Opened:
6 Booster boxes
3 Bundle
Total boosters opened: 246
Total cards added: 3936
Total needed for set: 900
Planeswalker Deck Cards: 40
It was a pretty long weekend trying to get all this opened, sorted, inventoried, sleeved, posted, printed, and labeled. Going to try and keep this type of post done per set, just to show results of the pre-order opening.
As it says up top, I increased the purchase of the pre-order by 2 booster boxes, and kept the 4 bundles going, ending up at 8 booster boxes and 4 bundles.
Cost breakdown:
Booster Boxes: $90.00
Bundle Packs: $35.99
Total Cost Basis: $926.81 (with tax)
Mythic Rares needed: 17
Rares needed: 2
Set Needs: $96.52
Planeswalker Deck Needs: $65.40
Total added to Trade: $581.07
Rares: $76.30
Uncommon: $149.87
Common: $322.24
Land: $18.44
Tokens: $14.22
With this new purchase plan, I did end up opening a full case for the collection, and I kept the other 2 booster boxes for the collection. I also did keep one of the Bundles for the collection, and opened the other three. All in all I think it was a good opening, but also with a small set we normally get everything we need. I am going to miss small sets for sure, just because it is going to take more trade to complete the sets, and those 2 years waiting for rotation kind of suck.
I know, I can trade for standard cards, but in my mind that is a waste of trade inventory. Being patient and holding off for the rotation prices is always better cost wise. I am finding that with CardSphere I am able to build up a balance that could go towards this type of stuff, considering that I am trading away a lot of bulk to get my CardSphere balance. I am just not sure how much of that Planeswalker deck inventory is out there.
I am going to try and add more pictures as I open the product, just to show how I go about in tackling these tasks in such a short time. This here is what the collection for HOU all sleeved up. And yes I am still keeping with the perfect fit per card in the collection. I have found that it is really good in keeping the conditions of the cards while I move them in and out of playing sleeves.
I am also keeping every rare in a sleeve. I use much older sleeves that I have gathered over the many years of playing, and I have found this to be wonderful in moving cards in and out of the trade binder. It allows me to not worry about the conditions as I shuffle them around.
This is the end product for the collection. Every Standard set gets put into their own shoe box, sleeved and separated by the labeled card. This way I can build standard sets fairly quick, and I can sort the decks I no longer play with really fast as well. I am also able to sort these cards into the Modern boxes very efficiently after rotation.
So the process is to open all the product, organizing them into Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythic Rare, Basic Land, Token, and Foil while I am opening the packs. I also go a step further and set them into piles of the color. I should be getting more pictures next time to kind of show how I do it. This way I can sort and organize them very fast after I have all the booster packs opened.
I also do it this way because there is so much product that I open I know I will get a playset of the Commons, Uncommons, and Basic Lands. I can quickly fill out my spreadsheets to show that, and then all I really need are the Rares and Mythic Rares to inventory. That will give me a quick snapshot of what will go into the inventory and what I can post on Deckbox and CardSphere for trading. Of course, now I am posting all the cards I have extra on those sites, but it allows me to get the more sought after cards up faster while I sort and inventory the less desired bulk.
But more importantly it will give me what I will be looking for, so I can update my Apple Notes with what I am looking for to complete my playsets.
This is the copy that I carry around with me on my cell phone, so I can go shopping at other LGS's and know exactly what I need per set. I highlight the Planeswalker cards in Blue so I know that they are cards I can only get out of the Planeswalker decks.
So yeah, I open all the packs separating them into their piles. I first sort and inventory the Rare and Mythic Rare cards. With the Rare and Mythic Rares being sorted and inventoried my spreadsheet is pretty much up to date with what I need. I will then add the extra Rares and Mythic Rares to my Deckbox and CardSphere sites.
This also gives me time to perfect sleeve them to protect them right away after I know what is extra and what I need for the collection. I also perfect fit the foils while I open the boosters to try and cut down on the curling that occurs when there is too much exposure to the air.
From here, I will sort and inventory the Foils. Adding the extra foils to the trade sites, but all the foils will get inventoried into the foil boxes I have just for those cards. I am still on the fence with trading all my foils away, just because I am still not sure if I am going to go for foils.
Now comes the sort, the dreaded sort. I need to know how many of every card I have in my inventory at all times. This is what started my multi-year long journey into this blog. How it works the best with me is I start with the Tokens, then move to the basic lands, and then the Uncommons, and I end with the Commons. Since I already have the Rares, Mythic Rares, and Foils done I just need to finish up on these stacks. And I always hit the low hanging fruit first because it makes me believe I am accomplishing things, and I get a warm and fuzzy feeling when I get something done.
With the sort comes a great opportunity to correct the spreadsheet. With every new set, there are always some cards we import onto our spreadsheets that are categorized incorrectly. Some are showing up as common when they are uncommon, or you get a black card but it is really white. So with the sort we also do the count, where not only do I sort every card into the specific card it is, but I also count how many of that card I have. I then go into the spreadsheet and update my quantities of how many I have. Here is where I can correct what I have pulled for the pricing spreadsheet.
This is a very important step, just because I use the inventory spreadsheet to make my labels. It allows me to correct everything before I make those labels, so that they are very accurate. I seriously hate reprinting labels because of mistakes. I used to do the pull once the set was posted, and then make the labels before I opened any packs. Let me tell you how much that sucked. I always had to go back, edit the labels, add the tokens and other cards they missed, and then reprint the labels they missed. It sucked so much that I just wait until after the sort and count to do any of the printing of labels.
While I am counting, I keep the playsets off to the side and make sure those get counted toward the Collection count and not into the trade inventory. Normally once I get done with a color/rarity I will sleeve up the collection cards and put them into the shoebox sorted with the other cards. That way I can get the sleeving done in small chunks and it is not such a large amount of sleeving. Baby steps! Always baby steps! It makes you feel much more accomplished, than taking on very large tasks.
Ok, so we opened the packs. Then we sorted the cards. Counted the cards, and inventoried them. Sleeved up the collection cards, and piled up the trade cards. Now I need to get those trade cards into the BCW boxes. I keep the commons, uncommon, and rare/mythic all separate. The common cards will go into storage.
I keep all the commons sorted by expansion, then color, and then alphabetically. I have found this is the easiest way to keep them organized for trades.
Uncommons are done the same way, but since those are a lot less in quantity I keep all those separated by meta; Legacy, Modern, Core, and Masters.
And then all the rares get stored away in their own boxes. All of those cards are sleeved and protected. From time to time I will go in and pull out the uncommons or commons that increase in price. Usually I will grab the cards that are over $1.00, sleeve them up and put them in my trade boxes. The cards in this box is what I use to re-populate my trade binder with.
Ok, so we have the cards opened, sorted, counted, inventoried, sleeved, stored, and now we need to print labels and get those on separators. I have another post on what I do for labels and card separators and you can find it here:
http://dogonsiereht-mtg.blogspot.com/2014/06/card-separators.html
I will do my magic to massage the data into the labels, and then print out those labels to put them on the card separators.
All in all, I think I spent 18 hours through the whole process to add this set into my collection. I have already sent out some cards through CardSphere since adding them to the site. I think I could have cut this down by a couple hours, but I was marathoning Game of Thrones before the Season 7 premiere and got distracted here and there.
