I’m Right after Han Solo in Carbonite

Staying quarantined has led a lot of of us to do silly, worthless matters. And nevertheless, I dare you to beat the silly, ineffective, ridiculously geeky factor I’m at the moment executing.

A couple months again I wrote about how I recently received back again into the Topps app Star Wars Card Trader. It’s a electronic card buying and selling method that I initially obtained into, and wrote about, way back in 2015. (That 2015 write-up provides extra context about what the app essentially is.) Due to the fact my additional latest article, even though, I switched gears and centered principally on amassing cards with Han Solo in Hoth equipment or in Carbonite. The goal was to receive at least a single of each individual solitary Hoth Han or Carbonite playing cards in the app.

That’s not a easy undertaking.

About the yrs, there have been heaps and plenty of distinct variations of both equally these vintage Han looks—everything from common base cards (which are in just about every pack and of which hundreds of thousands may exist) to extremely-unusual inserts playing cards where by only a couple of dozen exist. In the previous couple months, I’ve been able to obtain a handful of Hoth and Carbonite cards with a card depend (cc) as small as a person, that means I’m the only person who has it. I even bought to a point where I obtained 27 of 28 variants of the 2016 foundation card with Han in Carbonite. The 1 I’m lacking is the rarest, the 1cc, which is in what fans get in touch with a “dead account,” this means, the owner hasn’t touched it in months. (Macc13, if you’re out there, let’s speak!)

Anyway, that was my purpose. Just collect old Hoth Han and Han in Carbonite. However, points took a unexpected turn in mid-July when Topps exposed Han Solo in Carbonite would be amid the figures highlighted in the next series of 2020 base cards.

Here’s where by I have to describe another element of the investing process—a Monument. It is a reward for accumulating (or, in enthusiast terms, “hoarding”) an absurd quantity of base cards, then melding them alongside one another to get an ultra-unusual, ultra-restricted variation of that card. A card that has your username on the back of it. Here’s the 2018 Han in Carbonite monument.

I really do not personal the above Monument most individuals who have it would by no means trade it, for the reason that they worked so tough to get it, or would want a complete good deal of income for it (which, I acknowledge, I’ve tried to no avail). So when a 2020 Monument grew to become a likelihood, I understood if I’m likely to continue on my quest to accumulate just one of every single single card of Han in Carbonite, I would require the new Monument. And the best way to assure I get one particular is to get 10,000 white, 1,250 blue, 500 purple, 200 eco-friendly, and 100 orange cards of the exact character.

Or, at minimum, that was the circumstance in 2019. Topps has however to announce if 2020 Monuments are even occurring, allow by itself the needs, so all this might close up becoming for naught. Would not that be perfect? If the past repeats alone, even so, here’s how it performs. A person will get base playing cards by opening up any pack. For the 2020 base cards, there are 100 people in each sequence, two sequence total, and five distinctive color variants of each individual ranging from most uncommon (orange) to least exceptional (white). So at any time someone opens a pack, there’s roughly a 1:200 likelihood you will pull a specific character ahead of you even look at coloration. That implies it would be damn around impossible to acquire that quite a few of the exact same cards on your individual. The only way to do it is to trade with other consumers.

Fortunately, not anyone is going right after this unique Han Solo. Some people will but some others are trying to get everyone from Rey or Kylo Ren to the Rancor or Rook Kast. Fundamentally, any character that exists in the Star Wars galaxy has someone who is striving to hoard it. So it is a make a difference of discovering people today who aren’t hoarding your character and then swapping them your character for theirs. Everybody wins.

The issue is not just obtaining all those folks, but that the application only permits gamers to trade 9 cards each at a time. So even if you observed an individual who had all 10,000 cards you essential, it would get around 1,000 trades to get individuals playing cards. And that is not even having into thought the other shades.

This is a chore. A big 1. But, throughout quarantine, it is supplying me something to do. Likely has been slow to start because even though the sequence a person figures have been in packs for months now, meaning people have plenty of them, series two people this sort of as Han Solo in Carbonite had been only lately inserted. So as a substitute of 9 for 9, I’m accomplishing a ton of 3 for 3. It is a little bit cumbersome but that’ll adjust. As the tens of countless numbers of application end users continue to open packs all day, every day, much more and additional Han in Carbonite cards will be unveiled. Then it’s just a matter of getting them, sending people equal trades and performing that 1000’s and hundreds of occasions. All prior to no matter what deadline Topps sets, if Topps even sets a deadline.

So for the earlier week, and foreseeable upcoming, any downtime will consist of me looking at all the trade feeds, acquiring persons searching for figures, looking at if all those individuals have Carbonite playing cards, then sending them trades. At times you pick up a number of dozen incredibly rapidly. Other periods, it could get 10-15 minutes to comprehensive one trade. My guess is, spread out by means of the end of the year at the very least, this will consider me well about 100 several hours.

All for one particular, stupid card. What am I performing?

As of publication I now have 310 whites, 106 blues, 84 reds, 29 greens, and 34 oranges. A very good begin. But a lengthy, very long way to go to the stop. One very last matter… if you get a few Han Solo in Carbonite cards, deliver them over to DarthGerm. I’ll be waiting around.

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