When it comes to blinging out my games, I’m all in. While I usually wait until I’ve played a game a few times before deciding if I need to upgrade its bits or storage solution, once I decide a game is a keeper, my next thought is to see how I can give it an upgrade. And that’s one of the reasons I started this Level Up My Game column series. I love finding new and unique ways to enjoy my time at the gaming table.
Recently, the folks over at Buy the Same Token offered to let us check out some of their products. Always open to new ideas, I said sure, and they sent over a handful of things. Were they quality upgrades? Let’s find out.
Deck Boxes:
Deck boxes come in all kinds of sizes and flavors, but most focus on one thing: holding cards. Shocking right? But interesting enough, the deck boxes here aren’t just focused on storage. Mind you, they are also good at that. They are made of a rigid plastic that should survive abuse pretty well. Actually, I tested one of the boxes by giving it to my 8-year-old son to hold his Pokémon cards for a few weeks.
For those of you who don’t have young boys at home, that’s basically equivalent to giving the box to a honey badger or the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes. Kids are rough on things, and my boy seems to excel at taking things apart. His Fantasy Flight Games deck box (that I had floating around since the days when they actually made accessories) only lasted about a week before the lid was torn off. But this box survived its time with him no worse for wear. That was about the toughest stress test I could think of and it passed.
The other interesting thing about these boxes is that they are actually useful during your games. If you are playing Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars Unlimited, or some other TCG/CCG/LCG, these have a handy feature of holding your deck during the game and providing a discard area as well. The lid folds down to create an angled tray that allows you to draw your cards from it as you play. Discards go back into the box in a vertical slot. Frankly, this was pretty brilliant as it keeps everything nice and contained.
My only criticism of the box is that I’d love to see some color options. They are only available in black and white, so while the color choices are fine and functional, they are not very expressive.
Token Holder:
As most board gamers can attest, we are constantly on the hunt for good token storage solutions. My buddy Alex introduced us to the Silicon Baking Cups decades ago, and it has long been a staple on our gaming table to hold tokens. Yet while it functions in-game, it isn’t of any use for storing parts of the game.
Their solution to this is a set of magnetic token boxes. They are stackable, so you can have one try, stack on another, and then a lid, all held together with these tiny little magnets. I have been playing a lot of Marvel Crisis Protocol lately and was looking for a quick storage solution for the power and wound tokens, and this worked well. It holds things secure, and I like that the size is unobtrusive enough that we can just plop them on the table and grab the tokens we need during the game.
The only downside here is that there are only 1 well options. So they are excellent for holding a large pile of tokens, but if you have 2-3 copies of various tokens, there isn’t a solution for keeping them separated in the same container. Not a huge issue, but it may be applicable depending on what game you are trying to sort.
Card Holders:
My kids have little hands and are constantly bugging me to use card holders whenever we play a game where they have any kind of hand size. So when these showed up, I let them test it during our game of Catan: On the Go. And they were solid. They sat nicely on the table, held the cards upright, and even had a slot for tokens (for games that actually have those). The token tray is actually kind of a nice touch, and not something I’ve seen before in a card holder.
The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship tokens
So let’s move on from storage and talk bling. My favorite game from 2025 has to be The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship. This Pandemic offshoot has captured our imagination, and we’ve played it probably at least a dozen times. I’ve actually had my eye on upgrading the tokens for this game for a while, as the punchboard bits are fine, if unremarkable.
Included with this set are replacements for all the player tokens (stealth, valor, friendship, and resistance), as well as new haven and stronghold markers. They are made from translucent acrylic and painted with their icon. While the icons don’t match the original game icons, the shape and color are pretty close, so there shouldn’t be any confusion. They are purely a cosmetic upgrade that also enhances the tactile experience of the game. If you are looking to upgrade your bits for Fate of the Fellowship, this is a great option. I particularly appreciated the haven and stronghold upgrades as they really helped those crucial locations stand out on the board.
Final Thoughts:
That’s what they sent me to check out, but on their website, they have a lot more offerings. They offer token upgrades for 50+ (based on my quick count) board games, TCGs/LCGs, and miniature games. So there is a good chance they might have a token upgrade for your current passion.
And as an added bonus, they provided us a discount code for you to use on their website should you be interested in blinging out any of your games or getting some deck boxes. Just use code BGQ-5 when you check out and get 5% off your order.
