The Eternal Jyhad : Keepers of Tradition : Second Opinion

Now that I've gone through 8 boosters boxes, sorted through all the many many starters and completed my inventory updates on the new cards; I can sit down and have a quiet thought of the impact and quality of the Keepers of Tradition base set. I must still say that it is a reasoanably good base set, but it's impact to gaming, in terms of the new cards, are not huge. Given the fact that it is supposed to be a base set, meaning that it must be newbie friendly and should encompass a large selection of reprints, I guess it has pretty much done a good job. Reprints

White Wolf's selection of the reprints in this base set is reasonably sound. Many previously obscure and therefore very expensive cards, are now reprinted, either as rares of uncommons in the boosters or included as fixed cards in the pre-con starters.

Many of the most expensive cards' prices have gone down (in ebay) because of this. The most notable example is perhaps Powerbase : Montreal and Sniper Rifle. Even staple cards that used to be in short supply is now quite easy to get around my areas, such as Immortal Grapple and Majesty. The reprinted cards, especially the rares, reintroduced some of the old cards that at least around my area, had almost no presence before - cards like Charisma and Jake Washington now started to appear in the decks around here.

Many of these rares are power cards that are either very flexible, or pivotal in decks that can benefit from it. The most ridiculously difficult card for me is The Embrace. After 8 booster boxes I've got like, ONE! ONE Embrace! And given the fact that ONE Embrace isn't going to do much good in a deck, I can imagine that the price of this card isn't going to be affected much.

Here's a breakdown of the more valuable cards that I've got after 8 boxes of boosters. Heart of Nizchetus - 3 Heart of the City - 3 The Embrace - 1 Charisma - 2 Jake Washington - 2 The Unmasking - 2 Enkil Cog - 3 Magazine - 3 Magic of the Smith - 3 Mind Rape - 2 Ossian - 1 Psychi Veil - 2 Touch of Clarity - 3 I did get a ridiculous 9 pieces of Liberty Club Intrigue though... New Cards

The new cards, especially the uncommon, are just not common enough, given the power of some of the cards. For example, Eyes of Argus. Even some of the commons are lacking a little, like Ashur Tablets - I only got about 14 after 8 boxes, for a common it isn't that exciting, and I don't even have 8 pieces of Charismatic Aura.

The Vampires, however, are very clear cut. I have almost exactly 16 of every Vampire after 8 boxes, meaning that I get about 2 per box. None of my new booster Vampires number less than 2, I have a couple of 3s and that's about it. So if you need 4 of a particular Vampire, buying 2 booster boxes should guarantee you that.

Starters

The starters are good, most of them are extremely good in terms of value. You can get stuff like Freak Drives, Golconda, Giant's Blood, Immortal Grapples and so on in the starters. Many newbie-friendly cards are included to help new players to get their deck to work, or even to reach a certain basic power level to challenge the old-timers.

Cards of Impact I think the card that will have the most impact in the game is Villien. Value for Money

I think at this point, the booster pack of choice, unless you're seeking a particular card, should be KOT. It has a good mix of valuable and useful cards, useable for most clans. There are very few clan or sect specific cards (Liberty Club Intrigue!!!!!), and the boosters are packed with many good staple commons that will see actions very often, such as Kindred Spirits, Aid from Bats, Perfectionist and so on. So if you're just buying something as an impulse purchase, go for KOT boosters.

(o.o)y