Puggins
Sergeant
622 Posts
    
 | | 06/21/2006 6:42 PM |
| I thought I'd post this a bit in advance to spare some people from being cheated by unscrupulous sellers.
For those member that were not around during Giants of Legend, you're about to buy boosters from a set which gives unethical store owners a virtually unprecedented chance to screw you. I'm sure the vast, vast majority of booster sellers will not do this, but....
Keep in mind that WotDQ will be sold in cases of six. Four of these boosters will contain uncommon huges, while two will contain huge rares. A seller who is unpacking booster cases with this prior knowledge will be able to "rig" a good number of boosters from each box.
Suppose I'm selling both individual boosters and miniature singles on ebay, and I buy 100 cases worth of product. I open boosters from each case until I find both huge rares, and leave the remaining boosters unopened. The sheer law of averages states that I'll have many, many dozens of unopened boosters remaining, NOT ONE OF WHICH CONTAINS A HUGE RARE. I can sell these booster on ebay, labeling them as "factory sealed boosters", having already picked them dry of the only truly valuable huge minis.
Check this ebay auction.please note that I'm not intimating that this seller is behaving unethically or trying to cheat anyone:
http://cgi.ebay.com/D-D-Miniatures-WAR-OF-THE-DRAGON-QUEEN-Complete-Set_W0QQitemZ8830033853QQihZ005QQcategoryZ2537QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
The seller is adding an extra booster of WotDQ to his auction. For all intents aned purposes, you should value that booster as if it had a zero chance of containing a huge rare. The seller has opened enough product to ocmplete entire sets of WotDQ, and you as a buyer have no way to verify that the seller did so in an ethical manner unless you know him personally. Again, I'm not saying that the seller is pulling a fast one- the price actually looks pretty competitive, even without a booster thrown in- I'm merely advising caution. That booster is certainly not worth its full value in my (rather cynical) mind.
So how do you avoid the con artists? Well, here are some tips:
1) Make sure you are buying factory-sealed cases. A seller would have an awfully hard time trying to reseal cases, at least from what I can tell.
2) If you are going to buy individual boosters, avoid stores that also sell singles or complete sets. To be honest, I'd avoid buying individual boosters altogether, but if you're going to do it, at least buy from sellers that haven't opened hundreds of cases, which enables this kind of scheme.
3) Buy from sellers that probably don't know the packing scheme that well. Amazon.com is probably safe, since your average employee there doesn't play DDM.
Other tips are very welcome. I'm sorry to act like a wet blanket, but we had this situation happen during GOL, and I'd hate to see honest members of this community get suckered. | |
References: http://www.maxminis.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7231 | |
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Bert the Troll
Commander
3964 Posts
Adelaide
| | 06/21/2006 6:45 PM |
| Hmmmmm hadnt thought about it but I can see that system working to a fair degree.
Thanks for advice and pointing it out. | |
"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer." Bert the Troll - The Hobbit
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ruhk69
Warrior
205 Posts
| | 06/21/2006 6:50 PM |
| | Yeah, a friend of mine buys numerous cases for a group of us who go in together. I never thought of this, but I think our system would help. We buy such a larger order total. | |
The Waterboy. Proud member of Team Amish. | |
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Knight of Argenis
Corim Danex
Warlord
6842 Posts
West Valley City, Utah
| | 06/21/2006 7:04 PM |
| | Wow. I'd be surprised if some sellers didn't try the cheating tactic you have explained. That's too bad that that option exists with guaranteed 2 huge rares per case. | |
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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
Walnut Creek, CA
| | 06/21/2006 7:10 PM |
| Something else to consider is that this is going to be rare. For this to happen, you need someone that is:
* unethical
* intelligent
* patient
For what it is worth, I wouldn't worry about this type of behavior from main stream sellers, although it would be a concern for smaller sellers.
It doesn't hurt to be safe... but it can be a waste of effort to worry about the chances of being ripped off, too.
Besides, after I pull 1 Aspect of Tiamat, 1 Dracolich, 1 Aspect of Bahamut, & 1 Sorcerer on Black Dragon, I'll actually prefer to pull huge uncommons instead of those goobers. | |
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SJPadbury
Warrior
188 Posts
| | 06/21/2006 8:57 PM |
| 2 things:
1) By not opening the boosters with the Huge Uncommons, they're going to have fewer of the non-Huge Rares to make the sets.
