Rare, but anything wanted?

Again, before 401games moved, I picked up one of their fairly new repacks. They put together 20 rare magic cards for $4.50. I figured, for the price, I might as well check one out. Beast case, I get a couple artifact cards that, in a perfect world, would have cost me more than $4.50 to pick up at the store, worst case....I don't.

Well, let's take it card by card and see what we end up with.


Volrath's Dungeon
$0.50 - Not a keeper, but an interesting effect for reducing cards in an opponents hand.


Pheres-Band Warchief
$0.50 - average being 4 casting cost for a 3/3 is about average but the ability works for a Centaur deck.


Hypnotic Siren
$0.50 - Why would you want to use the ability for 7 total mana - I must be missing something.


Drowner of Hope
$0.50 - Getting closer to an artifact, but still no luck.


Amplified
$0.50 - Okay, that's a pretty darn good special ability for double to power and double the toughness. Can understand why a 1/1 creature would cost 4 total mana.


Plaguebearer
$1.00 - Expensive to use the ability likely in some cases, but to be able to re-use it is a great ability.


Dubious Challenge
$0.50 - I haven;t looked it up, but wonder if the two exiled creatures is a choice. Sounds like it, which gives a bunch of creatures on on your side and in play.


Elephant Resurgence
$0.50 - Only two mana to cast given that everyone benefits from the spell.


Archon of Redemption
$0.50 - Neat ability for life gain.


Palisade Giant
$0.50 - A good deflector of damage.


Task Mage Assembly
$0.50 - Interesting way to shut the game down quickly given anyone can use the ability.

Hmmm....at this point, I see where this pack is going...roughly $5 of cards for $4.50 - not big on savings, but hope there is an artifact or two still at least.


Herald of Torment
$0.50 - Bestow ability again...huh.


Twinning Glass
$0.50 - Finally an artifact, and one that I don't already have so, success! Well, one card at least.


Biorhythm
$1.00 - That can be quick for ending a game.


Mistform Skyreaver
$0.50 - My favourite - a nice big baddie!


Zhur-Taa Ancient
$0.50


Exert Influence
$0.25 - High casting cost and a meh power.


Brutal Expulsion
$0.50 - If you want something to have no colour, should just make it an artifact.


Fateful Showdown
$0.50 - Painful ability in so much as, you may not have many cards in your hand, and if you do - poof! Switch them up.


Coax from the Blind Eternities
$0.50 - I will giver it a mark for the fact you can use a card outside the game based on the ability. It is very rare to see such an effect.

So overall - $10.75 would have to have been spent on the cards individually. That said, only one artifact for me at $0.50, so I would have been better off spending the money on artifacts, but now I know. Also, gives me a few cards for trading away if anyone is interested.

Catching A Spark...or two...

Magic card content today.

Before 401games moves on up Yonge Street to make it a lot less easy to get to at lunch = I would have to use the subway now - I picked up a couple missing, newer set, unopened packs, and some newer singles as well, for the collection.



Modern Horizons is another higher priced set - booster is about $9 CDN instead of $4.50 like War of the Spark. As usual, both have multiple different cover art, but I don't want to go crazy collecting them all, one of each will do.



Some Battlebond cards. Wow - they are still reprinting Juggernaut! I took a look, because I remember it most from Revised released in 1994 - and it has been printed in 14 different sets! Wow.



Speaking off reprints - a Yoshi! Yotian Soldier...printed in...5 different sets only, but again, I recall him from 4th Edition which was out in 1995. So much time, but some cards seem to have stuck around.



Hard to tell, but what may appear as dupes are actually foil versions of the cards as I picked up some of those versions as well.

One thing which is quite easy, and done well, are similar card such as the Peace and Pierce Striders - very similar in cost and attack/defence, while having an ability which differs but ties to the name.



Prismite is a decent card for mana generation.

Some decent adds for about $18 all in I believe...too bad I won't be by the place nearly as much as I have been in the past. At least I should be able to pop up during lunch a couple times a year still.

A Heaping Pile of McD

So, a bunch of the cards I picked up from Jeff were McD hockey cards. These span a number of years as I generally like all of the McD sets, so it was nice to have a chance to essentially "shop" for some cards from these sets to get them slowly, or not so slowly, moved along.



A couple early 90s sets pick ups, these were one offs, both sets being ones I do not have too much of. It was more pick up for the chance to pick a couple up. They weren't my focus...yet.




1994-95 Upper Deck McD cards - these I remember vividly as a kid. I will say, over time, these cards curved like nobody's business. The few I have, and all of these I just got, all have the same curving going on. These get me over half way done on the 40 card set.



I now have about a quarter of the 1995-96 Pinnacle Game Winners set. More importantly at the moment, another Dougie card - but a good start to this set.



This is the next year when Pinnacle had the 3D Ice Breakers. The 3D effects were neat at the time, the cards are decently thick, but obviously not the greatest for scanning.

Now - the main sets I was picking up for...



1997-98 Ice and...



1998-99 Ice. I really like the acetate card see-through look of these. They are so unique, heavy in hand and sleek in design. Only flaw I have with them is that they are so dark, but it just goes with the design so I can't complain too much. Both these are now about 60-70% done and on my radar.




The next year's set is now down to 3 cards missing on the much smaller base set of only 20 cards. There are retro parallel cards which I have some of, but it isn't there yet to bother trying to finish up.




We then finish with some Pacific McD cards for sets I am just really starting on.

Okay - I am hungry now after all these McD cards...but a big thanks to Jeff for the awesome trade. I am sure we will have more in the future, though maybe not quite this size...

The Jays Portion

A couple more days worth of cards for show out of the box that Jeff sent along to me in our trade. Today - a whole bunch of Jays. Truth be told - none of these are new for my collection, but that's not what it was about, it was about continuing to add numbers to the Jays collection.

I won't say I am looking to collect a million Jays - I don't think I'd have the funds for buying a second house to store them in - but we start with baby steps!



Added a bunch of late 80s - early 90s Jays, including three full additional sets of...



One of my favourite little Jays sets - McDonald MVP Jays 6 card set. These are, in a nutshell, the face of the Jays World Series wins from '92 and '93.

Speaking of McDonalds cards...



Another set I have complete and done in my collection already, but nice memories and nice cards.



This set, I actually even have a complete one in the original box on one of my shelves - really like it, and enjoy this set, especially for the last few cards...



The Skydome and Trophy cards are awesome. Then we get into some dupes of Leaf cards...



Okay, guess I lied because these three cards are new - and finish this 4 card set...


These are out of a nice 4 card Mr. Sub set about Roger Clemens and his time with the Jays. Roger was never a guy I loved - too much hating him when he was with Boston. He did well in Toronto during his short stint here, but I wasn't too sad to see him go.

Tomorrow we end by, in a way continuing. We had a bunch of McDonalds cards here that were Jays related - tomorrow, some more McD, but not so much of the Jays...a change in sport in fact...