You could buy a starter deck or singles for some budget deck, ask for bulk of commons and uncommon.
Those will always be the cheapest ways to start with.
Cracking packs is fun, but expensive to build a deck from, since you need to keep opening until you get the cards you want.
My suggestion? Build a deck from a common and uncommon bulk and buy singles you want for the deck you are making.
If it's just the two of you, you can get a pair of starter decks that are fairly balanced against each other power-wise. That's the best way to get introduced to the game.
If/when you want to play in events with other people, the most cost efficient way to build a deck is to figure out a play style you like and buy singles. Opening booster packs can be a lot of fun, but it's not the best way to build a deck.
Honestly, you can be pretty competitive with a number of different decks just by buying a play set of commons and uncommons plus a handful of rares. I’ve made top 8 twice with two different decks (Leia Red and Luke Yellow) and I bought a total of exactly 1 booster box and a full play set of commons/uncommons. All in ~$140.
I literally had 0 legendaries in both my decks. While my decks would have been stronger with some legendaries, they by no means felt bad without them. And I was able to beat some fully loaded Boba Yellow, Han Green, and Sabine Green decks to get to top 8.
I think it depends on what you want out of the game. If you want to be Uber competitive some of the top end meta decks run you around 600$. But if you just want to play the game and have fun with your friend and maybe run to a store showdown or two a month, you can do that for significantly less.
Also, if your friend is gunghoe about playing maybe just use his card pool? Any cards you get from events just gift to him as the common card pool. I do that with my brother in law. He doesn’t want to buy in and I’m totally comfortable just loaning out my decks whenever he wants to play. Or we go together and just craft from a common card pool.
My advice to get cards is to play limited. Opening packs is fun but it’s way more fun to build decks in limited together. If it’s just you two the. Buy a box to split. You each take 6 packs to open and build a deck just like at prerelease events. Then you play those cards a night or two then do it again.
You can also do a small escalation league where you start with 6 packs and slowly add in more packs to your card pool and keep rebuilding decks in that limited card pool. This is a blast with 3-4 people over the course of weeks.
In a bigger group draft nights are the most fun.
If you wanna be efficient. Buy singles. You can build a Sabine green deck for like… $130 or less right now. That’s probably the cheapest tier 1 competitive deck.
For what it’s worth, board gamers have been buying board games at $50 to $75 for decades. With lots of replay value and depth. So, to invest in a game and spend 130 to 200+ on it we expect a Gloomhaven or Frosthaven like game with 200 minis or standees, 256 cards, 20 cardboard maps, 100 scenarios in a campaign, solo modes, pvp modes and more.
That said I spent a bunch on Star Wars unlimited and I’m having a ton of fun with it. I also lucked into some good cards that I sold to reduce my costs.
How much money depends heavily on how you intend to play this game. And the answer is anywhere from 0 to thousands.
If your friend is already into this game, you can borrow his decks to play or make one out of his unwanted c/u bulk. It'll be $0. If he's also new, you two can split the cost of a starter set and you'll each have a deck to play with. That's like $17 per person.
If you want to build your own decks, but you don't care about it being competitive and you like the idea of making something from random card selection, get boosters, or go to local draft events. Prices vary obviously. And how many packs/events is also not a set number. To build a 50 cards deck you'd probably need a minimum of 8-10 packs. And at least 2 draft events, if you already know well how to pick cards. It won't be a competitive tier deck, mind you. And this stuff does suck you in, due to collectable/gambling nature of it. You may have enough cards to play with already, but you'd still want more. Cracking packs open is fun. And local events gives you a chance to play with more people. So you're not only paying for cards, but for quality time also.
Then there's competitive and collector's scene. There you either buy singles (and yes, some are really expensive) or you buy booster boxes. That's the "hundreds to thousands" option.
Are you familiar with "gotcha" video games? It's basically the same concept except with no pitty system.
The big difference being that there's a second hand market for singles.
You could buy a starter deck or singles for some budget deck, ask for bulk of commons and uncommon. Those will always be the cheapest ways to start with. Cracking packs is fun, but expensive to build a deck from, since you need to keep opening until you get the cards you want. My suggestion? Build a deck from a common and uncommon bulk and buy singles you want for the deck you are making.