2) Having worked in an Amazon.com warehouse, I can tell you, there's a huge stack of cases of stuff like this at release, or a bunch of random piles on shelves at computer keyed locations. The people picking the stuff up for your order have way too much to do, and too little time to do it in, to do anything other than grab the first X boosters that are closest to their hand at that location, put them on the cart, and are already moving towards the next thing they're supposed to grab. Intentionally screwing with people on theoretical case distributions isn't likely to happen. On the other hand, there's no guarentee that if you order 6 boosters, that they're coming from the same case. All cases are opened. | |
Stephen Padbury
DDM: Ha 80/80x2 - 473 | De 60/60x2 - 306 | Ar 60/60x2 - 366 | GoL 72/72x2 - 437 | Ab 60/60x2 - 451 | Dk 60/60x2 - 578 | Af 60/60x2 - 548 | Ud 60/60x2 - 453 | Wd 60/60x2 - 438 |Repaint 40/45 - 163 | Total 4213
SWM: RS 54/60 - 179 | CS 24/60 - 54 | RotS 56/60 - 188 | U 50/60 - 146 | CF 44/60 - 84 | Total 651
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rhane
Underboss
1412 Posts
| | 06/21/2006 10:27 PM |
| Great advice, Puggins...
And SJPadbury's advice is probably true as well. Big sellers like Amazon will certainly not be culprits. The ones to be wary of are smaller sellers who sell both singles and "sealed" boosters. As many have pointed out, this will be rare, but it WILL happen. | |
Rhane
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MechaKingGhidra
Sergeant
632 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 12:49 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by jgsugden
Something else to consider is that this is going to be rare. For this to happen, you need someone that is:
* unethical
* intelligent
* patient
Or rather, implementing a good idea from Merric, just pick two.[)] | |
Champion of the Prismatic Golem
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realmaster
Underboss
2017 Posts
Home of the 2002 Winter Olympics
| | 06/22/2006 1:57 AM |
| | Man I hate cherry picking, that is what it comes down to. | |
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PatEllis15
Commander
4463 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 9:47 AM |
| I obtained exactly 26 boosters of GoL. 2 sealed cases, one random booster that by some miracle had a Behir from Gen Con, and a revealed booster.
For the exact reasons Puggins described, I did not have ANY interest in buying boosters. I expect to do the same for WotDQ. At least WotDQ is only 6 to a case. I'd ahve liked another 6 boosters of GoL, but wasn't willing to buy another whole case.
Vendors sometimes cross/blur the line of ethical/not ethical behavior. I'm just not willing to take the chance.
Pat E | |
"Games evolve. Otherwise we'd still be pushing rocks around the dirt. What do you think the cavemen said when some dude showed up with sticks?" - Chairman7w | |
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Dordledum
Commander
3463 Posts
Netherlands
| | 06/22/2006 9:53 AM |
| Lucky for us: the Huge uncommons are great! but seriously, thanks for the warning.
Guess I was lucky with my local stores in the GoL-days. I've pulled all my huge rares (save the Storm Giant) from random boosters sofar. I am going the way of cases this time however.
D. | |
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md3
Sergeant
704 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 9:55 AM |
| Well, why doesn't someone here create a thread that would list vendors/ebay sellers who sell single boosters. Then maxminis members who purchase said single boosters can then post into this thread the rarity of the booster Huge figures pulled.
Then after a little effort and alot of data, we would be able to detect potentially unethical sellers. Of course we would be a little late to help those who helped us accumulate the data. | |
"You are not the sum of your miniatures."
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Sulaco
Underboss
1605 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 10:01 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Bert the Troll
Hmmmmm hadnt thought about it but I can see that system working to a fair degree.
Thanks for advice and pointing it out.
GoL had a double-whammy built-in cos there was only one rare huge in each of the 3 different booster arts. So a seller could open a case, seperate teh booster by art, and then start opening them. Once he hit a rare huge in, say, a fire giant art booster he knew for 100% certain that the other fire giant art boosters were uncommon huges.
