Gotcha.

All kidding aside, I do wish there was some form of rare in this game. One of the coolest things about buying magic is that it's like playing the lottery except you really can't lose. I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who played a CCG at any point in time that would say they didn't love opening boosters. It's just awesome. It's like playing Diablo 2 and watching a corpse explode into gold and items. It's magical.

Flip over to AGoT and I've never been particularly excited about opening a chapter pack. Sure I'm excited about new cards, but I know they're in there. It's not like "OMG!!!!!! A BLACK LOTUS!!!!!" It's, "Yay! Now I can play my deck!" Sure there's excitement, but there is literally no reason for me to ever buy another pack and there really isn't any "Omg… omg… omg…. what's in here?" factor. I think this winds up being a weakness of AGoT in all irony. Look at Magic, the singles market increases the affordability of the game (people almost give away their commons) whereas in AGoT that just isn't the case. I don't have 50 refugees. I can't give any away if I want to have a bunch of decks. There's no incentive for me to go buy a pack again. I'm just going to pay $15 to get a couple cards I want and a bunch of cards I don't. Bleh. Count me out.

Enter foils.

Ever get a foil common? Ever hold it up in victory as you realize you now get to play with a foil Shock and your opponent's are going to gape at it's shiny awesomeness? Yea… That's right… I have a foil Shock and you don't. Ever cackle as a foil 1/1 creature pokes your opponent, happy just because it's foily. Foils are awesome. AWESOME!!!! I wish I had a foil Direwolf Pup. I would mock all of the non-foil cards my opponent was playing as my foil pup was used with Shaggydog to deny them their challenges.

Conclusion: This game needs foils. Not a ton! But a few in a pack. It would create a trade market. It would create a singles market. Believe me, there will be someone who wants to play an all foil deck. They will spend tons of money just to do it. Money spent on the game? Chock it up as a good thing. I would gladly go back and buy a second refugee pack just for a shot at more foil refugees. 1 isn't enough!!!! I want all foil refugees!!!!!! Get a foil Scourge and hate Martell? Trade it for that guys Northern Cavalry Flank. Sell it to that dude over there for $1.

What's the impediment to getting this done? I have no idea. Is the price worth paying? Gimme my foil Northern Cavalry Flanks!!!!!!!!

The question: How many foils would you want in a chapter pack? What's the number that you would seriously consider buying another pack you already had a copy of just to get some shiny badassness?

Don't like foils? Move along. This is not the thread you're looking for (though I would seriously appreciate a response of "I have no interest in foils" or the like).

I actually enjoy that all of the players of an LCG receive the same materials. It keeps the focus on the game itself. LCGs are for card players who love the game in and of itself. I would look unfavorably at any randomized aspects of chapter packs, etc. I moved to LCGs from MTG to get away from that. I never got excited opening booster packs; I hated it, in fact. I like theorizing and deck building, not going on an Easter egg hunt for cards. I understand that in your scenario, we would all still be getting the same cards, functionally. But, I still think that including random foils, etc., is a bad idea for LCGs.

"I have no interest in foils"

Vaapad said:

+1

this isnt magic.

Foils are neat, but too expensive at this scale. I think the best we can hope for are A.I. cards going forward.

You came to an LCG forum hoping to get a good response to "I want foils and booster packs!!!!??"

Please, we're not 12 yrs old any more. I have no iterest in foils.

I came over to Lcg because of the even pitch. No hunting, everyone has access to the cards they need. Just find the packs with the cards you want for your deck. And continue from there. But.. I will admit, i do love foils as well. I saw the Rares title to this thread and said What the? Then i saw MDC. O.K., well see what he's up to. Rares? definately no. Some collectible aspect introduced to the game? mmmm yes, i could go for that. Like was mentioned on another thread, How to appeal to the other guy. We talked about making it exciting and viable for a newer player to just walk into this game and play in a competitive forum, Yes, we can buy the core set and play with friends on a casual level. But for this game to grow and flourish it may need to experiment in testing new waters. Just experiment. Be interesting to see the results and response.

