Star Wars: ‘Journey To Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Trading Cards

Cost: £1.00 per pack (from Tesco)

Over 210 Cards to Collect – 8 cards per pack including one Star Wars: The Last Jedi Foil Card.

Look out for special cards in packets:

Jedi Foil Cards 1:3

Gold Cards 1:4

Limited edition card to replace regular card 1:36 packets

Cards Acquired:

11: Supreme Leader Snoke – a photo still from The Force Awakens during his hologram meeting with Kylo Ren and General Hux. It’s dark and blurry and at this scale just doesn’t work.

31: Rey – Promotional materials stock image portrait. Generic. You like Rey? You’ll love this. But it’s as generic a trading card as you can get.

95: A still from the teaser trailer of one of the new ships (I tried to look up the name but gave up – you probably know what it is if you’re reading this) just before it starts dragging through the surface revealing clouds of red dust. If you hadn’t seen the trailer this is a bad card with no meaning. Even having seen the trailer I find it amongst the weakest.

100: Millennium Falcon: A generic stock photo but on the back of the card it gives some of the ship’s statistics which makes this quite a nice card.

108: Qui-Gon Jinn vs. Darth Maul: A still from Episode 1 during their duel. In hindsight were there any ‘original trilogy’ cards in this series? Card 100 doesn’t count since it’s in the, as of writing this, new trilogy. This is a bit blurry too due to being a still from an action scene.

127: Luke Skywalker – painted portrait (I wish the artist had been named out of respect though of course Disney/Lucasfilm own the image). This, by far, is my favourite as it seems something not just copy-pasted from stock promotional materials or motion blurred film stills.

187: Stormtrooper Executioner – portrait from a stock photo. (It’s has that effect usually referred to as ‘holographic’ so I’m guessing it’s one of the limited edition cards). On a side note there sure have been a lot of variants of Stormtroopers since Disney took over. Got to push that merchandise guys! You could probably replicate it using a black permanent marker on a standard stormtrooper figure…

209: Agen Kolar – Jedi foil card – portrait from a stock photo. Who is he? I had to go look him up too as he is really minor and only found in the background of scenes with little to no development…

Published by Topps Europe Limited,

18 Vincent Avenue, Crownhill, Milton Keynes,

MK8 0AW, UK

http://www.toppsdirect. com

http://www.starwars.com

Lucasfilm Ltd. / Topps / Disney

Review

I might have been lucky with the ones I got but I’m quite pleased with these in contrast to other collections. The portrait cards are all very nice and high quality with the painting of ‘The Last Jedi’ Luke being probably my favourite. However on the downside, as has been the case before, the still taken from the film all have motion blur to them and thus look low quality in comparison to the other cards. The card stock used is of very good quality and I couldn’t see much risk of disappointment unless you have a distinct aversion to the prequel trilogy and let’s be honest how many people actually know Agen Kolar let alone what scenes he was in? Short answer: Palpatine killed Agen just before his duel with Mace Windu.

There you go. Now you know who he was… unlike some of the other secondary Jedi I don’t think he ever appeared in The Clone Wars TV series to be a more developed character like Kit Fisto or Plo Koon amongst others.

On the whole I wish they were a bit cheaper, but then doesn’t everyone, but I see no real issues with the overall quality nor number of cards you get (in comparison to other series recently) and they serve as a nice little treat for Star Wars fans young and old. I can’t say how easy this would be a collection to complete but since much of it is stock imagery I don’t think you will miss out on anything should you never pick a packet up. It’s purely a ‘teaser’ promotional item and even at the time of posting this a few weeks after purchasing them Tesco have already stopped stocking them. The low points are the photo stills with motion blur (that very dark and blurry Snoke one especially!) but all the character specific ones really do harken back to the golden era of trading cards and more than make up for them. If you’re a fan of the series, and can find them, take a chance and buy a pack. If you’re looking for value for money it’s probably better to invest in something else.