I relaly hope that with DQ they have avoided this. | |
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Puggins
Sergeant
622 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 10:09 AM |
| | I sorta debated whether I should post this at all, since some dealers might get the idea from here. But I have faith in the vast majority of sellers- anyone I've bought a booster- like JS said, this behavior will be very rare, and I'm certainly not trying to paint with broad strokes here. I remember at least one of the agonized posts here once the poor guy found out there was a pretty good chance that he'd been had. Such a significant amount of the price of the booster is tied up in that huge rare you get one every four that you are getting swindled if they swing things against you. | |
References: http://www.maxminis.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7231 | |
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IHawk
Underboss
1054 Posts
Lisle, Illinois
| | 06/22/2006 10:29 AM |
| Cherry picking at stores has moved me COMPLETELY away from
buying booster singles from bricks and mortar stores. Dragoneye
and harbinger sour'd me pretty bad, so including archfiends i've
purchased almost all of my stuff in factory sealed cases. I
do have a friend who operates an online retailer, who lives
just a couple of miles from me [plug...Lon's Lair - http://www.lonslair.com] and I try to support him as often as
possible. I get all of my game supplement books from him new
(i've traded here for some used books) and i'll purchase
a booster or two from him as well. He opens the box and
picks one...no cheery picking. His prices aren't GO cheap, but
i'll live with the 25% discount for the books.
All around good advice though Puggins. I'd suggest to find a
retailer you can trust and stick with 'em.
Mark | |
mark - Champion of the Goblin Worg Riders | anteblue_at_yahoo_dot_com
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Deoxy
Warrior
225 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 11:59 AM |
| Whil I'm sure this will happen a bit with WotDQ initially, with GoL, it actually beecam more and more of a problem as time went by.
That is, sure, it was tempting at the time, but 2 years later, whn the prices of the HRD and HGD (among others) had gone through the roof, AND the method of cherry-picking was even more widely known... Basically, GoL boosters at this point can all be assumed not to contain rare huges.
(Odd story about cherry-picking, or lack thereof. A friend of mine found a local store about amonth ago that had DRAGONEYE boosters on the shelf for $10. He wouldn't tell me where, grumble, grumble. Anyway, he bought 2... and they BOTH HAD LRDs. !!!^%^$^&@$!~$*@#!*&!!!!! Lucky -------!!)
With WotDQ, I'm hopeful that this will be much less common. | |
No longer active on MaxMinis | |
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Zenako
Commander
3472 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 12:50 PM |
| There was also another bias in the GoL packaging. From my experience with a number of cases, the location of the Huge Rare was one per row. The cases had 3 rows of 4 boosters. So if you start opening the top row until you find a rare, you have done two things. Identified one rare, and also limited the number of boosters of that cover art you might otherwise open. Since not all Huge Rares were that high priced back then, if you had a case with a Dragon, you knew the second dragon was in it so keep opening. As soon as you found one of the other three rares, you had a call to make, was it worth it to expose another WFT or StormGiant of leave them for future openers.
As for "cherry picking" from a set of boosters on the shelf, we do not know enough yet about the packaging or actual weights yet, but the recent sets of resulted in no clear advantage in picking by weight. So unless the vendor is also selling singles (or a collector who is just selling his "extra" stuff) probably not much to worry about. |
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Kalrin
Sneak
90 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 3:51 PM |
| Well... This may seem odd but, I hope they do something similar. This is because I ended up with 9 boosters of GOL and I didn't get screwed on a single one. Everything was fair. I also hope to do something similar with WotDQ.
I bought 3 boosters from a Brick and Mortar store the day GOL came out. They were the first three from the box (and I witnessed them being pulled). It's how I got my Behir.
I got a number of friends togeather and we ended up buying two cases (through me). Knowing about the booster art, when it came time to split them up, I handed out each row first, so that if you'd gotten 4+ boosters I gave you an entire row. I ended up with 6 boosters out of this.
I got lucky and ended up with another two rares (HRD and a Warforged Titan). | |
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Okay McKay
Underboss
1070 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 5:08 PM |
| A 4th whammy, as it were, from GoL was that some people could feel the edges and corners of the box and the type of corrugated cardboard insert and determine without fail exactly which huge was in the box. I'm sure it took skill, but that's pretty crazy.
When the set is still new and on the shelves the huge rares are probably only going to go for maybe $22-$35 each. If a booster costs $20 why not just buy the two or three huge rates that you need instead of buying three, or four, or five random boosters?
I'm going to get one case, two boosters at the pre-release, and then do some trading... that should get me there. Maybe I'll buy a couple rares on eBay. I usually do. (Hubb's is very good!) | |
"It's an automatic robot, based on science." | |
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PaSquall
Underboss
1399 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 5:11 PM |
| | Not a problem for me as I'm far more interested in huge uncommons than huge rares [:p] | |
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portermj
Warrior
332 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 5:30 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by SJPadbury
2) Having worked in an Amazon.com warehouse, I can tell you, there's a huge stack of cases of stuff like this at release, or a bunch of random piles on shelves at computer keyed locations.
