Trading Around

Posted on September 27, 2010November 28, 2010 by Noah Whinston

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Scars is hitting the shelves and Whinston’s Whisdom is here supplying the financial knowledge you need to be prepared for it. As I write this, the Sunday Prereleases have only just ended, and while I was occupied at the Season 9 MOCS (dropped at 5-3, but still made top 64) and so unable to attend, I’m still here showing you some trades I made last FNM, in preparation for the new set

Trade #1

My:

1 Triskelion (1)

1 FTV: Relics Nevinyrral’s Disk (10)

2 Stoneforge Mystic (2x6=12)

2 Basilisk Collar (2x5=10)

My total: $33

His:

1 Primeval Titan

His total: $40

+$7

Here is where we see the Scars hype paying off. Having bought up around 10 playsets of Stoneforge Mystics, I had plenty available to trade away. The inflated value of Stoneforge Mystic, and that of the Triskelion, made my partner feel comfortable with this trade. For my part, I was happy trading away a Trike and a FTV: Relics Disk, which I would have difficulty trading away later, while picking up a staple Mythic with a fairly stable price.

Trade #2

My:

4 Brave the Elements (4x.5=2)

1 Devout Lightcaster (1.5)

My total: $3.5

His:

1 Pyromancer ascension (2)

His total: $2

-$1.5

While I technically lost value here, I’m still very happy with this trade. This also brings up the principle difficulties with using Starcitygames prices when evaluating trades, mainly because bulk rares are “worth” $1 or more, when in reality I value them far less than that. Here, I traded away a rare only slightly better than bulk and 4 uncommons that were just released as textless promos, for a rare that should be seeing Extended and possibly Standard play.

Trade #3

My:

2 marsh flats (2x10=20)

1 misty rainforest (12)

My total: $32

His:

1 inferno titan (8)

1 gaea’s revenge (4 on Starcity, but the store buys them for $7.50. Arbitrage time!!!!)

1 goblin guide (5)

1 eldrazi temple (4)

1 Emrakul (6)

1 Emeria Angel (1)

1 Eye of Ugin (3)

His Total: $34.5

+$2.50

Now the trades are getting a bit larger. First off, I’ll just point out my comment about Gaea's Revenge[card]. This is the kind of thing that can be a major way of making profit, and finding these differences in pricing between stores is critical. Here, Starcity sells Gaea's Revenge for $4 each, while the store buys them for $7.50 store credit or $7 cash, and that's $3 of pure profit for each copy. While I would've preferred to hold onto the fetches, as I now have less than a playset of each, there was nothing else my trade partner was looking for. I took advantage of him valuing both Gaea's Revenge and Emrakul low, and picked up some value though, but that was slightly undone by some overvaluing of [card]Inferno Titan and Eye of Ugin. I took the Emeria Angel as a small way to tilt the trade in my favor, but once I thought about it, the Angel seems like a potent threat in the new Scars metagame, one with significantly less removal to get rid of it. I’ll take a more detailed look at it in my Tip of the Week.

While I’ve only been generating a small amount of value so far, this next and final trade is the real bank breaker.

Trade #4

My:

5 Armament Master (5x.6=3)

3 Conqueror’s pledge (3x1.5=4.5)

1 Merfolk Sovereign (1)

6 Bloodghast (6x7=42)

10 Pyromancer Ascension (10x2=20)

6 Summoning Trap (6x1.5=9)

3 M11 Glacial Fortress (3x4=12)

8 Stoneforge Mystic (8x6=48)

1 M11 Baneslayer (25)

1 Avenger of Zendikar (10)

2 M11 Day of judgment (2x4=8)

1 M11 Silence (1.5)

4 Kazandu Blademaster (4x.5=2)

My total: $186

His:

2 Time Shifted Lord of Atlantis (2x4=8)

1 Power Artifact (25)

1 Force of Will (50)

3 Mint Lim Dul’s Vault (3x8=24)

5 Spell Snare (5x4=20)

1 MP Lim Dul’s Vault (6)

2 Elvish Spirit Guide (2x5=10)

1 Antiquities Hurkyl’s Recall (12)

1 Revised Demonic Tutor (10)

1 Booster box Scars of Mirrodin* (90)

His total: $255

+$69

*when they are avail. for sale

And this is where we see my trading down making a profit for me. I did this trade with the store’s owner, whose collection is effectively the entire store’s stock of singles, and just look at this beauty! Out of all the cards I traded away, the only big ticket items are the Bloodghasts, Baneslayer, Mystics, and the Avenger. In return for this, I picked up a huge number of Eternal and EDH staples, which I’ll be able to trade away for a comfortable margin. Force of Will, a playset of Lim Duls Vault,Power Artifact? Even 5 Spell Snares! And this is all in addition to a booster box of the most recent set. I could not be happier with how this turned out, and I’d make this trade any day of the week. This trade might not be as bad for the store as it may seem, though. This store is mainly a Limited and Standard community, with very few Eternal players, and almost no PTQ grinders. As such, these Eternal staples are not as important, and hard for the store to move.

Before moving to the Tip of the Week, and just like to go back in time to one of my last picks, Warren Instigator. Just as an example of how these tips are working out, let’s take a little at this little Goblin. At the time I recommended it, Instigator was selling for 4-4.5 tickets a piece on the major bots. Now, it has jumped up 25%+ to 5.25-5.75 tickets. Myself, I quickly sold off my copies for a nice profit in order to build my deck for the MOCS, but they may continue to rise, so holding onto them wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea. But anyways…

Tip of the Week: Emeria Angel

In the previous Standard format with Shards of Alara, Emeria Angel was always regarding as a powerful, but fragile finisher. It was, however, used by Shaheen Soorani as a finisher out of the sideboard of his U/W Control build, for the mirror. Shaheen, the king of U/W Control, has definitely inspired me to take another look at the Angel. While Lightning Bolt and Searing Blaze are still efficient tools to deal with the Angel’s 3/3 body, the majority of the cheap removal from Shards Block will be leaving Standard, making it much harder to deal with Angel. In addition, with Pulse gone, it’s more likely that the tokens will continue to beat face, even after Emeria Angel has bitten the dust. While currently at bulk prices, Emeria Angel shows real potential as a creature that will benefit from a new metagame.

In case you havn’t realized by now, my surprise has not come through. I was planning to record myself opening a booster pack of Portal: 3 Kingdoms for all of you readers, but the pack was damaged and so I was forced to apply for a refund. Once that comes through, I’ll be looking to pick up another and try again. Also, I’m planning to attempt my own Pack to Power adventure with a pack of Scars of Mirrodin. I’m not sure if that will replace my current series, or supplement it, but I’ll let you know as soon as I find out myself. As a set, I feel Scars is very hit or miss, much like Rise of the Eldrazi, with a few big ticket Rares and Mythics, but several that are just horrible, which may present some complications for the project. But hey, if Jon Medina can do it with a Bear Umbra, I bet that I can do it with a Ratchet Bomb! Until next week…

--Noah Whinston

mtgplayer@sbcglobal.net

Arcadefire on MTGO

Baldr7mtgstore on Ebay

NWhinston on Twitter

The Revenue Review – Banking on Bulk

Posted on September 23, 2010November 28, 2010 by Corbin Hosler

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By this point, everyone and their dog has put out an article about Scars of Mirrodin cards. Rather than tell you for the tenth time that Wurmcoil Engine is good (it really, really is), I’m going to try and take my look at the new set in a different direction, and we have our first “Rate My Trade” of the column!

If you don’t know, Rate My Trade is a section in our premium forums (which I’m told will be live for subscription very soon). It’s a place for traders to discuss and evaluate trades, much like I do in this column most weeks. If you’re trying to avoid Scars of Mirrodin spoilers, you should skip down to the bottom of the column now.

Okay, on to the promised Scars speculation. By now you’ve seen plenty of prices and speculation on cards, and I’m sure Kelly Reid will likely do a full set review. Instead of focus on prices this week, we’re going to look at the new cards that are best classified as “trade fodder.”

As much as some Magic players pretend otherwise, not everyone is a “spike.” A large number of players are less interested in dollar signs than they are in sentimental value or filling a collection. When Scars drops this weekend, the trading game will be hectic, to say the least. While you’re looking to pick up Eldrazi Monuments and Elspeth 2.0, I’ve got some suggestions for some less-marquee cards that I believe will serve you will to have in your binder.

To see all the cards I'm discussing, the visual spoiler is here.

Leonin Arbiter

I really like the Arbiters as a good pick-up for a few reasons. First, it has a ton of potential against the ramp decks running rampant right now. It also can frustrate any fetchland-using opponent in white weenie decks such as the won that won Pro Tour Amsterdam.

Outside of the competitive scene, this card has even more appeal. Its effect is one that will excite many kitchen-table players who are sick of losing to their friend’s Sphinx Summoner deck. It’s also a card that figures to be important to many budget players who may not have their own fetchlands or Primeval Titans. Pick up as many as you reasonably can, because it’s a card that wants to be played as a four-of.

True Conviction

This card screams “casual player,” and there’s no reason to ignore that voice in your head. It’s not going to be difficult to pick them up off of competitive players for bulk rare prices and trade them off at a higher rate to casual and EDH players.

Grand Architect

I’m pretty pumped about this card for a few reasons. It has infinite-combo potential with its mana-producing ability, and it’s a blue lord to boot. I think this has competitive potential down the road, and it’s just a “fun” card on top of it, which means these will drive a high price with players looking for it, and they won’t be hard to find. I don’t know if Myr.dec is going to be good or not, but I know there will be a number of rogue deckbuilders who try to make it work, and they will be looking for your Architects.

