Readiness and acquisition

What you’ll accomplish

Readiness and acquisition connect your physical collection to purchase decisions. By the end of this workflow you can read the shortage table, prioritize by unlock value rather than price, and walk away with a buy list — not a wish list.

Before you start

• Honest inventory — see Organize inventory and Add and maintain cards.
• At least 2 active target decks (acquisition gets interesting once shortages overlap across decks).
• A budget you actually plan to spend. The plan adapts to budget caps if you set one.

Steps

1. Read the shortage table

   Open Acquisition → Shortages. Every missing card across every active deck, grouped by card name. Each row shows:

   • Required — total copies needed across all active decks
   • Owned — total copies in inventory
   • Available — owned minus committed
   • Missing — required minus available
   • Affected decks — the list of decks blocked by this shortage

   The most useful column is “Affected decks” — a shortage that blocks three decks is fundamentally different from one that blocks one.

   Screenshot pending /img/docs/acquisition/acq-shortage-table.png

   A staple missing across 4 decks is not the same problem as a specific card missing in 1.

2. Review the priority groups

   Acquisition doesn’t give you one flat list — it sorts shortages into groups, each answering a different question:

   • Best unlocks — high impact for the price
   • Cheap wins — low cost, removes friction
   • High-impact expensive — important but needs a budget decision
   • Single-deck fixes — helps one target only

   Different shopping moods map to different groups. “I have $50 and want maximum gain” → Best unlocks + Cheap wins. “I’m willing to spend on the staple I’ve been putting off” → High-impact expensive. “I’m finishing one deck” → Single-deck fixes.

   Screenshot pending /img/docs/acquisition/acq-plan-priority-rows.png

   The groups aren't a ranking — they're shopping modes. Pick the mode that matches your budget.

3. Focus on Best unlocks first

   The “Best unlocks per dollar” row is where the leverage is. A $40 hand-trap that unblocks three decks is typically a higher-priority buy than a $150 boss monster that unblocks one — even if you “need” the boss monster more emotionally.

   The priority model weights:

   • Number of decks blocked
   • Number of copies missing (a 3-of shortage is worse than a 1-of)
   • Owned copies already at hand (closer to threshold = higher priority)
   • Estimated total cost
   • Price confidence

   Screenshot pending /img/docs/acquisition/acq-best-unlocks.png

   If two cards have equal unlock value, the one with higher price confidence wins the tie.

4. Verify, buy, reconcile

   Before placing an order:

   1. Verify the actual seller price (not Pegasus’s estimate).
   2. Check shipping, language, condition, edition.
   3. Confirm availability — listings vanish.
   4. Buy.
   5. When cards arrive, add them to inventory (see Add and maintain cards).
   6. Re-run readiness — the loop closes here.

   Screenshot pending /img/docs/acquisition/acq-blockers-zero.png

   The reward for the whole workflow: a deck that was 'almost' is now 'now.'

What success looks like

Your active deck count whose buildability flipped from red to green during the shopping session is greater than zero, and the cards you bought match the “Best unlocks” or “Cheap wins” groups — not a random 5-of-staple panic buy. Bonus: re-running readiness reveals one or two newly-cheap unlocks that were hidden by the previous bottleneck.

Common pitfalls

• Trusting Pegasus’s price as the buy price. Pegasus shows the public-feed price (CardMarket, TCGPlayer averages). The actual seller price for the condition/language/edition you want will differ. Always verify at checkout.
• Buying single-deck fixes when budget is tight. Single-deck fixes feel emotionally satisfying — you finish one deck. But Best unlocks usually moves more decks per dollar. If budget is tight, do Best unlocks first.
• Forgetting to reconcile post-purchase. Cards bought but not added to inventory leave readiness stuck reporting old shortages. The system stays useful only if the loop closes.

Going deeper

The unlock-value calculation, price confidence model, and priority weight tuning are documented in Scoring model. Public price feeds and the non-affiliation posture (Pegasus does not auto-buy or take commissions) are in Data sources and affiliation.

For the buying workflow when shortages span multiple sellers or international shipping, see Troubleshooting.

For the field-by-field reference of the acquisition surface — every shortage-table column, the four priority groups, price-confidence levels — see Acquisition (reference).

Next steps

Compare and improve decks Compare before-and-after on the deck you just unlocked.

Recommended workflow Lock in the weekly cadence so the loop stays alive.