I just flew back from GP Boston and boy are my arms tired!

No, seriously. My arms are jacked up.

Occupational Hazards

I didn't actually fly. Three friends and I left Friday morning at 3 am from my house in Michigan and we drove 12 hours to Boston. Then we drove another half hour to Worcester, Mass, because that's where the GP actually was.

Okay, truth by told, not only did I not fly, my arms didn't get that torn up; it was my back. I carry all of my stuff in a messenger bag because it's easier to pack than a traditional, two-strap backpack and it was seriously jacking with my spinal alignment. I couldn't get comfortable in the car and I'm a little tender even now.

As I was lugging my huge bag of cards back along the 10 minute walk to our hotel, I started to think, "this is how Kurt Cobain died." Some say he held his guitar backward to play it left-handed and that hurt his back, causing him to develop a heroin addiction which may have led to his suicide. Back pain is no joke.

So why was my bag so heavy? I carry a lot of cards with me, that's why. What are you, the police?

My bag got a bit, but not a ton, lighter over the course of the weekend. My carmates remarked that it seemed odd to them that I brought anything back at all. After all, if you're taking cards to a GP and you're there to sell, why would you take anything that you didn't plan on making someone else's problem, and not just cartwheel to the car at the end of the weekend with a full wallet and an empty messenger bag?

The answer to that question warrants an entire article. Why would you bring cards back from a GP?

Not Everything Is For Sale

Okay, that's not strictly true. There isn't a card I own that isn't for sale for the right price. For enough money, I'd sell my passport and risk the border crossing along at night. Still, a portion of the stuff you take with you to events, even if you're not playing in the main event, is not taken with the intention of making a sale.

Trade Binder(s)

I sometimes hand over my trade binders to dealers, and if I have a bulk rare binder and I find someone who is paying 15 cents on bulk rares like I did this weekend, I''ll strip them a bit to have some extra operating cash.

For the most part, though, I tend to snap-sell Standard goods and keep my trade stock to foreign foils. They have very good margins when you find the right guy, but you won't be able to trade them to a high percentage of players at events.

However, I've had very, very limited success trading with people lately. First of all, people really don't like being approached. If they've got their binder out, it's because they're in the middle of a trade and they don't want some jackwagon pouncing when they're in the middle of a trade.

If I don't see binders out, I don't approach people anymore because too many Jon Medina articles have made the average Joe afraid that there are still such a thing as "sharks" who are there to steal all of their value. I hear a semi-audible "pop" as someone's butthole slams shut when I use the T-word.

Anecdotally, my Brainstorm Brewery apparel is trade poison as well--one of our writers named Ken Crocker had someone ask him for trades, look at his shirt and say "nevermind."

"Come back! I write articles about Standard!" - Ken Crocker, 2014

For these reasons, I don't have a ton of trade binders on me since trading is just dildos at this point, but I have enough of that stuff on me that it still adds weight. I am at the point where I trade with people if they approach me. I don't want to not have stuff on me if someone is looking to trade, and I certainly don't want to not have my foreign foils if someone wants those, even as infrequently as I can ship one of them these days.

EDH Deck and Other Cards

If you're not fully committed to the finance lifestyle, you may not come to all of our meetings where we discuss how playing Magic is terrible EV. If you didn't get that memo, you may still travel to Grands Prix to play cards. Cards take up bag space.

If you, hypothetically, started writing a weekly column about EDH, people are going to want to play EDH with you at GPs, so you need decks. If you play Limited side events, you'll accumulate cards. Have you ever gone to a GP and not bought a single collection? Not even a sealed pool? Of course not. I have started taking an empty box with me to events so I have somewhere to put the stuff I buy when there.

Off-site. Don't buy cards on-site. It's tacky, it can get you banned and it's not worth the risk. Anything goes at a restaurant or hotel lobby, though. I've also scoured Craigslist in the city where the GP will be held and had the seller meet me near the venue so I can kill two birds with one stone.

So, to recap, don't buy cards inside the venue. Dealers pay a king's ransom for the table and they're there to be able to buy and if you try to take their business, you deserve to be kicked out. But you can occasionally find cards to buy, so be ready for that, and be ready for those cards to take up space.

Not Everything Is For Sale

I could have sold every card I brought with me. I was lucky and there wasn't much of a line at Strike Zone this weekend so I sat down with Chris and he smashed five 1,000-count boxes. Strike Zone pays top dollar on top condition cards, so I take the stuff there for the first crack at the cards.

