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“Pre-ordering” and Puca Trade

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I've written about Puca Trade before with regard to the flaws of using TCG mid as a system for valuing cards, and yesterday I came accross a Reddit thread exposing a store who abused this metric to try to scum some players on Eternal Masters cards. To get up to speed on the particulars, you can find the thread here.

Basically, you can set up a want list before a set launches, and stores can post cards at higher prices to inflate the average price. A store called The MTG Place was inflating prices, and then sending cards for inflated Puca Point values to members of Puca Trade. Fortunately, by using accounts of the same name on both sites this scam was easily exposed, and The MTG Place has been banned from Puca Trade. To my knowledge no action has been taken by TCGPlayer, and there's really no issue with what was done with regard to matters only involving TCGP, and as such I wouldn't expect any action from them. It's only because of Puca Trade's system that it becomes problematic for others to list your inventory at a price that nobody would spend.

I have been told that paid accounts on Puca Trade enable users to set a max value that they would spend on a card, and while I don't know that I would spend money on a Puca Trade account, I do know that I would not maintain a want list on the site without this feature. A system with prices based on averages is easily exploitable, and while my personal preference would be that Puca Trade put effort into setting card values that were at least difficult to manipulate, given the current system the best I can do is to advise users of the flaws of the system.

If you list cards on TCGPlayer to inflate prices on Puca Trade, frankly getting banned on Puca Trade is the minimum punishment that you deserve. For honest traders, just remember that you can't always expect honesty from everybody else.

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Ryan Overturf

Ryan has been playing Magic since Legions and playing competitively since Lorwyn. While he fancies himself a Legacy specialist, you'll always find him with strong opinions on every constructed format.

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2 thoughts on ““Pre-ordering” and Puca Trade

  1. I am an avid puca member with a “silver” account (5 dollars monthly) mostly so that i can post bounties for higher end wants and also to be able to trade foils (a feature which is a little aggravating to have to pay for but, hey, websites aren’t free to maintain so….). I certainly see your point regarding the pitfalls of artificial and even natural price spikes on puca. I have certainly fallen victim to the sell-high oversight (im looking at you grafdiggers cage) but if i understand correctly there is a very pronounced lag in price adjustments from tcg to puca. And while i agree that tcg mid isn’t a very valuable rubric for mtg value outside of friendly trading, there should be no trouble adjusting your want list to avoid overpaying so long as you are at least nominally vigilant and tuned in to market fluctuations. Puca is a deeply valuable tool for players who do not want to go full-on mtg finance but want to play affordably. I would love to see QS (a service who’s insight ive found quite valuable and for which i also am a paid subscriber) publish more articles on the topic pucatrade and the logistical side of mtg finance in general.

    1. There have been a number of in depth pieces about PT written in the past, and I believe some of our writers still use it. What in particular are you looking for with regard to PT content?

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