Card Trader Illuminerdy

The movie's been out for a week, so we've decided out of a healthy mix of laziness and excitement that we won't be trying to protect secrets of the film; our podcast carries an Episode VII spoiler warning from here on out. There are certainly new cards and sets to discuss in the wake of the release of the film; some of the cards themselves contain spoilers in the way of characters and some plot points; also we feel like anyone that's a big enough of a Star Wars fan to be not only using a virtual trading card app, but listening to a podcast dedicated to said app, has probably seen the movie already.There's a possibility we may take the week off for New Year's, so enjoy this jumbo-sized episode! And for even more Episode VII podcast goodness with Michael and Rhett, check out The Deucecast, where Michael co-hosts, Tommy produces, and Rhett makes appearances for special occasions like Episode VII. Their bonus episode that released yesterday is 100% Episode VII discussion. Find them at http://thedeucecast.com. Hap

Twas the night before Star Wars, when all through the houseNot a creature was trading, not even a mouse [droid].The blasters were hung by the Falcon with care,In hopes that Han Solo soon would be there;The fans were nestled all snug in their beds;While visions of Skywalkers danced in their heads.We spend an episode talking a little about cards, and a lot about a movie we haven't seen yet...have fun this weekend everyone!

It wasn't hard to predict: base variants with a count of 1. It makes sense; with just a few weeks left in 2015, and only a week until TFA, it's time for them to be played out. Also, can we just say again that we are still not please with how Fan's Choice is being handled? Sneaking it out there to avoid a rush has not improved things. Have a great pre-TFA week; for those of you already in line, stay warm!

There's plenty to talk about this week, not the least of which is the fan favorite, Fan's Choice, which, of all things, became the marathon to cause a debacle this time around. What is there to be made of this? How could this have been considered a good idea at the time to release a limited count card for free at an announced time? We don't know, but that doesn't keep us from talking about it!Bonus content: The first time the three of us ever recorded something and put it online. It's not worth your time, but because we've been asked after mentioning it last week, here it is. It's made to be listened to while watching the first Ewok Adventure movie; without it, I can't imagine you'll make it far into this. Actually I can't imagine you will even with it. Good luck!http://www.thedeucecast.com/2011/12/deucetrax-caravan-of-courage.html

Happy thanksgiving! We are thankful for all of you that listen and reach out and let us know. We are stuffed after enjoying time and food with our families, and now we are talking SWCT. First things first, we have to give credit where credit is due. Galactic Moments returned with an Ewok Adventure card, and the only possible explanation is that it's all thanks to us. You're welcome! Assisting in this effort is ~JOSh-X, who's spreadsheet tracked the days since card 45 of 1977 wasn't released, until it was, and then tracked the days since the last GM release, until it was. Also, an observant SWCT player, Ribors, on reddit noticed that the Ewok Adventure GM was released exactly 30 years after the release of the movie.The big news of course is the new marathon sets. Germain Lussier has written another great article on SWCT detailing the marathons, including sample cards from the sets.And finally, here's to the game changers. We spend some time talking about the effect that a single person could have on the a

This week we find some things to talk about...Jabba's palace cards are back, and they move quickly. Topps is also burning through the Journey To The Force Awakens parallels, and while it's great that we can have a shot at any card we can pull from a physical pack, it's starting to chafe a little being asked to directly pay for these parallels also. And with the sale price bringing the direct cost of a 5 or 7 count card to $15 USD, does this undercut other low-count cards?And the new Gorax Space Painting prompts a dream of Wilford Brimley and other Ewok movie cards.One minor correction: When discussing Apple's 30% cut of in-app purchases, I gave the example of Spotify costing $10 per month, where all $10 goes to Spotify if signing up through their site, and only 6-something goes to them if you sign up through their app. What Spotify actually does is charge $13 per month if you sign up through their iOS app, to make up the difference. Apple's 30% take does not apply to apps where the purchase is for goods or se

Believe it or not, we don't do a lot of planning for our episodes. And despite our lack of efforts, sometimes a theme emerges. In this episode, outrage became a recurring topic. We discuss the various things that people get outraged about in the app. We discuss whether that outrage is well-founded or misplaced. We discuss whether outrage comes from a place of scarcity or abundance: does getting outraged at something mean you have less to spread around to other areas? Or, in fact, more? But other than Rhett expressing a little outrage over people spreading outrage, we didn't have much actual outrage happening. But, lo and behold, Topps gives us something to stew aoubt even as we record, in the form a free green Journey card, that's a reminder of Rhett's least favorite card in the set. We get a real, genuine moment of outrage to bring it all full circle.Oh, and we talk about some of the new sets and cards in the app over the last week. Including, but not limited to, Rebel Ceremony variants, digital watercolor,

