Why I am buying packs now before Alpha starts - but why I would not buy "used" card packs
In my last post I explained why I am buying Steem Monsters Alpha packs before they are ending. They have two advantages over the beta packs, which will probably starting to sell towards the end of this week.
- Alpha cards are likely to have a higher collectible value
- Alpha cards also have a higher utility value as they will have more XP per card, which means that you will need more Beta cards to max out a card compared to an Alpha card.
As I am writing this there are 28,180 Alpha packs left and at the the current runrate these are going to sell out by Thursday this week. Once there is only a few packs left these are likely to sell out very quickly as people are likely to catch these.
Thus, if you believe in the success of the game and plan on acquiring more cards, you should do this quickly and not wait for the Beta cards. A valid option might also be to buy cards on the secondary market as I think that this is the cheaper option if you want to build a good deck if you are willing to leave out the Gold Foil cards.
However, one thing that I would not suggest doing is to collect Alpha packs to resell them later, or to buy Alpha packs from other people. I first though that this might be a good idea, as I thought that you are not able to look into a pack anymore. However, while this is not so easy anymore, it is still possible using the following link:
https://steemmonsters.com/?verify_packs=1
Basically, the fact that this is possible is from my point of view the right thing as it allows everybody to check that the Steem Monsters team is not cheating with the creation of cards. Nonetheless, it means that somebody is selling you packs there is a likelihood that he or she has looked into them for valuable cards and sell them only if they are not worth their money.
Therefore I would strong advise you not to buy any packs on the secondary market!
Good luck with the game,
Tim
You may have a point here, hopefully I can grab a few more before then. Also I've been buying individual cards off the market, especially commons and epics, they seem really undervalued.
I share your view on the epics for sure. I think rares are also great value if you compare them to commons.
Yeah, you'd figure if u get a low pack thats 5 cards, 4 commons and a rare, being generous right now that's...
4 common roughly $0.05
1 rare roughly $0.10
That's a total of $0.30.
Then again you could get lucky but you can buy a hand selected "pack" for under $0.30
Thanks for this @rondras, I had no idea about that particular tool. I knew about the trick with previewing the packs on PeakMonsters before they were opened, but that loophole has since been closed. Interesting to know about this one instead. I agree, buying second-hand booster packs isn't a great idea if they can be filtered through first and all the packs with the best stuff taken out. If you think of physical cards, it would be like the opaque foil packaging having been already torn when you buy a pack. Someone may have been through the pack and taken out all the good stuff and replaced them with crap.
Note that I come at this from the perspective of a buyer, not a seller, so my views on this are coloured by that. I'm sure that if I was selling a pack that had a Gold Foil Legendary in it, I would feel quite differently, haha.
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I would love to be able to buy some Alpha booster packs without anybody knowing what is in there. It is not possible at the moment however.
It is possible to resell them to some extent if someone bought a lot of packs together. If you bought like 500 cards then these 500 cards are technically like one mega pack. So you will know technically which 500 cards are in that mega pack.
Reselling still somewhat works because sending a single pack (out of these 500) to one person will randomly pick cards out of the mega pack based on transaction id and block numbers. So if there is gold foils in the mega pack you can most likely still sell single packs from it. It will of course only work down to the point where it is obvious that there is no good gold cards left in the mega pack.
So there is still some hope that reselling of alpha packs is feasible even though somewhat limited.
Reselling will be "a game" that will work like drawing 5 random cards out of a pot of known possible cards. If the card pot being sold form is big enough it might be similar to buying cards right now.
I do not agree with you.
If I buy 500 packs and find a Gold Foil legendary in there, it means that the Gold Foil card is more or less equal to the value of the packs. So I would never sell any of these packs but open them all.
If there was no Gold Foil Legendary cards included however you would sell them, which means that the buyer of such packs never has the option to get a Gold Foil card legendary if he or she meets somebody who has this agenda. As the Gold Foil legendary cards are about 40-50% of the value of packs at the moment.
I will offer you a game to prove what I am saying: I will sell you packs with a discount of 20% if you want ;-) So 1.60 USD for packs - but do not expect to catch any legendary gold foil cards ...
Looks like we agree as that is exactly what I am saying. It is a different game and the pricing will obviously be different based on the pool you draw from. Sorry to not write it out clearer.
It is a lottery where you will have to price the 5 cards (pack) according to the pots possibilities.
Other example: I got a Goldfoil Legandary in my pot of 500 cards. Will you buy a pack from me for 5$? (Numbers are obviously not exact but you could calculate them.) You will have a higher chance to win a GF and you pay for it with a higher pack price.
It is hard to make a business model out of it but you might be able to get a premium compared to sell them as singles. Some do like to open packs and play the chance game.
Anyway. I will keep some packs for the unlikely events that they will become valuable somehow. Maybe we get drafting games with packs or something else we don't really expect right now. You can always open them.
Ah, now I understand what you mean. This is of course true - but it requires to have both an educated buyer and an educated seller.
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