At the GSX release I had bought a brick upon release and a friend had split and drafted a second brick with me. After a sealed event and a draft event netted me 20 more pieces, I had a pretty fair collection going. Nearly all CUR pieces, 3 chases and an allotment of SRs. One piece was sorely missing: Juggernaut. As a member born squarely in the middle of the Generation Y demographic I woke up each Saturday morning to watch the X-men cartoon. I would try to keep up with the fast-paced story line as best as my 7 year old brain could handle and rarely succeeded. One thing was clear, Juggernaut had always been my favorite.

A few weeks after GSX released there was an unclaimed brick at my LCBS and the manager decided to let us buy packs from it after the weekly tourney. I was excited, we all were. The comic book store had closed the door and shutoff most the lights as part of preparing to lock up for the evening. We couldn’t have made it feel more illicit had we tried.  We were collectible addicts plain and simple and super rares were our fix. I grabbed my pack and tore into it with as much fervor as a fat kid on a 20 piece McNuggets. Inside was the running red giant himself, Juggs. I yelled at the top of my lungs and ran circles around the store.

I considered rending my shirt to create a scene of biblical proportions, but alas there were children present and I have policy of trying not to be personally responsible for nightmares. My bare chest has been called many things: “nightmare inducing” is one of the less enticing (conversely, “Road to the Promised Land” being the most). My piece had been gotten, my disdain for the random boosters quelled. Others around me anguished and knew they were in store for another lonely night of watching others play with Juggs.  

When opening my Captain America set I had none of this anticipation. Sure the pieces are good and playable. The sculpts look nice, but there was not a piece I was prepared to ruin a shirt over. Sure it would have been nice to pull a Weapon X, but I would trade it in a heartbeat for a Magneto to fill out my GSX team. Everyone had different SRs they were interested in and everyone pulled some they liked, some they never heard of. Release night is a special night for our local clix group.

We leave behind our Wives, Girlfriends or Level 60 night-elf mohawks to gather together as bros and be jealous of each other’s new toys. This time there was not much gloating to be had. Maybe this is a good thing, at least we all went home happy with our shirts still securely on our backs.