Yesterday I hung out with my friend Dean and we went to the card shop. He bought a bunch of Kamigawa singles he needed for a deck and I bought a Kamigawa fat pack (which is a boxed product containing the set’s novel, a life-counter die, one tourney pack and three booster packs of cards, and two random foil cards). He jokingly suggested that when I open it, I should try my best to make sure I draw either a Cranial Extraction or a Hound of Konda, but not both. Remember this as you read on.
A few weeks previous, I’d opened a booster and was delighted that the rare card was Cranial Extraction. This is currently the most sought-after card for Tournament play and has an after-market value of between $25 and $30, so Dean was understandably envious of my lucky draw. That’s the background to his joke and this story.
We head back to his place for card-playing and -opening fun. I start opening the packs in a leisurely way, not rushing, and Dean is starting to froth with impatience at my nonchalance. My third booster pack reveals a most excellent rare, Yosei, the Morning Star, the second most sought-after Dragon from Kamigawa after Kokusho, the Evening Star. Dean’s phone rings (it’s Val, another avid player of Magic), and I pop open the tourney pack of cards. Already, the fat pack has paid for itself with the after-market value of the cards opened so far.
My first and third rares (you get three in a tourney pack) are Cranial Extraction and Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Dean interrupts his conversation with Val to spit unbelieving expletives at the cards in my hand.
Card prices
Still, for the chase cards and other valuable cards I use after-market prices when I'm trading to make sure that I'm not being ripped off. Beyond rip-off insurance, I don't pay much mind to the price except in simply being thankful that I can play with the card without buying it from a shop or eBay.
Cranial Extraction falls into the latter category. I'll be damned if I don't have fun with such a nice black card! I was already building a Grave Pact / Skeleton Shard deck that it will fit into nicely, too...
Darthmaus drew a foil Chrome Mox once, and deliberated over selling it or trading it. She opted for trading it to
Re: Card prices
Though I'd have to buy a lot more cards for that, or play you in Type I.
Re: Card prices
I have Apprentice installed on this machine, though I haven't tested its networking ability yet. That might make playing a lot cheaper and easier with the distance. It makes Power Nine decks much, much cheaper. ;-)
Re: Card prices
Thank you, I completely forgot Apprentice existed. Okay, installed, now I just have to (re)build a deck or five. Then we'll talk :)
Apprentice playing
Deck legality? I've got a real-world extended-legal one I'm tuning that I could whip up in Apprentice, and which could also be tweaked into Standard-legal with little work.
Net-decks or no net-decks?
If you're interested in trying out newer cards, I could send you the lists for a bunch of recent preconstructed decks from Kamigawa and Mirrodin and we could do battles of the decently-made-but-not-overly-powerful, which I've found can be fun in a lower-energy way.
...that's all assuming that wine correctly implements the Windows TCP/IP API such that Apprentice-on-Linux can actually connect to your machine, of course.
I check that one regularly, but by "regularly" I mean every couple of days.
I just have regular days where I don't look at lj or email, but that's usually because I'm busy with something else (like a deadline or a date) that would preclude answering even if I did check. Most days you can bet on getting through—just don't bet a vital organ. :-)