Did the smell actually change between that first Columbus purchase and the Ark Nova box, or is it more that the memory of the first one makes every new box feel the same? I ask because I had a similar thing with old Magic packs, and after a while I figured out I was chasing the feeling of being new to the hobby, not the cardboard itself. Maybe the sniff test is really a nostalgia test.

Could you push it further and just start at the season finale?

Corduroy slabs hit different, honestly. A little wobble in the finish shows a human actually touched the thing.