PROTRADER: Long Term Buys – The New World Order?

November 29, 2015 Sigmund Ausfresser 13 Comments

A number of general strategies have tended to pay off on Wall Street over the past century. You know the type – diversify, buy what you know, focus on top and bottom line growth, be greedy when others are fearful, etc. While never guarantees, following these guidelines will generally lead you towards better, more consistent financial reward when investing.

Some MTG finance strategies parallel that of Wall Street. In Magic there’s still benefit to diversification, for example. There are also unique strategies worth noting for this hobby in particular – pay close attention to Standard rotation, make note of when Modern season begins, buy and hold Power for the long term, etc.

But not all adages echoed across MTG financiers are permanent truths. Sometimes confirmation bias (a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions) can cloud judgment and lead to incorrect conclusions. Even some of the most tried and true hypotheses can’t be confirmed as general investing truth due to the dynamic environment we’re in today.

This week I will touch upon a couple investing fallacies that I’ve personally bumped into recently, and how I’m shifting my investment strategy accordingly. I also haver a hypothetical question that will really shake up people’s mindset (well, maybe).

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Corbin Hosler

A Guide to Black Friday Buying

November 26, 2015 Corbin Hosler 10 Comments

I remember the appeal of Black Friday. Stuff yourself on turkey (and ham, and potatoes, and deviled eggs, and stuffing, and wine, etc), play games with the family, listen to your crazy uncle and live-tweet what he says, drink more wine and then pass out.

Then wake up at 4 a.m. on Friday and drive to Wal-Mart or Target to begin to camp out for those 7 a.m. openings. If you’re really hardcore you get there even earlier so as to try and get in on the doorbuster sale. You walk away with the fancy TV if you’re lucky, and you probably get a lot of stuff you maybe don’t actually need. Then you go home and sleep.

These days, Black Friday starts on Thursday. At not at 11:59 either. 6 p.m. openings is, frankly, stupid. I get that some people (very few) want to eat and then go shop, the fact is you’re never going to get the doorbusters unless you skip Thanksgiving meal altogether. I’m not a fan of this at all, but it would be fairly disingenuous of me to criticize it too heavily given that it is the natural conclusion of capitalism, and I have a writing gig here and a store to run thanks to that. Still, I hate it.

Luckily, when it comes to Magic, we don’t have to worry about that. You wake up in the morning and begin the crazy Black Friday rush of surfing the Internet in your pajamas. I had originally planned on compiling a big list of Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales, but Reddit has beat me to it. Since I can’t imagine making a more comprehensive list than theirs, I’ve decided not to try. Instead, I want to offer some tips on how to plan out your holiday purchases this year.

The Big Ones

Let’s start with Star City Games, the biggest retailer of note. Their Black Friday deals have just been announced, and there’s some big ones. Battle for Zendikar boxes at just $80 is actually insane, given that it’s a full $10 cheaper than boxes available on TCGPlayer. Even the EV of the opened packs comes out to above that — though you’re playing the Gideon lottery here, of course.

Next up is there sale on true collector items: Alpha/Beta and graded goods. While I’m no expert on these prices, there’s certainly a lot to like here if you’re in the market. Rarely do you get the intersection of a truly reputable dealer (and SCG is unparalleled here) with such high-end collectibles. I understand how little of the market this speaks to, but it’s worth checking out. Of course, there’s also the consideration of this being timed just a few weeks after the big announcement of reduced Legacy support. While I’m not drawing any causation here between the two, I imagine others will chime in on the subject in the days to come.

While we haven’t seen all of Channel Fireball’s deals, I have to imagine they will look good as well. Both of these retailers can afford to really jump in with some “loss leaders,” if you will, and that means they’re willing to offer up some of the best deals on the market to get people into their store.

The third of the big outlets, TCGPlayer, has a significantly less exciting offer. Getting five percent of your purchase back in store credit is nice, sure, but it’s not anything to really go deep on. While TCGPlayer is obviously still your best outlet for cheap cards — and if you were planning an order now’s the time to place it — nothing about their deal makes me want to jump in.

Other online stores

Moving down the list, I would also suggest checking out TrollandToad, which has an actually insane deal with $60 Dragons of Tarkir booster boxes. This is a full $20 under TCGPlayer, and essentially half of the EV of the box. I’m not going to say arbitrage is worth your time here, but the truth is that’s just an absurdly low price for a set that’s going to be legal another eight months. [EDIT: SOLD OUT on boxes; that was fast].

Card Kingdom is doing a “spend $100, get $15 in store credit” deal, which again isn’t bad if you’re planning a purchase but not something that draws me in. CoolStuffInc seems to have their actual singles discounted, so if you’re looking into something specific it’s worth comparing there, though I’ll note that their prices aren’t exactly low to begin with, so there’s maybe not a ton to be gained here.

But here’s one that I do consider worth going out of your way to check out: Face to Face Games. The store is located in Canada, but if you’re north of the border or even in the U.S. (sorry, everyone else), this is worth looking into thanks to a 15 percent off coupon code for Black Friday only (code: BLACKFRIDAY2015). If I’m looking to buy a deck or a collection of cards (or spec targets), this is likely the best place to look. In many ways this is the same as Card Kingdom giving $15 on a $100 order, except in this case you don’t have to spend your “savings” on more cards.

Big-Box Stores

These are your Wal-Mart and Targets of the world, as well as some smaller chains. While those two big ones don’t have anything to write home about, Walgreens has 40 percent off, I’ve heard Hastings has buy one, get one deals going on, and you should also be on the lookout for any other price-matching guarantees that stores in your area may float around.

