Starter 2000, Part Duex!

Starter 2000

Sack of shit.

Ok so I picked up a Starter 2000 Shock from a Deckbox seller and he wrote this little message on what he was saying a Starter 2000 card were.  Since there are 6th Edition reprints in this release, he was saying that he knew how to differentiate a 6th Edition card and a reprint in Starter 2000.

Here is the blog that I wrote about that:
http://dogonsiereht-mtg.blogspot.com/2017/10/starter-2000.html

So anywho, with what we had talked about, my interests were peeked and I wanted to know exactly what was a 6th Edition reprint in Starter 2000 was.  Did a little searchy searchy on the interwebs, and bam!  Picked up 2 packages from ABU Games for $19.99 each!  Of course I picked up 2 because then I can keep one sealed and open one.

The seller had mentioned that the rosette was different from the 6th Edition cards, and you could tell with a Loupe.  So I opened up one of the packages, and here is what I found.

Open up that bitch and this is what you get.  A tutorial package and 2 deck packages.  This product was to be able to teach new folks in how to play the game.  So much, this one even came with a CD!!  And you will also notice that there is a new Rhox promo in there.

Rhox!!

I don't think computers come with CD ROM drives anymore...

I am sure that if I were to read everything in this learning packet, or watch the CD, I will find out what these are for, but I can only assume it is to tell which player is which color.  And that in turn tells them what packs to open and play with.

"The survey says!!!"

Rules?  Where we are going, we don't need rules...

Ok, here we go!  Red deck wins!  And of course we are starting with this set because it is the "A" set.

They were calling this the playmat, way back in the day they did not have playmats.  A little life total, and a place to put your deck and graveyard.  Then it tells you where to put the creatures and lands!  FUN!

They even tell you how to play the deck you have just opened!

I know I might be going through a lot of stuff, but I want to be complete with what was opened.  So you can see that this pack is all 6th Edition cards.  These are the cards that were supposed to have the different rosette than other 6th Edition cards.

In the second pack I found these 6th Edition reprints.

And here are the Portal and Starter 1999 reprints without the set symbol.  These I consider the only Starter 2000 cards that are out there.

And more land!

Ok, here comes the "B" packs!

Another "Playmat".

And Play Guide

6th Edition reprint pack.

With the lands.

And the other pack with the true Starter 2000 cards and the 6th Edition reprints.

Ok, so I just wanted to list out everything that I got from the Starter 2000 packs.  Now I have replaced everything in my collection with what I have so that I know that I got these cards from an actual Starter 2000 deck, but with what I found on all this the 6th Edition reprints are just 6th Edition cards.

Anyone selling a 6th Edition reprint as a Starter 2000 card is ripping you off.  That Obsidian Golem in the set that is listing for $50 is a complete ripoff.  All the 6th Edition cards in Starter 2000 are just 6th Edition cards.  I don't know how many more times I can say it, but it is clear as day that the Deckbox seller was just wrong.  And the person who told him the information was totally wrong too.

I took a long deep look at every rosette on the 6th Edition cards and I found the rosette that the Deckbox seller was talking about, but the issue I have is that I found the other rosette in the 6th Edition reprints.  That means that there is no way to prove that one rosette is from 6th Edition, and the other is for Starter 2000.

The only outcome that I could think of was that they were all just 6th Edition cards packed up for the Starter 2000 release.

So like I said, I replaced all my cards in my collection to consist of these cards because I knew I opened them from a Starter 2000, and I have it documented in this lovely blog, but really they are just 6th Edition cards.

The only cards that are Starter 2000 cards are the reprinted Portal and Starter 1999 cards without the expansion symbol, and that Rhox promo.

If at some point, someone can prove to me that the Rosette or something else is proving they are different than 6th Edition cards, I am more that willing to change my opinion.  For now, anyone selling 6th Edition reprints as Starter 2000 cards is a complete liar and they have no idea what they are doing.

Inching closer...

Total Card Count: 8

Seven!  Seven!

I really just want to keep these short until I get everything in and really talk about what is going on.

Here we go!

Huge waste of a buy here.  I am going to go over Starter 2000 in the next blog, but yeah the only reason I bought from this seller was to get that Counterspell.  And that Counterspell is not even Starter 2000.  So I picked up the Staff and the Foil Swans for no reason.

Ugh....  Another Starer 2000 card that is not Starter 2000, but hey I got that Standard Canyon...

