My wife and I haven't even completed NotZ yet due to parenting and work obligations, but I have faithfully added every pack, box, and book to my collection. All are still in the packaging (except my two cores). I'm considering opening everything up and organizing it in binders and in my Broken Token artist's case.

Should I do this, or just open up one pack/box at a time in order as we progress?

I suggest all at once. I like having the larger card pool/investigator options.

My only reservation is that you may hate the game and want to sell your collection. If so it will be more $s if you keep them packaged. You need to be the judge of that risk.

I have the artist case and insert. It works well. I have not played the Carcosa campaign yet (I am working my way through The Forgotten Age as it comes out), but I have all of the non-player cards in the Artist case. I keep the player cards sorted in a binder, although that needs to be reorganized. Such is life.

I say do it.

Sort out the generic encounters (found in each of the deluxes) and order the encounter sets with the token information card as the bookmark. That makes it easy to pick up and play each scenario.

13 hours ago, Duciris said:

I have the artist case and insert. It works well. <snipped>

I wholeheartedly second this approach. Works great for me, too.

Go for it open them all! Though I do not have an artist case, I also keep all my player cards sorted in a binder. My favorite binders are the Case It Zip binders you can find those on Amazon.

I guess it is very much a personal preference question, so I could say: Just try out what works for you. The obvious difficulty being that once you open it all up, you cannot very easily go back.

I personally really enjoy

1. playing a campaign "full" progression style for the first time (i.e. with the card pool that is out by that time), and then (if time allows) a second time with the card pool including the whole campaign and everything released before.
2. Completing a scenario and getting a "reward" to open a new pack and peek at the player cards and then work on my deck with the XP that I got. I also avoid spoilers if I can.

Of course, the first point would still be possible after opening it all up (and easy if you build decks on ArkhamDB with the relevant packs switched on) - just the second would be harder. I also get impatient waiting for possibilities to play and progress, and have to restrain myself to not open up packs (currently completed the first two scenarios of the path to Carcosa - I know it is much further than you are, but still, I am pretty much exactly one campaign behind...) - but so far it has been working for me.

I guess, one characteristic (you can decide whether advantage or disadvantage) of playing pack by pack is that you experience the card pool more slowly - I thought I could be overwhelmed by the mass of cards if I suddenly opened everything, and might end up not playing many of them?

Hmm - maybe that helps. I just thought I'd add another perspectives to the ones given above

Hope you enjoy Dunwich and such - the full campaigns really make the game awesome...

Thank you all for the excellent advice! After hearing your suggestions, I'll be opening everything shortly, and getting it all organized!

Is there a better feeling than unboxing a new game??? ?

On 7/6/2018 at 6:12 AM, ParinorB said:

<snipped>

I personally really enjoy

1. playing a campaign "full" progression style for the first time (i.e. with the card pool that is out by that time), and then (if time allows) a second time with the card pool including the whole campaign and everything released before.

<snipped>

+1 on what ParinorB said.

What I've done is buy each core expansion and pile them together, but then I only buy/open the monthly decks when I reach that scenario. So I have the cores with all the characters and their starter cards available, and only such card upgrades available as I've reached in play.

I say you unpack 1 campaign at a time.

The massive card pool becomes hard to grasp when youve barely taken in the basic core set cards.

On 7/6/2018 at 5:12 AM, ParinorB said:

I personally really enjoy

1. playing a campaign "full" progression style for the first time (i.e. with the card pool that is out by that time), and then (if time allows) a second time with the card pool including the whole campaign and everything released before.
2. Completing a scenario and getting a "reward" to open a new pack and peek at the player cards and then work on my deck with the XP that I got. I also avoid spoilers if I can.

On 7/8/2018 at 3:25 PM, TalisDiorn said:

+1 on what ParinorB said.

+2 on what ParinorB said. I think having only the card pool available at where you are in the campaign is the only way to go and have never understood why anyone would want to pull from the whole card pool. Doesn't make sense to me. I do the same with LotR, but to each their own.

44 minutes ago, dizpatcher said:

+2 on what ParinorB said. I think having only the card pool available at where you are in the campaign is the only way to go and have never understood why anyone would want to pull from the whole card pool. Doesn't make sense to me. I do the same with LotR, but to each their own. 

A lot of us enjoy building starter decks with more than 14-15 cards per class (core + deluxe expansion). Variety in deck building is fun. Also, it was the developers intent to play with the entire pool. eg. The game is designed to have the entire player card pool available when you start the campaign.

Not saying you are wrong in doing this, I do understand why you have this house rule and if people like a house rule, more power to them.. I am more confused on why you don't understand why people play the game as designed/with the full card pool.