Bah. Kids these days.

Excuse me, while I go put on my Zubaz.

Thanks for the feedback. It\’s always good to get constructive criticism from a fan.

You\’re subject to ridicule for having to ask

i know he likes to trade up just like i like to trade up. And seriously, i hate when other people do counter-offer when i’m trading someone else but if i was aware he was doing that kind of trade, i would have offer something else for that abrupt decay in a “fairer” trade than that shit.

The way to behave is not to tell everyone : “don’t trade with my friend, he’s trying to screw you” or i won’t keep friends for long 😛 Half of the people there probably didn’t know it was that much a terrible trade. so they will tolerate it for now. I think keeping his “shark appetite” lower and make him realize that he is doing a bad thing for everyone is a first step. I actually like that one : “don’t shit where you eat”

this guy*

i know that 😛 if you think about it… this guys almost make the prices for whole MTG community. Everyone look a bit at SCG before doing their own price.

Am I still subject to ridicule if I wear my non-bent hat facing directly forward, and not at some awkward angle?

Ben Bleiweiss is THE price setter for StarCityGames.

I think it takes the entire store tolerating that kind of behavior out of your friend to let it continue. I may sound like a corny douchebag sometimes but I really am all about building up the LGS, and that involves getting and keeping new players. Things like the event decks help. Things like burning someone\’s entire binder for an $8 card don\’t. I think \”You can only skin the sheep once\” is a pretty universally-understood idiom and I can\’t honestly think of a better one. I\’ve been using \”don\’t shit where you eat\” but I think I like yours better.

Oh man, ban a guy for speculating? How much of a hypocrite would THAT make me?

2. Who’s Ben Bleiwess? another speculator? LOL 😛

3. With SCG price being so strange compared to certains sites, i noticed what you’r saying so i have almost no worry to make money on a SCG “fair” trade when trading the right cards. knowing what site the other trader want to use always give you a edge if your at the beginning of the trade. just watch it when they do sales, they sometime have lowers price than tgc low

4. I had a bad experience of last week, one of my friend did the “bad guy”. I was mad at him. He asked me the price of abrupt decay, 2 gitaxian probe promo and one other card. Off my head without phone i said btw 8-10, about a buck or 2, and about 2 for the last one. We all heard the story of that guys in SCGopens that was trading anything for crap rares at 7¢ and then, he would go to the stores and trading them at 10¢ each and 30% margin at least by ripping off people. Well, my friend did it… he told the guy : “i trade it for 140 craps rare!” And the noob did it. my friend told me the guy knew what he was doing, but as i said to him later : “nobody would do this, if he knew what he was doing” (i was unaware of that part of the trade until the end of the night.) the thing is, not only the guy gave him 10¢ rare but he gave him real dollar rares, there were even a frontline medic and a slaugther games in it…

My issue in this “trade” is that it was at a small LGS during a FNM. Half of the poeple bring their homebrew with penny sleeves.

Later after the FNM, I tried to explain to him that was bad trade for everyone!!! Poor casual players would trade 0.10-0.50¢ cards between each other (hell i even saw 2 guys buying 6 boosters together and split the each common like they were 5 dollar rares!). The thing i hate about those kind of trades is that you’r destroying your onw casual community! This guy now have almost 0 casual crappy card for the other casual players around. My friend destroyed many potential trades and much fun those casual players would have. For a 10 dollars trade, he might have screw the fun of many players. 10¢ cards are sometime like pure gold for those players. This guy will probably keep in memories that he now has a crappy deck that dont wins but hell, he has a abrupt decay and a empty binder (and than quitting magic in a month or two)

“You can shear a sheep many times, but you can skin him only once”

(sorry for english… i’m francophone!)

As long as both parties are happy at the end, and one has not intentionally sharked a new player, then go for it.

I’ve told countless people to f-off if they start to have a less than humble attitude about trading. I do that in a way to make them feel stupid in a room full of people, and then no one will ever trade with them again.

I myself like to trade, there is always something to gain in trading, even if you are only recycling those stagnant cards in your binder.

The reality of trading in Portugal is very different from the US, it´s usually small events, where most people will not have cards for trade,and most of them will have a phone with internet, making it challenging at the very least.

What i do is what you mention, i just take a seat in a spot where other players will be passing by, open my binders (make sure to keep some shiny stuff in the front page) and sit there chatting with friends or other players, and preety much like a fisherman just wait until someone bites.

I´ve figured out this is actually the best way to do it, in bigger events i do the same but choose a place near other traders. I believe that the casually standing there with the binders open, sends a message to your trade partner that is exactly the opposite of the guy who scours every corner of the room and asks everyone for trades, and will rip you off if you blink.

Most of the people i ever traded with always come to me for more trades, and sometimes even mention some past transactions saying: “Hey remember when i trade you X for Y?…You really had me there” then we both laugh and i just offer him something more in the new trade.

I feel that in trading the most important is to have a good attitude about it.