Welcome to the next Question of the Day (slightly rebranded). Once we get a few more, Im sure an archive thread will be made and linked. New today is Helpful Considerations which may or may not help some people focus their answer, these are blurred to not bother those who have their own ideas.
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The Question of the Day is my way to facilitate community discussion to help members ponder the unanswered questions of the world that are somehow relating to the hobby. Questions are many times open ended and up to interpretation. Feel free to post your thoughts in as much or as little detail as you’d like.
Today’s Question: What is your ideal pack ripping experience?
Helpful considerations: Do you want to open nothing but vintage? Maybe pull a deoxys while in low orbit? Leave it to fate and have others guide your outcomes?
Its interesting because I just came up with a large convoluted scenario of how to make pack opening an experience to remember for a father who was asking how much modern to open with their kids, it included a scavenger hunt, quizzes, and a grandprize of a custom seeded pack. I realized that opening packs for me isnt really about the cards, it is nice to get a cool pull but its not like there arent thousands more of the same thing out there, but mostly about the situation that I am pulling in. I regularly will have product sitting for months because I have no reason to rip. So to bring it back to answering the question, an ideal ripping experience would indeed have to be an experience.
It would included several close friends, it would be evenly splitting about 5 different sets each with 2 dozen packs that include a mix of good pull rates (think evolutions or crown zenith) and pokemon that are both easy to recognize and easy to make fun of if not recognizable, everyone opening packs round robin style, with a slight competition with highest rarity card wins, each person trying their luck to outdo the others, possibly slightly inebriated, with some good music blasting in the background, and of course it all being slightly in my favor helps. This would probably all take place early on a halloween evening with costumes, decorations, and festivities so that just as we are finishing up, we can give all the bulk to the kids who come up and just give everything out except for like 10 favorites to remember the night.
Yeah… that’d probably be as close to ideal as I can come up with right now.
Over a cup of coffee and some dark chocolate in librarial solitude, I want to open JP e Card packs until I have a master set binder of McDonald’s, VS and E1 through E5 with additional binders for duplicates
With a bunch of good friends who also collect or if I ever have kids, I’d love to share in their joy and probably relive my own childhood in the process.
With my brother as I have all my life. Doesn’t matter if it’s team rocket returns or steam siege, or if I pull a charizard holo or rainbow Agatha full art, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My ideal experience is defined by my favorite pack opening memories, which are driving all over town looking for sets like ES, 151, and Paldean fates.
You find a couple boxes one place, but maybe they’re all poster collections, so you go 5 more places till you find an etb for another promo or whatever, or you find nothing else and have to go back…
Then, when you finally open everything and you get something nice, you remember what had to happen for you to have come across and bought that particular box at the 5th Target 1.5hrs from your home, or how that 1 box felt heavier than the others , or had a swirl on the promo, or how you only bought it because nothing else was left at the end of the night.
And maybe pop on some Pokemon TV in the background to hear Brock hit on everything that moves.
At the risk of coming across as a complete sap, I’ve come to only really enjoy ripping packs with my wife. We’ll get a pack or two here and there for playing at our LGS, and we love to admire all of the pretty artwork, commons and all.
My ideal experience would probably be opening a box of something nostalgic like one of the delta species sets or early DP-era something or other with her. Maybe we’d make bad decks with the pulls and try to draft. Modern with all of the art rares also has its appeal, but as long as it’s with her, it’s ideal for me.
I open the hatch to my loft. I find a case of VS, Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge. I wonder why I opened so little back in the day if all this was up here.
I pop the kettle on, make myself a tea and set up my table with sleeves, my nearly empty eseries binders and my sorting tray.
I go to town.
I’d like something a little different than my usual office desk set up if this pack opening is to be a real experience. Something far more memorable.
So for my pack opening experience I’d be seated at the top viewing deck behind Chureito Pagoda. It’s early morning, no one else is around, neither is even the wind. It’s completely tranquil as the sun rises. Faces me beyond the pagoda is Mt. Fuji with it’s snow capped peak. Cherry blossoms are in full bloom all around. The morning air is crisp and the sky is peach and lavender coloured.
I’d have with me a box of Darkness, and to Light… (Japanese Neo Destiny), no sleeves, no top loaders just bringing it back to basics. My trusty GameBoy Colour case is all I need to store my cards. This was the most useful card accessory I had to stuff all my cards into growing up.
I want to feel that sense of nostalgia again, the freedom of not caring about condition, just enjoying the cards in the moment while not having that rush to sleeve the holos. Taking in the awe inspiring beauty of Japan’s iconic view while opening Pokemon cards would be a pretty surreal moment for me. It’s a moment where nostalgia, nature, and pure joy would come together in perfect harmony…and y’know pulling a shining or two wouldn’t be so bad either.
The best ones I’ve had it’s me and my wife. One of every product, two booster boxes, piles of sleeves and a binder. Before that we’ve had a takeaway for dinner and we’re sitting with teas opening away.
We stop from time to time to put cards in and see how we’re getting on. We laugh at our bad luck (though lately it’s starting to feel personal Pokemon International!) and we celebrate the big hits.
It’s just nice. But the last couple of sets we’ve done really badly on the hits and while it’s not all about that, I feel that you need to get at least one of the expensive cards to make it all feel worth it.
I just finished an opening party with friends today, taking turns opening packs together which I think is ideal. The hits are so much more fun when everyone in the room pops off. Today we opened a box of electric breaker and we lost it when I pulled the chase
Every so often my wife and I go get a booster box and then we take turns picking packs. My son gets packs often but he is still at that age where he just grabs whatever pack art is cool. But we have fun doing that from time to time. It’s been a while though, last one we did was paradox rift. I like doing that this way, making new memories. I wouldn’t change it
Waiting for the “overpriced mystery pack on whatnot while a stranger shouts me out and opens it for me and hypes me up as I pull an off center non Holo with recent PSA 10 comps” type person
Because they seem to represent a big chunk of buyers
Id like to open them with some childhood friends more so than anything. Most of them have either moved on with life though, or are in a rough spot and cant. Most of what made pokemon enjoyable for me when I was younger was having friends to enjoy it with you. Thats kind of why Im here now that Im a bit older XD
, or had a swirl on the promo, or how you only bought it because nothing else was left at the end of the night.
