Shadowrun Trading Card Game - 1997.
So Bull posted a little blurb that he'd picked up a set of STCG cards from ebay months back. At the same time I picked up a booster box (450 cards) from ebay for $100 just to see what the cards were about. With Bull's comments and followups from his post plus some investigating, I thought I'd check it out.
I picked up a starter box (69 cards, 1 turn sequence card, and the rules booklet) so I could get the rules and found a listing of the cards that come in the set. At about $12 per starter box, I figured I'd just need to get sufficient boosters and I'll get a set. Someone in Michagan was selling booster boxes on ebay for $40 a box which was better than the $100 I initially shelled out (kicking myself, I know).
I whipped up a web page to track my purchases and over the past 6 months or so, started picking up boxes. I sorted them as they came in, picked up a couple of 1,000 card boxes from the FLGS and was on my way. I was getting just a box or two at a time but the added shipping was annoying and I still wasn't getting the full set. After 4 booster boxes and three more starter boxes, I had almost a full set. I was missing a few rares and oddly enough, a few commons. I did have all the uncommons though.
The past couple of months, I made bigger purchases eventually having 13 booster boxes for a total of 9,500 cards (roughly). I have an average of 5 of each of the rares, 35 of each of the uncommons and 75 of each of the commons. There are a few rares where I have 2 or even 1 in a couple of cases. The strange thing though was I was still pretty low on commons on several cards and missing three commons entirely.
It was a tad frustrating. I mean, commons are supposed to be common, right?
Well, last Saturday we had our third annual Thanksgiving game day at one of the FLGS' and I'd decided to play STCG. I got the rules down (actually I retyped them so I had a full sized set of rules) and pulled out four decks from a German site (translating some of the cards was interesting; I had to make a few educated guesses). At one point, I changed the sort order on my inventory listing. Just to make it easier to pull cards. I needed Runner, Objective, Challenge, Contact, Location, and Special cards and found it easier when sorted in that order.
When I got to the Objective cards, I was suprised to find I was light in this area with the three missing commons being Objectives and a majority of the others at 1 or 2 cards, even the commons. Almost as soon as I saw this, *ping*, I realized. I didn't have enough starter packs. A starter pack has to have a selection of all cards especially Objectives. Otherwise how could a couple of folks with starter packs play?
Well I'd noticed that the same place I'd been getting the boosters also had 4 boxes of starter packs (10 starter packs per box so 40 starter packs). They were $60 per box. Since I'd recently done some side work on a computer, I had the funds handy and picked up all four boxes. They arrived yesterday. I opened the very first starter pack and sure enough, of the 6 or 7 Objectives, one was one of the common's I was missing and all were needed to increase the low count Objectives I already had.
Doh!
So I now likely have a complete set or two (or three). I learned the difference between Starter Pack and Boosters
And I made someones Christmas.
Oh, she was nice enough to pack the four starter pack boxes with 18 individual booster packs
I've already given her good ratings but I think I'll send her a quick thank you message as well.
Carl