Shape Anew

There’s never been a lack of players willing to cast Polymorph, so an artifact version will likely have some appeal. I’m not sure how to break it outside of Dread Statuary, but chances are someone will, or at least try. This shouldn’t be difficult to pick up as a throw-in, and if such a deck ever comes to fruition, you will be able to move these fast.

Hand of the Praetors

Just about every Magic player in the world is going to try and make poison happen (myself included). Again, I have no idea if poison.dec is going to be real, but this card will be in every version sleeved up, whether that’s in the hands of LSV or Milton from IT. I compare this card with the many Elf lords, in that they have both will have a solid market with casual players and are of occasional use to competitive players.

Putrefax

Basically the same story as the poisonous Hand. Think about any game shop you’ve ever been to. Chances are there’s at least (and probably more than one) player there who you already know wants this card from you.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader

I was on the fence about whether or not to include this card, because it’s not going to be in the $1-3 area that I’m aiming for. That said, pick up this card now. Like I mentioned above, this slots into every kitchen-table Elf deck ever, and Elves have a lot of tools to make a showing in competitive Standard and Extended. You will be able to find your Ezuri’s a home somewhere, I promise.

Kuldotha Forgemaster

Unlikely to see play in Standard, this Kuldotha will be forging some artifacts in many a casual game. One neat thing about prereleases is that they bring out a ton of players who don’t usually show up, whether that’s the crowd coming back to the game after 10 years or the group playing in their first tournament. Both of these camps have a subset of players who play wacky combo decks at home, and the Forgemaster is perfect for these guys. If you can pick these up, I suggest moving them quickly because the market for a card like this is limited. Players who want them are going to be able to get them from plenty of other traders, so make the most out of these if you end up with a few.

Tunnel Ignis / Spikeshot Elder

I lump these two cards together because your local Red mage wants both of them, and in multiples. They are going to find homes in red decks for the next year to come, and there seems to be a never-ending line of RDW players. I don’t think I’ve had any card move faster in the last year than Ball Lightning, and I expect those same traders to want to pick up these cards.

Argentum Armor

Fun times in EDH. Need I say more?

Chimeric Mass

I haven’t heard a lot of buzz about this card yet, which is just criminal. This is a beating, and fetchable with Trinket Mage. It will fill any spot on your curve and plays pretty nicely with Proliferate. I imagine it will find its way into a number of decks in the next two years, and if you can pick these up before they realize their full potential, you’re going to be glad you did.

I know it’s hard to keep up when we have 249 new cards entering circulation on a single day, but doing your homework early will pay off in the end. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – there is NO better time to be a competitive trader than set rotation. Knowing which cards are worth picking up as throw-ins in trades is almost as important as picking up big-ticket items like Koth of the Hammer. Luckily for you, there’s a whole team of writers here at Quiet Speculation to help you do just that. I encourage you to share in the comments if there’s any other gems you think I’ve missed.

------

Reader Trade of the Week:

Our first reader-submitted trade comes from Luke Sonnier, a CPA from Louisiana. He’s been a reader of Quiet Speculation since the days when it was Kelly’s personal blog. [He also stopped by my store once! Heya Luke!] Here’s the trade in his words:

“My:

Primeval Titan (Foil) $79.99

His:

Sun Titan (Foil Promo) $7.99

4 Verdant Catacombs $47.96

Birds of Paradise (M11)$3.99

2 Hoarding Dragon 1.98

4 Ancient Hellkite (Foil Promo) 5.96

Glacial Fortress (M11) 4.99

2 Mass Polymorph 2.98

Eldrazi Temple 3.99

Pretty much break even. I'm guessing the Primeval Titan won't maintain the status he has recently so I figure I'll trade him away at his peak.

This trade could have been better but it's tough when trading with close friends who are aware of value and check everything on the phone while trading.”

I love this trade because it’s a picture-perfect example of what you can gain by trading down. Noah Whinston wrote a great piece of when to trade down here, and Luke executed that plan perfectly.

The Primeval Titan isn’t going to go any higher than it already is, so now is pretty much the best time for Luke to cash out. In return for a high-dollar card rotting in his binder, Luke’s picked up a ton of trade goodies that he’ll be able to trade up in the weeks to come. Fetchlands aren’t getting any cheaper, and the Eldrazi Temple is probably going to appreciate moving forward. While these are the cards that really stuck out to me, the rest are all solid additions to his binder that will open a number of doors with other traders.

While some quick math shows that Luke came out pretty much even, I think it’s safe to say he is on the much better end of the deal here. The Primeval Titan will basically be a nobody once it rotates from Standard, but the fetchlands are going to retain a ton of their value. Add in the opportunities Luke will have to trade the other cards up and it works out a very nice trade for Mr. Sonnier.

For those of you interested in submitting your own trades, I’m told our premium subscription will be open to everyone by the end of the month, and part of that is access to our forums, where we are able to provide real-time updates and communicate directly with our readers.

Until next week, may you avoid a slow death to Poison!

Thanks,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Pink Ribbon Scars and Smashing Pumpkins

Posted on September 19, 2010November 28, 2010 by Noah Whinston

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I feel I’ve let you all down. Last week, I hinted that there might be a surprise forthcoming in this week’s article. Unfortunately, this surprise has not yet arrived, and so must be postponed until next week at the earliest. I know, I’m weeping too. With that said, I’ll try to make up for it with another great edition of Whinston’s Whisdom here at Quietspeculation.com! (plug plug plug plug). The topic I’ll be taking today is the upcoming set Scars of Mirrodin. While there are many cards of immediately obvious value (read: Planeswalkers), as speculators, it’s our job to find the cards that nobody’s looking at. So go to Mtg Salvation, open the spoiler, and let’s go down the list together:

Kemba, Kha Regent: As pointed out in the exclusive QS spoiler earlier on this site, Kemba is unique in that she provides White based aggro decks a source of card advantage after the rotation of Ranger of Eos. Especially in a deck with Stoneforge Mystic, and with the less prevalent removal in the upcoming format, Kemba could get up to pumping out 2-3 tokens per turn. And even once she’s been killed, now you have all these creatures to put your equipment on! Buy at $3

Leonin Arbiter: White Weenie just won the Extended Pro Tour and this guy’s name hasn’t even been floated as a possible addition? Criminal. Not only does Leonin Arbiter shut down Fetchlands, he also single-handedly wins games against any type of Mana Ramp deck, and prevents combo decks from tutoring. Very playable alongside Ethersworn Canonist in Eternal formats as a disruptive dude, pick these guys up at anything under $4 apiece.

Tempered Steel: Imagine the following sequence of turns: T1 4xMemnite, Mox Opal, Swamp, Painsmith. T2 Plains, Tempered Steel, attack for 9!!! Is this not the new Tarmogoyf? Yes, this is a joke. No, do not speculate on Tempered Steel.

Trinket Mage: Why have people not been talking about this guy? One of the most powerful cards in every format he’s been legal for, he’s reprinted, but suddenly he’s not any good? Just the fact that he’s now staying legal in Extended should be enough to boost the values of several key cards. My pick for the power Uncommon of this set. Buy at $1

Spikeshot Elder: Quietspeculations’ own exclusive preview card has significant potential both in Standard and Extended. While at face value, he is rather unimpressive, with 3 mana for 1 damage not being the benchmark of our current format, we must remember that he exists in the same set as a significant amount of equipment. 1 damage for 3 mana? Subpar. 3 repeatable damage for 3 mana? Excellent. 5 Repeatable damage for 3 mana? Gamebreaking. While Equipment might be a bit too slow for Extended, there was a very good Extended Goblins deck that showed up in Amsterdam, piloted by such players as Bram Snepvangers and Julien Neujitan, an inspiring endorsement in my opinion. Pumping Spikeshot Elder’s power with the Goblin Lords like Chieftain and Boartusk Liege allow it to shoot down opposing forces left and right, and is especially useful against the White Weenie build that won the whole event. I would buy at $4.

Chimeric Mass: Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Chimeric Mass is utterly ridiculous with Trinket Mage. Need a finisher with your Control deck that also has utility in the early game? Want a way to increase the value of your Profilerate spells? Hell, just looking for an efficient creature that doesn’t die to Day of Judgment or Journey to Nowhere, and can usually be immune to Instant speed burn (i.e. every removal spell in the format)? Chimeric Mass is your go to guy. While artifact removal may be more commonplace with what we’ve seen of this set, Chimeric Mass is still a powerful option for any deck. Buy at $3.

Wurmcoil Engine: There is no way to describe this guy as anything other than “the colorless Titan.” While there are a few removal spells (read: Journey to Nowhere) that can truly deal with this guy, he’s one of the biggest roadblocks you can lay down in front of your opponent’s Geopedes and Steppe Lynxes. Baneslayer’s 5 toughness is suspect to those Geopedes, or even a ping from a Collar equipped Sparkmage, but Wurmcoil Engine maintains value after it dies. It even gives Mono-Blue a Baneslayer-esque finisher. Buy at $8.

New Dual lands: This is one of the few cycles of dual lands that are more beneficial for aggressive decks than for Control. I really love these, and feel they will become much better for the aggressive decks over the M11 duals, if worse than the Fetchlands. However, they do provide allied color combination's, filling a different niche. Definitely some cards you want to be looking to pick up. When buying them, however, it’s important to rate them by color. Because of the controllish tendencies of their color combinations, the U/W and U/B lands will be worth less than their counterparts. So buy those two at $4, and the others at $5-5.50.

