Next TCG to have old loot cards!

[Ishildur]

True, the odds aren't particularly great... on the other hand it will let me relive my wasted youth by smelling fresh cards and ripping booster packs open excitedly. And if I get a dupe I guess there's always trading.

[Warlock]

Keep in mind that even though they've increased the chances to get a rare, the chances of getting a particular rare are still lower than they would have been with their release set. So while we may see a lot more loot cards hitting the market, they will be split between all of the previous sets. I would expect prices to drop on release, and then stabilize at just a little under the price they are now.

Good point! Just some quick and dirty calculations for Spectral Tiger Cub:

originally 1 in 264 packs
loot rates are doubled (1/132) in the current release, but
now it's competing with 20 prior expansions (1/(132*20) = 1 in 2640)

Also, this is assuming that the loot cards are split *evenly* among the prior expansions: it's possible that particular expansions or loot cards are underrepresented.

The original chances for a few others:
Ethereal Soul-Trader: 1 in 264
Dragon Kite: 1 in 363
Rocket Chicken: 1 in 181
Tuskarr Kite: 1 in 132

This is assuming you don't want the other loot cards tho I still need all of the non-common loot pets (except for the Hippogryph) so I'd be happy if I got any of those you listed (plus Spectral Tiger Cub! )

[Gromagrim]

At first I wrinkled my nose at this change, I don't like them bringing back time limited items.

Then I thought about it, and to be fair, these items are still being sold on the AH, so are still 'available'. I don't have the ethereal, tiger cub, rocket chicken or either kite, so I stand to gain from this change, I do wonder what effect it will have on pet prices.

[Poofah]

This is assuming you don't want the other loot cards tho I still need all of the non-common loot pets (except for the Hippogryph) so I'd be happy if I got any of those you listed (plus Spectral Tiger Cub! )

Oh, definitely. I listed the pets that I'd be happy to get too, which are the ones that still command fairly high prices on AH. But even if you add those all up, it's roughly a 0.23% chance to get one of those pets, ie you would expect to open 420 packs to get just one good pet loot. If you wanted to get a Spectral Tiger Cub from packs, it would almost certainly be better to just buy the original expansion: then you'd expect one in every 264 packs (0.38%). But at $2 per pack, it's a worse price than what you can get on ebay or tcgloot -- unless you feel lucky or like gambling.

Then I thought about it, and to be fair, these items are still being sold on the AH, so are still 'available'. I don't have the ethereal, tiger cub, rocket chicken or either kite, so I stand to gain from this change, I do wonder what effect it will have on pet prices.

The difference though is that the ones on AH currently aren't coming from a new supply: they presumably all came from the original limited supply of TCG codes. This is in contrast to ingame-available pets like Darkmoon Rabbit, where completely new pets are created from thin air every time somebody kills the DM rabbit boss. This is why Darkmoon Rabbits have trended consistently downward on AH as the expansion has gone on, and Spectral Tiger Cub/Ethereal Soul Trader have trended consistently upward. So by adding a completely new supply of Cubs/Traders, it's reasonable to expect that there will be a reduction in prices. *BUT* the magnitude of this reduction will depend entirely on how many new Cubs/Traders actually come from the new expansion: it might be only a few, which wouldn't affect prices much at all. And, there's another possible wrinkle: probably there are people sitting on Cubs/Traders who will panic as news of the TCG expansion gets out, and they may be driven to sell. If enough people decide to sell, it will also increase supply and depress prices (and should start to happen before the TCG even gets released).

[Saasan]

And, there's another possible wrinkle: probably there are people sitting on Cubs/Traders who will panic as news of the TCG expansion gets out, and they may be driven to sell. If enough people decide to sell, it will also increase supply and depress prices (and should start to happen before the TCG even gets released).

VERY good point. My hubby recently got into TCG and he is sitting on a fair number of lesser pets, ie Nightsaber and Lichling, waiting for values to go up. I can only assume that there are collectors sitting on some of the "big money" pets. I would not be surprised to see a good sized drop in price on some of those pets, but likely only for a short time and on the larger "pet" servers. I can't imagine there are TOO many collectors sitting on pets to flood the market with, and the demand for pets certainly outweighs the supply!

[Warlock]

One correction to the supply thing - I *think* Ethereal and Spectral Cub can show up at BMAH. So there is some new supply, just not much.

Also its been my observation that the lesser/common loot pets only decrease in value. I see them on eBay for like $3 now. Personally I've just been buying them at AH for gold - better than spending real money and they go fairly cheap sometimes. I think they tend to just be too easy to get in packs plus the pets aren't as cool/exciting as the rarer ones (and some are just duplicates of Blizzard Store pets)

[Poofah]

Only Dragon Kite, Bananas, Hippogryph Hatchling, and Rocket Chicken are available on BMAH, according to http://www.wowpedia.org/Black_Market_Auction_House. I've checked Undermine Journal pretty extensively to verify, but that's server by server so I suppose something may have slipped through the cracks. Also, being on BMAH has definitely kept the gold prices on these relatively low.

But, you're right that there is some new ingame supply for Cub/Trader, because not all of those old codes are redeemed ingame yet: people can get the cards from ebay or from opening old packs, and they can buy the pet online from wowtcgloot. The new TCG expansion might not appreciably increase the supply over this, especially considering how infrequent the Cub/Trader will be in the new packs. But we can't know how many new Cubs/Traders are coming relative to how many are already out there. So, it's definite that the TCG re-release will not have a positive effect on the value of existing Cubs/Traders. But the effect might range from essentially neutral to significantly negative, without a good way to predict (that I know of).

