Also, the value of magic cards (and, at the time, Decipher Star Wars) is at least partially tied to the existence of a heavily supported tournament scene with money and/or a good chunk of product on the line. FFG is basically completely against that, and when Netrunner players tried to organize such circuits they were basically told to go fly a kite.

Fewer people are willing to drop stacks of cash on cards when there's basically no chance of recouping anything.

Although, L5R players were willing to pay $30 a piece for Duels/Holdings so that they could win the right to decide which courtier fluttered his fan the most delicately in the story, so monetary reward isn't everything

L5R players are nuts, this is known.

L5R players are nuts, this is known.

Hark, is that the sound of katanas being drawn that I hear?

I'd advise you to run, but the Scorpion's ninja already know where you are so...

L5R players are nuts, this is known.

Hark, is that the sound of katanas being drawn that I hear?

I'd advise you to run, but the Scorpion's ninja already know where you are so...

A lightsabre should win over a katana (probably)...

I don´t think a competitive deck of this game would cost near 1000$. I would expect with two starters and two displays you could easily build competitive decks. So my guess would be that you need to spend around 250$ if you only open packs. if you buy the starters and then missing cards for competitive decks id guess around 150-180$.

If you would want a complete playset of every card of the base game it could cost you 1000$ but that would be my estimated max. We don´t know the amount of cards in the base set yet nor do we know the exact amounts of rares and legendaries and their distribution in the booster displays. but i fully expect this game to be one of the more expensive collectibles out there. the reason behind this. The base set is at least 170 cards big, I expect there to be around 70 rare/legendaries. Keep in mind all dice cards are at least rare (So you won´t be able to make decks out of commons or uncommons only). We know from the promo pictures that you can have two dice of a card for at least a couple of characters and upgrades. So if we assume a playset will consist of 2 cards each you would need to buy at least 4 displays (2*70=4*36). That simple calculation doesn´t include that legendaries are rarer than rares and the luck factor. So my guess would be that you would need to buy 4-6 displays and then fill in the rest through trades of duplicates or purchases.

Sooner or later we will see complete sets on ebay that possibly could cost lower than buying a gazillion boosters hoping to get that Vader

Sooner or later we will see complete sets on ebay that possibly could cost lower than buying a gazillion boosters hoping to get that Vader

sooner or later you could buy booster displays for 15$.

Also, the value of magic cards (and, at the time, Decipher Star Wars) is at least partially tied to the existence of a heavily supported tournament scene with money and/or a good chunk of product on the line . FFG is basically completely against that, and when Netrunner players tried to organize such circuits they were basically told to go fly a kite.

Fewer people are willing to drop stacks of cash on cards when there's basically no chance of recouping anything.

This bears reinforcing. Very few collectable games can claim to actually be expensive to play. Magic gets to have a third party market charging $12 a land because the prize to be won 'justifies' the expense. Similar for Yi-Gi-Oh. But when you start talking about a game like Force of Will, that ceases to be the case (part of that is also due to the rares distribution of that particular game)

From what I am looking at, the threshold of going from 0 to functional looks to be either 2 starters ($30) or 1 Starter and we'll say 5 boosters. (also $30). Compare to LCG which generally requires two of whatever core sets to get off the ground ($80). This game is going to target those people who's gaming budget looks more like an allowance. The people who work an hour a day or so at sweeping a kitchen, and keeping a room clean and their homework up to date, and get a fiver for their effort to spend at the weekly trip to play this game at whatever store is supporting it.

Everything about what we've seen so far screams to me that this isn't supposed to be a biggest collection wins kind of game at all. The points are there on the card, and have to mean something. Almost certainly it will be a deck building constraint. Additionally, the dice rolling adds a huge amount of variance to the game. It is very hard to plan for much of anything when you have wildly different uses for each die face. (This is on top of the variance inherent in randomized order deck games).

I think it is imperitive at this point to take a breath. Yes, the game is collectable. Yes, that means you don't know how much it will cost you to achieve whatever personal metric you choose to define as 'success' in this game. But remember a couple of things:

1. We have NO IDEA how deck construction works. Even the best guesses we have so far are based on premises that aren't givens.