Tip of the Week: Warren Instigator

While this whole article was pretty much an extended pick of the week, I thought it would still be good to give you a pick that is currently available, so that when everyone is caught up with Scars of Mirrodin, you get to swoop in behind the scenes to make some quick cash. Warren Instigator was a key part to Snepvanger’s and Nujiten’s Goblins deck from Amsterdam. While 2 key cards that made Instigator so good, Simian Spirit Guide and Brute Force, will be rotating out, Instigator is still certain to be played in any build of Goblins. Goblins in Extended fits much the same role as RDW, but it has more resilience. It has more effective sideboard options, like Thoughtseize, Earwig Squad, Deathmark, and Thorn of Amethyst, but also has more explosive draws, powered completely by the Instigator. Double Siege-Gang Commander + Goblin Chieftain on turn 3 sounds good to me! Even in the non god-draw scenario, Instigator is still a potent threat with any kind of power bonus from a lord, and a difficult creature to deal with on the early turns. I’ve picked up 16 of them online for 4 tickets each, though I haven’t started doing the same in paper markets yet, so you have the chance to beat me to it! (Update: I wrote this article on Saturday, when I had bought the Instigators on Wednesday. By Sunday, Instigators had gone up about 20% on MTGO. I cashed out to put together some decks, but it just shows how fast the market can change).

That’s all we’ve got this week, but hopefully my surprise will arrive in time for my next article. Until then…

--Look beneath the surface

Noah Whinston

mtgplayer@sbcglobal.net

Arcadefire on MTGO

NWhinston on Twitter

Baldr7mtgstore on Ebay

Endless Horizons – Building Opportunity Through Networking

Posted on September 19, 2010November 28, 2010 by Stephen Moss

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Endless Horizons – Opening and Creating Opportunity

In the past several months I’ve committed myself to becoming the supplier for my friends for any card they may need. I’ve done this through many means, but as anyone who does a large amount of trading in one spot knows, eventually the supply dries up. Packs are won and bought, and occasionally a new person wanders into the store you frequent with a binder or box of old stuff and “wanted to come check it out”, which brings a spark of life for a moment, but at the end of the day, the pond is still stagnant. This is where I find it’s important to expand beyond your local area. I’m lucky enough to currently live in Southern California. I can think of at least four shops that are all within a 90 minute drive, and all of them are decently competitive with a large amount of people to trade with. The problem is, almost no one at those shops goes to any of the others, and their trading economy is stifled because of this. This is one of the best situations for a savvy and profit minded trader, and a great way to become well known as a trader who can fill orders in your region while building your reputation. The easiest way to do this is to scout an area for a couple of weeks, and get a feel for what’s popular there. If you notice that they lack a certain format, ask why. For this example we will use EDH.

You walk into a shop you’ve been to a couple of times. People tend to show up early, and stay late, sometimes playing their standard decks. You ask people if they have an EDH deck, and get puzzled or blank stares back, and one of them finally says “What’s EDH?” This is the perfect chance for you to open a new market for yourself. By introducing them to a new format for them to play casually, you give yourself the chance to trade with every person in that shop in a new market. Sure, some of them will have the generals, and other cards to help them build their deck, but chances are you stand to be the primary source of EDH cards. As the person that introduced them to the format, you’re going to be the person they turn to first for more information, and for the cards they need. You can expand this beyond just EDH as well. With so many different formats available to magic, there should be at least one new market in each area that you can open up. Some areas will be more willing to try a new format; some areas will take some time.

Your reputation is important to expand as well. At some point in almost every trade, I ask the person I’m trading with if they are looking for anything in specific that I may be able to help them with. Through the course of conversation, I ask them what they are playing for the day, what they might be missing, how it’s performed, and how to make it better. With this information I can offer more ideas and consequently more cards from my binder to help them out. If they name something that they are looking for and I don’t have it, I write it down in my trade journal, make a note to let them know when I expect to have the card, and get their name, e-mail, and phone number. Once I’ve found someone that has the card they are looking for, I’ll try to contact them to be sure they are still looking for it. If it’s a niche item with some value (5 dollars or more) I will only attempt to make the trade once I know they are still looking for it. If it’s something I feel comfortable having with me even if they don’t need it, I’ll attempt to trade for it anyways. This helps to protect me from picking up oddball cards that are going to sit in my binder if they don’t need it anymore, and help to reinforce with my buyer that I’ll go out of my way for him to get the item he’s looking for. Doing this you will put yourself in a middle man situation. This gives you the opportunity to trade your items with profit in mind, which you should to help cover the expenses of travel, but you can usually trade at a slightly higher fee, which most people will be fine with because you’ve proven yourself reliable, and able to fill their orders time and time again.

I cannot stress how important networking is to the trader that works a region instead of just a shop. Building your contacts up will save you time and money since you can call up your contacts in one area are see if they have the cards you’re looking for to trade in another, but we will cover that topic in depth another day. For now, here is what you should be focused on.

Identify shops within your comfort zone of driving distances
Spend some time there, get your name out with trades, and identify missing markets.
Open those missing or weak markets up, and have supplies on hand to get it started.
Start cross trading between areas. Find what cards are scarce in some areas, and plentiful in the next.
Build up your contacts and network with everyone you can.
Profit

That’s all for today, remember that the seeds of today are tomorrows harvest. So plant a big field and enjoy your future success.

Until next week,

Stephen Moss

MTGstephenmoss on twitter

mtgstephenmoss@gmail.com

Exclusive Scars of Mirrodin Spoiler!

Posted on September 18, 2010November 28, 2010 by Kelly Reid

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Remember how good Spikeshot Goblin was in Mirrodin block Limited? Well, his big brother is back and ready to dish out some pain. He's a 1/1 for 1 with the Goblin subtype, so your ears should perk up automatically. It propagates the Equipment theme in Scars of Mirrodin without relying solely on equipment to be good. It gets value from being a Goblin, and it surely gets value for being a 1-drop Goblin.

A Kor-os deck has been brewing in my brain for a long time, and Spikeshot Elder definitely makes the cut as a four-of. There are a lot of combinations that make this new Goblin very deadly. As with almost every card in Scars of Mirrodin, the synergy with Stoneforge Mystic is undeniable, but let's push the card a bit further.

The best equipment to put on this guy has got to be Adventuring Gear. Suddenly, draws with a fetch land turn into gigantic blowouts. The Gear keeps his toughness up in combat and allows you to hold back a fetch land to play D if you must. Paying 3 mana to do 5 damage anywhere you like, on turn 3, using 2 inexpensive cards, is rarely a bad deal.

Since you're playing both Adventuring Gear and Fetch Lands, why not include Plated Geopede? We surely want to abuse landfall as much as we can, so Steppe Lynx is a natural inclusion as well. The inclusion of white brings Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Duelist to the fray, and Stoneforge Mystic in large quantity allows us to play some 1-of equipments. The new Argentum Armor seems to fit the bill nicely. We can also consider some other utility equipment, but until we know what the metagame will look like, it seems like a 1-of Argentum Armor and a 1-of Basilisk Collar should do the job just fine. That accounts for 26 slots in what will likely be a 36-spell deck. The last two 4-ofs are discretionary, but since we lose Ranger of Eos, we really need to consider playing something that gives us card advantage. 2-3 copies of the new token maker, Kemba, Kha Regent, could fit the bill. We'll surely have a few equipment to abuse, and extra 2/2s are always a welcome thing. Also, 2/4 for 3 is nothing to sneeze at.

Other cards that seem to have a natural inclusion in the deck: Auriok Edgewright is a value bear, but we need to be considerate of how many artifacts we'll actually have in play at one time. This deck seems like it will get a lot of mileage out of Mox Opal, so we may look to the Metalcraft keyword to bolster the power level a bit. The interaction with "equipment matters" cards adds a lot of synergy to an already-powerful deck. The popular Tunnel Ignus is a potential sideboard card, but I would not include it in the main deck.

4 Spikeshot Elder

4 Kor Duelist

4 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Plated Geopede

4 Steppe Lynx

4 Adventuring Gear

1 Basilisk Collar

1 Argentum Armor

2 Kemba, Kha Regent

4 Auriok Edgewright

4 Kor Skyfisher

4 Arid Mesa

4 Marsh Flats

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Mountain

5 Plains

3 Mox Opal

Something like this! The main concern with this list: 1) Is the Mox Opal engine going to work at all? Inclinations say yes, but it will need to be heavily tested to see if it plays as well as it looks on paper. 2) Is it sustainable enough to beat slower midrange and control decks? The Stoneforge Mystics and Kemba, Kha Regents are the only way to get card advantage, but holding back a Spikeshot Elder and drawing out their removal can put a game out of reach quickly. Elder has game-ending power, but some tinkering will need to be done in order to figure out what the best equipment is.

The list is not tested yet (since we just found out about Spikeshot Elder), but early indicators seem to show that Boros-colored aggro has all the tools it needs to be successful. Extended enthusiasts should be concerned with how an Extended-legal Boros deck will look. Ranger of Eos and Spectral Procession along with Goblin Bushwhacker can lead to some scary outcomes.

Thanks again to WotC for providing QS with an exclusive preview again! Leave some comments to be sure we keep getting them in the future, and maybe post a few deck lists with our newly spoiled Goblin friend.

The Revenue Review – Moving Monuments

Posted on September 17, 2010November 28, 2010 by Corbin Hosler

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The Scars of Mirrodin prerelease is in a week, and everyone is excited about the new cards coming out. They need to find four Etched Champion, and you need to use this opportunity to make yourself some good trades.

Today I want to talk about one older card in particular you should look to pick up at your prerelease, Eldrazi Monument, and share some of my practices on speculating through discussion of the Monument.

First, let’s start with the basics. The Monument is at $16 on Coolstuffinc.com, $10 (sold out) on StarCityGames.com and $13 on TrollandToad.com. We’re going to value it for the purposes of this article at $10, with the expectation of it rising. What this means is when you try to pick these up this weekend, you should value this card in that range and want to trade off some $6-8 cards for them.