Marvel Missions – Trading Card Game

Over 270 cards to collect.

8 per packet.

 

Cards in the pack I bought:

22: CHARACTER: Howard Stark [Captain America: The First Avenger]: Power Value: 38

25: CHARACTER: Nick Fury [Captain America: The Winter Soldier]: Power Value: 69

90: ALLY: Captain America and Scarlet Witch [Avengers: Age of Ultron] Power Value: 69

117: ALLY: Thor and Jane Foster [Thor the Dark World]: Power Value: 53

151: WEAPON: Hydra Chitauri Blaster [Avengers: Age of Ultron]: Power Value: 66

184: VILLAIN: Heinz Kruger [Captain America: The First Avenger]: Power Value: 45

234: CHARACTER: Natasha Romanoff [The Avengers]: Power Value: 73 [mirror foil card]

248: CHARACTER: Black Panther [Captain America: Civil War] Power Value: 83 [holo foil card]

HOW TO PLAY

Step 1: Know your cards!

Marvel Missions is a game for 2 players. To win, you must complete game missions by defeating opponent!

Step 2: Assemble your team!

Take 20 cards from your deck and shuffle them. Then hold them face-up in your hands.

There are 2 great ways to play Marvel Missions!

BEGINNERS: Play until all cards have been used. Whoever has completed the most Red, Blue and Black Missions wins! Choose your Mission before you begin. Both players must play the same mission.

ADVANCED: Take on Avengers-level Missions where the first person to complete an Iron, Steel or Gold Mission wins! Choose your Mission before you begin. Both players must play the same Mission.

Step 3: Commence your Mission!

Both players take the first card from their hand and compare the Power Values.

Step 4: Complete your Mission!

The Player with the winning card puts it in their chosen Mission pile and the losing card returns to the bottom of the deck. Keep playing until you’ve got a winner!

TOP TIP: Make sure you have cards from a mixture of categories, as different categories will be needed to complete particular missions!

USE EVERY CARD TO WIN!

As well as Characters and Villains there are Weapons, Allies, Vehicles and Locations. All must be used to gain victory and complete Missions!

In the event of a tie, draw the next cards.

Step 5: MISSIONS COMPLETED

Mission Index

Red Missions [Beginner]

1: 1 Character / 1 Vehicle / 1 Villain

2: 2 Characters / 1 Vehicle / 1 Villain

3: 3 Characters / 1 Vehicle / 1 Villain

Blue Missions [Beginner]

1: 1 Character / 1 Ally / Weapon

2: 2 Characters / 1 Ally / Weapon

3: 3 Characters / 1 Ally / Weapon

Black Missions [Beginner]

1: 3 Characters / 2 Weapons / 2 Villains

2: 3 Characters / 2 Allies / 2 Vehicles

3: 3 Characters / 2 Weapons / 1 Location

Iron Mission [Advanced]

4 Characters / 3 Allies / 1 Vehicle / 2 Villains

Steel Mission [Advanced]

4 Characters / 3 Allies / 1 Weapon / 1 Location

Gold Mission [Advanced]

5 Characters / 2 Allies / 1 Weapon / 1 Villain / 1 Location

REVIEW

I paid £1 for a packet of 8 cards which I supose is better value than some other series I’ve reviewed. It promotes that there are ‘Guardians of the galaxy vol. 2 cards inside lucky packets’ so to me that means they’re advertising you’ll get cards associated with the most recent, as of writing this, Marvel film but in reality they’re the ‘chase cards’ – or in plain English the cards they have printed very few of so you buy more packets in order to get them. I didn’t notice until noting the information down but the ‘mirror’ and ‘holographic’ foil cards are hardly distinct at first glance. It hardly seems worth their effort to have had both versions. I can only imagine the ‘super holographic’ foil cards have that diamond patterning that other cards series refer to as their holographic ones.

