Category Archives: Conjured Currency

Conjured Currency

Rise of the Rise of the Eldrazi

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PAX Preview Pain

One of the downsides to my articles being published on Thursday means that I’m usually pretty late to the party for any Magic news that was shown over the weekend. For example. I was going to spend a few solid paragraphs thoroughly expressing my disgust for how Wil Wheaton butchered the Battle for Zendikar preview show at PAX, but I’m not even going to attempt to hold a candle to Travis Allen’s beautiful explanation on how much of a vomitfest that was. Seriously, if you were thinking, “Maybe I should watch the preview show. Seeing a dumpster catch on fire has no value to the world, but it’s kind of entertaining…”, then forget about it. Don’t give them your clicks or views. Just go be entertained and informed by Travis, then come back here.

Wizards of the Coast, if you’re reading this. Hire literally anyone else to do the preview show next time. Pick a random guy or girl out of the crowd, and let them do the preview show with flashcards or a teleprompter. It would have been better than the middle-school presentation that I had to dredge through. The only things that kept me remotely interested in the show were spoiled cards, MaRo’s interesting design talk, and this guy that I’ve circled in the below image.

Screenshot 2015-09-02 at 10.47.23 AM

Every time they panned back to the crowd, this guy was sitting in that exact pose, giving off that “yeah, I’m not gonna clap for this bad meme personified, just give me the damn spoilers” vibe. Mystery crowd member, you are my hero of the weekend.

Eldra..gons of Zendi…tarkir

You know what? Forget it. There’s a clever joke in there somewhere, but I’m not going to sit here for twenty minutes and try to figure out what it is. I’ve got Magic cards to write about, not subheading puns.

My point is that back when Dragons of Tarkir was released, every goddamn dragon in the game suddenly went up approximately a billion dollars, just because everyone wanted to play dragon everything. Scion of the Ur-Dragon EDH, 60-card dragon casual, 78-card unsleeved dargon casual, you name it. Well, every dragon went up, except for the FTV copies of Bladewing the Risen that I’ve had for forever…

Anyway, the point is that with Battle for Zendikar quickly approaching, I think it’s time to look back at a few of the older Eldrazi and get in on them before any hype starts to lift them up off the ground. I want to look for safe targets that aren’t likely to plummet any time soon, and some of them will definitely be longer-term holds.

While BFZ won’t be the “Eldraziest Eldrazi set that ever had Eldrazi” as DTK was with dragons, I still think there are some safe pickups and holds that have room to grow. A lot of the dragons that picked up the price pace weren’t even good in EDH, but were just being purchased by casual players who enjoy slamming big, fire-breathing threats onto the table. We’re going to look at a few parallels here in the old Eldrazi set.

Spawnsire of Ulamog

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Spawnsires

At only $3, I really like Spawnsire of Ulamog as a pickup. It dodged all reprints up until now, it makes a lot of mana dorks, and the last activated ability is perfect for both Timmy and Johnny to get excited about. The annihilator 1 is pretty irrelevant, but who cares? We’re casting every Eldrazi ever. Spawnsire gets a whole lot of new tools with this set, and I don’t think he needs to see competitive or EDH play to get up to $6 or $7 on casual demand alone. SCG is out of stock on NM copies at the moment, but has plenty of SP/MP. eBay is practically dried up of non-foil copies, and there are still quite a few on TCGplayer. Maybe this doesn’t pick up until casual players start cracking packs and building decks, but this is a card I’m very bullish on. You don’t see me pick out spec targets very often, but this is one of them.

Eye of Ugin

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I’ve heard some rumors and suggestions on Eye of Ugin recently, so I wanted to clear the air with my thoughts. Eye of Ugin just got reprinted into dust because of Modern Masters 2015 by being rare instead of mythic, and you only really need one, maybe two in a deck. I’ll admit that I almost had a heart attack when I considered using it with the devoid mechanic, because Forerunner of Slaughter is technically colorless… but you still need to pay colored mana to cast it. Maybe there’s still something there, though. It makes you only need one black mana to cast Dominator Drone, and if you’re in black then you can run Urborg to let Eye tap for mana… I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy. Being able to tutor for “colorless” devoid creatures isn’t irrelevant late-game, but there’s just so many copies in supply right now. I’m calling Eye a hold for now, because I don’t want to give up on the possibility that there’s a really cool interaction in the set that we haven’t seen yet.

