Another
Wizards of the Coast Football Champions box, another expansion set.
I guess the
reason why my LCS in Beijing held on to two boxes (see previous post) of
Football Champions expansion sets for almost 10 years is simply because he
couldn’t find one Chinese who wanted to pay money for a box which didn’t
contain one autograph or memorabilia. Until I showed up!
Just like
the Calciomercato set which I described the other day, the Title Race set is an
expansion to a bigger base set. The 2001-02
Wizards of the Coast English Football Champions Title Race set
consists of 165 cards: 125 player cards and 40 action cards. That means that
there are 45 player cards more and 18 action cards less than in the
Calciomercato set. I would call that an improvement were it not for the fact
that this set was released 2 years earlier than the Italian set.
I can be very
short about the design of the cards: similar to the Calciomercato cards which I
described the other day, which will be no surprise. The Title Race cards feel a
little more loaded than the Calciomercato cards, probably because extra (curve)
lines in the design. Nice on this Title Race set is the logo of the team in the
top right hand corner of the card. For the action cards I’ll refer you to the
picture, as I honestly don’t know what I should tell about them.
I guess the boxes of this set were mainly designed to be used in retail, as a box consists of 36 packs of 7 cards each. That means 252 cards in one box, for a set of 165 cards. Every pack consists of 7 cards: 5 player cards and 2 action cards, so I should have ended up with 180 player cards and 72 action cards.
The big
question when opening this set’s boxes is: which foiled premium cards will you
pull? The foiled cards come 1:4 packs in this Title Race set, so there should
have been 9 in the box. With 25 premium cards in the set, I was guaranteed to
be at least 16 cards short of the complete set.
Eventually, I
ended up 21 cards short of the complete set.
I pulled 36
different action cards, so I came up 4 cards short of the complete action cards
set. I think that’s a bit silly, as I also pulled 36 double action cards.
As Wizards
of the Coast promised me, I pulled 9 foiled premium cards, all different ones.
Some of the nicer cards included Robbie Fowler (Leeds), Robbie Keane (Leeds),
Laurent Blanc (ManU), Alan Shearer (Newcastle) and Joe Cole (West Ham).
So, I am
missing 4 action cards and 16 foiled cards… Where’s the other missing card?
I had to
check it twice because I couldn’t believe it at first. The 171 regular cards in
the box contained 99 different regular player cards, meaning I was one (1!)
card short of the complete set. Card #47, Alain Goma, was the only regular card
not in the box. Why oh why, Wizards of the Coast?
Anyhow, I
quite enjoyed opening the two boxes of Football Champions in the past week.
Although the boxes contain way more regular cards than necessary, the chase for
the foiled premium cards is quite fun. It’s smart of Wizards of the Coast to
include only 1/3 of all the special inserts of the set in one box. It gives a
little suspense to the box break.
Report
1)
Set
Season: 2001-02
Manufacturer: Wizards
of the Coast
Competition: Premier
League (England)
Set name: Football
Champions Title Race
Number of cards in
set: 165 in total, consisting of 125 player cards (100 normal cards + 25
foiled premium cards) and 40 action cards
2)
Box
1 box = 36 packets
1 packet = 7 cards (5
player cards + 2 action cards)
1 box = 252 cards
(180 player cards + 72 action cards)
Inserts: Foiled
premium cards (1:4 packets), so box should contain 9.
Cost: CNY 220 (EUR
26.7/USD 36.1/GBP 22.4)
3)
Box break
Total number of
cards: 252 cards (180 player cards + 72 action cards), as promised.
Total number of
inserts: 9 (different) foiled premium cards, as promised.
Set completion: 87.2%
(144/165 cards)
Different cards: 144
cards (108 player cards + 36 action cards)
Doubles: 108 cards (72
player cards + 36 action cards)
Probably most
expensive card: #101 Alan Shearer (Newcastle) (Foiled)
Most happy with: #122
Joe Cole (West Ham) (Foiled)
Go after complete
set? I’ll probably try to pick up the Alain Goma card somewhere, and I might
also keep an eye out for the other cards, also because the foiled cards of this
set sell a little cheaper than the foiled cards of the Calciomercato set.
Satisfaction rate: 70%