Okay, okay, I promise I'll stop with the sealed product.

It's just that I'm missing so many non-foil TLE cards, and these can only be found in Jumpstart Booster packs. When I saw a box of 24 Jumpstart packs going cheap on Amazon, I figured it would help me cover off most of the bulk. Prior to this box, I had only opened two Jumpstart packs in total.

The thing about opening a Jumpstart pack compared to a Play Booster or Collector Booster is that it's a relatively boring affair. There is no chance of pulling a rare card from a Jumpstart Booster. The contents are not random; instead, each Jumpstart pack follows a randomised theme, with a set list of spells and lands for each theme. The idea of this format is for both players to open two Jumpstart packs each and shuffle them together for an instant deck.

Cracking 24 of these back-to-back therefore felt a bit sacrilegious. That's six drafted games down the drain, with no play value. The good news is that I made huge stonks: of the 24, I only hit three duplicate themes.

The highlight for me was pulling a non-foil version of That's Rough Buddy. I now have it in both treatments. Maybe I should look at obtaining copies in every language next?

The nice thing about so little theme duplication is that I'm now sitting on 23 of the 46 JTLA "Front Cards". These card-shaped non-playables serve no function aside from indicating the theme of the Jumpstart Booster they came from. The not so nice thing about this number is that I'm now firmly in the danger zone: there is now a 50/50 chance of hitting a duplicate theme every time I open a Jumpstart in future. Rather than face those diminishing returns, I will simply have to acquire the rest of the TLE set as singles.

Easier said than done.