So in Magic, there are several play zones, which include (I had to cheat and look them up to be sure I didn't forget them)
The Hand-Where your spells and lands stay until you play them
The Library-Where you draw cards
The Battlefield-Things that are in play
The Stack-Where things wait to resolve
The Graveyard-Where things are that have been cast, killed, or destroyed
The Exile Zone/The "Outside the Game" Zone-Where cards that have been removed from the game exist
While those descriptions are rather basic and don't begin to describe anything in particular, it is important for someone playing Magic to understand the complexity and interactions of the zones to become a better player. I remember it took me a while to understand the stack and how abilities used the stack. I started playing around Alara block, and for the life of me, I couldn't understand that you could kill Putrid Leech with a lightning bolt if you waited for the pump trigger to go on the stack and bolt it in response. I look back and feel rather noobish for not understanding that interaction, and wonder how many games I lost because I just didn't know that.
Beating Jund aside, it is important to understand the zones that exist to a Magic player in terms of their card collection. Now we can draw some parallels (hopefully they aren't too far of a stretch)
The Hand-The is the section of cards of that a person owns that are in a deck and currently being used. It is generally a lot harder to get these cards off a person, unless they explicitly tell you that they are for trade (these are usually casual/EDH decks that the person is working on, and they only really do this when you have something they really want, so when you get that tell from a person, you know you can really go to Value Town). I am often torn because I want to trade the cards in my deck for more valuable cards. Not doing so requires a lot of patience and discipline, which I am still lacking. Over the weekend, I traded a Snapcaster Mage for a beat up Thoughtseize. This was a spur of the moment deal, because the guy wanted a caster and wanted to get rid of his thoughtseize. The guy asked me for prices, and the person he was trading with wanted more than just the thoughtseize. I was able to go straight up for it, despite the fact the Snapcaster was in my deck, and I had no extras. I felt confident doing this because I could always borrow a Snapcaster from someone if I wanted to run the same deck at FNM, or just play something else (which I had honestly been debating). While the Thoughtseize is in rough shape, I would imagine that I could get 35 for it (perhaps 40 if the person I am talking to really needs it), and I know at any given time I can trade it for a Snapcaster plus something small. Since Snapcasters fluctuate from 22-30, I can really use that leverage to really profit (I am thinking trying to move the Thoughtseize and perhaps something small like a Grafdigger's Cage for 2 Snapcasters if I can talk them down to 22, or at least a Caster and a filter land, which, in 2 trades, would allow me to effectively convert a Grafdigger's Cage for a Snapcaster, or at least get a free filter land by being the middle man in a trade). It is important to keep your decks in tact because winning events is the best way to boost your collection without trading.
The Library- In Magic, this is where you build your hand, drawing cards and adding to your pool or possible spells. In terms of a Magic collection, your library is any way (excluding trading) that you add cards to your collection. This can be done through buying packs, buying singles, buying collections, drafting/sealed events, or winning cards/packs by playing in events. As a general principle, I do not buy packs to open for cards. I am not lucky, and it is effectively playing the lottery trying to try and open a chase Mythic (Empirical evidence would suggest that women are better at opening packs of cards then men). In terms of buying singles, I will only buy cards at 60% of their StarCity price, which is effectively their buylist price, giving me the option to get my money back at any time (depreciation aside). This has been rather amazing for me, since my local store has some people who always seem to be needing money and somehow have decent cards to sell (Wastelands at $25, Polluted Deltas for $20, etc). This gives me more and more ammo for trading, and helps me get big ticket items on the cheap (I recently bought a foil Sorin, Lord of Innistrad for $50, which has the value of $100). I already have an offer of a Savannah for it, which is only worth $80 mint, but I would imagine that it is SP, and that I could get something else out of it. I could also just try and move it at a bigger event for other stuff. The important thing is that instead of spending $50 in opening packs (17 packs at $3 each), I got the omost valuable card in the set with 0 risk. I would love to start buying collections and then piecing it out on eBay or website buylists, but that has been a little tricky so far.
In terms of drafting, after a while, I have started to become good in terms of valuing cards in terms of their worth, how much better the actual "Correct" pick is, and how likely that card will help me win the event for prizes. My general rule of thumb is that if I will "rare" draft something in the first 1-4 picks, It needs to be worth $4 at least. Anything pick 5+ is probably around $2+. Picks 10+ I will almost always take the rare, no matter how bad it is (I have probably traded about 6 Rooftop Storms at $1 each). Winning tournaments (FNMs in particular) gets you packs, boosting your collection. I have recently spent time thinking about the value of opening packs vs. Trading them at MSRP ($4 a pack), and it seems worth it. Thought the Double Faced Cards make calculating the value of an unopened pack hard, it would seem that Innistrad is not worth opening anymore, but Dark Ascension is, solely due to the "Captains" that are worth 2+ each.