There are a few reasons you can make the trade at that price. For starters, pricing is subjective. Just because we’re valuing the Monument at $10 doesn’t mean our trading partners will, it just means we don’t want to let them value it over $10 unless they are also “overpricing” their own cards. Players are going to be trying to pick up some of the new Mirrodin goodies, and will be more willing to part with cards like Monument if it means getting new cards.

Why we want to aggressively trade for Monuments

For the TLDR crowd, the short answer is “it’s good and likely to rise in price.”

With that out of the way, let’s look at the longer explanation.

As I’ve talked about before, one of the best ways to prep for the upcoming Standard season is to look back at the last Block season, which in this case is best encapsulated by Pro Tour: San Juan (which I was a game away from qualifying for, grumble, grumble). At the Pro Tour, a number of the top decks were mono-green Beastmaster Ascension and Eldrazi Monument decks. This is a good indicator that people will play some type of Monument deck, since they’ll have something to build from.

This is the basis of our evaluation of Monument. Moving into the next Standard season, I expect the metagame to be filled with U/W Control decks (as they lose very little), ramp decks, Monument/Vengevine decks, and something coming at us from Scars of Mirrodin.

Another metric to look at is how much play the card saw last season. Looking back a few months, the red/green Monument deck was always on the fringe of tier 1 playability. While that particular iteration of the deck may be dead due to the loss of Bloodbraid Elf, it shows that Monument has a strong enough effect to build around.

Based on historical evidence, these are valid indicators of coming decks. Faeries and Jund didn’t spring into existence overnight. They began in Block seasons and then continued on to dominate Standard for a number of months. There’s no reason that this trend won’t continue, barring any overpowered strategies like Affinity of old coming out of new Mirrodin.

The most important thing to take from these last few paragraphs is that you don’t need to be Conley Woods or a master of the game to spot the trends important to speculating on cards like Eldrazi Monument. When trading for profit, we only care about how good card X is insomuch as it affects the price of said card. Looking at evidence readily available today we can be reasonably sure that investing in Eldrazi Monuments is likely to pay off at some point in the next few months.

The impact of the mythic rare

So why are we looking to pick up the Monument and not Beastmaster Ascension, which was just as instrumental in the success of those Block season decks? We can thank Wizards of the Coast for that. Introducing mythic rares like Eldrazi Monument into sets has had a few drastic effects, exemplified by $70 Jace, the Mind Sculptors.

But the little gold rarity symbol has caused a side effect that most people ignore – they’ve depressed the price of normal rares. Case in point is Summoning Trap. The card has started to see some heavy play, including placing Conrad Kolos on the US national team, but its price has remained relatively unchanged. It’s likely that in the days before mythic rares the Trap would be a $5-6 card, rather than $2. What this means to us is that if we want to make any real profit speculating we’re better off banking on the mythic Eldrazi Monument.

Understanding the process that led me to the conclusion that Eldrazi Monument is worth picking up will increase your ability to successfully speculate on cards and stay one step ahead of the game, whether you’re into buying and reselling cards or prefer to accrue value through trading.

Now is the perfect time to pick up speculative cards because there is sure to be a host of casual players and collectors looking to pick up new cards like Geth, Lord of the Vault, which is unlikely to carry a large pricetag in a few months.

The bottom line is that you make better trades when you’re in a position of power. That means having the cards other players want. The first few weeks of a set are a great time to put yourself in that position, and understanding this concept is a great way to pick up value in your personal trading.

We’re just a week away from the Scars prerelease (Sept. 25-26), and I know I’m looking forward to killing my first player with Poison counters. I hope you do the same!

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

The Nutt Draw: Scars of Mirrodin Prerelease Prices

Posted on September 15, 2010November 28, 2010 by Chris McNutt

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Well cats and kittens, this is one you’re going to want to bookmark. Not just the normal bookmark you use for Quiet Speculation, but one for just this article. This week we’re going to look at how the Scars of Mirrodin prerelease prices are shaping up, and I’ll continue to update the charts and graphs herein up until the release date of October 1st.

Before we fall into a haze of numbers I want to show everyone the amazing deck box that will be sitting next to me for all my punted games.

My New Deck Box

When I asked Rachel to make it for me over 6 months ago I didn’t realize how much work it was going to be. She starts with nothing but wire, pliers and metal sheers and makes magic (no pun intended). She can be found at most of the big Magic events in the northwest quietly hand crafting various concoctions from bracelets to life counters to deck boxes. I’m really happy with how it came out so I’ll show a few more pics
with the interesting backdrops I cooked up from the man cave.

Some of her other work can be found at her Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/GypsymoonChain and http://http://gypsymoonchain.deviantart.com/.
If you’d like a one of a kind deck box (or something else) she is taking commissions if you can toss her $250 and six months to do it. She can build (smith?) in just about any 30x40 pixel design and in all the good colors (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, silver, gold, and copper) and can be reached at gypsymoon_chainmail@hotmail.com.

And now on with the spreadsheets.

As has been my habit since the release of Zendikar, I spend a clinically insane amount of time collecting presales data from eBay along with the prices from a few of the online stores. Those who have been following me on twitter for a while now might remember me sending out some unruly Google spreadsheets filled with ill placed data. This data might in fact be why Kelly Reid wanted me to write for him and was probably the foundation of all my data wrangling for this site. Contained in this article is information similar to what I used to send out over twitter but it’s been reformatted a little for easy digestion.

First up is the highs and lows of the last seven days.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=14&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

It shouldn’t come too much of a surprise to anyone following the feeds and news which of cards the top spots are going to. At the time of writing, Venser, The Sojourner, Espeth Tirel, Koth ,the Hammer, and the Mox Opal were in the lead by a good margin. They will likely stay as the most sought after cards several weeks after the release, but I think the dust will settle soon and we’ll be able to tell the Jace, the Mind Sculptors from the Lotus Cobras.

I’ve included some interesting anecdotal information such as the highest and lowest prices they have sold for in the last week as well as the quantity that’s been sold and their Standard relevant Demand Index values.

The next chart is pretty similar to the one above and has some of the data from the graphs below, but give you a small snapshot of how the cards are trending up and down. I’ve also incorporated the Demand Indexes of the top 30 cards in Standard and sorted the list by their Demand Index values.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=16&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

The following list is sorted by total number of sales per card.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=18&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

By the looks of this list, WotC chose the right buy a box promo card. Memoricide was spoiled pretty early on though so that could account for the rather large quantity sold.

Also for your viewing pleasure I present you with some pretty graphs. They should be fairly self-explanatory.

*Note
I've revamped the graphs a bit to make them comparable with Internet Explorer (by default, IE doesn't trust the content from Google spreadsheets, so unless specifically allowed it blocks images originating from the Google spreadsheet domains). I don't think they are quiet as pretty when restricted to the amount of space i have to squeeze them into, so here are some direct external links to the my online graphs.

External link to Graphs, page 1

External link to Graphs, page 2

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B2%3AC3&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B4%3AC5&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

The chart colors are chosen automatically by Google and I’m color blind so I’m not really sure how easy those are to read. Please let me know.

More interesting than the graphs above are these next few. These are the reason I started collecting all this data in the first place. I originally wanted to see how the amount of time cards from each set were spoiled affected card pricing. For the most part it’s about what you’d expect. More time from prerelease to release means more in presales both in quantity and total dollars. Since I don’t have Wizards sales figures I can’t really say how that influences the retail sales of a set in the long run but I’m working on some theories regarding the relationship between the time a set is spoiled, prerelease attendance, and pack sales. I hope you’ll find the following information as interesting as I do.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D2%3AE3&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

As you might have noticed, I added in the newest spoiled cards in tiny text on each relevant day to show related spikes in sales. Please note that the cards listed may have been spoiled earlier, but that is the first day in which they have closed eBay sales.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D10%3AE11&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B6%3AC7&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

I like these two graphs quite a lot as well. I think they give a really good and definitive sense of how well a set is being received by the public. Some of the following are a but of a visual mess, but I’m including the rest of these graphs because I went to a lot of effort to make them and I think many of you might get something useful out of them, if not just like them in general.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D6%3AE7&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B8%3AC9&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D8%3AE9&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B10%3AC11&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

Lastly, I’d like to provide you with some data to print out take with you to the prerelease and release events so that you’ll be well armed to snatch up the cards you want and to ditch the rest in a flurry of sleeve rending chaos.

First we have two lists, one sorted by their color and then into alphabetical order (like how they are listed on www.mtgsalvation.com) next to a list sorted by the highest average price.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=4&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

As you can see I’ve added in some average online store pricing (at the of writing I’m collecting prices from Star City Games, Cool Stuff Inc., Channel Fireball, and Gaming Etc.) Below is an offsite link that might help you in printing it out.

Direct link to the above sheet

Lastly I’d like to give you a link to a pocket sized list that I tried to format for mobile phones. In case you have to type the whole address on an unfriendly number pad I’ve shortened it as much as i can for you.

http://bit.ly/aT7hkZ

Chris McNutt
@fatecreatr on twitter

Flash of Hindsight (Special Edition) – Your Guide to Baltimore

Posted on September 14, 2010November 28, 2010 by David Heilker

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It’s a tentative week. We sit on the precipice of an all new format, but first, we have this $10,000 monster looming over our heads.

The Baltimore SCG Open is of course the monster I speak of. And any of you coming here would do well to know your way around. Most parts of Charm City aren’t as bad as “The Wire” or “Homicide” would have you believe, but it’s not exactly difficult to find yourself in those parts of town, so here’s a guide to keep you well-fed with something other than lead slugs (which would most certainly be hollow-point, and full of added danger).

The Hood

Okay, so The Baltimore Convention Center is located in a fairly nice area, within walking distance of a lot of cool Baltimore sites. I’m assuming you have your sleep accommodations made already, so I won’t cover hotels, this first section will cover attractions within a short-walk or a very-short (and reasonably priced) cab-ride. I’ll list some stuff that’s in the suburbs, but I’ll do that last.