2. We have no idea what the rarity distribution of the game is.

3. There are collectable games that require a LOT of money to play at the top, and also collectable games that require comparatively little money. We don't know yet which this will be, and don't have the information required to make that call. Magic being expensive didn't make Force of Will expensive, and Pirates of the Spanish Main (WIZkids) being cheap didn't make Heroclicks cheap. Let's see what GenCon has to show us before rushing to judgement. eh?

The idea that "you just pay more money to win!" is not exactly true. If you and your friends are sitting around the kitchen table playing a CCG, and one of you has spent 10 dollars, and one has spent 300 dollars, yes, odds are the player with more cards will win.

But once you actually get good at a game, in actual competition, how much you spend is irrelevant. At that point, like an LCG, the game costs essentially X dollars to play. Everyone has spent X dollars. You're all on equal footing. The wealthiest people don't win Magic tournaments, the best players do. Consistently.

So if you're looking for a game to play with friends around the house, there will always be a power imbalance. That's the nature of the beast. You both agree to spend 30 dollars, but one of you pulls an amazing rare and one of you doesn't. So the one who didn't get an amazing rare decides to go buy more cards, and the arms race begins. CCGs are not great for competitive people on a budget. If you just want to have fun and can accept the fact that sometimes you friend is going to draw his Thermal Detonator and just flat out blow you up, then this can still be a game you could enjoy. If you HAVE to win, then it's going to cost more money than an LCG. But once you've made that investment, it's all down to your skill. In my 8+ years of playing Magic, I typically find the people shouting "PAY TO WIN!" the loudest are the people who just aren't very good at the game.

Not to mention the fact that the secondary market could actually make this game CHEAPER than an LCG to be competitive. Just buy the singles you want, rather than 2 of every box that comes out. Magic singles can be pricey, but Force of Will (the #4 CCG behind Magic, YuGiOh, and Pokemon) is dirt cheap. Most super rares are just a couple dollars. This game (Destiny) certainly won't be more popular than Magic, so maybe the singles prices will be very attractive. Time will tell. Unless it gets just terrible reviews out of Gen Con, I'll be picking some up.

Sooner or later we will see complete sets on ebay that possibly could cost lower than buying a gazillion boosters hoping to get that Vader

If you have a saber, and are walking through a forest, and I jump out from behind a tree with my katana and behead you...

Sooner or later we will see complete sets on ebay that possibly could cost lower than buying a gazillion boosters hoping to get that Vader

If you have a saber, and are walking through a forest, and I jump out from behind a tree with my katana and behead you...

Nah, you'd ask me to play a couple of games you are not that evil

Sooner or later we will see complete sets on ebay that possibly could cost lower than buying a gazillion boosters hoping to get that Vader

If you have a saber, and are walking through a forest, and I jump out from behind a tree with my katana and behead you...

Beheading takes a LOT of effort even with a very sharp blade and Katanas are rather thick in terms of blade even though sharp.. Many historical executions tell of numerous tries to finally get the head off even with a stationery person rather than a moving target, a very heavy swing needing a good space radius would be needed avoiding branches. Cavalllry sabres intended for beheading actually flex a good amount to help combat resistance against the swing which would break the horsemans arm, Katanas are quite rigid. Also beheading aims for a small part of an extremity thus easily miss-able if the person stumbles etc. A centre-mass lunge/stab would be a much safer bet for effort, consistency as well as aim.

Erm..... did I just say that...? Ooops

For competitive Id saw 1 of each starter and 2 booster boxes should be solid to get a collection off the ground and some trade bait. if you decide to try to complete playsets which i hear are 2 of each card in a 30 card deck then 2 of each starter and 3 booster boxes should get you 90% outside mythics/legendaries

From the information gathered at GenCon, the set is 174 cards, 17/18 being legendary and legendary distribution being 1

In 6.

Card limits are 2 copies in a deck and a single copy of uniques.

From the information gathered at GenCon, the set is 174 cards, 17/18 being legendary and legendary distribution being 1

In 6.

Card limits are 2 copies in a deck and a single copy of uniques.

Confirmed, 30 card decks as well.

There is an asterisk that you will still probably need two copies of unique characters for the dice if you intend on having a full play set.

I'd be willing to be most people will need to spend no more than about $150 for a deck, excluding the starters possibly.

For a CCG, that's actually pretty good. I don't see how a non-promo card would go for much more than $15 a piece unless it is just completely insane.