Sexy!!!!!!  So sexy Starter 1999 card!!!!!!!!!  SOOOOOOOOO Sexy!!!!!!!!

Ok yeah, so just wanted to add this incoming buy, and the larger story will be written when I get everything.  More to come!

Why do I do this to myself?

Standard Card Count: 91

Ok, so let's get this out there right now.  With Phase 1 and Phase 2 coming to an end, I am going to start tracking what I need for standard after my box openings.  Currently we are sitting at 91 more cards, and that is after I took a big hit for doing a stupid thing.

Let's take a look at what a mistake looks like, shall we?

So, I went into the LGS, Lodestone Coffee & Games on a lovely Wed afternoon, to spend some time dumpster diving in some of the bulk boxes they have.  Mainly I was looking for the non-Full Art basic lands from BFZ that I do not have.  I am proud to say that I did fine three of them!

But if you know me, and what happens when I go to a MTG store, you know there was more things bought.  And the trip down that stupid rabbit hole continues.  All the shiny things, for cards I don't even need, just tears me apart.

What?  These are bring reprinted in Iconic Masters?  Why not pickup enough for another playset?

Yeah I said I was done with Tenth Edition a while ago, but as I was going through some of my cards it looks like I was missing a 4th Goblin King, so I picked one up.

This completes my 2 play sets.

And here is a single playset of a card I should have picked up for $6 but instead decided to wait until after Worlds and had to pay $13 per...  sigh...

Considering my last mistake with those lands I figured I would pick up the second playset just incase someone figures out a really cool use for them.  I am very interested in these because of the similarities to Maze of Ith.

I like this one because of the uses it has with EDH.  You can cast instants and sorceries at 1 less mana, and then it flips to give you a mana to cast a spell, and that creates a copy of the spell for another target.  I just think it opens up a deck possibilities.

This is for my playset of this card.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I have an affection for this card.  The 5/6 Flash card that lets you play an Instant in your graveyard for free just gets me in the heart.  I don't know why, I just like it.  If WotC ever puts out an insane Instant that costs a ton, I feel this card will just blow up.

And then I made my mistake.  I decided to try to finish out Amonkhet while it was still in Standard.  Yes, it means I just paid a ton to support my LGS.  I have no idea what took me over to try and get everything while it was still in Standard, I did not even have a deck to build.  Sigh, yeah no idea why I did that, or what I was thinking.

So yeah, really stupid that I bought Standard cards at the Standard rates, just felt like trying to finish some sets.

Getting close to the end

Total Card Count: 10

The Greatest Magic the Gathering blog in the world!!!!!

So I officially got sick of trying to trade for the cards I am looking for, and decided to just buy everything I was looking for, and this is the first post on how I am getting what I need.

We are talking about Phase 1 and Phase 2 now.  I am still looking for 10 Battle for Zendikar non-full art basic lands, but that is going to take me a while to find and I don't want to spend $3.00 for them right now, but I am pretty sure I will at some point.

I went to TCGPlayer this run to finish out everything like I normally do.  It is just a lot easier to find the cards on this single site.  I did have to go shopping in specific sellers just to fill in the $2.00 minimum, which really bugs me.  If they are charging for shipping then why would they require for me to buy more than $2.00 worth of cards?  I know that they are spending the time to pull the card, pack the card, and then ship but come on.  Ok, so yeah, that does make sense considering I don't even look at anything under $2.00 on CardSphere when I am sending cards.

Anywho....

Here we go!

Channel Fireball

They sent a great package with everything I was looking for in the conditions that was posted.  Unfortunately I did not need the Sylvan Basilisk as my documentation was inaccurate.  That Rhox is a pretty awesome pickup, but I already have the 2 sealed learning decks coming in the mail.

Brute Force Games

And this is the last card I needed for 9th Edition!  What a long road...

Geeks and Games

Picked up the Spined Wurm from Starter 2000 for reasons, but I needed to grab those Ixalan cards to get above the $2.00 mark.  So yeah, over paid on the Ixalan cards to get s single Starter 2000 card...  Sigh...  I did grab a couple other Starter 2000 cards, but with my recent discovery I had those cards in my inventory.   There is a lot riding on the sealed decks coming in, I am getter very anxious.

CCG House

Exhaustion is the same deal as my other Portal Second Age cards, a miss in the inventory caused me to pick up some more that were not needed.  I did need that Hand of Death from Starter 2000 and the Righteous Fury from Starter 1999, so just happy I did not need to order more just to get the deal done.