After a week of little in the way of new sets to talk about, we get a flurry of activity over the last week, from the small Whiteout set to the very large-yet-accessible Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Something for everyone, you might say, and you might also say that there's something for Rhett to complain about also. If you thought the Pack Inserts set was ridiculous for selling us the virtual wrappers of previous sets, you'll understand where he's coming from. Harder to get your head around may be the fact that the way in which the ultra-low-count-yet-hundreds-of-them Neon Base Variants has allowed something we haven't seen up until this point in the app: 100% ownership of all copies of a card by a single fan. It's debatable that Rhett was the first to do it, but it's not debatable that collecting a complete set of Neons just got a lot more expensive. Also the way in which the Neons sold out was much more of a bang than a whimper, one fan who ended up spending nearly $20,000 USD on over 200 of the

Well it's been an interesting week in Star Wars Card Trader land, in that there hasn't been much interesting going on. At least, not if you like new inserts. We have had one new set, in the spirit of Halloween (is this a global holiday? Does this even make sense in most places outside of the US?).If you like base variants, though, there's been at least a little going on. Two new colors have been added to the rainbow. The 10 creatures that got their orange base variants, different of course from the orange cards we have a shot at after pulling green. And then there's the divisive Neon...ultra-rare at 5-count, and yet there's plenty to go around, and a guaranteed pull...if you pony up the cash. Here's the article mentioned during the discussion: Card Trader Digital's Much Ado About Neons.We wonder why checklists aren't there for every set with an award card, as soon as all cards in the set have dropped. In the meantime, we go over how to view a checklist for a particular set an parallel yourself, by filter

As we record this on Wednesday night, we know what the awards are for all the marathon sets. Except of course GM. Poor GM. We round up the hits an misses in a thoroughly subjective analysis. Except for the gold premium Fan's Choice, that's objectively bad form.So what's up with Classic Art 2? Why did it go off the rails, from a defined count set, with a once daily release, to a set of indeterminate length, dropping no less than 3 times every day? By the time they switched, we were long settled on what fit our budgets as far as what parallels to chase, and it's been a stretch budget stretch to have that amount compressed from 3 days into 1. Why is not something we'll likely ever know, but it doesn't stop us from imagining Mr. Topps in is top hat and monocle demanding that action be taken to squeeze more spending from the digital fan base. While, of course, stroking a cat.And lastly we unravel the Factions parallels...nice looking set, and a new combination of ways to collect 'em all.

As some marathons have finished, and others haven't, the marathons that are left seem to be stretching things out as long as they can. We discuss the current delays, primarily the purple bounties that were release, and the ensuing Smuggler's Den deals. We talk about the return of the rare pink that arrives in the form of Ahsoka, as well as other sets that have been introduced in the last week. Speaking of sets both new and old, we introduce a new segment, "AT-AT Pack Watch", to review what's likely to show up there when the pack returns. We also have an update from our correction department...it turns out we have corrections. Not, of course, with any of our pronunciations. If you catch an error, let us know on Twitter: @CT_Illuminerdy. Each correction is worth 9 white base cards of your choice! (Send trades for them to RHETTB)

Let's have a moment of silence...for the first time since the launch of the app, it's a Thursday without a Vintage. Some of us were hoping that we'd see the start of something new in the marathon vein, others were glad for the break. Of course, after a marathon it does make sense to take a little time off to recuperate. That's not to say we don't have anything new to chase of course, we're enjoying the many shades of the new Art of the Rebellion set. And coming in at the end of the evening (for North and South America, anyway), was just the thing we needed, the return of the green/orange chase, the grilled cheese and tomato soup comfort food of the app.We also talk a little about things from other Topps trading apps, most noteworthy, the latest version of their NFL trading card app Huddle allows up to 18 cards in a single trade. Will that make it to SWCT?

Plenty to discuss this week as we talk about the "community effort" for more card locks that Topps "sponsored", new sets including the illogical (to certain hosts) Collegiate set, the spearmint vs. wintergreen Yavin flavors parallels, the Die Cut set, and of course the rarefied air of the Card Trader Illustrated set. Speaking of places to spend a lot of credits, we also discuss the introduction of the gold schematics, and what this could mean for future resources (Yoda's cauldron, anyone?). And finally, the beginning of the end for the first marathons, as the last Vintage drops this week.