They could do a few things to introduce a collectible aspect to the game. Yes i used "collectible" on an lcg thread.

1. FFG randomly replaces some cards out with a x3 of a card in every pack. When you open a pack to satisfy the thrill of the collector in us, there's that anticipation of something unique unique. in a release of a cycle there will be certain cards made foil and randomly inserted into packs. If you don't care about the foils you can go online and trade and sell with those that are hungry to collect. There would be no rare chasing. Just some added thrill. If you hate that foil you got. play with them in the meantime until you can swap them out.

2. The game kits are starting to do this and i'm excited about it - Alternate art on cards! I'm totally psyched about playing for alternate Daenarys and Valar. If FFG could throw some foils in there for future kits, that would be awesome. I have a playmat i won. i love it. At our tourney i think more people were excited about the alternate house cards from the previous kit than the playmat.

3. have limited edition releases of alternate art on cards. Maybe some of the older cards with ugly art that everyone hates redone. LImited release or print on demand. Now we have a long restricted list of cards that you can only have 1 of in your deck. Do up all those cards special and have a print on demand/ limited release or future game kit prizes with redone 'ugly cards'. (And, why is KoHH not on there?)

Now that we're on Game kits. Could FFG please bring back some league incentives. Like they did with Balerion. Create some hype all year round just not for kits and regionals. that would be sweet. Something that gets everyone involved at every level.

The other guy: What kind of gamers make up the Thrones community right now? People who got turned off the ccg rare hunting. People who love George Martin. People who like medieval themes. People who were searching for strategy card games(myself. then i found out about martin and his awesome world)….When ever we show up to the gaming store and start talking thrones, everyone you meet is reading Martins books or watching the show. Then you tell them there's a card game. "there's a card game?" Yes there's a card game. A new game store opened up downtown Halifax where i live. It's Saturday night and people are catching buses and walking past from the pubs. " Man this place is more happening than the bars!" Some will walk in and check what's going on. Then they'll stop and backedal. "What, there's a thrones card game?" yes there is. NOW. HOW DO WE ATTRACT PEOPLE TO THE GAME? Many love Martin and are fascinated with the idea of there being a card game. Is there any way we can attract people who like collectable aspect of gaming and keep the rest of the gmaing community happy?

Longterm i believe LCG is less frustrating, don't feel used, like i'm competing in an arms race. Monetarily pays off way better long run. But what if you're the other guy with $15 in your pocket, not $40 (CND). I want to play something competitve and come away with something to show for it. Thrones and our group is always ready to show someone how to play. But will they come back? How do you make a person who only has $15 in their pocket play and come back? WE need an awesome factor to shake things up besides the restricted list. REstricted lists help the metas. FFG need something to shake up the outside too. Shake that 'Other Guy' and smack him and make him want to play!.

snaggrriss said:

~Dobbler's face is on that card. Are you saying he's ugly?

TBH it doesn't really look much like him.

I think Dennis has finally met his match with someone who can out troll him.

@mdc273: I'd say that you are overestimating how many people in Magic open packs to get foils. If they get foils, they are happy, but it doesn't make a lot of people to buy more packs for foils (major reason being to draft or to get more rares/cards they are missing for set, deck, etc.).

@Vaapad: I'd say that foils, boosters AND new art(hehe!), not to mention playing a card game - all fall into category of being 12 year old by default. Some people can run around 'cause they got new art Cersei, while others will be in tears of joy 'cause they got foiled version of Cersei. Pretty much both of them behave as children.^_____^

So by default, I say everyone on this forum is a 12 year old. QED.

Wait, I'm confused. So if I play Thrones with my wooden house card and regionals champ playmat, and my alt-art cards, does that make me childish, or douchey…or a troll? All three?!

A counterargument might be that if you don't want these things, or don't find some sort of childish glee in them (maybe not for foils, granted), then you are the Thrones equivalent of a hipster. A Thronester. A Thripster… ah, you get the idea.

BBSB12 said:

Look above - the post you're referencing wasn't mine. Sadly, I can't stop other people from choosing the avatar that I've adopted.

