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Sigmund’s article this week about MTG Finance on a Budget really resonated with me, partly because many of the techniques he described are things that I have been doing over the past couple of months. Using easy arbitrage opportunities and taking advantage of store credit bonuses for trade-ins are how I have extracted full value from my collection and used it to finance high-end purchases. Today I want to a dig a bit deeper into the nitty-gritty details of the process of buylisting and buylist arbitrage, explaining how I maximize my value and sharing some tips I’ve learned along the way.
Buylist Arbitrage Basics
Sig’s basic strategy for grinding out value is using arbitrage in the market, which boils down to finding cards one place and selling them somewhere else for more. Occasionally I’ve found cards in an obscure online store that I can resell to a buylist for a profit, but typically if I can find an underpriced card in a store, I’ve been better off just selling it on my own on TCGplayer or eBay and getting more value.
Where I’ve found the easiest value to be gained from buylist arbitrage is from the trade-in bonus, which brings up the price paid significantly, which is the basis of Sig’s second point: always take the credit.
In my efforts to acquire some high-end cards, I’ve utilized buylists to convert swaths of low- to mid-value cards into the thousands of dollars necessary to buy them. Rather than sell my cards and buy what I want with cash, I’ve used buylist trade-in bonuses to extract extra value from the cards. Getting full value from my cards has meant selling each card to the buylist paying the highest for it, leading to credit split between different stores.
Rather than accumulate enough credit at each store to buy something I am looking for, I accumulate credit at specific stores by using my credit at other stores to buy specifically to sell into another’s buylist. At first, I did so to finance a card that came in stock at a store, and I simply wanted to transfer my credit with minimal loss, but by meticulously looking through the stock, I was able to not only preserve my credit, but add to it by finding cards I could sell at a premium. I was able to find plenty of opportunities, to the point that the problem became one of maximizing my profit.
What’s exciting is that, in my experience, this process can actually be done in reverse, and the credit, including the profit credit gained from the arbitrage, can be then used to buy cards to sell back at a profit to the other buylist, or another buylist. Assuming every transaction leads to a small profit, it can be continually repeated to significantly add to the value of a collection. It can be used to eventually fund the purchase of high-end cards, like I have done, or as a sort of bank account to fund specs that can be sold for cash, which I have also done.
The Risks and Rewards of Near-Mint Cards
The process of buylist arbitrage comes down to comparing the stock of one store to the buylist of another or multiple stores. Condition plays an important role in this, and can often be a source of profit.
Buylists will often pay a premium for certain near-mint cards, which can occasionally lead to pretty spectacular profits, like a $129.99 near-mint purchase I was able to sell to another for nearly $190 after the trade-in bonus.
On the other hand, buylists can also be incredibly fickle about condition on near-mint cards, and will downgrade a card you thought was gem mint, which I’ve also experienced. The problem is amplified when you consider that you can’t be certain about the condition of a card that a store is sending you, and could very well send you a claimed near-mint card that is less than so, which will ruin your arbitrage.
If you do receive a card that is in inferior condition, you can likely return it to the store, or in the case of a recent incident I had, ask for a partial refund based on condition, which allowed me to continue with buylisting to another store and accept the reduced price they would pay, made up for by the refund. Buylist arbitrage with near-mint cards is a dangerous game, but can definitely be worth playing in cases where the payoff is high if you accept the risks and potential hassle.
Heavily Played Cards
Other than in special cases, I try to avoid arbitrage with near-mint cards, but instead have embraced the opposite: heavily played cards.
Heavily played cards can’t be downgraded in price, so there’s no risk of the arbitrage being ruined by being sent inferior cards. With such cards, the only risk is that you are sent a card that is past heavily played and into truly damaged, but I’ve found that cards tend to trend the other way, and have a good chance of being in better condition than advertised. By focusing on heavily played cards, I have seen minimal risk of losing value, but a real chance of being sent cards that are better than I expect, sometimes to the point that I can buylist them at a higher grade and earn extra profit.
