Want: Enkil Cog

Amenophobis wrote:

The card just has to be extremely powerful, otherwise people would part more willingly from them.

Or maybe one shouldn't expect much rationality from people willing to spend that kind of money on a piece of paper? Especially when some of them can be collectors who do not even plan on playing it.

I'd say it's a highly usable card that every player who plans on using fatties can use multiple copies of. And it's a rare! Set design for KoT failed in that respect.

I have just checked: there is exactly 1 TWD with several copies of Enkil Cog in it. It is a Rachel deck that plays 2 and merely uses it as plan B if he cannot defend the Madness Network. All other decks (Girls, Order 66, ...) play only 1 and none needs it to play its game. Sure, Enkil Cog can fit in many decks, but most of them will run just as fine without it. And playing several can just as well hamper you card flow as win you the game.

IIRC the most expensive cards before KoT were around $40-$50, including e.g. Unmasking, pre-third Warghoul and FN/R vampires. That $40 for Enkil Cog is quite inline with the most sought after VTES cards.

Maybe it is my failing memory (the old age, you know ), but I don't recall prizes of 50 USD.
If the price is in line, then that should mean that there is high demand for very little supply. Which means, that the decision to make it a rare in a very large set was flawed to begin with.

Man, why do I catch myself always complaining about Enkil Cog? Must be my affinity to high cap/super special ability vampires...

Non-existant user wrote:

I'd say it's a highly usable card that every player who plans on using fatties can use multiple copies of. And it's a rare! Set design for KoT failed in that respect.

I have just checked: there is exactly 1 TWD with several copies of Enkil Cog in it. It is a Rachel deck that plays 2 and merely uses it as plan B if he cannot defend the Madness Network. All other decks (Girls, Order 66, ...) play only 1 and none needs it to play its game. Sure, Enkil Cog can fit in many decks, but most of them will run just as fine without it. And playing several can just as well hamper you card flow as win you the game.

OTOH, this might be evidence, that Enkil Cog is just not as widely available to make it into tournament winning decks. I guess that only a portion of the tournament players elect to play big caps, and of those only 1 can have a TWD-entry with their deck. And if that player just happens to have no access to Enkil Cog... well, you get what I infer.

Everytime I look at Enkil Cog, I can think of a couple of decks where I would want to put it in (Nakthorheb multi-action, Saulot, The Unnamed bleed frenzy, Lucian, etc.)
All those big cap bleed decks can profit from a bleed action that cannot be AI'd.
1 copy of Enkil Cog is absolutely reasonable. Sometimes even 2. It will always make the deck work better. Always.

I have the misfortune of playing in a very competitive playgroup. Would I want to trade for say, Pressing Flesh, I would most likely succeed. But Enkil Cog is such a powerful card, that most players have only 1 of, that they are not willing to part with it. Sucks.

Amenophobis wrote:

OTOH, this might be evidence, that Enkil Cog is just not as widely available to make it into tournament winning decks.

Only several thousands printed...
The set is sold out so basically 95% or so of the printed Enkil Cogs are "out there" being played.

I also don't think that set design with KotT failed when Enkil Cog was made rare. All in all KotT managed to have a good solid number of new cards in every rarity category. Also every rarity category had several powerful new cards.

It is helpful if you purchase boosters if you want to get a copy of a card in a set. I've noticed that often when a core set with plenty of reprints (such as KotT) came out, quite a few people, often older hands, tended not to buy that many boosters. Kinda understandable but if you don't buy boosters and still want to get the sought after cards then the pricing in secondary market for loose cards will be likely to reflect this need for certain power cards with infalted prices. Tough.

Lönkka wrote:

Amenophobis wrote:

OTOH, this might be evidence, that Enkil Cog is just not as widely available to make it into tournament winning decks.

Only several thousands printed...
The set is sold out so basically 95% or so of the printed Enkil Cogs are "out there" being played.

I also don't think that set design with KotT failed when Enkil Cog was made rare. All in all KotT managed to have a good solid number of new cards in every rarity category. Also every rarity category had several powerful new cards.

It is helpful if you purchase boosters if you want to get a copy of a card in a set. I've noticed that often when a core set with plenty of reprints (such as KotT) came out, quite a few people, often older hands, tended not to buy that many boosters. Kinda understandable but if you don't buy boosters and still want to get the sought after cards then the pricing in secondary market for loose cards will be likely to reflect this need for certain power cards with infalted prices. Tough.

Where did you get the information that several thousend Enkil Cogs were printed? Do you have any figures? According to the Lasombra, printsizes were growing smaller with every new set, so selling out is not such a huge surprise. Other sets like BH or KMW are still readily available.

I bought 4 booster displays of KoT, and then some for private drafting. Same for a couple of other players in our group. It seems that in our 10+ players group only 2 Enkil Cog have been found.
So, where are all the other thousands of Enkil Cogs? And why is nobody willing to part with them?

If what you say is true, there should be plenty for sale and/or trade, as it's Unique and you don't need more than 2 or 3 at most in any given deck.

All I see is the very, very infrequent auction for a copy of Enkil Cog, and a lot of players looking for them.