I Love, Compete & Collect

From baseball to basketball, Pokemon to Yu-Gi-Oh!, if there are cards being made, I have probably purchased a pack, or two. I remember pleading with my mother for baseball cards at the K-Mart checkout counter, and often miss when it was my parents fronting the bill for my collectibles "habit". Lately, to the dismay of my bank account, there is a new card game in the collectible space that has caught my attention, VeeFriends Compete & Collect, and I have been living in the rabbit hole over the last few weeks. I've loved ripping packs again, learning about the game's characters, and I can't wait to get a chance at competing against others in some sort of tournment format. Each character boasts its own engaging artwork, including limited edition variations, as well as a thought provoking character attribute, influenced by the company and their creator, Gary Vayrnerchuk. If you like collecting, card games, or have been looking for a reason to give them a try, read along to find out more about Compete & Collect, and why I think it might be worth dipping into your savings a little!

1. Nostalgia

As mentioned above, as I child I was a big fan of Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!. I loved collecting the cards, playing the games, but above all else, I enjoyed the experience of learning about new players, and characters. When I was maybe 5 years old, it was my Uncle Paul that got me interested, and every time he came to visit he would bring me a few packs of Pokemon cards, and we would have so much fun opening them together. I'm not really sure if he liked Pokemon himself, or just enjoyed it because I did, but he inspired a lifetime habit of collecting, and I'll be forever remembrent of those early days. When I was a little older, and more into sports than fantasy games, my Uncle Andy gave me his own baseball card collection so that I could start my own. There must have been close to 500 cards in the boxes he gave me. A combination of graded team cards from the 50's, a complete Topps box set from the 60's, and an assortment of various makes, and prints he had picked up over the years. Following his generous donation, I've grown my collection to roughly ~6,000 cards of varrying sports, and have spent hours going through them, thumbing through the packs looking for my favorite players. With the older cards, I've enjoyed asking my pops, a walking encyclopedia, about the players and his memories of watching the play when he was a kid. With VeeFriends cards, I've been reminded of the joy that comes with opening packs, and what it feels like to learn about characters for the first time again. And while collecting has become a much more expensive hobby, the memories I've made along the way are absolutely priceless, and I wouldn't trade them for all the money back that I've ever spent. I can only imagine the memories I will make along my Compete & Collect journey, and hope that I have an opportunity to pass my own colection on one day.

2. Character Development

One major element to know about Compete & Collect cards is that the characters are derived from the VeeFriends Series 2 NFT collection, and are virtually more life-like renditions of the NFTs themselves. The cards come with varied borders to reflect the rarity, and there are even some inserts with 1-of-1 variations, and Gary signed editions. With the upgrades to the art the VeeFriends team was able use it to emphasize the characters' individual personas, and I think they have done a great job continuing to emphasize character development through all aspects. Even the characters' scores and attribute totals speak to who they are, and I am starting to see a future in which Gary's team brings these characters to life even more. Whether that be in a video game, a movie, or some sort of cartoon, I can see these characters going about challenges, struggling, and eventually porevaling, in accordance to the strengths and weaknesses on their card. Gary is always preaching about IP, intellectual property, in his content, and I think these characters are the beginning of a world of possibility he is creating for himself, perhaps in hopes of becoming the next Disney??? Regardless, I think these characters, and the characteristics used to name them, will continue to develop through new ways of telling their stories, both physically and digitally, and I am looking forward to following along.

3. The Community

While third on my list, the VeeFriends community is behind none when it comes to welcoming new members with open arms, and being so supportive in helping newbies up-to-speed on Compete & Collect. I had an interesting introduction myself, starting with a Twitter giveawy from Gary that was unfortunately, stolen. Now, this was before they got started with FanaticsLive, so while I was able to connect with Ripps at first to try and figure out a solution, those messages soon went unresponeded to, understandbly, as he has had his hands full on the livestream. I chalked it up to a loss, and I tried to find peace in the hope that whoever did end up with the card, would end up getting more joy out of it than I ever would have. Soon after, I went and bought into a box rip of halloween pins from To The Moon Cards, or so I thought. I reached out to TGer via Twitter to find out when the break was, a notable community member and part of ToTheMoon team, and quickly found out that I had actually purchased refunded spots from their previous stream that just happened

to show up "for sale" when I was looking through the store. TGer felt bad, and offered either a refund, or a careover credit for their next break of the same product, and while I strongly considered the refund, I took the spot in the following break in hopes that my luck would change. I shared my previous misfortune with TGer, and he later included a graded CGC 7.5 Grattitude Gorilla with my pin in order to make upe for my past loss.

I've since seen several people share stories of similar woes while starting their collections, and continue to see VeeFriends community members jump in to offer cards, provide insight, and just be a supportive community to lean on when things haven't gone as expected.

Overall, I'd say that VeeFriends Compete & Collect has a chance to be THE new game the kids, and adults, are playing one day, and I hope I can get more invovled as it does. Despite what some may consider a negative introduction, I don't have a bad thing to say about my experience thus far with C&C. The characters, the community, and the fun of discovery have been everything that I used to love about collecting, and I am really excited to continue along my journey. And for those that may doubt the legitamacy of the Twitter giveaways, while the first one may have never came, I was fortunate enough to be chosen a second time by Gary, and with some necesary intervention from Corso, a graded CGC Gem Mint 9.5 Mature Muel now lives on my desktop. If you are looking for a new hobby, or if you are like me and have enough but can't turn down a good collectible, I'll see you in the Compete & Collect world soon!