Other Factors to Consider
Note that most buylists have a more harsh pay scale for Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited cards, so be careful if your arbitrage on these cards hinges on condition. I’ve also avoided foils entirely, for the same reason that they are typically graded more harshly, and have a risk of being in worse condition than you expect.
What are your strategies for maximizing profits through buylisting and arbitrage?
At once one of the most anticipated and controversial cards from M19, Alpine Moon gives Modern players something they've clamored for since Tron burst onto the competitive scene half a decade ago: a dedicated answer to big mana decks relying on specific lands. Tron lands 
Inkmoth just scratches the surface of Alpine's utility. Against Jeskai, it plays double-duty by hitting either Celestial Colonnade or Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin; the same goes for Affinity, where it covers both Nexuses. Still, expect Urza lands and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to be the Modern cards most named by Alpine Moon.
Spell-worthy effects on limited-playable bodies frequently survive the journey from Standard to Modern, and Militia Bugler is no different. Rather than return a card from the graveyard like Eternal Witness, Bugler digs deeper into the deck, scouring the top four cards for a utility creature with the right text box for a given situation. Choice hits that spring to mind include Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Meddling Mage, Thalia's Lieutenant, and Phantasmal Image. Oh, and one more thing: Bugler's a Human!
Users of the spoiler sites I follow were quick to write this one off. True, Sarkhan, Fireblood's second ability only works for decks with Dragons, and very few Dragons are actually Modern playable (just Thundermaw Hellkite, Stormbreath Dragon, and Glorybringer, each run in small quantities and as flex spots topping out the curve in their respective homes). But his other two are great!
It seems that opportunity has arrived, and on a critical point in the curve, no less. Sarkhan comes down as early as turn two off a mana dork and immediately starts filtering draws. What's more, his ultimate is nothing to scoff at—it's a win condition of its own. Creeping toward that ultimate, which provides a unique angle of attack for many red decks, forces opponents to deal with the rummaging engine and makes them play into removal and other tricks.
These cards merit testing immediately, and will probably appear in some number in the 5-0s once M19 becomes legal online. But a small-scale result or two doesn't mean they're here to stay.
Mistcaller; Remorseful Cleric: A twofer! These creatures automatically slot into their respective tribal archetypes, Merfolk and Spirits... or do they? Spirits may just not care about any graveyard-related thing people are doing, especially since it has access to Rest in Peace already. But the incidental mainboard hate can't hurt.
Infernal Reckoning: This spell isn't the godsend against Eldrazi that Grixis players might have hoped for—Ceremonious Rejection, which also hits the increasingly relevant Krark-Clan Ironworks, handily trumps it there. But Reckoning does have its uses, chief among them providing Jund with a clean out to Wurmcoil Engine, otherwise a game-ender if not a massive resource swing. Unfortunately, this card has few other uses, and is further limited in application for Death's Shadow decks thanks to the lifegain clause.
Tracker, although both of those are functional four-drops when it comes to card advantage. Armasaur's plenty conditional too, though, requiring opponents to activate abilities before pilots draw their cards.
Thud: A two-mana effect on an instant shifted to a one-mana effect on a sorcery. I can't argue with the principle's elegance, but Temur Battle Rage has brutally power-crept this sort of Fling effect already.
Amulet of Safekeeping: Here's where Wizards' drive to create multi-purpose Modern sideboard cards spiraled out of control. Amulet mashes two mostly unrelated effects together into one weird-looking trinket. Sure, they combine to stop Storm's win conditions, but don't de-sleeve those Damping Spheres just yet—Storm can just go off, find Repeal, and then kill you, while Sphere prevents them from doing even that. And Amulet marginally slows down Burn, but the token clause does nothing there.
Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma: The latest in a long lineage of cards that get people excited about trying to cast Myr Superion in Modern, Goreclaw features an exciting build-around on an aggressive body. But that body also has three toughness. And Bant Eldrazi doesn't want this anyway; it's already emptied its hand by then, and has evasion redundancy with Smasher, Drowner, and Displacer.
