After a bit of a trading drought (as well as some struggles at FNM and draft) I really made a bunch of key acquisitions this weekend. I moved a foil Elesh Norn, a Phyrexian Obliterator, and a Hero of Bladehold for a beta Lord of Atlantis (very close to mint) and a Maze of Ith, giving me a $25 profit, as well as trading 3 cards that are almost assuredly at their peak. I also got an Alpha Vesuvan Doppleganger for $30 cash, which seems like a pretty good investment, as it around the $150-170 range. I also picked up a Force of Will for 3 Arcbound Ravagers (I find it easy to get people to trade Force of Wills when they only have one. Making the point that one isn't nearly enough to run in Legacy, and that it will take forever to trade for the others generally gets them willing to move it) and another Bazaar of Baghdad for 6 shock lands and $30. I have no idea where the hell people are finding these random sweet old cards, but hopefully it continues. It took a lot of work, but I got another Alpha Force of Nature for a stack of random junk cards and a Hero of Bladehold. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why people love the card "Praetor's Grasp", but I am pretty sure that given 2 weeks and 500 Praetor's Grasps, I could probably trade up to a house.
It seems like recently, Magic has really been getting to me a lot. I seem to be taking losing a lot harder, and am very frustrated cracking packs for sealed or draft to only get trash, while everyone around me gets at least 2 mythics. I have been doing rather well lately in terms of trading, and while I am rock solid at it, it is getting really hard to grind out a dollar on people. I think that I might need to refrain from being the person to initiate trades, and just wait for people to ask me if I have the cards they are looking for. As a rule of thumb, it is very important to get value when you are trading down, but not nearly as important when trading up. Converting four $1 cards into a Birds of Paradise is a great move, since you are thinning out your random junky cards by upgrading them into a staple, and it really isn't necessary to make a profit there, since you are gaining hidden value in the fact that birds can easily be traded. If given the option between 1,000 Praetor's Grasps (worth .50 each) or a Mox Jet (worth $500), which would you take? Unless you are a psycho, you take the piece of power and smile.
Trading cards can really be visualized through the ideas behind playing a Birthing Pod deck. If your chain looks like this
Birds of Paradise> Runeclaw Bear> Brindle Boar> Giant Spider> Greater Basilisk> Vastwood Gorger
you have successfully converted a 1 drop into a 6 drop. Seems pretty good going from a 0/1 flyer into a 5/6. However, what wasn't explicitly stated was that it took 1 card (Birthing Pod) 11 mana (assuming you pay 0 life, and tap the birds for mana to Pod it) and 5 turns. In the grand scheme of things, this was not really worth the time and effort.
Now look at a good Pod chain
Birds of Paradise> Viridian Emissary > Blade Splicer > Solemn Simulacrum > Geist Honored Monk > Vastwood Gorger (Wanted to have the same end result)
So right there, I spent the same amount of turns and mana using Birthing Pod. However, for the trouble, I ended up getting +2 lands, a 3/3 Golem, 1 card drawn, and +2 1/1 Flying Spirits. When you are trading randomly and just to trade, you are putting the the turns and mana, but only getting a very small upgrade, if any. Gradually you might end up getting some bigger cards, but in the grand scheme of things, it isn't really worth all of the resources you put into it. When you are trading cards, it is important to maximize your gains and get as much value as possible, whether through actual price difference, through ease of future trade (trading cards of the same value, but getting ones with more appeal or upside), of going from standard to modern or Legacy. I was able to trade a Phantasmal Image for 3 Thalia and a Thraben Doomsayer. I was able to not really gain much value (.50), I was able to convert a card that will probably be cycling out very soon for cards that will be around for a while. The fact that phantasmal image was inflated because of the random success of zombies also made the deal beneficial to me, as it is probably as high as it will ever be.
So if I learned anything this month, it is that bad players love Praetor's Grasp. I have no idea why, but I'll be damned if I can keep any of them in my binder.