Awakening Zone

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Awakening Zone has been creeping and crawling very subtly over the past couple of months.

Azone

It’s easy to not notice a trend of a card slowly creeping from $2 to $3, and Awakening Zone has shrugged off two multiplayer product reprints  over the years. It doubles as a repetitive token engine and ramp spell, and we could definitely see increased demand with the new Eldrazi. It’s always been a semi-staple in Commander decks that can make good use of the tokens, but additional casual demand could put it in the $4 to $5 range relatively quickly.

Keep an eye on this one, but I don’t think we buy in at the $3 it is now. If you want to buy a $3 rare, go for Spawnsire. Just be ready to sell this off at $4 to $5 if it makes it there. I still think it’s a good trade target at $3, especially if you end up being able to move soon-to-be BFZ bulk rares.

Eldrazi Temple

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How the mighty have fallen. If it weren’t for the back-to-back reprints, I would’ve loved this as a pick-up. Everyone would have. Being dropped down to uncommon from rare basically kills any chance for this to be worth anything in the next ten years, so don’t even touch it, unless you’re picking bulk and basically getting them for free. Sell them for a quarter to all of the new Eldrazi players and enjoy the small demand bump, but don’t go hoarding them thinking that you have a master plan.

Pathrazer of Ulamog

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Did you know that Pathrazer of Ulamog is close to being a $3 uncommon? Yep, it’s worth almost as much as a Gitaxian Probe or a Boros Charm, and those ones actually see competitive play. I always preferred Artisan of Kozilek in my EDH decks because of the bonus reanimation and cheaper mana cost, but I suppose there’s something to be said about a higher annihilator number and pseudo-unblockability. At $3, though, I wouldn’t expect this to see any additional gains. The rule here is identical to how you’re moving Eldrazi Temples: be happy with the new buyers, and don’t look back.

End Step

Now, let’s step back into something more recent. Shaman of Forgotten Ways recently shot up to $8 off the back of pure, unadulterated hype, but there’s no actual decklists to back up the price tag yet. Because of that, I made the executive decision to list my copies on TCGplayer yesterday, and they sold in less than three hours.

Azone

Nick is correct in that it’s not particularly fair for me to say that I sextupled up purely from speculation, because I paid buylist prices for them anyway back when they were $2 retail. I was just happy to unload them into the incoming hype, when I still haven’t seen a tangible decklist yet for any sort of green ramp containing the new Eldrazi. Mark Rosewater confirmed that Ulamog was the only titan left on Zendikar, so we won’t be getting Emrakul or Kozilek as backup (at least in this particular set). I’m curious to see if there will be anything else worth slamming down for 10 or more mana mana; if not, then See the Unwritten and Shaman of Forgotten ways could both very well crash and burn. I don’t want to be holding them when that happens.

Do you have any pocket picks that you expect to jump up from the BFZ spoilers? Let’s continue the conversation below, or on Reddit, Twitter, or Facebook. I’m not picky.

Conjured Currency

Stream of Consciousness

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Welcome back, DJ!

Thanks, I needed that. As you might have noticed last Thursday, my content was conspicuously absent from MTGPrice. As a resident assistant for the returning students at my school, I was extremely busy last week with preparing the building, checking new students into the residence hall, and repeating the mandatory training that is drilled into us every year. Although the job is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it to any of my fellow college students who are interested, move-in week certainly takes up a chunk of my time. To all of my fellow college-student MTG financiers, I highly recommend applying for the job at your school. It’s a great experience overall, even though it’s a pretty large time commitment.

Unfortunately, even if I did have time to write an article last week, I didn’t exactly have a specific topic ready and waiting to be scribbled down. In fact, I still don’t have a topic this week. I’m just kind of winging it right now, because I’m pretty apathetic about most of Magic right now.

Apathy

I’m not one to obsess over the angels in the new From the Vault, everyone else has already written about the fetch lands and their Battle for Zendikar predictions, and I think I’ve exhausted your patience for “articles concerning my weekly collection buying and organizational processes” in the past couple of months (seriously though, if you guys/girls want to read about more of that stuff, I can do that. I love writing about collection buying). So let’s just see where this goes, okay?