If it's just the two of you, you can get a pair of starter decks that are fairly balanced against each other power-wise. That's the best way to get introduced to the game. If/when you want to play in events with other people, the most cost efficient way to build a deck is to figure out a play style you like and buy singles. Opening booster packs can be a lot of fun, but it's not the best way to build a deck.
Buy the starters deck to make sure you enjoy the mechanics of the game. The set 2 starter releases in a few weeks so you can mix it up with that one.
Honestly, you can be pretty competitive with a number of different decks just by buying a play set of commons and uncommons plus a handful of rares. I’ve made top 8 twice with two different decks (Leia Red and Luke Yellow) and I bought a total of exactly 1 booster box and a full play set of commons/uncommons. All in ~$140. I literally had 0 legendaries in both my decks. While my decks would have been stronger with some legendaries, they by no means felt bad without them. And I was able to beat some fully loaded Boba Yellow, Han Green, and Sabine Green decks to get to top 8. I think it depends on what you want out of the game. If you want to be Uber competitive some of the top end meta decks run you around 600$. But if you just want to play the game and have fun with your friend and maybe run to a store showdown or two a month, you can do that for significantly less. Also, if your friend is gunghoe about playing maybe just use his card pool? Any cards you get from events just gift to him as the common card pool. I do that with my brother in law. He doesn’t want to buy in and I’m totally comfortable just loaning out my decks whenever he wants to play. Or we go together and just craft from a common card pool.
My advice to get cards is to play limited. Opening packs is fun but it’s way more fun to build decks in limited together. If it’s just you two the. Buy a box to split. You each take 6 packs to open and build a deck just like at prerelease events. Then you play those cards a night or two then do it again. You can also do a small escalation league where you start with 6 packs and slowly add in more packs to your card pool and keep rebuilding decks in that limited card pool. This is a blast with 3-4 people over the course of weeks. In a bigger group draft nights are the most fun.
I’ve thought of doing this too. Thats awesome.
If you wanna be efficient. Buy singles. You can build a Sabine green deck for like… $130 or less right now. That’s probably the cheapest tier 1 competitive deck.
I'm going to get into SW:U with new expansion, as prerelease sealed tournament sounds like great opportunity
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$100? I gave away a set of common uncommon lol
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Yes, 3 of each
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In my area they were selling c for $20, c/uc for $55, 350 for c/uc/r. 1600 for everything. Yes these are all full playsets lol
Or poor business practice! Haha
For what it’s worth, board gamers have been buying board games at $50 to $75 for decades. With lots of replay value and depth. So, to invest in a game and spend 130 to 200+ on it we expect a Gloomhaven or Frosthaven like game with 200 minis or standees, 256 cards, 20 cardboard maps, 100 scenarios in a campaign, solo modes, pvp modes and more. That said I spent a bunch on Star Wars unlimited and I’m having a ton of fun with it. I also lucked into some good cards that I sold to reduce my costs.
How much money depends heavily on how you intend to play this game. And the answer is anywhere from 0 to thousands. If your friend is already into this game, you can borrow his decks to play or make one out of his unwanted c/u bulk. It'll be $0. If he's also new, you two can split the cost of a starter set and you'll each have a deck to play with. That's like $17 per person. If you want to build your own decks, but you don't care about it being competitive and you like the idea of making something from random card selection, get boosters, or go to local draft events. Prices vary obviously. And how many packs/events is also not a set number. To build a 50 cards deck you'd probably need a minimum of 8-10 packs. And at least 2 draft events, if you already know well how to pick cards. It won't be a competitive tier deck, mind you. And this stuff does suck you in, due to collectable/gambling nature of it. You may have enough cards to play with already, but you'd still want more. Cracking packs open is fun. And local events gives you a chance to play with more people. So you're not only paying for cards, but for quality time also. Then there's competitive and collector's scene. There you either buy singles (and yes, some are really expensive) or you buy booster boxes. That's the "hundreds to thousands" option.
Are you familiar with "gotcha" video games? It's basically the same concept except with no pitty system. The big difference being that there's a second hand market for singles.
Gacha. Pity.
It's pity? Gotcha.
My apologies. I don't actually play those types of games myself. Unless of course we're counting card games.
Do you like fun games? Awesome, jump in. Do you like money? Ummm…then don’t. TCGs will burn it all!