Should You Buy Story Deck: Stormlight Lost Tales?

Now that it is officially released for public sale, those well invested in the Cosmere may be wondering: should I buy Story deck? 

The answer is, it depends.

First, let’s cover what Story Deck is, and what it is not.

Stormlight Lost Tales is the first installment of a series of collectable trading cards called Story Deck. In total there are three stories to collect, consisting of 54 cards per story, as well as a set of rare herald cards. Like other collectable trading cards, there are holographic versions and even a unique take on alternate versions of many of the cards to collect.

We’ll get into the details of what all that means in a moment, but let’s talk about what Story Deck isn’t. It is not a “game.”

Trading card games like Magic the Gather or the Pokemon see you growing your collection and building decks to play against your friends in some kind of competitive format.

Story Deck is about completing your collection: there is no combat or competitive aspect to it.

I mentioned earlier that Stormlight Lost Tales is composed of three stories.  To understand what that means, let’s take a closer look at a card.

On one side, you'll see a segment of a story. Each card is marked with a number 1 - 54, indicating the order it falls within the story. The border art helps you identify which of three stories the card belongs to. String all 52 cards together, and you’ll have a complete story.

On the other side of the card is a piece of a mural. Every 9 cards (1-9, 10-18, and so on) form a complete mural with some stunning artwork. Sanderson and team designed Story Deck with traditional trading card games in mind. If you have a standard 3x3 trading card binder, you will be able to put your collection on display. 

Those well invested in the cosmere may want to know that two of the stories in Stormlight Lost Tales are official canon: we get a story about Lopen and Elokar, and another about Jasnah escaping Shadesmar. The third story is a fun tale about some Chasmfiends lovingly called Chasmfriends.

I won’t spoil the stories here, but they’re well worth checking out.

In addition to the three stories, there are also 9 rare Herald cards collected, depicting a Herald on one side, and a mural-style artwork on the other. During Dragonsteel Nexus 2024, the Heralds were the rarest and most sought after cards.

Finally, there are the misprint cards. These alternate versions of standard story cards have been marked up with notes from an unknown source, and contain small, or quite large, differences from the standard versions of the story card. These were coined as “nonsense” cards at Nexus, since each is stamped with a 100% nonsense stamp somewhere on the cards. I am not actually 100% certain how many nonsense cards there are. During trading, I found that there were some standard cards that had multiple nonsense versions. There were even foil nonsense cards. 

And that’s Story Deck: collect cards to build a story, uncover ultra rare herald cards, and collect the nonsense cards to round out your collection.

But should you buy it? It depends.

Story Deck is at its best when you have a local community with which you can trade to build your collection. Nexus was overrun with folks making deals, chatting over their favorite nonsense cards, and just hanging out while checking out each other's collections. I think I met more people trying to give away my duplicate cards than I did at any other conference event, and I met A LOT of great people.

Opening the 18 some odd packs we got for free at Nexus was not enough to complete a collection. Trading to get the full set of stories was a necessity. I barely even saw the 7th - 9th herald cards. It may take you a LONG time to build up a full collection, and honestly, I think that’s OK.

The entire point of Story Deck is collecting, if that journey takes you to meet new people, or solo the trip over occasional packs, that’s alright. Buying a full collection of these cards outright sort of defeats the purpose.

At the time of making this video, you can buy a 3 pack of booster packs for $10, and a 36 pack box for $100. Each booster contains 13 story cards, 1 foil story card, and 1 alternate, herald, or foil card. If you’re looking to buy up the entire collection, it will cost you. If you have a local game store or fans nearby that are into the Cosmere as well, you can build your collection together by trading.

As a side note, there is also a binder on sale. I bought one on site, and I would say it's just OK. It seemed to be made specifically for this release of Story Deck with slots to contain your entire collection, but the middle binding of the pages were a bit odd in the one I got. Depending on your budget, $25 isn’t strictly a bad deal, but you can also get a standard training card binder on amazon for like $10 or $15 bucks.

For those without the local fanbase to help build your collection, I would recommend building your collection over time. Pick up a set of boosters here and try to grow your collection slowly. Unless collecting is a massive part of your Cosmere fandom, it’s not really worth dropping potentially hundreds of dollars to grab up all of the cards.

If you’re interested in getting a sense for how long it will take to complete your collection, I will be uploading a video of me opening an entire box of 36 packs as soon as they arrive in the mail. I’ll open each pack in turn, and see how much is missing from a complete set. This will only be directional, the packs are random, so your actual mileage may vary.

So, will you be checking out Story Deck?