More Fetch Land Talk

Actually, you know what? I do want to talk about fetch lands, even though the spike was a billion weeks ago at this point. In recent news,  there was a fake leak of enemy Zendikar fetches being spoiled at PAX. After several diligent researchers determed that the art was cherry-picked from various other internet sources, the frenzy quieted down. If you’re one of the people who bought a huge number of fetches before the spike and had a miniature heart attack at the sight of the faked announcement due to still owning a couple thousand dollars worth of fetch lands, that was your warning shot.

Warning

I’m still advocating unloading these now instead of waiting a few months, as I think there’s a high probability of Wizards including the five lands in the second set of the block. If you wait too long into BFZ to sell them, then you won’t be able to find any buyers as everyone will be holding off until “Sweat“ is released. Lock in the profits now and you can have cash on hand just in case someone comes up to you to sell a collection. I still have some Zendikar fetches left over that I picked up from the story I’m about to tell you, and the few seconds of jump scare made me realize I need to pick up the pace on selling them.

Sticker Time

While we’re on the subject of fetches, I’d like everyone to gather ’round for story time. We’re traveling back a billion weeks ago to the day of the “enemy fetchlands will not be in Battle for Zendikar” announcement, in a small town called Camden, New York. The closest LGS is 30 minutes away, but at least this one has a singles display case, stocked with staples. Although our weekly EDH night didn’t start until 6:00 p.m., I wanted to get there early and see if the shop had any fetches in its display case at a reasonable price. This was right in the middle of the buyout, with SCG being bought out not even an hour before.

I arrived at the store and noticed that they still had quite a few fetches in stock: Misty Rainforests for $35, Marsh Flats for $25, Verdant Catacombs for $34, and Scalding Tarns for $54.  Excellent. There were no Arid Mesas, but you can’t have everything. I inspected the condition to make sure they were all NM and gave the employee my card to swipe. I told him that I was purchasing all of these fetch lands because I expected them to be worth a lot more by the end of the day, and I ended up being correct (for once). One of the main reasons I’ve kept coming back to this store is that it always honors the sticker price, even if the card has already jumped. I help the store out by pointing out low prices when I’m not going to buy cards, too.

Now, let’s fast forward to the next week. I wanted to buy new binders because the Monster brand ones that I’ve used for the past few years were finally at their limit. I didn’t want to wait a week for them to arrive from Amazon, so I stopped by the LGS once again. This time, I was met with an interesting change in the store: it was no longer labeling its singles with price stickers—one now had to ask an employee for the price of each individual card.

Decree of Pain

I suppose the owner was tired of having people like me buy cards after their actual retail price had already increased. The store certainly loses out on potential income when I buy $5.50  Living Ends, I’m not arguing that point. Then again, I’ve been on the other side of the fence plenty of times, considering I just sold a Cloudstone Curio out of my own display case for $6 before I had the chance to update the price. It’s an unfortunate reality of the business we’re in.

However, I can’t help but wonder if removing the stickers is the best possible move for the store, and I’d love to get your thoughts in the comments section about this. By forcing employees to check the price on every single card sold out of its case, the store loses out on a large number of impulse purchases from players who don’t play nearly as competitively as us vocal minority. I can only assume that an EDH player who is browsing the case for new additions to her decks won’t go through the trouble of asking the price on every single potential candidate—she will narrow her purchase to save on time. It’s much easier for customers to mentally visualize their own budgets and how many cards they can afford when the prices are right in front of them, and this system also removes the joy of finding a card that’s even slightly underpriced, even if it’s only finding a $7 Blood Crypt that was $8 everywhere else one looked. There’s also the employee’s time and effort to take into consideration, because he now has to double-check every single price every time someone asks about a card.

As someone who sold several Goblin Rabblemasters for $7 out of my case while they were $15 everywhere else, I held no animosity or resentment towards the players and financiers who I sold these cards to. What are your thoughts on this?

Uhh…

Alright, so now that that’s out of the way, what else is there to talk about… Hmm.

One with Nothing

End Step

Apparently Hangarback Walker is a $20 Magic: The Gathering card, which upsets me way more than $80 Scalding Tarns. If you own these, I’m still calling to sell them. I mean, I suggested you sell them at $8, then I suggested selling them at $14, so what do I know? All I know is that this card is the same price as Thoughtseize was almost two years ago, and I highly doubt that Walker has the same longevity.