Danigral said:

I'd draw a line at foiled wooden House cards with alternative art. Now those are completely unacceptable!

@Vaapad: my bad.=)

Danigral said:

Somebody gets at least part of it, thanks Danigral.

This post pretty much highlights why there IS value in randomized distribution of foils. Most people like swag. Foils are swag.

And to those talking about random distribution, you'll notice I did not mention a thing about booster packs or changing the distribution. All I said was focused on the premise of adding foiliness to the chapter pack distribution.

And what is this about trolling? Are there people in this community that are hostile to ideas that don't have ANY card distribution or gameplay impact whatsoever? That seems odd.

Also, apparently no one knows how foil distribution works in Magic. Foil Commons replace commons. Foil Uncommons replace… Commons. Foil Rares replace… Commons. So you literally get more instead of less in Magic when you get a random foil. Never mind uber packs. There are some CCGs where you would open a pack of all rares on very rare occassion.

The distribution of foils in Magic is 1 in 70. So basically what I was suggesting was you make 1 card in 60 a foil (or more, there's validity in one copy of every card being a foil) of the card it already was (randomly replace The Reader with a foil The Reader). So, bang, you open your pack and you know all the cards and try to find the foil. Then you might get the random pack where every card is a foil. Or you open your pack and trade all the non-foils you don't want to your friends for all the foils you do want. Or you have an urge for triplicate foils of every card and buy three of every chapter pack (meaning you now have 6 copies of every card that you might very well give away, or package and sell cheap). Or you hate foils and give them to all your friends who actually like foils. Additionally, if you make it so that a significant number of cards are foil AND randomized, you create an opportunity for drafting. Say there are 20 foils in a pack. You now have 40 non-foil cards that are randomly distributed and you could do an actual draft (this would even result in about the same price as a Magic Booster Draft, one of the selling points of Magic).

I'm surprised so few people appear to understand the foil distribution in Magic. I would've never guessed that.

Not sure if topic is troll or not but I'll post anyway.

Rares would turn me off from the game. Isn't the whole idea of an LCG to *not* have rares? Wanting them seems to me like you're actually just saying the CCG format is better.

Foils I have no opinion on. Personally I'd ignore them entirely if they existed; as long as I still know what I'm getting with regards to the actual gameplay of the cards contained in a pack, I don't care.

I'd say that foils could be a cute addition to the packs, but question is whether there are that many people who would really go busting packs to get foils. In the end Magic boosters are not about foils (IMHO), but about randomness (I have a feeling that most of Magic players are much less happy when they get foil Illusionist's Bracers compared to opening non-foil Domri Rade in their pack).

Randomizing packs just goes against the whole concept and selling point of LCG - no rares, no randomness, specific content per pack. That is the reason why AGoT does not have to compete against MtG for new players or for keeping old players. If you remove that, you are left with too-complex for large market version of MtG with no real tournament support, smaller gamers base and, let's be honest, way weaker R&D deparment than WotC have. So if you try to go that way AGoT will lose its current gamers base, won't get new gamers ('cause they'll probably choose Magic anyway) and will happily collapse on itself.

mdc273 said:

Considering this is a forum for AGOT, I'm not surprised. Many of us play this game because distribution isn't random, and all we know about Magic distribution is the cards are random.

mdc273 said:

I believe that you genuinely are trying to win an internet argument that we should all quit Thrones because Magic is apparently a better game and cheaper to play. The side effect is that you've created quite possibly the largest sustained trolling ever to occur on these boards. Ever since realizing that this morning, I've been chuckling at how many threads have been spent over the subject and how many people you've pulled into your Thrones vs Magic arguments. Heck, you got me several times and even have me posting again here.

Well done, sir.