Gators

Waste of a shop.  Complete waste of a shop.  They sent me a Starter 1999 Stone Rain instead of the Starter 2000 one I was looking for.  So really, I paid for the Ixalan card and the Commander card for nothing.  Then the guy picked a fight with me on the bad score I gave them.  Waste of time.

Competitive Card Shack

Another huge waste of poo.  Sent me the wrong Goblin Hero since I was looking for the Starter 2000 one, not the Starter 1999.  Bad score for them!  Luckily they just refunded me the pennies for the card and I over paid for some more Ixalan cards just to get the order pushed through...

TCG Player Direct

Great service on this on as always, just wish TGC Player Direct was the only way to get cards instead of always going through other sellers.  With this order I was able to finish out 6th Edition, 8th Edition, Portal!  Oh yeah, and since there are literally no Lord of the Undead out there, I ended up paying double for that stupid card...

So yeah I need 11 more cards to finish up Phase 1 and Phase 2, and all 10 cards should be headed my way to finish it out.  With this shipment I finished 6th, 8th, 9th, and Portal.  Here is what is left from the other sets

7th Edition: 1 card

Portal Second Age: 2 cards

Starter 1999: 6 cards

Starter 2000: 1 card

Really hoping I can close out these last sets before the weekend!

Starter 2000

Phase 2 Card Count: 16

The question today is, Can you tell if the 6th Edition cards from Starter 2000 are really from the set?  Or are they just 6th Edition cards?

So yeah, the story about Starter 2000 was a release in 2000 with all reprints.  This product was released in a Starter package with a CD ROM that taught you how to play Magic.  During the process of trying to get a complete set of this release I have found a bunch about what is in the set.  So much that I decided to just purchase 2 sealed learning kits off eBay.

Supposedly what is coming in the mail is that wonderful CD to teach me how to play Magic, and 3 packs.  These three packs are going to have all the cards in the set.  The total of the set consists 52 different cards, 10 different basic lands, along with a Rhox foil promo.  Most of these cards are reprints from Portal and Starter 1999, but it also has pretty much exact copies of some 6th Edition cards.

Over the weekend I went out and bought a Starter 2000 Shock, and the seller ended up contacting me with a lot of information I was not expecting.  It ends up, the 6th Edition reprints have a small difference in printing in the rosette that was used for the Starter 2000 cards.

So here are the two examples.

6th Edition Rosette

As you can see there is a black dot surrounded by more lighter print.

Starter 2000

And from what I have been told that they Starter 2000 rosette, there was a light dot surrouned by darker print.

You can only really see the difference when using a Loupe to see the actual rosette.

Now I was a bit hesitant hearing this news from the seller, since it was him that was trying to sell me a $0.22 card for around $4.  So you can see where you might not believe someone, and there is nothing online about the differences.  You will only find that the 6th Edition cards were just exact reprints that were thrown into these packs.  The Portal and Starter 1999 cards were the only ones you could tell were from the set because of the missing set symbol.

Me being me, decided to go in and check the 6th Edition cards to see if I could find these differences.  Low and behold, I could see a difference in most of the cards that were filed as 6th Edition cards.  There were two different rosettes, and you really could assume there were two printings.

This really pulled me into a gully, so I went out to try and find some of these Starter 2000 packs.  I was lucky enough to find a seller on eBay that had 2 learning packages for a really good price of $19.99, so I picked up the 2 sealed packs.  This is going to allow me to open up one pack, knowing that I have all the Starter 2000 cards, but then I can also verify what I have been told and can actually split up my cards under Starter 2000 and 6th Edition.

Basically I am going to look at all the 6th Edition cards under a loupe to see if I can find that same rosette pattern.  If it is a mix of rosettes, then I know that the 6th Edition cards are just that, 6th Edition and the only important cards from the set are the Portal and Stater 1999 reprints without the set symbol.

If this is correct information, then I am down to needing 1 single card left for the set.  After going through all my 6th Edition cards, these are what I found for the set!  Of course I am going to be able to replace them all with the actual Starter 2000 cards, but lets hope these are extra cards I can trade!

Big one here if I am right, that Obsianus Golem is worth $50.00!  I have no idea why it is that price, but someone has it at that price.

So yeah, look out for an update in the next week or so with what I find!