This thread reminded me of getting dozens of loose GoL boosters from Amazon. Then it reminded me that it was on of those impossibly great deals I've had in this hobby. A few months before the GoL release Amazon put GoL up for pre-order based on the assumed MSRP of $15 per booster. After their discount it went down to $9.99 (IIRC) per booster with no shipping. Obviously a great deal and I really gained a lot of respect for Amazon after they honored their preorder price.
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TemplarSaint
Sneak
157 Posts
| | 06/22/2006 8:22 PM |
| I would advise against buying from Amazon if you have any desire to get an ordered distribution. I ordered 16 GoL boosters from them and got one giant. And it was a Cloud Giant. They certainly weren't cheating me; they just grabbed the first boosters they got to, and all sixteen had the same cover art.
If you really don't care whether or not your distribution is somewhat even across the set, go ahead and buy from them. Otherwise, but anywhere else.
Please note that I am not bashing Amazon. I think the company is great and I shop there all the time. They are just are not set up to "properly" distribute randomized packages. | |
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Knight of the
Round Table
Thenameless
12499 Posts
The Fortress of Solitude
| | 06/23/2006 12:02 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Sulaco
quote:
Originally posted by Bert the Troll
Hmmmmm hadnt thought about it but I can see that system working to a fair degree.
Thanks for advice and pointing it out.
GoL had a double-whammy built-in cos there was only one rare huge in each of the 3 different booster arts. So a seller could open a case, seperate teh booster by art, and then start opening them. Once he hit a rare huge in, say, a fire giant art booster he knew for 100% certain that the other fire giant art boosters were uncommon huges.
I relaly hope that with DQ they have avoided this.
Oooohh that's bad! I didn't know that a packing pattern existed with GOL. I remember collecting World Cup sports cards, and boxes with the inverted shrink-wrap had the "double-gold" inserts - this was really bad. | |
Over 270 successful online DDM trades. | |
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Can of the Cave Beer
Commander
2838 Posts
| | 06/23/2006 12:44 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Sulaco
GoL had a double-whammy built-in cos there was only one rare huge in each of the 3 different booster arts. So a seller could open a case, seperate teh booster by art, and then start opening them. Once he hit a rare huge in, say, a fire giant art booster he knew for 100% certain that the other fire giant art boosters were uncommon huges.
Well, with DWQ, there's only 6 boosters per case (with two Huge Rares) and we are still operating with 3 cover designs.
If Mr./Mrs. Unscrupulous decides to go hosing over the customers, there's a relatively decent shot that the entire case will be opened in order to snag the Huge Rares for singles sale.
Assuming that the Rares will be distributed with no more than 1 per cover art, we have:
1:3 for the "No Rare" cover art (assuming normal cover art distribution)
1:2 for picking the Huge Uncommon first
1:2 for picking the remaining Huge Uncommon
If I remember my stats correctly, that's about a 8-9% chance of blowing through the whole case and not having any to put on the shelf.
And if you see a shop with two (or more) Huge Rares for sale and only four boosters on display? I'd probably shop somewhere else. | |
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Pale Rider
Underboss
1023 Posts
London, Ontario, Canada
| | 06/23/2006 7:22 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by realmaster
Man I hate cherry picking, that is what it comes down to.
WHile I do the occasional cherry pick (I once picked up a booster of Deathknell and proclaimed :This has a Blue Dragon in it." opened it and it did!) I remember GoL as being virtually impossible to cherry pick. The most desireable minis (Red & Gold Dragons) were far from the heaviest and weight is one of the easier ways to cherry pick. With the advent of uncommon larges cherry picking is a unporfitable excercise nowadays. | |
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Arnminster
Warrior
296 Posts
| | 06/23/2006 7:36 AM |
| | Other than buying sealed cases I found the best way to buy boosters is to participate in a sealed event. I try to play in about 3 to 4 sealed events per set. This way I get the enjoyment of playing and opening boosters at the same time. | |
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The Defenestrator
AesophDarkfable
Warlord
5628 Posts
| | 06/23/2006 11:49 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Okay McKay
A 4th whammy, as it were, from GoL was that some people could feel the edges and corners of the box and the type of corrugated cardboard insert and determine without fail exactly which huge was in the box. I'm sure it took skill, but that's pretty crazy.
It wasnt a lock but there were ways that were pretty easy, some had higher cardboard than others, I could spot a bulette nearly everytime because the cardboard was very short at the bottom. The only problem was it also had a shot at being a behir so to avoid bulettes you had to avoid behirs....... so I eventually just gave up. | |
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