People have been asking for a set of cards involving vehicles for a long time. But what we finally got was well beyond what we'd seen anyone predict (not that we'd seen it all, though, I'm sure). Tommy, Michael, and Rhett discuss the schematics and resources that hit the app this week, and what long-term effects of having defined-count inserts with a constant demand might mean. Here's the reddit post that Tommy quotes from in the podcast: - Resources & Schematics MegathreadWhat do you think of all this? Tell us on Twitter! @CT_Illuminerdy

We're a couple of weeks into this brave new post Force Friday world, and while we're still happy overall, we do wonder aloud about sets that haven't gotten updates about their rewards, and specifically when those deadlines are...we trust the award cards will come in due time, but how's about a heads up on when the sets need to be complete?Also, we discuss this tip that makes "coloring up" base cards in the Smuggler's Den a breeze:Workaround for Shredding In Bulk - from maxreebok on redditUnfortunately for Android users, we discovered after recording that this glitch that allows for speedy smuggling is iOS only.We also talk about SWCT's first signature card, and what exactly Billy Dee Williams may have been doing while he "signed" the 440 blank inserts that were swapped in the Smuggler's Den.Finally, we discuss the ESB Illustrated in-depth. It's an expansive set with options for traders of all ages and budgets.Enjoy, and keep sending us feedback on Twitter: @CT_Illuminerdy

As we finished recording last week, it was the beginning of the end for a lot of things in SWCT. At first it just seemed like the end of sets and updates on awards that were so overdue for closure "#NeverForget" was being used non-ironically in the community. But the bigger story seems to be the change in tone overall that we've seen since from Topps. New sets have total counts and award info upfront. Transmissions even address what's known to still need addressing. The app had a huge update and by the end of the weekend had another update to address bugs. We may not have gotten any credits for the sets we completed, but here at CTI we're unanimous in preferring this new level of communication over the previous effort.

We've never been shy about claiming our huge amount of influence on the timing and direction of Topps choices. But imagine our surprise when they cater to our whims even as we're recording! Such was the case today, when we went over in detail the sets that remained outstanding, and even before we could wrap the episode, award cards began appearing in the app, and as you read this, checklists and award deadlines have been posted. I don't think there's really much else to say besides, "You're welcome." We discuss other new sets that have launched, including the (mostly initial) head-scratching surrounding the I Am set, and look forward to the Force Friday weekend. Enjoy everyone!Things mentioned in this episode:- Unresolved sets/awards post on Reddit- Another way to look at pack odds post on VintageHan.com- @SWCT_Info fan-run Twitter account for the most reliable notifications of new announcements

Joining us this week is io9.com entertainment reporter Germain Lussier, the author of How the Hell Is This JPG of Han Solo Worth $225? He's been trading cards since nearly the beginning, and wrote the article to introduce the app, who runs it, and the community surrounding it, to people not already in the know. He gives us a background into how he got pulled into the app, the approach he used for the story, and extra bits from the people he spoke with at Lucasfilm and Topps that didn't make it into the article.In other news, Michael's bold predictions fell flat last week: Topps stays silent on TK and storyboard...Topps gently put us in our place, reminding us that our predictions come true or not at their whim. So, thus humbled, we rein in our projections for this week, which, is probably a safe hedging of our bets, given what may be launching on Force Friday. We discuss the new sets, including the changes to the Classic Art format in #2, and Women of Star Wars, overall giving both a thumbs up due t

Like the groundhog seeing his shadow and adding additional weeks of winter, Michael's prediction of "no new sets" two weeks ago has somehow frozen the introduction of them for a second week. We discuss this strange phenomenon along with a potification, or dare I say, rumination about the reason for the GM variants that just won't seem to go away. And if you're following along with the contest brought to us by the Black Sun Card Cantina, note that once the final clues are revealed during next week's podcast, you'll have time to privately send your answer in, instead of having to be the first to post it. The winner will be selected at random from among all correct answers submitted in time. Finally, Michael pokes his head out of the ground again to make a new bold prediction. Tune in to hear it!

Michael's prediction came true: after a blistering schedule of seven sets released, Topps released absolutely no new sets. That's not to say there's nothing to talk about...there were two new kinds of chases that came in both gold and pink. One was more noteworthy than the other. Possibly the biggest kerfluffle in the community was the inadvertently exciting conclusion of what had otherwise been one of the most stable reliable sets in the game. And unfortunately the excitement was not due to the surprise of the 11 award cards that were announced. Are you part of the '77 family? How do you feel ending up one short of the expected number? Let us know on Twitter, @CT_Illuminerdy, and of course keep tuning in during August for additional pieces of the puzzle that, if you're the fastest to solve when all the pieces are given out, could net you seven marathon cards courtesy of the Black Sun Card Cantina.