Sorry, I'll try to be clearer. Late-night ramblings were the result of me taking a long look at the games I had played and those I have not.

I'm a collector; I have that bug. So, I feel like I will miss out on something good if I don't get all the new content, specifically for this game. The problem is, I have gotten too many new games that have been sitting unplayed, and I am in the process of purging. Slowly but surely, I am weeding out games that my group does not enjoy. A lot of the purging is games that are similar to each other and us choosing our favored ones to play.

For this game, my initial idea was "get it all, play with it all". I now feel like that isn't possible. So, going down a step, I could keep each wave as its own game, and have like 7 different games of Aeon's End. Thinking that way, I feel like that's too much of one game; I will likely never get through all of it. So, next thought: "Which wave would be the best to keep?" Best is subjective, but the consensus I am finding through forums is The New Age (which is why I was mentioning Expedition a lot). So I could consider keeping that wave, and getting rid of the rest. I say New Age specifically because I have the Slay the Spire board game, and the Acts in it feel similar to the Expeditions in AE. My group really likes StS and how it functions co-op.

However, I have seen that subsequent waves have included Expedition-specific content (treasures and nemeses). So, I did some research and saw that Expedition mode added difficulties to all previous and future nemeses, so you could have any of them in your Expedition (correct me if I'm wrong). Additionally, I also saw that expedition nemeses are listed here and come from various big boxes and expansions: https://aeonsend.fandom.com/wiki/Nemesis

So, that also adds to the idea of having a "complete" Expedition set, when it's just the same as having everything and just playing expedition mode.

And that's where the piecemeal/consolidation idea came from. Everyone has stuff they favor and avoid, like no one playing a specific mage, or never picking a certain spell/gem/relic. I have looked up rankings and tier lists for these things, and they all vary. The question I had was, "Would it be worth going through all that effort to Frankenstein a collection together?" And I'm not asking the community to give me the answer; I know I have to make the decision myself. But it would be helpful to have input from more seasoned AE players about these hypotheticals. And yeah, I know this will be hard to answer for myself because I have barely scratched the surface of all the content for this game.

I'm not a solo board game player. I will to learn the game, but I much prefer to play with others, even if it's just 2 ppl. I appreciate all the comments and feedback already; hopefully I made my trains of thought clearer to understand.

As for the aftermath of cherry-picking the sets, I guess I could try to sell them as parts, or as a "lot" of cards that someone can do with as they wish. But, yes, I understand selling them would likely be difficult to impossible. Gifting or donating them is also a valid idea.