Doran, the Siege Tower decks have existed 
The supremely versatile Lingering Souls is all that's left of the backup Abzan plan. Without Goyfs and Knights to nurture, Ensnaring Bridge becomes an option out of the sideboard, as does Rest in Peace. Another interesting spell is Tower Defense, which at first glance is crazy with Souls and Doran, but upon further inspection has more to it. Defense reads a lot like Temur Battle Rage, enabling wild comebacks or quick wins and forcing terrible blocks. Even with a couple of 0/5s in play, the instant can often present lethal out of nowhere, a threat we may want to take advantage of in the mainboard.
DAR is carving out an interesting path as it is currently the most expensive set at this point in its release window, though it is not far off of Shadows over Innistrad (SOI). That is very interesting, as both sets were late spring releases and both sets did not feature Masterpieces. Thus, SOI is our best historical indicator for where the price of DAR will end up, at least while it is being drafted in triplicate.
events
Rather than focusing on known matchups, players were trying to be ready for anything.
Krark-Clan Ironworks, a four-mana spell. It must resolve to combo, and the only mana acceleration available is 4 Mox Opal. While Ironworks is 
guts Storm, as that's often Storm's only win condition. 
often implausible. On top of that, Thalia's tax makes feeding eggs to Ironworks and buying them back mana-neutral at best.
Storm is a relatively simple combo to understand. Play lots of spells, accumulate mana, kill opponent is easy to understand. Executing the combo is also relatively easy: rituals, Gifts Ungiven, repeat. Having either Baral, Chief of Compliance or Goblin Electromancer out makes the combo easier to execute, but isn't necessary. Thanks to Gifts, it is also tough to fizzle, and losing individual pieces isn't a big deal because they're redundant.
While it feels a bit obtuse to immediately compare Legends to Modern's other Mox-touting aggro deck, the parallels do exist. Affinity too uses sub-par creatures to power out dangerous threats ahead of curve. In practice, though, Mox Amber is a bit closer to Springleaf Drum than to Mox Opal; it requires a creature in play to tap for mana, and since our cheapest creatures cost one, we can't activate Amber without spending something. After the first tap, however, it goes back to being a Mox. It's also like a mana dork in this regard.
To compensate for its dip in proactivity relative to Affinity, Legends becomes interactive; Ă la 
Humans is another deck that begs comparison to Legends. Like Affinity, it's an overall better deck thanks to its proactivity and consistency, which Legends rarely achieves. Humans also takes our disruptive gameplan to the next level with Kitesail Freebooter, Meddling Mage, and Reflector Mage, and even runs both Thalias.
Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter: Oviya is probably the worst one-drop legend in this deck, if only for her overlap with Rhys. We prefer the latter because of its mana smoothing qualities when combined with Mox Amber. That said, she's still a one-mana legend, and we can't get enough of those; the more names we run, the less chance we have of bricking with identical legends or opening anemic Moxen.
Zurgo Bellstriker: Red's Oviya analogue: trash, but a name.
Running all three colors lets us play every relevant one-drop legend in Modern. Combined with a full set of Hierarchs, all those cheap legends maximize the odds of getting to three mana on turn two, and to four mana on turn three.
We lack the built-in creature interaction of Reflector Mage, but must play some form of efficient removal to survive and cast our funny Standard cards. Lightning Bolt helps us survive the early turns against the more proactive creature decks, and its reach plays nice with our Zoo-like assault of legendary bodies.
I started with Rest in Peace in the sideboard, but the enchantment had too much tension with Blast, so I replaced it with Relic. The eight legendary creatures all come in against different opponents, often for Looting (our curve increases post-board) or Hierarch (especially weak to damage-based sweepers and dies to Blast), or for whatever legend's bad in the matchup (i.e. Guardian of Thraben vs. Humans). I'm still testing the lot of them to see which ones I want to keep.
