTD and CDIP btw. I did get 1 of each common but not one of each rare. I would like to see the embossed cards go bye bye and bring back the secret rares. I would also like to see the ratios hold up.
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