Now I have a bit more constructive suggestion regarding draft. What FFG can do is to start releasing booster packs at the same time as chapter packs. This way, people will get a chance to draft if they want to (and those who ever drafted cube draft, regular draft, CCG draft, MtG draft, etc. will agree that it's a looot of fun!) and people who don't will just buy regular chapter packs. If FFG does it let's say for the whole cycle and finds that it makes profit this way, we'll get a drafting community going at the same time as constructed one. If not, that's life.=)

Am I understanding correctly that the suggestion is for FFG to randomly change one card in each Chapter Pack to a foil so that we're still getting 3 copies of the same 20 cards in each pack, but 1 of them happens to be a foil?

What incentive does FFG have to do that? What benefit does FFG get out of creating/supporting a trade and/or singles market for this game? They don't get a piece of that, do they? So why should they care?

If I'm not mistaken, the point of foils and other chase cards to a manufacturer like FFG is to get people to buy more packs. With the "1 in 60; random replacement of a card with a foil" distribution system, FFG would have to expect people to continue to buy the same Chapter Pack at least 20 times, at $15 a pop, trying to collect all the foils. Really? Is anyone really going to buy $300 worth of the same Chapter Pack at a minimum? Each month? The cost of single foils on a secondary market would have to be truly extravagant in order to justify such a market! The minimum price of a foil on the singles market would quickly become $15 - the price the seller effectively paid for it since the other 59 cards in the pack were just so much wasted cardboard after the first 2 or 3 copies of the chapter pack. So, your "all foil" 60-card deck is going to cost you around $900 to put together. Minimum.

So it doesn't seem likely to me that people are really going to chase these chase cards. And if people aren't really going to chase them, they're not going to buy more than the 1-3 copies of the CP they are already buying. And if that's the case, there is no incentive for FFG to do this in the first place.

Plus, I'm not convinced the game needs a trade or singles market - something I certainly haven't been missing. Honestly, if someone needs such "collectable" aspects as foils to be added to AGoT in order for them to continue to enjoy the game, they would probably be happier with a true CCG.

While undoubtably cool, I think foils are better as game kit, regionals, and other event prizes. They'd be cool as Gencon or Worlds participation prizes, for example. Other than that, I don't see any benefit to FFG, or to the players, in making them part of the LCG distribution model.

ktom said:

Okay, let's do a redirect here and replace foils with alternate art. Apparently foils aren't as popular as I expected.

@HoyaLawya - Well done, sir? Not sure how to take that… I am not trying to get anyone in AGoT to play Magic. I am trying to get some marketability to the game so that there is potential for competition with Magic and Netrunner for popularity. AGoT is a footnote in the NYC gaming community. A tiny one.

@BBSB12 - Ironically Ktom's post here becomes a good highlight of why they shouldn't do it. The benefit is minimal to FFG, the cost is great. Whereas with a foil they would just need to figure out how to add foils to a chapter pack, with boosters they'd need to adjust their entire distribution model to support two types of purchasing methods. I'm glad someone shows interest in the idea, meaning there is merit to it (though I didn't doubt that in all honesty). I just don't think boosters would ever really work from a business standpoint.

@ Ktom - So let's talk more generically and change the general premise and then I'll get back to your post.

Let's take away foil and alternate art and the like and replace it with "collectibles". This could be a black border instead of white. It could be a mirrored card. It could really be anything. The point is to create collectability within the chapter packs. I already have one person who admits they might buy a second chapter pack if they knew there was a good chance they would either get an alternate art version of a card they like or be able to trade one they did get for it So collectibility is the main goal (not actually having rares).

Now to your post.

You also more or less are correct, but I would actually say replace 1 copy of every card with a collectible. More incentive to buy multiple packs due to consistency, but all packs ultimately have the same content. So if a person wants to create an all collectible deck for every house, they could buy the cards. If they wanted just one house, they could trade the cards. That person who bought all those collectibles might give away the non-collectibles to friends.

I also just outlined the incentive. If they make it so buying multiple packs has a benefit, people will actually do it. I truly might consider buying multiple of the more epic packs if I could work out a trade with my friends or just wanted the special cards. Imagine there are X collectibles of a card in your meta. X collectibles is not enough to satisfy demand for the collectibles. Therefore, someone is willing to go out and buy that extra CP and trade off or sell the cards to the people who want them. FFG just made $15. That should be enough incentive to look into the costs associated with it.