This City is for the Birds

The Con Center is within walking distance of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. While “dem O’s” certainly had a lackluster first 2/3’s of the season, they are certainly much more intriguing under Buck Showalter. This weekend they play some team called “The Yankees,” which means a helluva crowd, and you’ll be able to yell at (or with) obnoxious New Yorkers who come down for the games. You can literally see one of America’s best ballparks and *choke* best teams for next to nothing. Tix start @ $10. Buy tix to the games here.

Unfortunately, the Ravens don’t have a home game to catch this week, but if Legacy isn’t your thing, you can watch the game at some great local bars (I’ll get to the downtown sports-bars in a bit, and they’ll be noted with an “(SB)” (meaning they are, at least for football and baseball, sports bars).

Check out Pickles Pub (SB) a real Baltimore Institution for pre-gaming before Ravens and Orioles games (especially home games!)

Bars, not just for alcoholics anymore

Baltimore doesn’t have a “club scene,” per se, but there are some really cool bars, depending on your scene.

If you want to dance, I recommend the Federal Hill area. Federal Hill is within walking distance of the Con Center, without tracking you through any rough neighborhoods either. Notable dance-centric establishments are Mad River, Mother’s(SB), Noble’s, MacGerk’s (SB) Ryleigh’s and Ropewalk. The scene is very poppy, with maybe a few too many popped-collars, but it’s a good time and there are plenty of young ladies to co-mingle with. Most of them are in college, so if you don’t have a place to stay, ask them, they’ll probably take you back to their dorm (PROTIP: read between the lines to discover these clubgoers’ moral fortitude). Other cool places to dance include Canton’s (where I live!) Canton Square. The Square is a little older (average age-wise) than Fed Hill, you’re looking at 26-30 yr old Yuppies. Good people, though. For dancing, I’d say specifically Claddagh, Fins, Looney’s Pub (SB), and Coburn’s. A final place to dance downtown, would be Fell’s Point – they’re sorta like Canton Square/Fed Hill, in that there’s a TON of bars in one place, but they’re largely less “dancey”. The scene in Fell’s Point runs the gamut from “Rangy Hobo” to “Snobby with no reason to be.” The places to dance in fells are The Horse, Greene Turtle (SB), Moby’s, and Latin Palace.

The last, and possibly best place to go for a dance is Power Plant Live! Power Plant (the ! is part of the name) is home to the only real “clubs” downtown. If you’ll be in town on Friday, I’d recommend the FREE outdoor show in the plaza – Mr. Greengenes, a pretty unreal talented cover band that brings EVERYONE out. There’s drinks served outdoors via Blue Door Bar, and plenty of talent. Other dancing establishments include Angel’s Rock Bar (a personal fave, they play modern rock, so it’s more of a “jump around and lightly mosh with hot chicks” bar, than a dance club), MEX, Mosaic(this is where the DANCE music is played, not exclusively, but if you like trance, this is prolly the only place you’ll really find it), and Luckie’s [sic]. There’s also Ram’s Head LIVE if your into live music. They’ll feature the Dark Star Orchestra Saturday night.

I should probably not exclude our gay friends, so Mt. Vernon (colloquially called “The Gayborhood”) is home to Grand Central, The Hippo, and The Baltimore Eagle. As I understand it, the Eagle is more for undercover gentlemen of the gay persuasion, but I’ve only ever been to Grand Central, and only to pick up a girl I was dating. I can’t really speak to the quality of these places, but Mt. Vernon is incredibly gay-friendly so you wouldn’t do too bad to just go and walk around (it’s also a pretty nice neighborhood, as if you couldn’t guess).

But I can hang out at bars too, right?

Of course not everyone dances, so for those who just want to hang, or grab some great bar grub, I recommend the following:

Fed Hill:

Mother’s for the game, otherwise, Fed Hill is probably not as “chill” as you’re looking for.

Fells Point:

Max’s on Broadway has an unreal selection of Beers on tap, and is a genuinely cool spot.
RA Sushi has a dance floor, but kinda has an ultra-lounge feel. Good sushi, just not great sushi.
Kooper’s one of the best burgers you can have, bar none. A cool environment.

Canton Square:

Nacho Mama’s: They have the best wings in town, and they have something called a “hubcap” of margarita. This is literally a 50’s car hubcap with like, a pitcher of pretty great margarita in it. Comes with like 9 straws to share, and is a very reasonable $17ish. Also, pretty much everything on the menu is delicious and the servers are TOP NOTCH.
Mama’s on the Half shell: This place is a real Baltimore establishment. Great joint if a little pricey, everything is delicious (you MUST try their mac n’ cheese if you eat there). Try a crush, I personally like the John Daly – an alcoholic Arnold Palmer.
Matthew’s Pizza: unreal good pizza, just off the square.
Claddagh Pub: the downstairs is a pretty chill spot, and the food here is certainly above average
Speakeasy: Great burgers, reasonably priced drinks.

Mt. Vernon

Brewer’s Art – amazing micro-brewery. Decent food too.

Where to eat:

Aside from the bars I just listed, there are some fine places to grab grub in bmore.

Within walking distance, we have Ruth’s Chris steakhouse, and Sullivan’s is also nice for steak. If you really want steak though, we have a Fogo de Chao which is just about the best place ever.

The steak enthusiast is obviously someone who wins the $5K’s , so for those on a little stricter budget, there is Hooters (right on the harbor), Cheesecake Factory, and P.F. Chang’s. We have a Hard Rock Café, a Dick’s Last Resort , and a Hoolihan’s. There are a bunch of little places too, that I’ve not been to that you’ll see while walking around the Inner Harbor.

For those of you with almost no money, there is a McDonald’s within walking distance, and at the Inner Harbor a Chipotle, and a Five Guys. For the uninitiated, Five Guys is a burger joint that is really great, but very “low frills” – almost like a Mid-Atlantic In N Out (I wish!). The fries are also killer.

There are a couple Vegetarian/vegan-friendly places that have been recommended to me, but I enjoy the murder of animals so that I can be sated, so I’ve never tried them. They are:

Got wheels?

If you want to travel a little bit outta town, there are a couple good places to eat or hang in Towson and Nottingham. Specifically,

Towson

Towson is a college town, home to Towson University. There is a concentration of bars on York Rd. which are near the Roundabout and Towson Mall.

Bill Bateman’s – Great wings, good bar food, good place to watch the game
Padonia Station – see Bill Bateman’s
Rec Room – Decent place to get drinks. Food is “ok.”
Ryan’s Daughter – great traditional irish food.
Greene Turtle (Towson) – good bar food, some dancing can be done here too.
Kyodai Rotating Sushi Bar – good sushi, better than Ra.
Thai One On – really good thai

Nottingham

Home to the White Marsh Mall, and The Avenue you can eat or hang out at the following:

Tilted Kilt (SB) – Hooters, but with a fake Scottish deal, @ the Avenue.
Della Rose’s (SB) - a great place to grab a bite and watch the games @ the Avenue.
Bombay Nights – Some of THE BEST Indian you can get. I highly recommend um… everything.
De Santis (SB) – good food, especially the pizza (it’s from Matthew’s). Quaint, but nice.
Manhattan Grill – good place to hang out, maybe dance.

Seeing the Sights

Downtown has some cool, if not touristy attractions. Aside from the two glorious ballparks, there’s a world of stuff to do, if you’re into snapping pictures and such.

The Maryland Zoo – it’s a nice zoo, but not in the best neighborhood. Worth a look if you have several hours to kill.
The Maryland Science Center – a cool place, sort of an interactive museum. A lot of cool stuff to see in here, and right across the way from
The National Aquarium – a very cool way to kill three or so hours. With a replica rainforest as well as a really awesome Jellyfish exhibit.
The Edgar Allen Poe House – I have no idea what one does here, but if you’re into it, it’s within a walk (a longish one, but a walk nonetheless).
The Inner Harbor – home to the Science Center and Aquarium, the harbor boasts a pretty view and a bunch of shops and street performers.
The American Visionary Art Museum – again, if this is your cup of tea, a cool place to visit.
The Babe Ruth Museum – he was an Oriole before a Yankee, and he grew up in Baltimore too.
Geppi’s Entertainment Museum – Also at Camden Yards, a really cool look at the development of American Pop Culture.

Stores

I am talking about places to buy and/or play Magic. Those of you coming in Friday, and looking to FNM off-site, could check out the Mega FNM at Games N Stuff, They’ll be giving away a box of Scars of Mirrodin (upon release, yes they’ll ship it if you’re from out of town) as well as a TON of door-prizes. Also, Xanadu Games in arbutus is a fine shop to patronize, they’ll also have FNM (not mega, though the competition here is usually very good) and you could even participate in an ad-hoc fighting game tournament on one of their enormous screens. Both of these places have excellent singles’ selections, dynamic buy-lists, and good trading. Other local stores include Legends in Towson, and Canton Games.

Another place to play FNM, and you might even spot an mtg celebrity is Amazing Spiral in Hamden. It’s not too far from the convention center, and BHJ of YO! MTG Taps! is the host. With the fanbase they have, you never know when someone could show up to kick it in a relaxed tournament environment (run only the way that BHJ could run a tourney)! If you can't make it to their FNM, you should definitely check out their 'cast. It's the best one out there, bar-effing-none.

Wrapping Up

There are of course, numerous other things to do in Baltimore, but unfortunately many of them involve wearing Kevlar. We are, in case you didn’t know, within a pretty short drive of D.C. so if you wanna see some more notable museums, they’re a day-trip away. You can also feel free to stop me at the tourney and ask what I’ll be doing that evening, or where is good to hang out, and I’ll fill you in.