You work your way down your dealer hierarchy until you end up at the local dealers who will buy any card in reasonable condition so they can spend all of the money they brought with them to buy cards with. Still, after that, you're left with cards that no one bought but which are not worth selling as bulk. What do you do with all of that stuff?

Hold onto it, that's what.

What are some reasons I would hold onto a card that was in the same box as other cards I ended up selling? Why would I not just try to relieve the stress on my back and ship the entire box?

Stuff Poised to Go Up

I didn't do a ton of trading in Boston, but I did enough. A lot of times in our articles, other financiers and I will say "I wouldn't buy these for cash right now, but I could see trading for them"--but then we lament the death of trading.

One reason for this is that we are referring to trading at events being mostly dead unless you're willing to go through the pain in the butt, but trading locally is alive and well.

Local trading is good because you can build relationships with people. If you establish yourself as a non-scumbag who knows his prices and doesn't try to get over on local people, your trades go much smoother. If you're sure of prices, you can avoid having to look up every single card on a smartphone. Looking up every card on a smartphone is one of the worst things ever.

I end up lugging the stuff I trade for to the event hoping to get a good price, but I usually do not. Sometimes I get a pretty high spread offered to me, which is understandable on Standard stuff that is undervalued. If it weren't undervalued, I wouldn't be doing so much work to pick the cards up.

However, since I did do all of that work, I'm not inclined to let the stuff go at this week's prices. Cards that I feel are poised to go up are likely making the trip with me to the event, but I'm going to hold onto them. I'm also going to accumulate more of them throughout the day if I can. Eventually, if I am really confident the price is really poised to go up, I'll start paying cash from the dealers.

Those are cards on me, but not cards I'm inclined to sell. This adds weight, and it's a reason that an empty bag at the end of the weekend doesn't happen.

Stuff Poised to Go Nowhere

Khans of Tarkir isn't the only set that is going to affect the price of cards from Theros block. We know that Khans is a wedge set and block's other two sets will focus less on multicolor shenanigans. What will a wedge set do to the price of a card like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx?

The way I see it, Nykthos is a Cabal Coffers-esque card that has the added benefit of going in non-black decks in EDH. It's also being toyed with in multiple formats.

Nykthos is likely at its absolute floor right now price-wise. Should we sell them because a wedge set can hurt devotion even more, coupled with the rotation of cards like Nightveil Specter and Boros Reckoner? There is still room for Nykthos to go down, why not take the $4 the dealer is offering? That's a 20% spread--you can't beat that with a topdecked Lightning Helix.

Hang on, though. Sure, Nykthos could conceivably go down from $5, but by how much? Selling for $4 now means if you do end up buying back in, you're likely not buying in for $4. If you're buying back in, it's because it's seeing play, and seeing play will make it go up. You're not going to be able to even pay $5 or $6. You'll end up losing money buying back in. The odds of losing money because you had to buy back in far above $4 seem greater than the odds of losing money because a card that sees as much non-Standard play as Nykthos went down from $5.

Sure, Khans is a wedge set, but what if Dewey and Louie are mono-colored sets? What if there is some dargon that costs 2RRR and has firebreathing and all of a sudden Nykthos sees as much play as it does now? You're a horse's ass for selling at $4 is what.

Stuff whose future is impossible to predict with the given info isn't anything you need to move, so don't base selling decisions on incomplete information. Let's give the rest of the block a chance to shake out a bit.

In any case, you have a real luxury with a card like Nykthos. It has demonstrated an ability to be worth $15. It has demonstrated playability in multiple formats, and even if EDH demand is all that it has going for it, $4 seems about as correct for a price in a year as $1 for Thespian's Stage does right now.

Since the card has plenty of Standard legality left, you're in a great position if you're trading for these. The current Standard isn't doing much for its price. The post-rotation Khans Standard may not, either. Most people aren't thinking beyond that and you have the ability to get cards like Nykthos and just sit on them while a bunch more sets come out, any of which could really give its price a bump.

If not, you bought in at the floor where the risk is small. Sometimes even a 20% spread on a card that is showing no signs of going up is not a great deal.

...

I left GP Boston with my bag as full as when it went in. But I also paid for the trip, my mortgage and a bunch of expensive meals, and lots of booze with my community friends. My back's a little jacked up, but I did it all for the value, and anything done in the name of value is a worthwhile endeavor indeed.