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The Three Blaster War: The "Real" Packs Begin!

Whether you celebrate Easter, April Fool's Day, or simply the start of another month, here's to a good one to you and yours! 

For me, I know that I'm ready for April to both start and be over with...for one thing, the work semester is over at the end of April (my college usually gets out a week or so earlier than most which is nice).  Furthermore, my wife and I are expecting our first child at the end of May....so April will be an agonizing month of anxious waiting! 

Luckily for me, I have plenty of things to do to keep me busy.  While I didn't have to hide Easter eggs this year (maybe next year I will?), I do have some baseball cards to go through including my three blasters of 2018 Topps Gypsy Queen that I recently purchased.  Yesterday, I started the blaster war and as a reminder, here is where we currently stand after the "bonus" pack of parallel cards.

Current Standings:
Target 1:  8 points
Walmart:  1 point
Target 2:  -4 points

Now, it's time to crack into pack 1 from each blaster.  To keep things fair, I'll vary which blaster I start with (since duplicates get penalized as I pull them).  For consistency, I think I'll start with the last place blaster and work my way up to the blaster that is currently in the lead.  Thus, it's time to start with the second Target blaster.

Target 2:

52.  Anibal Sanchez
71.  Ken Giles
82.  Paul Goldschmidt
108.  Garrett Richards
164.  Hunter Renfroe
181.  Jarrett Parker

A mostly lackluster pack for our last place blaster...let's see what we can salvage though.  First, the Goldy is nice (+2) and I like the emotion displayed on the Giles card (+2).  I'll give an extra point for the Giles being an Astros card since they are my "adopted" team for the past three years while my Reds (forever my main team) waste time going nowhere fast.  The good news is that there are no duplicates here since this is my first real pack of GQ for the year.

Pack Total:  2 + 2 + 1 = 5 points
Target 2 total:  -4 + 5 = 1 point

Walmart:

32.  Martin Perez
103.  Trea Turner
145.  Paul Blackburn
200.  Cody Bellinger
211.  Corey Dickerson
281.  Andrew Miller

Not a lot to see in this pack, +2 for the Bellinger image but then -1 because all I seem to pull are Dodgers (plus Rays, Twins, and Marlins).  Speaking of the Rays, -1 for the Dickerson.  Finally, +1 for the Turner because of the fans in the background - for some reason I simply like that card.

Pack Total:  2 - 1 - 1 + 1 = 1 point
Walmart total:  2 points

Target 1:

5.  Andrew Cashner
36.  Jack Flaherty
137.  Carlos Gonzalez
176.  Jacob deGrom
204.  Tommy Pham
293.  Daniel Mengden

Lots of points here, some good and some bad.  In number order:  +1 for Cashner for the beard, -3 for Flaherty (Cardinal stink), +4 for deGrom (one of my wife's favorite players), -3 for Pham (more Cardinal stink), +2 for Mengden's Rollie Fingers-esque mustache.

Pack Total:  +1 - 3 + 4 - 3 + 2 = 1 point
Target 1 total:  8 + 1 = 9 points

Current Standings:
Target 1:  9 points
Walmart:  2 points
Target 2:  1 point

Well, the overall standings didn't shift at all...but the Target 1 blaster made up some ground on it's two competitors.  Now the span from first to worst is only 8 points.  Still not a single Reds card to be found...should I get one, that ought to result in some nice positive points.  Also, no inserts, parallels, or hits yet so who knows what might happen as the Blaster War progresses!

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