HypeTrain: Numbercrunching Black Panther Brick Pulls
Thanks to our friends at Wizkids, I got to open a brick of Black Panther. For people interested in that kind of thing, I'm going to post my pulls below to give you an idea of what you can expect in a Brick.
I have a few thoughts at the end.
Commons
001 Black Panther x 2
002 Black Panther x 2
003 Luke Cage x 2
004 Storm x 2
005 Miles Morales
006 Amadeus Cho and Kirby x 2
007 AIM Agent x 2
008 White Wolf x 2
009 Klaw
010 Everett K. Ross
011 Hatut Zeraze x 2
012 Dora Milaje
013 Ayo
014 Wakandan Scientist
015 Colleen Wing
016 Killmonger
Uncommons
017 Black Panther
018 Misty Knight
019 Power Man
020 Vibranium Man
022 Scientist Supreme
023 Hercules
024 Plunderer
025 Phil Coulson
026 Akili x 2
027 Okoye x 2
028 Ramonda
029 Shuri
Rares
031a War Machine
032 Queen Storm
033 Black Panther
034 Spider-Man
035 Venomm
036 Ares
038 M'Baku
040 Ironheart
Super Rares
042 Captain America
046 Snowbird
050 Namor
Extras (bonus 3D EFFECT terrain markers)
S001 Vibranium
S002 Heart-Shaped Herb
Takeaways:
A brick of ten boosters contains 50
figures, when they are five figure boosters. This brick had 25
commons or half of the brick. That feels a little high. Especially
when we see so many duplicates of named characters. The average
Heroclix player isn't excited to run two 001 Black
Panthers.
But.
If one of those Black Panthers became a
Hatut Zeraze (which can be generated by an uncommon), an AIM Agent,
etc. you start to see more value. There are still army builders in
the Heroclix community, generics can just be so frustrating to
collect.
And I also point this out because this is a single
brick. If this were part of a sealed case, we could expect to see a
third Luke Cage or Storm. Which isn't as useful, because they're
commons. Everyone will have more than enough of them. And unlike Magic the Gathering, in Heroclix too many commons take up too much space.
The
Good: Getting all the commons in a brick is good. It makes the
easiest to collect rarity easy to collect. And some times just
delivering on a simple expectation is very good.
Doubling up on two uncommons while
missing two uncommons feels odd, but likely balances out at the case
level. Which also allows for easy trading among brick/booster buyers. So I have no real complaints about the collation of Uncommons
or rares.
Though, I will point out: there were 14 Uncommons
(which is 28% of the brick) and 8 Rares (16% of the brick). Which
leaves the Super Rares at 3 (6%) of the brick.
When we talk
about value, this is...not great. All the value in the brick is tied
up in 6% of figures. And those 6% of figures are not going to balance
out cost wise.
A blind package collectible model is
almost always going to lose value when going from sealed to open.
That's how the model works. The potential pulls are always going to
be higher in theoretical value than the actual pulls. But, I can't help but worry about
the drop off in value here.
The EFFECT terrain are cool, and
their coolness can make up for some of the FOMO (fear of missing out) of not pulling a
chase or prime. As well, including Vibranium tokens on the back of
promotional cards is a pure win and I hope to see more of that in the
future.
If anyone at Wizkids were to ask me how to improve
sealed bricks? Balance commons more towards generics or figures that
have value being played in multiples. Maybe even bring in split
numbering at the commons like we saw in Nick Fury Agents of Shield
and Amazing Spider-Man; so that we can have some “power” commons.
If we're going to have bricks with no chases, have two primes. If
we're going to have bricks with no chases or primes, slide in two
extra Super Rares. If these kinds of bricks are needed for the model,
find a way to add value (like EFFECT terrain, cardboard proxies)
without just adding more chases. Hell, slipping some Legacy cards
randomly in boosters (paired with a booster that has no SR or higher
figure in it) could be a good step.
But that's just my musings for today. Below is a link to an Instagram post with the figures in their booster formation (so the figures per picture were in a single booster). I would like to thank Wizkids again for the chance to open up some product, I'd like to thank all of you for watching the video, reading this article, and just generally supporting all the many things I do for the community.
It means more than you could ever know.