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Amsterdam in the Books

Posted on September 12, 2010November 28, 2010 by Noah Whinston

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Whinston’s Whisdom strikes back as we join you with yet another column about the world of Magic finance. Unfortunately, I am yet again forced to take my attention away from MTGO on account of outside factors, in this case, PT Amsterdam. In today’s article I’ll go over the results from the event, how this will impact the upcoming Extended PTQ format, and what cards you should be looking at to rise in price.

First off, I’d like to say that the top 8 of this event was absolutely fantastic. From current hot player Brad Nelson, to legendary HOF member and arguably greatest player to have ever lived, Kai Budde, the skill level of this top 8 is unparalleled.

The metagame of this pro tour was dependent on a single combination of cards: Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows. Any deck able to play these 2 cards was certainly doing so, and this warped the format beyond recognition. Faeries was drastically reduced in power because it was so vulnerable to this. RDW and other aggro decks were forced to adapt or die, as any 2 or fewer power creatures were almost dead on sight. Unfortunately for us speculators, the format as it was in Amsterdam is now effectively deceased. After Time Spiral Block rotates out of Extended in October with the release of Scars, there will be no more Grove of the Burnwillows, and therefore no more Punishing Fire. Despite the upcoming change to the format, it’s still important to look at the decks that performed well and WILL be sticking around.

Looking at the top 8 of the event, there is one deck we can immediately discount. Wafo-Tapa’s and Michael Jacob’s Teachings decks will be rotating out, as their namesake card will no longer be legal. The other 4 decks in the top 8 ; Doran, White Weenie, Jund, and Merfolk, will all still be viable come PTQ season. Let’s go deck by deck and look at the cards most worthwhile to speculate on from each, as well as their viability at a later date.

Merfolk

The single copy of this deck in the top 8 was piloted by my favorite pro player, Marijn Lybaert. He triumphed over Wafo-Tapa in the quarters in the classic Aggro-Control vs Control matchup. While Merfolk does lose Lord of Atlantis to the rotation, the deck still has 8 lords available. The disruption of Cursecatcher and card advantage of Silvergill Adept provides the deck even more tools. Unfortunately, Merfolk does have a tough matchup against aggressive decks, so unless Faeries or Five Color Control become popular for PTQs, Merfolk may need to sit on the sidelines. If you’re looking to speculate on Merfolk becoming popular, my recommendation would be to pick up Merfolk Soveregeign and Cryptic Command, the most important counterspell in the archetype.

Jund

Again, we have another archetype that only had one representative in the top 8, this time piloted by relative unknown Thomas Ma. Jund loses Tarmogoyf and Punishing Fire to the rotation, and while this does hurt the deck, I think it is more than capable of surviving. Jund is a difficult deck to speculate on since so many of the cards in it are from Standard. If you are dead-set on buying up Jund cards, Great Sable Stag would be the best option as it is relatively cheap at the moment but with the largest potential to shoot up.

White Weenie

Eventual winner Paul Rietzel as well as Kai Budde played White Weenie into the top 8 of the event. The multitude of 1 drops, as well as the ever popular Spectral Procession and Honor of the Pure powered this archetype through the field. My only hesitation here is the fact that one of White Weenie’s best attributes was that it was not vulnerable to Punishing Fire. Now that this is no longer a threat, what does White Weenie have that other aggro decks don’t? Utimately, I think RDW is the more viable aggressive deck in Extended. White Weenie’s only reach is the use of Brave the Elements compared to all the burn in the Red deck, and doesn’t have the same explosive speed. White Weenie is better against Doran, but I don’t know if that’s enough to make it good. There are a few key cards you should be looking at if you want to speculate on White Weenie. Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare are both high powered one drops, and Ranger of Eos is a card advantage engine.

Doran

The final deck of the PT, Doran is also the deck that I was looking most heavily at prior to the event. Why was Doran so good? Because the deck is superior to its competitors on multiple levels. First, Doran’s manabase is significantly better than the rest of the field. The interaction between Treefolk Harbinger, Verdant Catacombs, and Murmuring Bosk ensures that the deck is easily able to produce a turn 3 Doran almost every game. Also, its creatures are more fficient. Loam Lion and Treefolk Harbing are both 3/3s for one, and Doran is a 5/5 for three. No other deck can compete in terms of raw power. Finally, Doran has access to disruption such as Thoughseize, Duress, and Tidehollow Sculler, which allows it to decimate combo and control decks. I’ve already speculated a lot on Doran’s success (about 20 Dorans and 30 Murmuring Bosks) and I plan to continue to do so until prices rise. This deck is the real deal. Even once Fae and RDW come back into the format with the rotation of Punishing Fire, Doran will still be able to hold its own.

Tip of the Week: Pyromancer Ascension

At the moment, people are avoiding buying Pyromancer Ascension unless they need it for their Standard decks. However, I feel Ascension will still be a strong deck choice post SoM. In Standard, it’s really not necessary to go for the all out combo with Time Warp and Call to Mind. Once Time Warp has rotated, the deck will merely need to kill in a different way, with extra Bolts and other burn rather than taking infinite turns. But Pyromancer also has potential in new Extended. At the PT, 30-odd players piloted Ascension, and while the deck does et significantly worse with the removal of Grove of the Burnwillows, it still has potential, and I wouldn’t be counting this guy out just yet. I would buy at anywhere less than $2 and sell at $3 or more.

That’s all for this week, but stay tuned for the next edition of Whinston’ s Whisdom, as I hope to have a special surprise for all fo you in next week’s article.

Good night, and good luck,

--Noah Whinston

Flash of Hindsight – I put the “Diva” in “David”

Posted on September 12, 2010November 28, 2010 by David Heilker

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This is how amazing things happen.

I’ve been busy.

Tinkering with the few Scars of Mirrodin previews we have so far, and loving it. This is my kinda set, so far at least, and Scars marks, for me at least, a period of unbridled success on the part of the Magic design teams.

I'll have to regale you all with the story of my PT: Amsterdam FAIL to let you know how "when I eff things up, I really eff things up." Another time. You the readers, however, get to reap the benefits of me being such a prima donna; I’ve got some cards that I wouldn’t have recommended going into the ‘foilo.

Thanks to a couple cards that have been recently spoiled, I’d like to introduce you to the most fun you can have with mana since Nettle Sentinel rotated:

(via ChannelFireball.com)

It’s called Myr Galvanizer. Here’s the text of the card:

Myr Galvanizer 3

Artifact Creature – Myr

Other Myr creatures you control get +1/+1.

1, T: Untap each other Myr you control.

This gets me a little excited. The artifacts we were promised are here in what is in fact shaping up to be an artifact-centric set. Furthermore, WotC apparently forgot about Splinter Twin.

Probably the rare you least wanted to open, Splinter Twin enables some zany things with Mr. Galvanizer and any other mana-myr (Copper Myr for example). Sure, it’s a three card combo, but it’s doable in different ways, and we have another potential enabler (because it is in fact red, which is the color of Splinter Twin):

BAM! The first red planeswalker. Koth of the Hammer.

(via Mr. Mike Flores, on dailymtg.com)

Koth’s abilities are as follows:

+1: Untap target mountain, it becomes a 4/4 elemental until end of turn.

-2: Add R to your mana pool for each mountain you control.

-5: You get an emblem with “mountains you control gain ‘T: this land does 1 damage to target creature or player.’”

Yeah, he seems good. And he’s red. Koth of the Hammer everyone. He’ll be here all season.

Anyway, he’s a boss, and this is just ONE piece of one way to abuse what was hopefully not a gross oversight by the R&D folks. I expect this combo to be hot in the first couple weeks at least of Scars Standard, so I’d get all the Splinter Twins I can pick up. They’re bulk right now, so really, the slightest jump, and you're golden, and the risk is so low that it gets confused for Jason Derulo (the song is awful, by the way, almost as bad as that joke). I’m picking up about 10 Splinter Twins, and my gut tells me I’ll regret only having 2.5 playsets, but I’m being a little conservative here. Get ‘em for cheap, and flip ‘em for a buck. If you get them while bulking, you’re up 900% each. Those are sick gains. I wouldn’t hold on to these, because you don’t want to be left holding a bag of them, but I will probably keep around 4 for myself, just in case I want to play the deck (if it happens).

What else we got? Well basically, I like picking up all the artifact-centric cards. It might seem obvious, but only one has really spiked any, and that’s Steel Overseer. I loved my Lodestone Golem call, especially now, and it’s sold out on SCG, so that’s something (they do have the foil for what seems like a remarkably low price as of writing). I think we move any Thada Adel Acquisitor out of our bulk boxes and start valuing her a little higher. She’s also bulk, and is great in Vintage’s Noble Fish decks, so why not pick up a bunch? I’d pick up 10 for about $2, and I wouldn’t get rid of them for less than $3.50

Some other considerations are Cosis Trickster which I’d be comfortable recommending a pickup of about five of these (also, bulk!) I also love the Renegade Doppelganger pickups from last week, as this makes any Myr deck viable in Blue as well, and for cheaper (albeit more fragile).

Current Portfolio: About 8-10 Lodestone Golems Between 5-10 Renegade Doppelganger, 4xStoneforge Mystics , 4x Goblin Guides, and 12x Armament Master[card]s, 10x [card]Thada Adel Acquisitor ($2, total) and roughly 10x Splinter Twin ($1.50-2 Total). $40.00 (approx.).

Current Performance: Up $40 if you got FTV:R. Otherwise, statickish, but up a coupla duckets.

On Kelly's suggestion, we're going to hold off on the contest from last week until Insider Access launches. Keep filling out your portfolios! Until next time, may your favorite color be Green!

The Revenue Review – 5 ways to kill a trade

Posted on September 12, 2010November 28, 2010 by Corbin Hosler

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Everyone knows “that guy.” You avoid him, but he’s always at your FNM trading with the new players and trying to take them for all they’re worth, quoting imaginary card prices or just otherwise being generally annoying.