This series has high quality cards in terms of materials and the quality of the still frames from the films or the promotional photos used for the cards but otherwise feel incredibly bland. In truth you could argue that has been Marvel’s marketing strategy across the board when you consider how their use of digital correction in the films leads to there being no ‘true’ black to shadows leading to a washed out look and the indistinct music used in the films [go on, test yourself right now and see if you can hum the following: Batman’s theme, Superman’s theme, Spiderman’s Theme (the cartoon version more than the films admittedly is the one we all know)…. now how about Captain America’s? Thors? How about Iron Man’s? Leif motifs aside, which you can argue are the themes we remember, can you recall any music in the Marvel films? And no any of the tracks from Quill’s tapes in Guardians of the Galaxy do not count. It’s that generic a sound Marvel have opted for].

I don’t feel the game is going to be that enjoyable if you did get enough cards to play it to be honest. How many packs would you need to play it too? I would imagine, accounting for randomisation, about 5 if you’re lucky so that’s a £5 investment for 40 cards minimum. It plays similar to Top Trumps but with a few more restrictions. It’s a little too fiddly for first time card game players, which will likely be young children who have the Marvel bug and want to play it, but then I can’t see the strategic possibilities that could attract the more seasoned table top card gamer to embrace it. It sits in that awkward middle ground between the two markets and might be forgotten sooner than even a standard ‘picture on the front, standard blurb on the back’ collectable card series would be.

To their credit they’ve tried something new but it doesn’t look like it will work out as they’ve tried to be something for everyone and the only way this project will recoup costs is if it became an international fad. Then again with how much recycling has been done with stock photo assets here it’s probably been incredibly cheap, for a well established multinational organisation, to produce in order to gain a little of a market they have rarely been involved in. I know that there are the Heroclix available in specialist shops but these sorts of games don’t tend to last long in the mainstream and are the passion of a niche community which Marvel, regarding their cinematic universe, don’t invest in preferring to get a few dollars from many people across the globe than have the investment of a smaller community who will spend high amounts should the game appeal to them and a community exist (the latter being the most important variable and one they have very little control over).

But I suppose that’s the point. It’s just testing the waters and will be deemed an acceptable loss in the long run. After all did any of us really think the Pokemon card game would still be going strong over a decade after it began? No doubt they thought with Marvel’s appeal they could replicate the success but they forgot that it’s the underlying game which has kept the Pokemon version going all these years and it’s evolution in terms of rules and other elements not just because it’s part of the Pokemon franchise.

Ultimately it’s not worth buying these cards. If you want an easy to access version of this game you can play at any age and you get a full card set to be played with right out the packet go buy the Marvel themed Top Trumps set. I haven’t gone to see what it’s called but I have no doubt there is a Marvel themed set considering all the franchises they’ve done sets for by now. In fact for all I know there are sets for each individual film. Even if you spend £5 to buy the Top Trumps set it’s still more cards and potential game play than spending the same amount of money on these collectable cards. These might appeal to Marvel fans or collectors speculating they’ll be rare in the future, due to no one buying them, but that’s a gamble I don’t feel will pay off as all the ‘modern rarity’ speculation requires you buy everything and people just don’t have the money or patience for it. The imagery on the cards is all available at a quick internet image search or freeze frame of the films so… that just leaves the game and that feels incredibly weak and not worth the effort of investing in as there’s little if any strategy even for children to enjoy. If you get a special foil card of your favourite character you might like it but… no.

Look out for special cards in packets including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Cards:

Mirror foil cards 1:1

Holographic foil cards 1:2

Super holographic foil cards 1:3

 

Published by Topps Europe Limited,

18 Vincent Avenue, Crownhill,

Milton Keynes, MK8 0AW, UK

Produced by Topps.

(GB) Warning! Not suitable for children under 36 months. Small parts – choking hazard.

(DK) Advarseli! Ikke egnet til born under 36 maneder. Sma dele – kvaelningsfare.