[img align=right width=150]http://sales.starcitygames.com/cardscans/MAGBOX/10themedeckblue.jpg[/img]
After getting the White, Green and Red Tenth Edition theme decks for free I decided to buy the Blue and Black decks. Although I'm not really getting back into Magic, I thought it would be neat to have the whole set.

I went back to the card shop where I got all the free cards a month ago, because I had some questions about some game mechanics that I'm sure that guy would be able to answer.





This time, I made sure I was there in the afternoon, so I didn't have to stand in front of a closed store again. I also brought back about 150-200 cards that I didn't need anymore and that could go back into the "closet". Among the cards I got for free were some that I had over 15 times; there really is no point in having so many duplicates of a single card.

When I entered the store (around 2:00PM) there was only the shop owner and another guy, playing a game of Magic. Maybe it's because I haven't been there during the evening, but I really get the impression there's hardly any activity in that store. I wonder how one can survive (financially) by having such a store. Maybe things are differently in the U.S. but card/board games don't seem to be very popular here in Belgium.


Sadly, he didn't have any Black decks left, so I just got the blue one (see picture). Instead of the Black deck I bought an "Intro Pack" to the Shards of Alara expansion, called Naya Behemoths.
The "story" of Shards of Alara is that the plane called Alara got splintered into 5 shards. On each shard only 3 colors exist, with one being the main color of that shard. The Naya shard, for example, has Green as the main color with Red and White being the two smaller colors. Besides Naya there's also Bant, Esper, Grixis and Jund.

While I was there, I also picked up two packs of card sleeves to protect my deck if I'll every play with it. At 3 euros per pack, it wasn't a big investment anyway. I have one complaint though: why package the sleeves in packs of 50 when a standard Magic deck is 60 cards? I guess they just want to force you to buy two instead of one.

Now for the good part: the shop owner again offered me to take home "a few boxes of cards"!!! I'm not sure if he remembered me from last time, but of course I didn't say no...

[img width=600 height=450]http://i460.photobucket.com/albums/qq324/Ingeniousdevices/Magic%20The%20Gathering/MagicTheGathering047.jpg[/img]   [img width=600 height=450]http://i460.photobucket.com/albums/qq324/Ingeniousdevices/Magic%20The%20Gathering/MagicTheGathering003.jpg[/img]

There are about 1500 cards organised on the table and the two boxes contain another 500 cards each. The cards I got for free the first time are not included in this picture. (Except for the Red, Green and White theme decks that are stacked upon each other)

Blue and Green were dominant with those two colors taking up about 50-60% of the total number of free cards. That's not a bad thing though, because Red and Artifact cards were the majority last time.
Other than that, there were cards from almost every expansion and core set in there. There were even three cards of Revised in there, which is more than 14 years old.

Also pictured are the 20-faced dice and the Magic keychain the shop owner gave me.

I really am amazed how generous this guy is. Never in my life have I received so much for free and it sure feels good.

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