Temple of Epiphany got its second wind for about a week off the back of the UR Artifacts deck, and then everyone realized: “Oh wait, this stupid thing is about to rotate.” I managed to sell off a pile into the hype, but I think that’s just about died down for now. If you want to pick up any other Temples for speculation, you can probably find the cheaper ones at near-bulk prices as everyone else abandons ship. While I’m still staying away from any and all Temples in favor of collection buying, I’ve been wrong before. A lot, actually.

Foil Hive Mind was bought out recently, but I haven’t really heard or seen anything about that. While it might be part of your daily ritual to check the daily interests on MTGStocks, remember to click that foil tab every day as well.

While we’re on the subject of foils, I fully support Travis’s call on foil Tasigur at $30 to $40. While I’m not going to drop several hundred cash dollars on it like he did, I’m going to horde the few copies I already have in my spec box, target them aggressively in trades, and keep a finger on the pulse of the card’s price moving forward.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you have anything in particular you’d like me to write about, hit me up. Summer is usually a pretty dull time in Magic finance anyway, until all hell breaks loose with the release of the fall set. Look forward to the next few weeks as spoiler season starts trickling in, as I’ll be helping Jason and Corbin create up-to-date spoiler coverage and tossing my hat into the ring on where I think most of the cards’ prices will end up in the future months! (Spoiler alert: I predict 90 percent of the set will be bulk rares.)

Conjured Currency

Conditional Value

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“I just want the cheapest copy you have. It’s for personal play, and I’m just trying to build the deck on a budget.”

–Probably one of my local customers

Man, I misuse quotations a lot. You wouldn’t know this if I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t actually  document that quote from some local guy I know. I mean, people have said similar stuff to me over the years, but I probably shouldn’t use actual quotation marks for it.

Anyway, what have we got to write about this week? Fetches? Boring. From the Vault: Lack of Linvala?  I really don’t care. I’d rather continue on my track as a brilliant comedy writer who basically wrote A Modest Proposal in MTG finance form (it’s right freaking here, for those who haven’t read it). As much as I’d love to continue writing satire and reading the comments, I do kind of get paid to provide useful and actionable financial information about our lovable little economy. I’m hopping back to more of a Finance 101 topic this week, where we’ll go over card conditions and why you shouldn’t write off buying and selling slightly played (SP), moderately played (MP), and heavily played (HP) cards.

Tell Me More

Let’s go back to that opening made-up quote. This more often applies to Legacy, Modern, or EDH than Standard, where the prices on dual lands, fetches, and older staples are symbolic of there not being enough to go around. Not all of the original dual lands have withstood the past twenty years of wear, and the ones that have been used as sandpaper have a price tag to show it. As a result of this, players on a budget who just care about the end result of finishing their decks are more often than not willing to sacrifice card condition to complete that goal.

Take a look at this Tundra, for example: it was one of the first dual lands I ever picked up, and I paid approximately 50 percent of retail for it, because it looks like someone smoked a cigarette directly onto the card for two days straight. (Seriously. The pictures below don’t capture just how yellow the card is.)

smoke tundra 2 smoke

“Yes, DJ. Used merchandise sells for cheaper than brand new stuff. That’s obvious. Why are you telling me this?”

Well, Mr. Stereotypical Devil’s Advocate Who So Many MTG Financiers Invoke in Their Articles, I’ll tell you a few things that you can use to take advantage of in the field of less-than-NM cards.

tweet

StarCityGames.com gets a lot of flak for having singles that are  often priced slightly higher than the rest of the internet, but I’ve never seen a more strict grading system in action when ordering cards from the company. Last year, I ordered 40 copies of Ghave, Guru of Spores from SCG. Ten of those were NM and 30 were SP, and I paid 50 cents less on each of the SP copies. When the cards arrived, I couldn’t even tell that some of them were SP. I ended up grading around half of them as NM, and sold several on TCGplayer and out of my local display case as NM with no complaints.

If you’re ever looking to go deep on a particular spec target, I highly recommend checking out the SP and MP sections of SCG. My local customers will tell you that I’m a tough grader, and even I had trouble finding marks on the cards that would justifiy them being slightly played. Another side benefit of ordering from SCG will be that you’ll be guaranteed to have your order shipped to you, with no concern over cancellation or shipping worries.

