I took advantage of the big sale to pick up a booster box of each of the 5 sets available (all sets except the Arkham edition). Prior to this I had only played using the Arkham edition starters and the Eldritch Edition premium starter (I also have the chapter packs,in anticipation of the core set eventually coming out). I'd always resisted buying more boosters for the game (I figured it would be too costly to get "caught up"), but have been looking forward to the switch to the Living Card Game format.

With the 5 booster boxes, I am hoping I'll have a reasonable "fixed shared pool" of cards to make decks with for casual play with some friends, but was wondering if it would be worth it to track down Arkham edition boosters as well? Since arkham was the first base set, does it contain a lot of useful basic cards (I know it has cards like shotgun blasts, crafting the elder sign, binding, etc.) that aren't otherwise available and that I should look at picking up? Were any/many of the cards re-printed in the Eldritch edition set or other expansion sets (perhaps with the same effects but a different name)?

Also, since the eldritch edition was a larger base set, would it be worthwhile to pick up a second booster box of it?

Thanks.

there are definitely some must have cards in the arkham set but i imagine most will see a reprint in the coreset, or atleast new cards that do the same thing. and since they are hard to find and pop up rarely on ebay id just wait until coreset releases, unless you find a great deal somewhere. like you said you play casually so youre probably not willing to spend $3-5 per booster pack.

if you know exactly what cards youre looking for you can always try the trade forum too.

I'm actually debating picking up a bunch of Arkham Starters. Since each starter has 20 non-fixed cards (10 C, 8 U, and 2 R), it would be like two boosters for $2($1/booster). Or can anyone spot a flaw in this plan?

Eldritch does have (most) of the basic utility, though chasing down some Arkham singles might help a lot. If all else fails, Core should help you out to round things out a little but if you'll find the opportunity to get a box of Arkham for cheap, why not?

From what I remember, Arkham always had a great number of utility cards that I found myself coming back to on a regular basis. Sure there would be good replacements down the line, but cards like Binding ended up being auto-includes whenever I built a deck with that faction regardless of it's overall theme. It'd definately all about personal preferance, but I do have some fond connections to that block, let alone set.