The 1:70 ratio is terrible, that's why I proposed a much higher ratio. Not sure if you missed that. 1:3 is probably where it would need to be. 1:2 just seems to high for collectibility, but it might work. 1:3 seems pretty high, too. There's some number that is acceptable, but not ordinary. Better to err on higher odds than lower odds at first I would think.

I can't imagine anyone actually needs collectibles to enjoy the game. I sure as hell don't. They are fun. Fun things attract more players. More players is rarely a bad thing. The point is the marketability of the game. I'm not sure if you have an amazing meta or something where you are. In NYC, the AGoT LCG meta is 1/4 - 1/5 the size of the Netrunner meta and none of them have any interest in converting. It's probably a joke compared to Magic, but I haven't gone to anything Magic related since the Manhattan FLGS closed down. This game is relatively unmarketable as it stands right now. It needs something to attract people. This would at least be a step in the right direction.

Adding to that, let's consider people actually start buying multiple chapter packs. Most people will now have extra cards. If a new player swings by, you might actually have picked up all those extra cards from someone and have an actual playable deck for them to try. You wouldn't even have to hack your decks apart to put starter decks together. There would be enough extra cards floating around the meta that you could just have starter decks sitting around. Then that player actually likes the game and you say "well take this deck and just give me it back when you make your own". This potentially creates a new, significantly lower barrier to entry. Double win. This is why I made a point of the singles/trade market.

The big question is what is the cost to do this and what are the benefits? What risks can FFG take? I doubt anyone can answer that, but would anyone really object to getting a random collectible in a chapter pack at no additional cost? Multiple random collectibles? I doubt it. And there is incentive for FFG to look into it.

Glad at least a couple people are taking my post seriously. Apparently I went overboard on the original, but meh. At least it puts something interesting on the boards! (Or so I'm told)

I don't feel a need for foils or rare search cards, but if handled the right way, I wouldn't have an issue with it either.

The LCG model got me to get back into playing cards because I wouldn't have to power-search for rare cards like a CCG. So I wouldn't mess with that model in any way. Chapter packs should still have 3 copies each of 20 new cards. Now if they wanted to toss a single "premium" card into each chapter pack, that I could live with. PROVIDED that it's just an alternate/fancy version of an already existing card--either one that's in that pack, or a previously printed one. Just alternate art/appearance, no change in game stats. So its a bonus, not something you have to search out.

That could create a bit of a singles market for LCG cards and would certainly be cool, without devaluing the LCG model. A fancy Northern Cavalry Flank would be cool to have, and I'd be stoked if I found it in a pack. I might even shell out a couple bucks to buy one. Just don't make a "Southern Cavalry Flank" for Baratheon that does the same thing, but is rare and can only be obtained if you're lucky or buy the thing. Collecting should remain option, just like the alternate house cards and other assorted swag we get. Not something required to compete in the game.

And this is all provided that implementing something like this would not raise the overall cost to the consumer.

Depends on how much room for error FFG has. After all they can try any of these suggestions for one-two cycles (or one-two packs) to figure out the community's response without adding an overcost (if FFG has money for that kind of gamble). This way you can think of any kind of experimentation as some version of game night kits. You don't have to force everyone to buy the new version of product, but offer it as a way to try to get new people in a game.

E.g., let's say a booster cycle is added to the next cycle based on same cards, but providing foils/alternative art cards/any other extra initiative to buy those (cards signed by artists/CCG days cards). It can be done in small run the same way night kits are done and I'm pretty sure that people interested in drafting and/or foils/alternative art will buy such product. So no overcost to regular CP buyers at all.

Cool, glad I finally got the concept I intended through. Much appreciated on the positive, constructive feedback. I'll keep that in mind for my next absurd post. It involves asking non-AGoT playing Netrunner players their opinions of AGoT and detailing out why myself and a friend of mine chose to quit AGoT (I've actually played again since the FAQ and am somewhat interested in the game again). I might even ask the other guys that play NR and AGoT what their opinion of both is.