On the Other Hand…

Let’s say you have a card that you graded as NM, and you throw it up on TCGplayer. You sell the card, package it up, ship it out, you know the drill. You’re happy to have a sale. However, you get a message about a week later. The buyer is unhappy with the condition of the card because he found a nick or two that he believes knocks it down to SP. Now they want a refund—either a partial return on their purchase for the condition or a full refund with them shipping the card back to you. Sometimes they’re correct, and sometimes they’re just being too critical of a grader. Neither of those choices are very appealing though, and unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it.

However, I’ve never had anyone counterclaim my grading of SP or worse cards. The line in the sand between SP and MP can often be blurry, and I’ve definitely listed some cards on TCGplayer as SP that some people might argue as being MP. Even so, buyers have never messaged me about it. They purchased the card expecting some amount of wear, and were satisfied with their purchase costing less than an otherwise minty version would have run them. If you err on the safe side and list it as SP, you’ll remove most picky graders from the equation and not suffer a huge loss in the process. I’m not suggesting to list this thing…

damdam2

…as “SP” and cross your fingers hoping that you don’t get hate mail, but you can probably get away with posting it as HP instead of just straight up “damaged.”

A Rough Guideline

If you’re new to Magic or to the seller’s side of the game, I recommend checking out TCGplayer’s condition guide for grading. While I think it might be a little bit too strict on the definition of LP or MP, it certainly gets the job done if you’re trying to successfully sell on TCGplayer or eBay.

Workhorse

Only the NM Shall Pass

When trying to sell off SP and worse cards, it’s important to remember that some businesses don’t allow you to trade or sell them. PucaTrade is a website where a lot of heated discussion over condition takes place. Some users don’t take the time to read the requirements of sending a card, and don’t understand that unless notifying their trade partner beforehand, it is not okay to ship out cards that are SP or worse condition while expecting the full point value.

StrikeZoneOnline is a vendor with a buylist that only accepts NM cards, and grades extremely strictly. If you send cards that are even close to questionable on condition, StrikeZone will send you back the cards that they rejected and remove the cost of shipping from your payment amount. If you’re an inexperienced buylister and ship to them expecting to get a simple “condition discount” like CardKingdom offers, then you’ll end up very disappointed. StrikeZone will almost always pay top dollar on foils if you keep your eye out on their graph line on MTGPrice, but you need to be sure that there’s absolutely no clouding, smudging, or edge wear at all before you send the company cards. Interestingly enough, I’ve found StrikeZone’s grading system to be much more lax in person when I sit down to sell to them at Grands Prix. I don’t know if this is because it’s harder to be strict when you have someone sitting across from you to dispute your grading, but I’ve definitely shipped the company SP cards in person and been paid in full.

Everything Comes Back to Cube/Commander

It seems like every time I write an article, there’s at least some mention of Commander or Cube. These two formats allow for some of the most unique personal expression in Magic, and have some of the more interesting house rules or restrictions when building, so it’s no wonder that financiers can end up finding unique ways to cater to these types of players. I once attended an SCG Open and spectated a draft where a player had a cube composed of entirely HP or worse non-foil cards.

He didn’t want to pay the full price to obtain his otherwise expensive cube, so he decided to make a game out of building the cube itself, while at the same time helping the cube be more affordable. The Jace, the Mind Sculptor in that cube looked like it had been used to paint somebody’s driveway, and certain text boxes weren’t even visible anymore. However, he proudly explained that he had only paid $40 to a vendor that was dying to get rid of it, as he ticked up the loyalty on a card who’s initial loyalty placement in the bottom right had been peeled away at some point.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

If you’re trying to build a budget cube without dropping the power level to commons and uncommons only, then this might be your way to go. Challenge yourself to only include cards that you find in the parking lot, or something to that effect, and you’ll be done in no time. While I’ve never actually seen someone do the same with a Commander deck, it could certainly be done, and it would be a much cheaper alternative that comes with a story every time you sit down to play it.