[Mmosimca]

Poofah: Not sure that logic makes sense to me.

Shouldn't we expect roughly a 10% increase in the number Spectral Tiger Cubs in existence, assuming they print the same number of card boxes as they originally did?

[Poofah]

Basically yes -- I think we can expect cubs from the new release equal to 10% of the cubs that were available in the original release. But there's several things we don't know:

How many of the Cubs from the original release were redeemed and exist ingame today? I know some of the original codes are still stuck on cards, still in packs or on ebay or elsewhere, but I don't know how many.

When somebody buys a code from TCGloot.com, where does that code come from? Did somebody open packs of the original set to get these? In this case the cubs would be part of the 'official' release, and would count against the supply that we know about. Are they extras that never made it into packs in the first place? In this case, the cubs would represent entirely new supply that we didn't know about from the TCG release info.

And of course there's the more recent issue with level 6 cubs of undetermined origin: we don't know how many cubs this has added to the system, but it's potentially a lot.

So, the number of cubs in existence on WoW servers is almost certainly not the same as the number of cub codes that originally went into booster packs. If TCG-derived cubs were really the only cubs out there, then we could expect a 10% increase. If the number of non-TCG-derived cubs is significant (which I think is more likely), then we could expect anywhere from a 10% increase to essentially no increase at all.

[Azrile]

But it could be like the real stock market where emotions can cause a lot of price change. The fact that these cards ARE being added to the new deck will probably panic people holding the pets now to sell faster.

But even with no emotional selling, no matter how you look at it, there will be more of these on the market.

[Quintessence]

Official Cryptozoic article on REIGN OF FIRE. Gives us a better idea of what we might find inside a box.

Things to note:

• "The odds of opening up a Loot Card has also been improved (to 1:9 packs instead of 1:11 pack). That means you will get four Loot Cards per box, and there's a whopping four rare Loot Cards per case!"
• "As a note, just because a Loot Card was common, uncommon, or rare in its original release doesn't mean it shares that rarity in Reign of Fire. Some Loot Cards might be easier to obtain than before; others may be a lot harder to acquire."
• "Some lucky fans may open a booster pack that contains not one, not two, but fifteen Loot Cards – primarily rare Loot cards - instead of the standard cards you expect to open. That isn't an accident. That's a God Pack!
  God Packs were created internally to be as juiced and as exciting as possible. And they're very rare. If you open up one of these, then congratulations!"

Sounds like this might be worth buying afterall? It's still a roll of the dice, though.

[Poofah]

If the numbers they quoted are accurate, then it's a terrible value. After the Spectral Tiger Cub issues this past month, I think the only pet that would be worth paying the price of a box would be Soul-Trader: but in that case you could just buy Hunt for Illidan boxes (the original Soul-Trader set), which are <$60 on ebay and plentiful. And according to their numbers, you'd be 10x more likely to pull him from those boxes than RoF boxes.

The only complicating factor is this:

"As a note, just because a Loot Card was common, uncommon, or rare in its original release doesn't mean it shares that rarity in Reign of Fire. Some Loot Cards might be easier to obtain than before; others may be a lot harder to acquire."

What is this supposed to mean? Is Soul-Trader suddenly going to be a common loot card in this expansion? That would crash them down to Grell/Puffer-level prices faster than the lvl 6s did to Spectral Cubs.

Anyway, if it's easy to get pet loot from this new xpac, then secondary market prices for the loot cards as well as ingame prices will quickly change to reflect that. So there's no need to gamble on buying RoF boosters until people start opening them and we learn the actual chances for the good loot cards. It's not like these are likely to fly off the shelf -- you can still get WoW tcg booster boxes from 2007 for less than their original price.

[Laraven]

Don't forget all the mounts that are worth much more then the pets. All of which can be sold on the AH or traded. Imagine pulling a Spectral Tiger card out of the box?

[Poofah]

Maybe. It's a catch-22. The only thing that makes these loot items valuable is their (perceived) rarity. But now they're releasing more of them. So it's great when you pull a Spectral Tiger or Dragon Kite or whatever out of a booster. But every time you do, the value of that Spectral Tiger goes down.

[Catalytic]

Anyone know where you can buy the cards by the case?

[Warlock]

Ugg, so I bought a box of this. I ended up getting the Hippogryph and Landro's Lichling, both of which I have -_- In fact, not only do I have the Hippogryph but I have ANOTHER loot card unscratched for it! /cry

I did get a Saltwater Snapjaw which is kind of nice. Debating whether to sell it - apparently it still sells for a decent amount.

[Keavy]

I bought 6 booster packs, all I could afford this month. I got 1 Landro's Lil' Xt and three cards that give discount on wow posters.
Im really happy with the pet, even thou I already have the one from Blizz store. Just wish I could have gotten something more...

[Fluxinfinity]

Something to note for those who like to calculate the odds: the Robotic Homing Chicken I popped at a sealed event last night has the UDE logo printed on the back. Meaning they're not printing new codes, they're more than likely liquidating old on-hands.

[Poofah]

Meaning they're not printing new codes, they're more than likely liquidating old on-hands.

What's the difference?

[Gracies]

There is something called a "God Pack" where all 15 cards are loot cards! *Gasp*! They are super rare and if you get one, do as my good friend in WoW said and buy a lottery ticket 'cause that kinda luck is hard to come by .