Sunday, June 06, 2010

"Revised Edition Toolkit" Revisited

Just a quick update - the Revised Edition Toolkits are now live on my store and at eBay. Sharp eyes will notice a slight bump in the price from my store to ebay ($15 vs. $16.50). This is to cover the eBay Final Value Fees.

This means smart & informed shoppers will buy them from my regular store, hint, hint.

Comments on the listing, the product, the photo, etc. are still gratefully accepted!

Friday, June 04, 2010

"Revised Edition Toolkit": A new product from The Sundry!

Okay, so for those who do not know about it, Wizards of the Coast recently released a new product they call their Deck Builder's Toolkit. Inside it are 100 land cards, 125 "semi-random" cards (all of which are Common or Uncommon) from sets that are currently in Standard, and four 15-card booster packs. They are designed to be a supplement to fleshing out existing decks, or a place for newbies to start - they provide lots of different cards from lots of different sets to meet lots of different deck-building styles. A pretty cool product that my son Sebastian and I got to test out early thanks to Adam Styborski (writer of the weekly Casual Fun article on DailyMTG, @the_stybs on Twitter, and all-around pretty cool guy). His write-up of the results of our testing can be read in this article.

Anyway, the creation of this Toolkit has inspired me to create one of my own. I have for quite a while now (well over a year, in fact) been wondering what to do with the literally thousands of common & uncommon cards from the Revised Edition core set that I have lying around thanks to my purchase of the over 400,000 card collection of Bill (about which I could have sworn I'd written before, but I can't find the post right now to link to). Now I have the answer: Don's Magic and Sundry's patented (not really) "Revised Edition Toolkit".

What I have done is taken all of the Revised Edition Commons & Uncommons that I had sitting around (not already in inventory) and culled out any cards that were beat up (they will go to be used to make Grab Bags for sale at the store). For some more popular, playable cards I allowed for more beat-up versions to stay available (very few people are going to be thoroughly disappointed to get a played copy of Lightning Bolt from Revised). When all was said and done, I ended up with 7054 Commons and 2756 Uncommons, for a total of 9800 cards.

My plan is to make 98 sets of 100 cards (generally 72 Commons and 28 Uncommons) from Revised and sell these as a package - my "Revised Edition Toolkit". They'll ship in a hard plastic hinged-top case as any 100-card order would. I'm still trying to figure out a fair price - something that you can help out with in the comments!

Here's how you can help (if you're so inclined): Below I will present the text of the description of this item as it will appear (still debating whether to put these on eBay or just at my regular store - I could do both). Please read this and offer any comments on the whole issue. Is this something you'd buy? If so, how much would be a reasonable cost? If not, why not? Is there something missing, or are you just not interested? Anything and everything constructive you have to say will be appreciated! If these prove popular enough, I may have to do the same with Fourth Edition, as I have way too many Commons & Uncommons from that set as well!

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Up for sale is a Revised Edition Toolkit. What is a Revised Edition Toolkit, you ask? Well, read on!

What you'll find in a Revised Edition Toolkit:
  • 100 semi-random cards from the Revised Edition core set of Magic: The Gathering;
  • Roughly 72 Common and 28 Uncommon cards from the set;
  • Cards of generally NM or better condition (with some notable exceptions - see below);
  • No more than 4 of any given card. You may get a playset, but not more than that;
  • An amazing blast of nostalgia for some of the old-school greatness that was the Revised Edition, or;
  • If you and your friends are relative newcomers - the awe and envy of your friends when you break out the old-school greatness that was the Revised Edition.
What you'll NOT find in a Revised Edition Toolkit:
  • Cards in any language other than English;
  • Basic Lands;
  • Rares;
  • Foils (there weren't any back in Revised, okay?);
  • These 4 Uncommon cards: Clone, Sengir Vampire, Serra Angel, Sol Ring. I didn't have spares to put in these toolkits. Sorry! But every single common card from the set, as well as all the other 91 Uncommons are fair game and could be in your box!
So what's the deal on condition? I've done my best to get rid of any cards that showed noticeable wear from play, leaving only NM or better cards, with the exceptions of some of the more staple, "playable" cards. The following cards may be in the toolkit with noticeable wear from play, and possibly be graded as low as "Fine" or "Poor":
  • Dark Ritual
  • Kird Ape
  • Lightning Bolt
  • Llanowar Elves
  • Animate Dead
  • Black Vise
  • Counterspell
  • Demonic Tutor
  • Hypnotic Specter
  • Swords to Plowshares
If a card is not in the above list, it SHOULD be in "Near Mint" or better condition in the toolkit. To cover myself, I'll say it is POSSIBLE that other cards in as low as "Very Fine" condition may sneak in, but they should be extremely rare if they do.

This toolkit would be a great gift to a Magic: The Gathering player of almost any level. Those who have been playing "forever" will love the burst of nostalgia. Those who missed Revised when it was out in 1994 will love the chance to own some of the oldest cards in the game. Everyone will love the mix of cards that will allow supplementing existing decks - and many of these cards (like Lightning Bolt) are even still Standard-legal!