End Step (NSFL)

If you’re a fellow Redditor and looking to see some of the most destroyed cards that Magic has to offer, I recommend indulging in MTGgore. While a “flip it or rip it” phase seems to have taken over a little bit, there’s some sort of sick pleasure obtained from looking at picture of a Legacy deck that just went through the wash. It’s like watching a dumpster fire: there’s no value to it, but you just can’t look away.

 

Conjured Currency

The Reasons Why I Hate Magic Finance

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Yeah, you know me. I’ve been writing articles on Magic finance for almost two years now, so I’ve basically figured out every single thing there is to learn about this extremely delicate ecosystem we live in. I’ve written some of the greatest, quality-est stuff of the decade, and some of the lesser minds of the community have pretty much suggested that I’m the Batman plus Superman plus Goku of Magic finance, all put together in one currency-conjuring package.

I’m just going to assume that you read The Art of War: MTG finance edition that’s still hot off the presses from last week, so now that you know every gory detail about the millions of dollars that I rake in every day from my vast and expansive MTG finance network. Seems like a pretty freakin’ sweet gig, right? Gonna go out and start up your own MTG finance business like me, are ya? I don’t blame you, my life is pretty sweet. I sleep on a bed made of the finest foil Tarmogoyfs, delivered on a bicycle by Pete Hoefling himself. Every day, I buy sets of Alpha power from 48-year-old men who say stuff like, “Hey, I just found a bunch of this stuff in their basement, and was wondering if I could get a few hundred dollars for it all.” Every night, I listen to my own podcast. You know, the one I spend four hours recording, where I’m the only host. #MTGFINANCE

Well I’m here to let you in on a little secret.  MTG finance isn’t all fun and games. It’s a ruthless and papercutthroat world out there, so only the strong, smart, and incredibly attractive can survive. It’s a ton of hard work every day, and it has some of the most grueling aspects of any job out there. You’ve seen the best parts of MTG finance, so now I’m going to show you what the other writers are afraid to reveal to the public. These are the things I hate most about working in Magic: The Gathering finance.

1. Alphabetizing/Sorting cards

sortedcu sortingtray

When most people use “C/U” as an abbreviation for “common/uncommon,” they’re referring to bulk lots of non-rare peasant cards like Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, Brainstorm, nonfoil Force of Wills—you get the idea. Personally, I don’t even touch filthy low-rarity cards unless they’re foil, and either Japanese, Korean, or Russian. And let me tell you, it’s a huge pain to constantly have to sort and alphabetize all of these absurdly expensive cards. Sometimes, I even run out of programs to watch on Netflix, and have to degrade myself to watching reruns of anime that I’ve already completed. As you can see in the first image, we have Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood playing in the background, with a freshly sorted pile of Russian foil Gitaxian Probes, Young Pyromancers, and other garbage.

The second picture is my top-tier professional sorting tray; only the experts have this type of smooth, black plastic. I would tell you where to get it, but you should have been paying attention to my previous articles, where I already told you where to find it. Unfortunately, this tray doesn’t hold nearly enough cards for my personal needs. The 42,000 cards beneath the tray are all foil Legacy and Modern staples that need to be alphabetized, and a small, peasant-sized tray like this isn’t going to be quite large enough to support my exquisite needs. Ugh. The thought of these cards touching a playmat to be sorted and sold is making me sick, so let’s just move onto the next annoyance that I have to deal with in my stressful existence.

2. Telling People Their Parents are Dead

Yeah, that’s an occupational hazard in MTG finance. What, you don’t believe me? I’m serious here.—100-percent serious. Alright, fine. Let’s go though a normal scenario that I’m sure you’ve been through. You talk to a guy about buying his collection, and he says it’s pretty small. He’s mainly a casual player that has only been casting spells since Fate Reforged, but he has about a hundred rares. Tsch, just another small collection. Doesn’t anyone have anything better? Whatever, let’s get this over with. Maybe he’s got at least one judge Force of Will that will make it worthwhile.

You meet up with the peasant guy at his place, and he pulls out his precious little fat pack box. The first card you see when you open the lid is an unsleeved, moderately played Spine of Ish Sah from the Commander 2013 product, and you vomit in your mouth a little. Not a good sign. After flipping through the rest of the fat pack box, you calculate that the most expensive card in the box is his Flamewake Phoenix, and that’s only because it managed to stay near mint. You look this guy in the eye and see his hopes, his dreams. You see his ears, ready to hear the words, “I’ll give you $30 for everything.” It’s such an innocent face, completely unaware that its entire world is about to be turned upside down. You have to breach the subject gently, ease into it.