No one wants to trade with that guy. In an attempt to help you avoid ever resembling that guy, I have five tips to make sure your trading partners don’t develop any hard feelings and kill a trade.

Never pull a card out of your partner’s binder without first asking if it’s for trade.

Everyone has different “rules” for their cards. Some people don’t like to pull out their cards to avoid any possible damage to the card or their binder. Or they have a sentimental attachment to a particular card and don’t want to trade it. Personally, I have a few cards that were loaned to me for a deck, but are no longer needed. I haven’t yet been able to return them, so I keep them in my binder because it’s the best way to ensure I don’t lose them. It’s a little annoying to tell traders what isn’t for trade when they open my binder, but it’s better than having the cards pulled out every time when I can’t actually trade them.

The point is, you never know what your partner’s personal “rules” are, so the best idea is to just ask them about each card as you go. It’s a good way to start the trade off on the right foot by asking them if their Gideon Jura is for trade before you start making a pile of their most beloved cards.

Another benefit to this is that you can watch what they pull from your binder, and that gives you a lot of information about what type of player they are and what they’re looking for. If he’s pulling out your Awakening Zones, then you know to leave his in. It also gives you a general idea of what prices the cards they want are, and you can make your selections accordingly.

Don’t brag about your last trade.

So many players who think they’re trading sharks just can’t help themselves but to brag to their friends after making a particularly profitable trade. Doing so makes it a lot harder to get anything out of that guy one table over who overheard your posturing. This will immediately put him on the defensive, and even if you have what he wants, you’ve made your life 10 times harder when you sit down to trade with him.

Another common mistake is for people to tell their current trade partner how much they have been trading all night. While not quite the same as bragging, it will flag to your partner that you aren’t new to this trading game. This fact alone will turn off many casual players since they tend to lump heavy traders into the “win at all costs” crowd. For many casual players this roughly translates to the “jerks” crowd.

I’m not advocating lying, and sometimes you can’t hide the fact that you’re a serious trader, but there’s no reason to dig your own grave by talking about it.

Never talk about how you have infinite copies of a card.

Many casual traders and collectors view trading cards on an entirely different axis than many of the people who I imagine read this site. They value even the same card very differently. For collectors, it’s the first copy of Baneslayer Angel that is the most precious. For some players, that number is four. Anything past that is considered as essentially worthless because it’s “extra.”

This can work for you as well as against you. You should use this to your advantage as often as you can. But what I want to focus on today is the flip side – when their reasoning can actually significantly hurt you. Since they value cards on either a one or four-card basis, they expect you to do the same. As a savvy reader of Quiet Speculation, I’m sure you know that every copy of Steel Overseer, from the first to the hundredth, is worth $4-5.

The important thing is to try to avoid announcing this to your trade partner. When they ask for your Steel Overseer, don’t respond with “sure I can trade that, I have like 10 copies.” To them, this means you’re willing to trade it at a lower value, because you already have all the artifact lords you’re ever going to need. This leads to issues when a few minutes later you’re demanding a fair price for the Overseer and they get upset that you’re asking so much for your third playset.

A few weeks ago, a player wanted a Reflecting Pool from me and saw that I have 13 copies (I’ve been picking them up like they’re candy). When I told him I valued it at $7-8, he became very upset that I wanted to trade for it at that price. I explained to him that since I’m not trading for a particular deck, I really have no incentive to value the Pool any lower. He ended up storming off because my line of thinking just didn’t make sense to him. That kind of response is rare, but you can avoid causing similar feelings in your partners if you refrain from talking about how you have infinite copies of a particular card.

Don’t talk about how you want a particular card because its price is only going up.

I watched this happen just last weekend with a player trying to pick up Phylactery Lich, talking all the while about how the Lich’s price was going to double in a few weeks. He may be right (and I do suggest trying to pick some up), but it’s a poor idea to tell your partner how you’re essentially undervaluing his cards.

It’s not a big jump for the other player to say “well, I can just hold onto these then if they’re going to be so valuable.” It’s fine to let people know that you’re speculating if they ask why you want a particular card, but don’t flaunt how you intend to double up on his cards in just a few weeks.

During the last two months when I’ve traded for Phylactery Liches and Steel Overseers, my line has been “I think they could be cool when Mirrodin comes out.” That’s a long way away from “This card is worth $5 now, but in a month I’m selling it for $10!” Even though the base logic is the same, it makes a big difference how you frame it because you don’t want your trading partner to feel like you’re cheating them. The truth is you are taking a risk speculating on cards, and you don’t want to hide that fact.

Don’t put any unnecessary pressure on your partner.

Most people think of this as presenting a standoffish take-it-or-leave-it approach, but there are actually a myriad of ways besides this that you can pressure your partner and risk killing a trade.

A common way people do this is by treating card prices like they infallible. Telling your partner that their cards are worthless is a bad way to go, even if they are (Instead tell them that they just don’t have anything you’re looking for). Most players just aren’t going to trade you 20 bulk rares for a $3-4 card, even if the prices work out to the same.

Another ill-advised approach is trying to take cards that are sentimental to them. You might not care that their Jace, The Mind Sculptor is the first mythic they ever pulled, but they sure will. Even if you get them to trade you Jace, it’s likely they are going to regret it afterward, and that will kill any future trades with them before they even happen. If someone tells you they care more about a particular card, you’re generally better to just let them be.

I know most of these tips seem like common sense, but I see traders making these mistakes week in and week out. I know that won’t be any of you, but feel free to direct “that guy” to Quiet Speculation to clean up his act.

Because nobody likes “that guy.”

Thanks,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Ninja edit (sorry editors!) - I almost forgot to include the Jace trade I previewed last week. Here’s the trade:

His:

Misty Rainforest ($12)

Marsh Flats ($11)

Destructive Force ($3)

Jace, the Mind Sculptor ($82)

Total: $108

Mine:

3x Fauna Shaman ($15)

Grave Titan ($30)

Captivating Vampire ($4)

Eldrazi Temple ($4)

Lotus Cobra ($22)

Total: $105

Net: $3

At first glance, this is not a trade I would suggest for my partner, Russ, to make. However, Russ is just getting back into Magic after a number of years away and is trying to grow his collection. Trading down like this is a great way to start expanding a collection, as Noah Whinston detailed here.

When I saw Russ (an avid QS reader) a week later, his binder had grown to nearly four as five times as large as it had been at the time of our Jace trade. He credited a lot of it to the knowledge he’s gained from this site.

I was glad to see someone using what we write about here to grow his collection from the ground up. At the rate he’s going, I expect that Russ will have plenty of cards I’ll be looking to trade for in the future.

For me, this trade marks something of a milestone. I’ve always traded for value, but didn’t kick it into high gear until about six months back, and picking up Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a nice moral victory after pulling zero in two boxes of Worldwake.

Thanks (again),

Corbin Hosler

Dream Cache – How Much Do Magic Cards Weigh?

Posted on September 12, 2010December 9, 2014 by Douglas Linn

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How many cards can you fit in a shipping box?

How much does 1000 Magic cards weigh?

How can I measure my collection without a ruler or scale?

Folks, today we're answering those questions and more! This enterprising author busted out his scale, his ruler and his massive collection of junk cards to bring you the dimensions and measurements that you need to know if you are going to buy and sell Magic collections.

Counting Magic cards is time-consuming. You can go through them, one by one, or count up a stack of a hundred or so and replicate that with other stacks until you get a rough guess. That takes too much time for me and it is very imprecise! As a result, I developed a table of useful measurements that will get your collection measured up and counted.

How Much Do Magic Cards Weigh?

The best way to get a collection quantified is to weigh it. If you have a kitchen scale, this is a great use for it. If you lack one, get one because they are inexpensive. Alternately, if you have friends who enjoy recreational pharmacological adventures, they likely have their own scale that you can use. I counted up a thousand Magic cards and put them on the scale. Here is what it looked like:

So your first metric is that one thousand cards weighs 1775 grams. By the way, in my research for this, Kelly Digges at mtg.com did his own mathematics with a postal scale, and when I calculated out his result, he had 1816 grams. I explain the discrepancy with the following: his scale weighed in ounces, mine in grams. At these weights, grams are more precise than ounces on a scale. If you really have the time, you can weigh your own and see how it matches up. I did another test and came up with 1768 when I moved the scale from my table to my (carpeted) floor. I suggest you measure on something hard, ideally resting on concrete. In any case, a Magic card weighs around 1.8 grams, rounding up, so you can see that the discrepancy is only about four cards' worth here or there.

Well, you say, grams are great if you live in Germany or South Africa or of the over 180 countries that use the metric system, but what if you're in the U-S-freakin'-A and want to measure up those cards? Simple math and knowing that there are 454 grams in a pound results in one pound of magic cards containing about 257 cards. I warn you that a bathroom scale cannot accurately measure one pound, but it can measure several pounds with a little bit of accuracy. At 257 to a pound, one thousand magic cards weighs roughly 3.9 lbs, and you can figure that three thousand will weigh just about twelve pounds. For a really easy way to measure this, get on your bathroom scale, weigh yourself (and grimace) and then hold near-weightless plastic grocery bag full of the cards. Deduct that weight from your original and you can get a good idea of how many thousand cards you are looking at.

But, you say, I lack a scale! How can I quantify my cards! You can measure them!

How Tall Is a Stack of One Thousand Magic Cards?

One thousand magic cards is approximately 12.5" tall, or 31.56 centimeters.

You don't have a ruler? Get out a dollar bill!

A dollar bill is 6.14 inches long. I counted up that stack of cards, and found that a dollar bill is as long as 494 magic cards. You can round that up to 500 and easily count the number of cards in a stack of Magic cards. By the way, that stack weighed 878 grams, if you were interested.

