Actual Cost of Early Access Inserts

[ronnyberry]

I thought I would point this out since there seem to be a lot of people that do not understand numbers.

When Star Wars "grants you early access" to an insert in exchange for purchasing coins, this is NOT a good deal.  Here are examples

1)  Cards from the marathon sets (ie Vintage, Connections, Wideview, etc)
        The cards usually come with odds between 1:10 packs to 1:50 packs.  Here's the big different - these cards keep the same odds, but are only in Master packs. Here is The actual cost for each of these cards.  If you think a card is worth that much, by all mean, go ahead - just know what you are paying.  These are based on 1:35 pack odds.

EARLY ACCESS
Darth Vader Master Pack (20,000 coins)
    average cost per card - 7000,000 coins ($78.00)
    Also get 5 Gold (none are current day)
    Also get 50 Yellow
      If you want yellows, wait for the Boba Fett pack for $66.00 less and get the same ratio of inserts.  The Golds are NOT worth $12.50 each, especially when they are not for the current Scene collection since these come out later) --- if you feel these Golds are worth that much, try trading one for 3 Vinatge cards and see if anyone gives you anything but a 1 rating

Yoda Master Pack (10,000 coins)
    average cost per card - 350,000 coins ($36.00)
    Also get 26 Yellow
If you want yellows, wait for the Boba Fett pack for $24.00 less and get the same ratio of inserts.

AFTER THE EARLY ACCESS
Mace Windu (1,000 coins)
   average cost per card - 35,000 coins ($4.00)
   Also get 5 FA cards
      Best value by far

Boba Fett (5,000 coins)
   average cost = 105,000 coins ($12.00)
   Also get 5 FA cards
   Also get 5 Yellows
      If you are chasing Yellows, getting 5 Yellows for the extra 70,000 coins isn't bad, but if you put the extra 70,000 coins towards pulling a dupe to trade, you can probably get a lot more Yellows in trade

So if you think the Yellows are worth what you are paying, please send me 3 inserts for a Yellow - I'll take that trade ALL DAY, even for singles.  Otherwise, why pay $78.00 for a card that you could pull for $4.00???

[ronnyberry]

EARLY BIRD PART 2 - the Geonosis Bait

I wasted almost 900,000 coins on this and was dissed by "senator steve" on Twitter when they did the Early Bird on this. On the surface, this seems like a good deal, just like Hoth was originally. You could shoot for the rare ones and still end up with a stack of Blues and Whites for trading.

However, instead of being able to pull all 5 parallels on this, you were only able to pull the two hardest at ratios of 1:180 and 1:350 for Early Access. All of the attainable 3 parallels were held back so that Topps could double sell the set - once with the costly cards and once with the cheaper cards. Don't be tricked by this and think that you can get all of the cards in the set at once.   I'll admit, I did not study the transmission or I would have seen that this was switched, but based on how fast the Nightbrothers sold out, I felt I had to dive into the packs and assume that they wouldn't make yet another change this quickly.  I won't make this mistake again.

For the new Geonosis set, expect to buy double the packs to fill your sets. I, for one, am boycotting this set - especially since the Hoth cards are now worthless after the award has paid out. I'll stick with the "marathon" sets since they will at least hold their value until the final awards for each set after the 30 cards are released (with a peak just before the 10th cards are released)

[ummy]

early bird special for the paying users = early access packs

[starkill1138]

The other downfall I've found with the early access packs is the reduced number if users opening packs makes it harder to pull the inserts. Once the general access takes effect the increased user base opening packs makes the odds seem more in your favor.