Archenemy & PreOrder HOU

Card Count: 504

So went into Loadestone to pick up the Archenemy: Nicol Bolas.

Keeping it sealed, will never open it.  Ever...

But I do like what they are doing.  It seems like they are actually pushing the pre-constructed games with specific sets for beginning players, or casual players.  This way it is more like a board game. You can just head up to your LGS and plop down with 3 other friends and play some MTG without a lot of thought.  It is like Commander, but much more compact.

I highly doubt they will expand on the Archenemy card types, but I can see them creating these more often like the Dual decks with using all reprints to make the decks.  Just hope WotC does not try and force it down everyone's throat and over saturate the market with these types of products.  Having Dual Decks is enough for 2 releases a year, but if they try and do more than one with this product I can see folks just not picking them up.  It has to be a every other year type of product.

While there, talked to one of the guys that works up there for a bit, and asked if they do pre-orders, in which he replied that they do, and it was the same price as my other LGS.  So what a better time to build up store equity and put in an order.  This time around I put in a 8 Booster with 4 Bundle order.  I know it is 2 more boosters boxes then the plan, but I have some more thoughts on that.  I will update the blog with a new budget post, hopefully soon.

I will have a case to open, and keep 2 booster boxes for the collection.  What the big question is, what will my order be for the last set before they change the release schedule again.  With all the Standard bannings, I have a high hope for the cards that are getting released within the last year or so.  What do I mean?  Well what we have been seeing within the last year is a ton of banned cards in Standard.

From Oath of the Gatewatch to Kaladesh.  Hell the first uncommon to get banned in Standard since Skullclamp back in 2004 was Reflector Mage.  We lost Emrakul around the same time and things settled down a bit, but then with the Kaladesh block we lost Smuggler's Copter and and Felidar Guardian.  And a short time after that we lost Aetherworks Marvel.

Not since the Urza's block did we see this type of power get released in Standard, but along with those sets came a large amount of cards that would change the play of future set releases and were not noticed until much later.  All I am saying is that with these latest releases, all the hype about Masterpieces, and the crazy changes of Set Blocks, a lot of mistakes were being made.  With all these mistakes that have been made, those mistakes usually last a lot longer than a Standard season.

Now we are also getting a large amount of changes that are coming up to deal with the large amount of changes that were just made, and I am 100% sure that there will be more mistakes.  This means, that we will get even more mistakes for at least another couple of years.  I could see that this shift in changes will keep coming in until about 2019.  The last time we had mistakes and cards needed to get banned in standard was when they went to "Modern" sets with Mirrodin, and then we did not see cards banned in standard until they changed up the core sets with M10.

I am just saying that we usually see mistakes in design because we are changing up the design, and more powerful cards get created.  Weather that is to pull more players in, and freshen up the player base, or they have no idea what is going to happen with the play styles, and they mistakenly make more powerful cards.  Pretty sure human error is the winner in these cases.

So, while I was there I wanted to pick up some cards for the collection, and this is because they have such a wonderful selection to shop from.  Seriously believe that the more players that come to play, the more inventory the LGS will have.  MTG players need to support their hobby, and selling cards to the LGS is usually a good capital stream.

Here is what I was able to pick up:

Just had to grab these.  Now I am only 3 more Inventions left for my full set.

The price on these just keep tanking, but I wanted to pick them up faster since they announced they will no longer be doing the Masterpieces in every set.  This will make them more rare, and more special.  I think the bottom has been found, and these will go up.  Or... these are going to be just like every other foil that does not do anything, and the prices will drop even further because who really cares about foils...  Either way, I am going to have my full set and just stick with that.

I did not think they would actually have any of these, but considering how many collections they buy I had to ask.  The LGS did offer me a discounted price on the Planeswalker decks for about $9 per, but that is just too much bulk for me.  I could not see spending $56 for 6 decks when I could just pick up these cards on their own.  And with that being said I only need $7.70 for the other cards that were only printed in the decks, and I am pretty sure I can get them in trade.

Just love this card and with the price drop I had to make my move.  I only got 6, because I just wanted 2 playsets.

So this next set of pictures makes me feel really good to have switched LGS's.  I had some time, and wanted to dig through some cards to find some hidden gems.  I had been trying to trade for a lot of basic lands that I needed for the collection, so I asked them if they had any boxes I could dig through. Of course they did, and I started digging.

Had to grab these, only need 1 more forest to have all the basic lands for Starter 1999.

These Battle for Zendikar lands are just a great pickup.  All the packs only had full art lands, and the Holiday Gift boxes only had 4 of the 5 basic lands.  So one of the 5 basic lands were in supplementary products, and it is a holy hell pain in the ass trying to pick them up.  So I am happy I got these.

 I am getting a ton of Champions of Kamigawa lands from Cardsphere, and I really wish I went up to the LGS before I put them up on Cardsphere.  I could have got all the COK lands I have been looking for.

Very happy to pick these up as well.  I am only 6 lands short for the whole set.

For some reason Tenth Edition basic lands are hard to find, but I seem to hit the mother load.  Just really happy to have all this stuff filled out.

 This makes the last basic land I needed from 8th.

9th Edition was the set I needed the basic lands for the most, so finding all these in the conditions that they were in was such a good thing for me.

So after digging through all the basic lands I went up to the front desk to let them know I was done, and then settle up with how much I owed for the basic lands, and they were like "Go ahead and take them, we don't need them or sell them."  This brought a warm glow to my heart.  It is not from the fact that they couldn't make money off me, but they were not going to try with basic lands.  It was just a good feeling is all, and such a nice small thing to do it made me feel like it was a good idea to switch LGS's.  Now, when the bills start to stack up, who knows what might happen, but for now they are getting my support.

Oh yeah, almost forgot.

Thats right!  I am 1 Plains away from getting the 10 Unhinged lands I am hoping to have for the collection.  These beauties are such a good add, I just could not pass them up.  Scary thing is, I think I could have just bought a sealed booster box for amount of cash I paid for all these basic lands.

So yeah, shout out to Lodestone Coffee & Games in MN.  I hope to write a LGS review at some point soon.