“Look, Marcus… Some rares are worth more than others. Those are the ones that have a lot of demand to tournament players, and are the reason that players buy booster packs. Unfortunately, I… I don’t see any of those particular rares in here. There are a lot of rares in Magic that… that aren’t worth more than a dime. Even a lot of commons and uncommons can be worth more than those rares, and we in the buying and selling business tend to call them ‘bulk rares.’ I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but… all of these rares are bulk rares. I know that you loved them, and, uh, tried to take care of them… but there’s nothing we can do here.”

See? Exactly like telling someone their parents are dead. It’s another reason I hate MTG finance, but someone’s gotta do it. I have to be the buyer and seller that my small college city wants, and the one it needs. Let’s be real here: my bottomless money pit is needed by all of those looking to unload their collections to me.

3. Having Any Competition At All

As one of the high-rolleriest high-rollers in the business, it absolutely shocks me that I don’t have swarms of Magic players knocking on my door to unload their stacks of gem-mint Beta power. I mean, how come this poor soul gets to find a decent-sized collection through his connections? I’m pretty sure I live within eight hours of that guy, and somehow he didn’t bring the collection straight to me. I post Craigslist ads in my local area, have henchmen that distribute business cards across the tri-state area, and even occasionally post to Facebook groups where I’m using my oodles of cash to purchase huge collections at below buylist prices. For some reason, my potential customers still end up occasionally visiting other competing stores or financiers, and giving their delicious profit cardboard to people that aren’t me.

collection

This is another tweet that leaves me sick to my stomach. Bobby is a great guy and also located on the east coast like myself, and yet he’s displaying pictures of quality Magic: The Gathering cards that I do not personally own. He’s making my MTG finance monopoly much more difficult to establish by undercutting my personal profits through sweet deals and quality salesmanship. If he would just ship that entire collection to me for below buylist prices, it would make everything so much easier, and MTG finance would be a much less stressful job.

Now some of  you are probably thinking: “But High Arbiter of MTG finance, how are you going to sell cards if you buy all of the collections and cards in your area? Won’t that drop tournament attendance, reduce the amount of Magic being played, and put stores out of business?” Well, young and budding financier in training, all of those will almost certainly happen. What you’re forgetting to take into account, though, is that I’ll be able to sell all of those Magic cards that I buy to my secret underground network of vendors across the world, and I’ll make a lot of money. I’m switching the structure of my bed to be composed of foil copies of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy to keep up with the “poor person” fashion style, and living this lifestyle can be a struggle filled with sacrifices and trials. Or something like that. Hold on, let me get the door. Pete is here with my Jaces.

4. Selling Magic: The Gathering Cards

Sometimes, I think about having subordinates who will aid me in the massive undertaking that is shipping out my card orders everyday. I absolutely loathe doing it all myself, because it involves actually looking away from the Netflix screen for a few seconds to write down addresses on envelopes, print shipping labels, and other boring crap. I even have to pull the cards out of my solid gold trade binders myself, like some kind of blue-collar animal.

While I obviously mentioned that I already have henchman distributing my business cards, I unfortunately cannot trust them with the task of handling my vast fortune of cards. They work purely through the motivation of fear and intimidation, and have every reason to try and rob me of my hard-earned profits. I cannot let them near my empire, and must handle this dark burden of shipping and packaging alone.

On another note, can you believe how annoying some customers get? They feel that it’s okay to waste my time by making “small orders” like a stupid Modern Jund list, or a foiled out Standard deck. Like, why even waste my time if you’re not going to drop $20K on Alpha power? If you want that type of peasantry, just shop at TCGplayer or something. Ugh.

End Step

Yeah, the End Step is still here. I’m not some god damn monster who’s just going to complain for this entire article and then not impart any actionable knowledge into your grasping minds.

sellthese

Here. Sell these Magic cards if you’ve got ’em. If you were in on them before the Pro Tour, give yourself a pat on the back, and then sell them.

You know where to reach me. I’ll return at the same time next week, with some absurdly useful MTG finance tips. You’re welcome.