I will say this, I wanted to hate this game both because of the CCG aspect and Dice and liked, and maybe even fell in love with, it when I played and heard more details about it at GenCon.

FFG is not going to be able to say how much a playset costs, because they do not control the secondary market. And if they're anything like Wizards of the Coast, they will probably never comment on the secondary market.

That said, the question is interesting so I decided to fiddle with some numbers to see what I could come up with.

The cost of a playset is going to come down to the Rares and Legendaries. There are 17 Legendaries, which makes a 34 card playset. You get (approximately) 6 Legendaries per booster box. Without buying singles, you'd need to buy 6 booster boxes (or Gravity Feeds or whatever we're calling them in this game) with minimal triplication to finish a playset. So a LOT of booster boxes are going to be opened as players and vendors alike try to get those Legendaries. This makes the commons/uncommons basically worthless as there will be so much excess that people will resort to blowing them out dirt cheap on eBay. For instance, there are 114 commons in a playset (57x2) and 108 commons in ONE box. Out of 6 boxes to get a Legendary playset, there is just going to be a ton of extras floating around.

Anyway, back to Legendaries. This part is nebulous as we don't REALLY know what the secondary market is going to look like for this game. We can probably assume that there will be 2-5 "really good" Legendaries that everyone wants, and those will probably command somewhere in the 15-20 dollar range. I'm a Magic player primarily, so my CCG knowledge is mostly going to come from that game. The latest large Magic set has 18 Mythic Rare (the equivalent of Legendary) cards. Their price breakdown (as of 08/08/2016 and according to MTGGoldfish.com) is as follows:

FFG is not going to be able to say how much a playset costs, because they do not control the secondary market. And if they're anything like Wizards of the Coast, they will probably never comment on the secondary market.

That said, the question is interesting so I decided to fiddle with some numbers to see what I could come up with.

The cost of a playset is going to come down to the Rares and Legendaries. There are 17 Legendaries, which makes a 34 card playset. You get (approximately) 6 Legendaries per booster box. Without buying singles, you'd need to buy 6 booster boxes (or Gravity Feeds or whatever we're calling them in this game) with minimal triplication to finish a playset. So a LOT of booster boxes are going to be opened as players and vendors alike try to get those Legendaries. This makes the commons/uncommons basically worthless as there will be so much excess that people will resort to blowing them out dirt cheap on eBay. For instance, there are 114 commons in a playset (57x2) and 108 commons in ONE box. Out of 6 boxes to get a Legendary playset, there is just going to be a ton of extras floating around.

Anyway, back to Legendaries. This part is nebulous as we don't REALLY know what the secondary market is going to look like for this game. We can probably assume that there will be 2-5 "really good" Legendaries that everyone wants, and those will probably command somewhere in the 15-20 dollar range. I'm a Magic player primarily, so my CCG knowledge is mostly going to come from that game. The latest large Magic set has 18 Mythic Rare (the equivalent of Legendary) cards. Their price breakdown (as of 08/08/2016 and according to MTGGoldfish.com) is as follows:

22.94

21.98

12.01

10.82

8.65

6.40

5.28

3.13

2.99

2.50

2.21

2.00

1.95

1.91

1.45

0.97

0.92

0.80

Since both supply and demand will be lower for Destiny than for Magic, it's fairly safe to assume that prices could look like this for the Awakenings set. That puts a playset of Legendaries at 212.32 (dropping the lowest priced Magic card to bring the list to 17 cards).

There are 43 rares which makes for an 86 card playset. I'd say the estimated value for regular rares is 50 cents to 5 dollars. Maybe a little higher because of the inclusion of the dice. Let's say the rares average out to 2 dollars each. That gives us a 172 dollar playset. Combined with the Legendaries, that's an estimated 384 dollars.

There are also the Starter Decks to consider. They are preselling at 12 bucks each, and it appears you need 2 of each of them to get a playset. That adds another 48 dollars, but also removes the need to buy some of the single rares, so we'll say it adds a total cost of 45 dollars.

Now we're looking at 432 dollars for everything. That's basically the cost of 5 booster boxes. And if we have perfect luck, opening 6 booster boxes gives us a playset, so singles (as they always are) are a more cost effective route than buying sealed product. But this doesn't take into account draft/sealed play, or trading with friends/people at your LGS. It's likely you'll be able to put together a playset for less than 400 dollars. That's basically the price of 1 good Standard Magic deck, so this game seems pretty affordable to me. At least based on these 100% made-up numbers that could very well be completely wrong! I'll probably buy 2 booster boxes, and fill in the gaps in my collection from there. Because like with all CCGs, you hope you open the best cards, and buy the cheapest cards singly.