There seems to be a cycle: Having the best cards available -> Winning at FNM -> Getting more packs to get more good cards -> Repeat. While playing the cards correctly is important, I am pretty confident that I could give a UW Delver deck to some of the worst players at FNM and they would still win at least a pack or two. While I might not be the best in terms of piloting a deck, I have not been in a position where I was unable to play a deck that I wanted because of card availability (Meeting and becoming friends with people is important with that as well) since Shards block rotated. I think that I am in the cycle, as I will generally leave FNM with 4+ packs of cards and a promo.
The Battlefield- The battlefield is your binder. These are the cards that you have that you want to trade off for better things. Just like in the Magic battlefield, getting "2 for 1" is the easiest way to beat your opponent. If they spend all game casting Hill Giants (3/3 for 4 mana) and you cast all Skinrenders (3/3 for 4, when it enters the battlefield, put 3 -1/-1 counters of target creature) they will not be able to keep up. The same thing is true in trading. If, on every trade, you get a small bonus, you are constantly going to get more and more card advantage. In regular Magic, if a 2/2 attacks and is blocked by a 3/3, the 2/2 dies, and the 3/3 does not. That is a basic principle in Magic. That principle does not hold true in trading though. I can trade X dollars in cards for X+Y dollars in cards. Going back to my earlier example, if I can find people that will trade me a Thoughtseize for a Snapcaster Mage, then find people who will trade me a Snapcaster Mage and a Grafdigger's Cage for a Thoughtseize, just by going back and forth between people you get a free cards every 2 trades. While it is not that simple, that is the basic idea behind a value trader. I find people who either:
1) Need cards for their decks, and are willing to overpay in cards because they don't want to buy the card for money
2) People who undervalue some of their cards or overvalue yours
3) People who want cards I have but do not want
In terms of binders, I am actually carrying around 4 binders right now. I am still trying to find the optimal way to sort and try to trade my cards, but I think I am getting there. The binders are set up this way
1) All Standard rares+valuable uncommons. This is sorted by color and set, and I only keep 4 of each card in there. I leave the extras sleeved in a box to replace any I need to. I only put 1 in each sleeve, or else they will stretch and need to be replaced. I only keep 4 of each int he binder to reduce their flipping. The first few pages contain the big ticket items and some non-standard stuff I want to trade. When people see good cards on the front pages, they seem to not mind flipping through the rest of the binder because they know I have good stuff and that it is worth going through. I always show my standard binder first, since those cards are the most relevant and easiest to trade.
2+3) Random foils and bulk rares. These are the cards that I would just love to trade and get value on. There is a trade off between the number of people who can view your binders and the amount they can look at. Most of the time I will pull these binders out for casual/EDH/new players, since they are random cards and random people like random stuff. I would not bring these to bigger events, since at events with 100+ people I want to maximize the amount of trades I make, and having people go through junk rares would only take away from the time I have to trade. I am going to begin to trade for bulk rares at the next big event I go to, and I would imagine that I will write about that experience.
4) EDH+Modern staples and Legacy staples- I really do not like breaking this binder out, as most people want a lot in it, and in reality, if someone had a binder like that, I would want all of it too. I only break this out when they don't find enough in my standard cards and they have Legacy and Modern staples for me. I am not 100% on this statement, as there are exceptions, but I will never trade Legacy for Modern or Standard, I will rarely trade Modern for Standard, and I will never trade Eternal cards for Standard without getting a 30%+ boost on my card values. The reason is that Legacy cards hold their value the best, then Modern, and Standard cards fluctuate in price greatly. Modern and Legacy cards are also immune to a price drop from rotation. Looking back at my last post, I traded a bunch of standard staples for an Italian BB Bayou and a Foil Damnation
GAVE: 2 Foil Darkslick Shores ($50), 2 Foil Seachrome Coast ($50) Mox Opal ($22), Liliana of the Veil ($35) Elspeth Tirel ($20) and FTV Zuran Orb ($2) Total= $177 GOT: FBB Italian Bayou (SP) ($160), Foil Damnation ($40) Total= $200
I gained $23 on that immediately. In the short term, I will lose on the deal, as the Seachromes and Darkslicks will jump due to their play. In the midterm (6 months), I will try and look back and see how accurately I can predict the prices post rotation. The Shores will probably drop to about $12 each, the Seachromes might be $15 (only because of Modern), Mox Opal will probably be $20 (though it could drop to $15), and Elspeth will sit at $8, if not $6, as she will not see any play in any format. The Foil Damnation will probably go up and down a little bit, but will probably be $60-70 one month after Standard rotation, and the Bayou will probably stay the same, if not jump up 10-30. Converting Standard to Legacy is my ultimate goal. Legacy cards have higher buylist prices, and retain their value the best. They are the "blue chips" of Magic cards. I want to continue to gain value on all of my trades, work on converting Standard to Legacy, and increase my portfolio through trading.
