Mactavius
For Collectors, What's So Super About Super Rares?
by
, 03-21-2016 at 10:56 PM (5483 Views)
Originally published here. It looks better there because I have better control of the html and photo captions:
I love Dice Masters. If you're reading this, I can assume you enjoy the game on some level as well. I love everything from the game mechanics and the sense of community this game enables, to opening packs to see what cards/dice I will add to my collection. I just got back from a trip to NYC with my students, and they looked at me with dumbfounded looks when I told them the highlight of my trip was stumbling upon a game store on the outskirts of Koreatown, buying 10 packs of the new D&D set and pulling a super rare I had not owned. This from the guy who had a ticket to the Late Show with Colbert screening with guests John Oliver, Jordan Spieth and New Order.
Despite the sheer enjoyment the game provides, I find myself pondering whether I will continue to support the game, and it all comes down to one factor for me: WizKids. Others have spoken on the topic, so I'll go on a limb and say I'm not the only player to reexamine Dice Masters. Though I applaud many facets of the game, there's one aspect that threatens to kill any willingness to continue my obsession with Dice Masters: super rares.
More specifically, how hard WizKids makes it to collect them all.
Consider the latest set: World's Finest. In order to "Collect all 142 Cards", a gamer would need to purchase at least four boxes (360 packs) to obtain a complete collection, assuming the unlikely scenario this person draws two super rares per box (of the two boxes I purchased, only one satisfied this condition) without doubling up any of the precious red-lined cards. It leads me to conclude that WizKids has forsaken responsible capitalism in exchange for milking its customer base for as much money as possible. A bit cynical, perhaps, but let's look at how the game has evolved.
WizKids should be commended for early changes to the game that showed they cared for their community. The Avengers vs. X-Men set contains two major flaws that WizKids addressed and fixed. First, I think they realized that players felt cheated if and when they purchased a booster box of 60 packs and did not pull one super rare, so WizKids increased the number of packs per box to 90 to remedy the situation and guarantee players pull at least one super rare per box. The second flaw, which often gets overlooked, dealt with the characters featured in the AVX starter's set. The booster-pack versions of characters featured in that starter set carried the uncommon designation, which made it difficult to collect dice for popular characters like the Hulk, Human Torch, Beast and Storm. WizKids changed this so common versions of all future characters featured in the starter set would be pulled from booster boxes. Players who now purchase two boxes of booster packs and a starter set average about 7 or more dice per all starter and non-starter set characters (except for Black Lanterns and other 1-die characters).
That's the last positive change that immediately comes to mind. Since then, WizKids has not done much to boost my confidence or loyalty to their company. My local game store has been having problems with their Dice Masters distributor, and two of my last three paid-in-advance pre-orders were not completely filled in a timely manner. The game store owners tell me it's hard dealing with their distributors because regardless of the specific order, the owners never know whether they were going to receive more or less product than they ordered. I remember when WizKids announced their Rainbow Draft promo program last year and the store ordered a promo kit on my request. I felt that it would provide a great opportunity to crystallize a suddenly active Dice Masters community. Unfortunately, it took at three to four months before the first promos arrived (Teen Titans), and our local scene had fizzled by that point.
Moving beyond the hyper-local, let's not forget the WizKid Open prize fiasco, in which none of the announced participation or winner's prizes were available at the time of the events. I have still not received my participation prize or the cards I earned for placing second at the Lacey, WA event (let me know if you got your stuff by posting in the comments). After supposedly qualifying for the 2016 Dice Masters National Championship at this event, I checked out the WizKids website for any information regarding the event. It took some searching, but I managed to find a news release from January that stated the event was going to be held in New Jersey in April or May. Two days later WizKids announced a venue and date change to Origins in June. As of today, I still haven't received any official announcement or letter from WizKids saying I qualified for the event (not to mention the prizes), regardless of the amount of preparation it takes to plan and arrange travel for such an event.
It's also getting harder for me to overlook the environmental impact of the game. I'm far from perfect, but I try to be a socially responsible person. I don't own a car, and always vote for the candidate who prioritizes policies that positively affect the environment (apparently I'm better at playing Dice Masters than choosing popular political leaders). I attempt to collect each card and 8 copies of each die so that I could accommodate a two-player game at a moment's notice. I have purchased (at the very least) every starter set and two boxes of booster packs for each set save Yu-Gi-Oh and the first D&D set, though I have managed to acquire both complete sets. Before Age of Ultron, I'd have a pretty fair chance of needing only a few cards to complete the set after purchasing two booster boxes and the starter's set.
But then WizKids doubled the number of super rares in a set from 4 to 8, and collecting Dice Masters now requires a larger financial commitment for players who intend to collect each set in its entirety. Looking at my most recent World's Finest purchase, I needed five super rares, one rare and five non-Black Lantern dice to complete the set. After purchasing 180 packs, I still lacked more than half of the super rare cards. Players who purchase two booster boxes reach the point where they can buy an additional booster box and only get two cards that they need.
What kind of collector likes those kind of odds?
Even before I reached that point, I had 190 common, 63 uncommon and 5 rare doubles from my initial purchase, and these numbers have grown exponentially as I've started buying single packs to whittle my sparse needs away. I've bought 25 additional packs thus far, and have been able to scratch four dice needed off my list. I still need the same number of cards. Side note: Another customer bought the remainder of the box that I pulled most of those packs, which further increases the likelihood I will not pull the cards I need since the number of non-SR packs resets to its maximum number with each new box. I understand that vibrant communities might be able to support numerous drafts to help collectors acquire cards they need, however some of us live in places like rural Idaho, which is so dice backwards we cannot get our act together to even host one PDC event in our state.
Meanwhile, I'm guaranteed to endlessly pull more and more plastic dice and cards that hold little economic value. I've built starter decks I've given away and mailed numerous care packages, but the truth of the matter is I consider most doubles that I get nowadays to be little more than waste. I'm totally cool with WizKids releasing cards rare powerful promos like Iron Fist that are only available at WizKids-sanctioned events, but I'm finding it harder and harder to justify supporting them when they engage in an economic model that exploits its customers to such an extent. I'll be looking very closely at the Dice Masters set that proceeds Civil War and TMNT (which I hear is a self-contained set. The idea has promise, but I do enjoy purchasing the occasional DM booster pack because it gives me a consistent low-cost purchase I can make to help support my local game store).
Quite simply, my future in Dice Masters is going to come down to the number of super rares WizKids includes in future sets. If they continue to release sets that contain 8 super rare cards, I am done financially supporting their company.
My friend Ben and I have discuss the game's shortcomings occasionally. He's an enterprising sort, and he's tried to convince me to design a new dice game with him. After a few brainstorming sessions and note-taking sessions, I can say with 100% certainty that I have no desire to create a new dice game. Dice Masters is already a (mostly) perfect game that brings me tremendous joy when I'm playing. Unfortunately, the game is now structured in such a way that I feel like I need to be a secondhand Dice Master vendor in order to justify the large purchase cost required to complete just one set. The time and effort it takes to manage my doubles detracts from the best thing about the game: playing it.
What do you think? Should WizKids go back to offering 4 super rare cards per set?
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