OK. I'm over-simplifying it. Maybe there is an exception that you can make competitive decks w/o having to spend that much, but unlikely. Ultra rares will be the most powerful cards.

My guess on how much it takes to build a complete set is probably around $300-$400 per set; probably on the low-end of the spectrum. However, there will be duplicates, triples, or 4x of ultra rares that you need-unless the rules state you can only have 1 of each card. So I'm guessing you'll be spending $1000-$3000? to be competitive at Nationals/Worlds for the core set?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

I'm just going to go back to the original post and make the point that if you play sealed formats only, then your cost to win isn't any higher than anyone else at that tournament.

FFG is not going to be able to say how much a playset costs, because they do not control the secondary market. And if they're anything like Wizards of the Coast, they will probably never comment on the secondary market.

That said, the question is interesting so I decided to fiddle with some numbers to see what I could come up with.

The cost of a playset is going to come down to the Rares and Legendaries. There are 17 Legendaries, which makes a 34 card playset. You get (approximately) 6 Legendaries per booster box. Without buying singles, you'd need to buy 6 booster boxes (or Gravity Feeds or whatever we're calling them in this game) with minimal triplication to finish a playset. So a LOT of booster boxes are going to be opened as players and vendors alike try to get those Legendaries. This makes the commons/uncommons basically worthless as there will be so much excess that people will resort to blowing them out dirt cheap on eBay. For instance, there are 114 commons in a playset (57x2) and 108 commons in ONE box. Out of 6 boxes to get a Legendary playset, there is just going to be a ton of extras floating around.

Anyway, back to Legendaries. This part is nebulous as we don't REALLY know what the secondary market is going to look like for this game. We can probably assume that there will be 2-5 "really good" Legendaries that everyone wants, and those will probably command somewhere in the 15-20 dollar range. I'm a Magic player primarily, so my CCG knowledge is mostly going to come from that game. The latest large Magic set has 18 Mythic Rare (the equivalent of Legendary) cards. Their price breakdown (as of 08/08/2016 and according to MTGGoldfish.com) is as follows:

22.94

21.98

12.01

10.82

8.65

6.40

5.28

3.13

2.99

2.50

2.21

2.00

1.95

1.91

1.45

0.97

0.92

0.80

Since both supply and demand will be lower for Destiny than for Magic, it's fairly safe to assume that prices could look like this for the Awakenings set. That puts a playset of Legendaries at 212.32 (dropping the lowest priced Magic card to bring the list to 17 cards).

There are 43 rares which makes for an 86 card playset. I'd say the estimated value for regular rares is 50 cents to 5 dollars. Maybe a little higher because of the inclusion of the dice. Let's say the rares average out to 2 dollars each. That gives us a 172 dollar playset. Combined with the Legendaries, that's an estimated 384 dollars.

There are also the Starter Decks to consider. They are preselling at 12 bucks each, and it appears you need 2 of each of them to get a playset. That adds another 48 dollars, but also removes the need to buy some of the single rares, so we'll say it adds a total cost of 45 dollars.

Now we're looking at 432 dollars for everything. That's basically the cost of 5 booster boxes. And if we have perfect luck, opening 6 booster boxes gives us a playset, so singles (as they always are) are a more cost effective route than buying sealed product. But this doesn't take into account draft/sealed play, or trading with friends/people at your LGS. It's likely you'll be able to put together a playset for less than 400 dollars. That's basically the price of 1 good Standard Magic deck, so this game seems pretty affordable to me. At least based on these 100% made-up numbers that could very well be completely wrong! I'll probably buy 2 booster boxes, and fill in the gaps in my collection from there. Because like with all CCGs, you hope you open the best cards, and buy the cheapest cards singly.

I like your post however using instead of MTG, look at Dicemasters. The "Super rares" were selling upwards of 100 in the first 2 months and the distrubition was much more similar to destiny as well. When it (any collectable) first releases you are paying price of the good at balloon price. I could do an in depth breakdown how you did but honestly I am to lazy.

DiceMasters distribution is not that similar to Destiny.