Recently I have been having an inner dialogue about how much is too much in terms of ripping people off. This ended up leading to more thought about cheating, lying, and dishonesty (There was a Dateline on about kids cheating and how they would react if others around them cheated). So I got to thinking about how I feel on the subject, and what I would do if the opportunity arose. I am pretty sure that if someone has my life total incorrect, and his account of my life total was higher than my account of my life total, I would use his. Thinking about it, why would I put myself in a worse position by telling him that he is wrong. I know that I miss things sometimes, and perhaps his is correct and mine isn't. So if I tell him that it is lower, he may very well go with that cheat me. I think that if I was playing someone, and while shuffling, they dropped a JTMS or an Emrakul, I don't know if I would tell them. It would give me an advantage that they are missing one of their most powerful cards. I don't think that I'd be able to pick the card up after the match and throw it in my binder though. That seems too close to stealing. I guess that a cost/benefit analysis needs to be done on a case by case scenario. When making a trade with someone, I have to decide where on the "Honestly <----->Profit" Spectrum I want to fall in. In general, it would great to build a great trading relationship with everyone, and just do such a huge volume of trades gaining me a dollar or two every time that my binder will grow and grow. However, that really doesn't work too well with smartphones, since people are able to look up the price of every card and don't want to give up any value at all. It feels like trading has become a constant shifting of my card value from some cards to others, not really gaining any profit at all. I think that being a little more aggressive to gain a couple bucks each time, or to constantly trade up is the way to go. That really didn't answer the "Should I rip people off who don't know the value of cards" question. The answer that I have come up with is "You should if you don't ever plan on seeing/trading with them again, and you hedge your bets to varying degrees with everyone else". If you go back to the Beta Trop deal that I made, it was an arduous process that probably added the equivalent's worth of an IRS audit of stress to my life, but I tried very hard not to rip the kid off and gave him more than he wanted. As a result, he has traded the following cards to me: 2 Alpha Force of Nature, a mint Bazaar of Baghdad, Maze of Ith, Beta Lord of Atlantis, Alpha Vesuvan Doppelganger. The fact that I went out of my way to make trading a good experience, he came to me to trade all of the other cards, not giving anyone else an opportunity to get them. That is pretty crazy, since looking at what I got, I probably ended up trading for $1500-$2000 worth of cards from the kid, and made insane profits while doing so. However, he is starting to greatly overvalue his cards (he wanted 4 Foil Gravecrawlers, a Hero of Bladehold, and a Phyrexian Obliterator for the Force of Nature, which was alright value wise, but there is no way that I am going to give up that much for an Alpha card that sees no play anywhere. So we had to talk things out a bit, and I ended up giving up a lot of $1 and $2 cards for it, which worked out well for both of us. Truth be told, I am getting the feeling that the kid might be out of cards I am interested in, so I fear that the carcass has been picked clean (I couldn't think of a better metaphor, as "The well is dry" or things like that imply that it was overused and now exhausted, as opposed to just empty). I think that he said he had Mox Diamonds, and that would be great, but in reality, I think that my next trades with this kid will be when he opens an expensive card that I want to trade up for. I wonder how much more aggressive for profit I could been and still gotten him to trade me all those cards.
I ended up doing alright at Prerelease weekend. The Helvault was a sweet promotion, despite not having anything really sweet in there. I ended up picking up 2 Chain Lightnings and a Sneak Attack, which is a decent addition to the Legacy collection. I am planning on moving all of the mythics and rares I opened for Innistrad lands and stable mythics (Snapcasters, Lilianas, Huntmasters, Sorins). Ideally I will be picking up a bunch of Snapcasters, since I have a lead on trading for a set of Force of Wills, and a set of casters would really make that easier. I can't really imagine what will happen with AVR prices, or what will happen with Standard with the new set out. I would guess that in a month, Tamiyo will be down to $30, Tibalt will be $16, and Temporal Mastery I have no idea on. I think it might stay at 40 or go up a bit if it gets huge in Legacy, but could drop to $25 if it doesn't find a home. I am hoping that the new set refocuses me on trading a little more aggressively to maximize profit, and to more importantly work on ways to grind out a couple bucks instead of not really making any profits with the normal traders.
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