[swarmee]

So I figured I'd post my results.
This $14 pack includes four common base set moments with a print run expected to exceed 15,000 copies. It was also going to have 1 card /10,000 in an insert set called Cool Cats of which there were five possible to draw in the pack. Two weeks from now, if you collect all five of them, you get a sixth reward clip only available to those having all five pack-inserted "moments." The common moments sell for a couple bucks each unless they have interesting serial numbers.

So this pack was supposed to release at 2pm CT yesterday. Getting on site half an hour early, I kept watch because they normally have website failures during the number of accesses on the site trying to secure a pack. As the time comes to reserve a spot in line to buy one of the 50,000 packs, the website logs me out. I try to log back in a few times, with the server giving me errors. I get back in and try to get back in line. It logs me out again. (They are trying to put some countermeasures in to defeat bots from buying up all the packs) The site is crashing so bad they postpone the release half an hour.

At 2:30 the site is so buggy they push the release another half an hour, but before it gets to that, the host company buys 5,000 packs for "social media influencers" before the packs are available for purchase. They announce this in the open since NFTs on blockchains can be tracked, and going from 50,000 available packs to 45,000 before anyone can buy them reeks. They can't event handle the customer base they already have and they're still trying to press out the goodwill on social media to draw more people in. After that, they announce they're delaying the release again until 7pm CT. So I get back in line around 6:40 and they've opened up the "waiting room" early. Anyone in the waiting room at 7pm is gong to be assigned a random number to get one of the 45K remaining packs. They warn you on the site that if you refresh the screen or try to log in to get another place in line, that your first account will be logged out.

7pm rolls around and I am assigned #41K or so, so I'm guaranteed to get a pack if I stick around until up to 3 hours later when I'll be given a 15 minute slot to complete my purchase. Others got numbers close to 60K so there was a lot of demand for this pack. Luckily I don't get logged out, and at 9pm I get to buy my $14 pack and open it up. 4 commons and a DeMarcus Cousins "Cool Cats" insert /10,000 copies. However, the marketplace is turned off since they've got all the people on site still trying to buy packs. Some people in the queue were either leaving or kicked off, as about 5K extra people got packs than were originally expecting to.

Woke up this morning and noticed the Demarcus Cousins Cool Cats moving picture clip was selling for $140 on site. Listed mine for sale for $130 and it sold in about a minute. All's well that ends well? It definitely seems like a pyramid scheme. Since most of their pack offerings number in the 3-5K range, it might be very hard to keep customers happy due to the overwhelming demand for this, shockingly.