DM doesn't gaureentee a Rare/SR per pack, it entirely possible to purchase 3 DM packs (equal to one pack of Destiny) and not pull a Rare let alone an SR.

Furthermore as to the initial cost of the AvX SRs, that showcases the largest gap between DM and Destiny's distribution. AvX had 4 SRs per case of products. So essentially 1 SR per per 90 packs. Compared to the alleged distribution of 1 Legendary per 6 packs of Destiny. Or $18 per Legandary vs $90 for one DM SR. Now there are more Legandary cards in this set the SRs in AvX but there is an absolute stark contrast in those ratios.

Additionally, the spike in AvX SR prices is attributable to two other factors. First AvX went out if print very quickly. Second only 2 of the AvX SRs reach those price levels, Tsarina and Gobby. Mr Fantastic and Wolverine came no where close. The reason being that Gobby and Tsarina were broken, and the others were fairly terrible.

Now Destiny could be wildly popular and initial stock could fail to meet demand, which would drive prices up, but FFG is less likely then Wiz-kids to allow product to go out of print so quickly. Secondly FFG, unlike Wiz-kids, playtests their games. It's unlikely that Legandary cards will be as far ahead of anything else like Gobby or Tsarina were.

For all those reasons I think the argument that DM is a more apt comparison for Destiny's distribution to be untenable.

DiceMasters distribution is not that similar to Destiny.

DM doesn't gaureentee a Rare/SR per pack, it entirely possible to purchase 3 DM packs (equal to one pack of Destiny) and not pull a Rare let alone an SR.

Furthermore as to the initial cost of the AvX SRs, that showcases the largest gap between DM and Destiny's distribution. AvX had 4 SRs per case of products. So essentially 1 SR per per 90 packs. Compared to the alleged distribution of 1 Legendary per 6 packs of Destiny. Or $18 per Legandary vs $90 for one DM SR. Now there are more Legandary cards in this set the SRs in AvX but there is an absolute stark contrast in those ratios.

Additionally, the spike in AvX SR prices is attributable to two other factors. First AvX went out if print very quickly. Second only 2 of the AvX SRs reach those price levels, Tsarina and Gobby. Mr Fantastic and Wolverine came no where close. The reason being that Gobby and Tsarina were broken, and the others were fairly terrible.

Now Destiny could be wildly popular and initial stock could fail to meet demand, which would drive prices up, but FFG is less likely then Wiz-kids to allow product to go out of print so quickly. Secondly FFG, unlike Wiz-kids, playtests their games. It's unlikely that Legandary cards will be as far ahead of anything else like Gobby or Tsarina were.

For all those reasons I think the argument that DM is a more apt comparison for Destiny's distribution to be untenable.

You make valid points, however, in my opinion

Something else to consider, the secondary market will only go as high as we the players let it. If each super rare is valued close to equally, and IMO they should be close this being a balanced game, there will be no reason to have 20 dollar or more legendaries, especially if we the players are not willing to pay it. Barring of course an insane distribution similar to MTG in the early days where some rares were just far more difficult to get. Just my opinion but I have a feeling this being star wars will inflate the secondary market prices on that merit alone

Something else to consider, the secondary market will only go as high as we the players let it. If each super rare is valued close to equally, and IMO they should be close this being a balanced game, there will be no reason to have 20 dollar or more legendaries, especially if we the players are not willing to pay it. Barring of course an insane distribution similar to MTG in the early days where some rares were just far more difficult to get. Just my opinion but I have a feeling this being star wars will inflate the secondary market prices on that merit alone

Seeing as how some (poor souls) were willing to pay 200 bucks for a pair of promos (that are now available for as little as a quarter of that, 4 days later), I think the demand for singles is going to be there. But supply of Legendaries will be much more of a known quantity than the mysterious supply of those promos. Plus the hype of being the first one to get Destiny cards was real. "We" don't have control of the secondary market, as any online community is not fully representative of the whole game playing audience. You can only control what you are willing to spend, but if others are willing to be pay 50 dollars for BB-8, then he's worth 50 dollars (note: he's really, really not).

200$ boggles the mind. You have to buy the starters anyway, I know the promos look nice, but $200 just to swap out the full art version? That's insane. I would pay someone in person $10 for both, $0 if it's online. That said, for a legendary I really want and didn't get, I'd pay up to $20 for it.