How much does it cost to ship a Magic card collection?

Now that we know the dimensions of a thousand cards, let's work out how many we can cram into a post office mailer!

A medium post office flat-rate box costs $10.70 at the time of writing. Its dimensions are easy - 8.5 x 11 x 5.5 inches. That is, as large as a piece of paper and 5.5 inches deep. I took a sheet of paper and arranged magic cards on it to see how many I could fit into that dimension. I found that if you do two rows of three and one row of four, you can get ten cards on, representing ten stacks of cards. It's best to do it yourself and see how it works out. 5.5 inches translates mathematically into 437 cards per stack. Ten stacks means that you can fit 4,370 cards in one of those boxes. That pile of cards weighs 17.1 pounds!

I took that same figure of 17 pounds and ran it through the postal rate calculator on the Post Office website and found that, on average, to send the same box would cost about $22 - we save $11.30 when we are shipping flat-rate. These figures represent the cost to ship an absolutely packed box, though, so you have a little work ahead of you if you want to ship shy of four thousand cards. Shipping in the small box means you can fit in about 550 cards with wiggle room. That weighs 2.2lbs. A box costs $4.95 and that same weight would cost, on average, $6.50 to ship.

Conclusion: ship in flat rate boxes if you possibly can.

Easy Magic Dimensions Tables

1 magic card weighs 1.775 grams.

1000 magic cards weighs 1775 grams, or 3.9 lbs.

1000 magic cards is 12.56 inches tall, or 31.56cm.

A dollar bill is as long as a stack of 494 cards.

You're wondering about whether a card is worth its weight in gold, right? Of course. A magic card, made of gold, would cost you approximately $72 dollars. So that Jace, The Mind Sculptor really is worth his weight in gold.

Doing The “Combat Math” of Your Magic Budget

Posted on September 9, 2010November 28, 2010 by Kelly Reid

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Welcome to my first article in, well, a long time. My name is Stu Somers and I am mostly an Online trader. I am mostly known as “stu55” on everything from MTGO to any internet forum. I want to give you a little background on where I come from and why you should even bother listening to anything I have to say. Adam Barnello said it best on Channelfireball recently that “Bullet points make for simplicity,” so that is how I am going to rock this introduction.

I have been playing since 1995 and wheeling and dealing since probably 1997. I have taken 2 small breaks in that time, the first being when I was hooked on Pokemon for a bit when it first came out and the second break was during Kamigawa block when relationship-type issues and my money binder getting stolen kind of forced me into needing a 3 set break. However, since that break, I have been back and playing and dealing better and harder than before. Buying/selling Magic has paid for my car as well as all of my extra curricular activities such as Spring Break trips, NYC and Atlantic City trips for New Year’s and going out on the weekends throughout college. I have a pretty sweet personal collection, too.
I was one of the first moderators of the Marketplace of MTGNews back when it first debuted in what I think is 1997, though that is a long time ago and my date might be off. I was also part of the group that moved over to MTGSalvation from MTGNews and was also a moderator for their Marketplace for 2 different stints.
I am also on Magic Online under the name “stu55” and a member of the clan “Osyp Drives Me to School.”
What I am probably most known for is Magictraders.com and Magiclibrarities.com. I have been on the Magic Online Trading League since May 2nd, 2000 (darn, missed my 10yr anniversary…oh well). I have amassed over 360 refs on there, which places me at 34th out of a registered 48,190 people. I have also been a long time member at Magiclibrarities, where if you have any interest in misprints, promos, fillers, test prints, and any other non-normal magic item, this is the place to check out.
As for real life, I am 25 and I live in Pittsburgh, PA. I have a degree from West Virginia University in Leadership, Communications, and Business Administration with a minor in Entrepreneurship which I earned in 2007. I also have a MBA with a focus in Accounting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania which I got in 2009. Since then I have been getting my butt kicked by the economy while job hunting and instead making money through buying/selling magical cards, 6-tabling the 50NL games on Full Tilt and now that the Rivers Casino has gotten table games, I have been doing fairly well at the 1/3 Hold’em No Limit games there. I still want to get a ‘real’ job since I have this hyper-aggressive need-to-succeed personality where my ‘real-life’ (as opposed to Magic-life) goal is to be in charge of a large (Fortune 500) company and shape it to my image.

“Real-life.” That is a topic that not many columnists seem to bring up at all. I think in all of my years, I have seen only a handful of topics that a largely deal with life outside of Magic. If you want to be good at Magic, whether it be Trading/Dealing or playing, you need to have a balance in your list outside of it. Since this is a financial site dedicated to Magic, this article will mostly be about finding a balance to both Magic and Life financially as well as how to take the next step up where you are working from a small budget to one that is much larger.
Bankroll management is very important; whether it be playing poker, dealing Magic, or taking care of your personal expenses. Before you can spend any money on Magic, you need to have an understanding what your personal financial responsibilities are. Making a plan and giving yourself a general direction in which to go is the best way to start. Basically. you are creating a budget on paper and using it to help yourself stay on track and accomplish your goals. The best way I can illustrate this is to show you what I have written down.

REAL LIFE (coming from ‘real’ job):
Rent + Utilities = $950/month Student Loans = $900/month (want to pay them off fast) Credit Card Bill = $300-500/month (again, want to pay it off fast, car repairs hurt me this year)

MAGIC:
Binder- $4000 in inventory ($600 in rarities/misprints, $400 in casual EDH/Portal-type cards, $1000 in Type 2/Ext., $500 in Vintage Foreign Foils, $1400 in Legacy/Vintage playables (at least 2 pieces of power), $100 Commons/Uncommons)
Paypal- $2000 available cash
(Magic pays for any car payments, food, other social activities)
I have broken down each aspect of my financial responsibilities and how much I need to allocate to each part to be successful. Goals can be to just generically make money or to earn enough for school, a car, a computer, or really anything. Just have a goal in mind. An important concept I hold onto is that I am willing to get rid of parts of my own personal collection to meet my goals, because the #1 rule of trading/dealing is that “Cards will always come back.” (this is followed closely by rule #2 in that “if you have a chance to profit, take it, no matter how small, cards will always come back.”). I have unloaded personal sets of P9 in order to re-bankroll myself if I have slipped and let myself get too low in capital.

Now, you might be saying “Man, $6000 in Magic, just for trading, that is so much, how do I get there and still take care of my personal responsibilities?” First, remember that this is for me, and I have bit more to start with as well as probably a lot more experience, so I know how to get from underneath a large inventory quickly and get cash back. You can still go from a small $500-$1500 to something closer to $2000 or above without overwhelming yourself. A recent article by Medina basically said to “cannibalize your decks and un-pimp your cards.” This goes back to “cards will always come back.” If you are making enough money, you will either find the cards again in trades and just keep them separate from the inventory or just go ahead, unload some chaff and re-buy them.

So, after I have gotten my start-up stock and been trading for a bit and increased my inventory value, I need a way to get the money out of it. Any cards I want to keep get kept and then I work to sell down to my initial starting point. I would recommend on starting with getting an account on Magictraders.com as well as numerous online dealer sites. MOTL might take a bit to get started because you want to build up your ref count but, there are plenty of high-reference members you can trade with to build up. There is an inherent risk of being “ripped” on a site like that, but if you are smart you can avoid that all together. Doing small <$20 trades is one way to start. You just don’t want to jump on there, trading out Power and Duals without any reputation. I think in my 13 years of trading, I have only been ripped off twice because I have been careful.

After you have built up your ref count, you can make a “sales” list in one of the subforums. This is where people from all over the world can browse your list and offer to buy your cards. On this list, it is usually good have a set of rules detailing how much shipping will cost the buyer as well as options for insurance, DC, other postal perks. You also MUST have prices listed per card or risk having the thread closed by the moderators. I recommend using ebay prices because that is what everyone there will be using as well. Anything that doesn’t sell on there within a few days, I would consider moving on any sort of dealer site. It is a quick way to get money out of cards that you can re-invest again with. I would have multiple windows up at a time and just compare buy prices and sell to whichever one makes the most sense. Most have options for Paypal payment so that means that the money can go directly to your account, and for me, anything over $2000 in Paypal goes immediately into my personal checking account.

That is about all I have to say on this topic. I hope my first article has been an enlightening one and that it helps you organize and be successful in meeting your goals. Feel free to post on Magictraders or message in the comments below if you have any questions regarding the site and how to trade on there as well as comments on the article (even taking ideas for future articles). I am going to leave you with a few things that I am digging right now or want to tell people:

Store in the Spotlight (BnM)- The Vault Comic and Games in Greensburg, PA (where I play, have to give a shout-out)
Player in the Spotlight- Caleb Durward (that Madness deck is HAWT)
Card Watch:
Vengevine- Only has to find away into Vintage and I think this card hits Jace proportions.
Training Grounds- Minus 2 activated abilities?! This thing is worth speculating on and could go see a decent rise in value after Scars
Shadowmoor/Eventide on MTGO- Already high, won’t be coming down anytime soon because the M11 release is happening during this block’s NixTix rotation

Buying High-
1) Maurice Jones-Drew- This guy is going to be the 2nd best fantasy player this year, well ahead of Adrian Peterson
2) Rollafatty- Fuel and Fuddle staple of Awesomeness wrapped in bread and cheese and covered in grease
3) Cardinals-Reds Rivalry- See that brawl Tuesday night?!
4) WoTC- Duel Decks, FTVs, Awesome core sets! They are doing everything right and I love it!

Selling Low-
1) Pittsburgh Pirates- Please sell the team to Mark Cuban already..ugh
2) Katy Perry- Oversaturation much?
3) Economy- Recover more! I want a “real” job!
4) M11 Titans- Type 2 is over, definitely would not be sitting on these things.