Japanese Mains Strategy

[Hutch]

I’ve got a short-term goal (within the next year) to get Japanese copies of all of the mains and a couple other iconic cards.

Spoiler

Show

Darth Vader
GMT
Luke Skywalker
Han Solo
C-3PO
Millennium Falcon
Chewbacca
Red 5
Commander Luke
General Veers
(Already have Obi, Leia, and R2)
Maybe a few others like Lightsabers, Death Star, Tantive

How would you go about this? Just buy the singles that you want as they become available on eBay, or start with buying sealed product and then buy the remaining ones.

Sealed product on eBay right now:
Premiere booster box-$499
Premiere starters box-$285

[imrahil327]

Someone can correct me, but I would basically never buy sealed product over singles if you're trying to achieve a specific result.

[Hutch]

Someone can correct me, but I would basically never buy sealed product over singles if you're trying to achieve a specific result.

I feel like my brain agrees with you. It’s the joy of my heart opening packs that makes it a real discussion.

[gossuii]

Do you just want the mains, or would you be happy with a (full?) set of commons/uncommons as well? If so, buy sealed, enjoy cracking packs, realise you might only get 1 main and a whole lot of crappy R1 and R2 cards, and then reconsider

Back in the day I opened a Premiere booster (English) hoping to get some nice cards, but I had literally NO MAIN (tactical recall x2, yay!). The box was EUR 50 I believe, so not a big loss. However, if you now open a $285 starter box (24 rares) or a $499 booster box (36 rares) there is a good chance you end up with 1-2 mains, some R1 and a lot of R2 cards that cost you $12/13 each but have no real value. You could try to re-sell the rares and a common/uncommon set (requires more that 1 box probably) to recoup your losses

Or you buy a sealed box now, keep it for a few years, and then trade/sell the sealed box and get those mains.

You're probably better off buying a Japanese booster box of ANH for 1-2 of Tantive/Wedge/Chewbacca/Death Star/R2 (who is a R2 rare as well ). Better price per rare, better distribution of playable rares, and there are quite few cool underlying Japanese cards for half slip v-cards that are played in a lot of decks (Imp Justice for instance) so you can show off

[AdmiralMotti89]

If you really want to live dangerously, you can buy Reflections II boosters and go after those mains one Japanese card at a time!

[Jnapolit31]

As someone who completed Japanese sets recently, my first suggestion to you would be to PM mlock and see what his stock is currently.

[gogolen]

I’ve got a short-term goal (within the next year) to get Japanese copies of all of the mains and a couple other iconic cards.

Spoiler

Show

Darth Vader
GMT
Luke Skywalker
Han Solo
C-3PO
Millennium Falcon
Chewbacca
Red 5
Commander Luke
General Veers
(Already have Obi, Leia, and R2)
Maybe a few others like Lightsabers, Death Star, Tantive

How would you go about this? Just buy the singles that you want as they become available on eBay, or start with buying sealed product and then buy the remaining ones.

Sealed product on eBay right now:
Premiere booster box-$499
Premiere starters box-$285

You could probably get a full set for $800-850, so $500 for the box seems like a bad deal.

We do have a bunch of random Japanese cards for the store, they just aren't sorted or organized well. If you have a short list, I can look for specific cards.

[Jnapolit31]

The only full Japanese Premiere sets I’ve seen on eBay in at least 1.5 years have been between $1250-$1500.

[mlock]

Yeah I have to say $800-$850 is really low. I've never seen a Japanese Premiere set that low in the 6 or so years I've been collecting Japanese cards. The last couple of full sets I've sold were above $1100+.

Trying to get a few singles by buying sealed product from eBay is going to be real expensive. I wouldn't do it. But you may not have much of a choice, since some of those Japanese mains are harder to come by. If yuou were to buy sealed boxes, it would be cheaper to buy starters instead of boosters, and I've personally had a lot more luck with starters. I may know a couple ways to get sealed boxes from Japan that may be cheaper, but I think it's kind of dried up over there too.

I just recently sold a full set of Premiere so I'm out of most Mains. I only have a C-3PO and Leia left from Premiere. But from ANH I have Chewie, Death Star, Red 5, and Wedge Antilles. The few Hoth rares I have left are up on eBay as a lot.

[alphabeta]

Check out brian fred, he has a few sets available if im not mistaken

[hanotsri]

There was also a guy on the FB group selling a crap ton of Japanese cards recently (he seriously had like 18 Vaders)

[Jnapolit31]

Some interesting eBay auctions going on right now from seller clix247 - Japanese Mains...

Vader is currently $335
Obi $200
3P0 $180
Han $150
Falcon $115.50
Leia $102.50

[Botzabrand]

I pulled 2 JP Vaders from Reflections 1 or 2, whichever set had JP cards mixed in. I kept one alongside my BB Premiere Vader and sold the other to a non player friend for next to nothing because I thought it was more or less a novelty.

All in all, regardless if your just aiming for JP Mains, if you find sealed boosters for reasonable prices, buy them. Hands down the best packs out of any CCG I've ever played. I never bought R3 packs, and while the Shadows of the Empire live action cards were great, those packs were just full of awesome randomness in the best way. Ratio of Rares and ENG Mains was all over the place

[stephengascrub]

This is an old thread, but I’d advise people to buy mains individually. If you’re trying to do anything except collect entire sets from scratch, buying boxes is a fools errand. Even in that case, it still may be.

From Premiere-Hoth we had R1’s, R2’s, etc. Because of that, it’s pretty easy to have a hard time pulling all the mains (mostly R1’s) naturally through packs.

[mlock]

Man, just look at the 2019 prices for Japanese sealed booster and starter boxes up there.
A booster box is now $1700+ and starter box $1000+

[sirg]

Man, just look at the 2019 prices for Japanese sealed booster and starter boxes up there.
A booster box is now $1700+ and starter box $1000+

Everyprice you check from 2019 os star wars cards was really lower than now but probably japanese cards are the higger updates.

I'm still 4 to go on premiere :-(

[ConnorPsh]

Man, just look at the 2019 prices for Japanese sealed booster and starter boxes up there.
A booster box is now $1700+ and starter box $1000+

Yeah I didn't even realize the prices had changed until now. I was just thinking about how $500 for a booster box seems to be a really good price to crack.