The Stack-The stack is the mess of cards that are not in your binder, the extra copies beyond 4 that I do not keep in my binder, the cards that people do not want to trade because they might use them, and the piles and piles of commons and uncommons that sit at home and are never used. The goal of the stack is to make sure that everything resolves (does not remain on the stack). I try to put as many rares and tradable cards in my binder, as not having them on me is wasted potential. I try my hardest to make sure that every card in my binder is for trade, and that everything is organized so I can find what I need quickly. With commons and uncommons, most of them are not really tradable. For every Gut Shot and Lingering Souls, there are dozens of Darksteel Relics that nobody wants. My current project is sorting all of my commons and uncommons by number, pulling out a playset of everything, and putting the rest in a huge card box, sorted in case I ever need to get anything, but out of the way so they don't impede me at all.
The Graveyard- The graveyard is a mental zone that contains memories of all of the good and bad trades a person has made in their life. While I don't really have that many bad trades, I remember recently that I could have traded for a sharpied up Scrubland but someone else got to the guy before I did, and I didn't interrupt them to offer more for the card. I could have gotten it at $18 in trade, but I didn't say anything and missed out. I'll probably talk about this in the future, but I do think about from time to time. I also remember when people grind value off me, or when people are not honest with me. There was one case recently when someone wanted a Ratchet Bomb (which he said was worth $5 but was actually at $10 due to the recent spike in play it saw), and I got a Phyrexian Metamorph (worth $7, which would have been a great deal if the Ratchet Bomb was $5). Normally, I would say that is my fault, since I didn't know the prices, but the fact that I asked him what it was worth on StarCity, when he had a smartphone in his hand, him giving me the wrong value does not fly with me. I equated it with stealing. While it is easy to either dwell on something small like that, or write it off as a sunk cost, I can't do either. If the guy ever wants to trade with me, I am going to smartphone everything, and make sure that I get $2+ value on everything every time that we trade for as long as I know him. Beyond that, there were a couple other small trades that I might have lost $1 or $2 on that I let bother me too much. I should be remembering all of the trades I make where I gain. The problem is that it seems the human brain doesn't really work like that. People remember small losses more than big wins. Therefore, it is important to make sure that people do not feel like their trades were losses if you are getting value on them. At my local store, I am "The guy who has pretty much everything", and people like trading with me, despite the fact that I make profit on every trade. This is because they need cards and I don't, so I am able to get about $3 max per trade with no problem. People don't consider it a loss if they are getting what they want for stuff they don't need. There is a utility factor involved in Magic cards, and I make sure that cards have 0 utility value for me. People are willing to give up a little bit in cards value to improve their deck or get a sweet new card, especially for stuff they don't use. That is the best way to stay in everyone's good graces and have people seek you out to trade with. As soon as you start ripping people off, you won't be able to trade with many people, and in the long run you lose. It is important to actively try and not rip people off, because in the long term, you benefit more than in one lopsided trade. This is very true when Standard rotates, and people are fine getting rid of their cards dirt cheap for new stuff. That idea does not hold true at large events, since you really don't see most people again. In those cases, it is all about maximizing profits.
The Exile Zone- The exile zone is where cards go to no longer have any impact on the game (with the exception of a few cards that get them back). These are the cards that people do not want to trade because they are attached to them, need them, might need them, or are just too stubborn in trading them. Most people put all of their cards in their trade binder, despite the fact that they don't want to trade all of them. One of the worst ways to start off a trade is someone going through your binder and picking out something, only for you to say "Oh, I can't trade that". I will trade anything in my binder, unless it is something that I just acquired earlier in the day that I stick in there to store, or cards in there that I need to return to people. I will give that explanation beforehand so people know. The cards I don't want to trade stay at home. These include my dual lands, my promos, the cards with sentimental value to me, and cards that I want to keep playsets of. I generally do not want to trade Legacy stuff either, so when I pull that binder out, I tell people that most of that isn't for trade, and only in there so I can build a deck if I need to.
It is important to understand how to treat your Magic card collection. If things are not sorted both physically and mentally, trading becomes harder and more clunky. Being able to move things spur of the moment allows for better and more efficient trading.
No comments:
Post a Comment