Overall, there’s nothing huge here, but 40 percent off at Walgreens is a great excuse to buy any product you may want either for yourself or the upcoming gift-giving season. I’m not sure if you can grab Commander 2015 product at these locations or not, but this is a great way to get in on those if you can.

Everything’s local

With all of this in mind, remember that “Small Business Saturday” is a newer trend that’s popping up. I know a lot of local stores that are having some big sales, and when you’re done recovering from Thanksgiving food and finished scouring the internet for deals, be sure to go check out your local game store. They almost always have good deals of their own and are highly likely to want to work with you, given that you represent repeat business to them. The typical LGS is a lifeline to all players, and we don’t want to forget them in the rush that is Black Friday madness.

With so many places to look, I’ll stop here. Get out there and find some deals!

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter/Twitch/YouTube

Conjured Currency, Douglas Johnson

Finance 101: Emotions and Goal Setting

November 26, 2015 Douglas Johnson 3 Comments

When my coworker Sigmund Ausfresser posted his article for the week on Monday, I almost had a heart attack because I thought he managed to grab my idea before I was able to put it up for my own deadline later in the week. Thankfully after reading through it, I learned that his content was mostly different than what I plan to write about this week. Instead of struggling to pick out a specific format I want to sell out of, I (and I can only assume many other Magic enthusiasts out there) have previously been emotionally conflicted with selling out of cards for a myriad of other reasons.

One of the more frequent mistakes I made as a budding Magic financier several years ago was letting my emotions and desire to show off my “victory” in my trade binder before I had actually made any money in reality. I remember one of the first singles purchases I ever made online with value in mind was pre-ordering two sets of Inkmoth Nexus for $20 each through eBay, on the night that the card was spoiled. My rationale for making the purchase was definitely flawed at the time because of my semi-casual bias towards infect, and my desire to make some sort of infect deck work in standard. I thought that it would be in every single Standard deck ever, and I knew I would be able to flip the second playset that I had purchased with ease at my local card shop that I had recently started attending in the previous months.

By the time the set was released and my cards were shipped to me, Inkmoth had made it to approximately $10 a piece. My years of calculation and planning had finally come to fruition. The first bud of a future Magic finance empire had finally begun. I would take the world by sto- …..

Except, there was one problem. I never actually ended up selling those Inkmoths. Well, I shouldn’t say that was the problem specifically. You don’t need to sell cards to achieve a goal, and I didn’t even sell cards back then: partially because I didn’t know how, and partially because I actually played Magic. However, I didn’t trade the playset of Inkmoths away either. I let them sit in my trade binder for weeks, even during the several requests of “Would you trade your extra set away?” that I was approached with during the first few weeks of the set’s release. Eventually, the hype over the new infect land had faded, the the price moved to reflect that.

Why? Well, I was proud. Those Inkmoths represented a story to me, even though my initial reason for buying them was “I think this card will be worth more by the time it arrives in my hand, and I will be able to get more trade value out of it if I buy now.” They were a reason for my 17 year old self to humblebrag to the other guys at my shop, and a constant reminder to myself that I had made a smart buy every time I flipped to that page in my binder.

The lesson here, if it’s not too visible already, is to remove emotional attachment from your cards when you’re planning on buying them for strictly financial purposes. As Magic players, we tend to have a tough time with this because the cards are tangible, and we can see our rewards in front of us while using cognitive dissonance to shove aside the failures and bad thoughts. We got into this game on an emotional level, and can have trouble separating business and pleasure when it comes to what we’re willing to sell, whether it’s in our personal collection or investment portfolio.

Personally, I’ve been very loose with my goals when it comes to how much money I want to make through my various streams of revenue in Magic. As a broad goal, I would love to just be able to pay for my graduate school degree, and maintain a sizable collection to use as inventory at the same time. Interestingly enough, players who need to liquidate their collection for unexpected life expensive and are selling at a discount are much better at this aspect of goal setting than I am. Some people need to sell specific decks to pay for rent, to buy a car, or help afford a trip to their next Grand Prix. Due to the fact that I’ve been very poor with goal setting and not having any immediate bills to pay, I’ve grown apathetic in how many cards I currently have listed on TCGplayer, my Facebook posts in the buy/sell/trade groups, and buylisting as a whole. With no immediate need to acquire funds, I’ve gotten really lazy when it comes to selling cards.

Goals in Goal Setting:

If you were forced to go to some sort of goal setting orientation at a job, school, or something else, you’ve probably heard of SMART as an acronym for determining goals that you can stick with, instead of just saying something vague like “I want to sell Magic cards and make money” as a goal.

You’re going to want a particular exit price in mind when you buy cards with the intent to sell. If I buy 5,000 copies of Seance, I need to be immediately ready to sell them (emotionally and physically) if I pick $.50 as my buylisting sell point. I don’t recommend picking a spec and saying to yourself “I’ll sell this when it goes up.” When I bought into He Who Shall Not Be Named, I chose $6-7 as my price point that I would sell out at, after buying in at $3. It can help to write down your projected sell point on the sleeve of the card so that you don’t forget in the long term.

Be firm, and stick to the decision you made a year ago, if and when the card actually reaches that price point that you picked when you purchased it. If you bought into Snapcaster Mage at $35 in late 2014 and decided you would sell at $60, then you need to be steadfast and hold yourself to that number, or else you risk the demand for the card declining over the next several weeks and days. (Yes, I get that Snappy peaked at $80 or something ridiculous, but it’s one of the exceptions to the rule)

Going back to the “paying for a college degree with Magic cards” goal a few paragraphs ago, I’ll use myself as an example for how a more specific goal would help encourage me to list more cards at a time and keep a more constant flow of income happening, instead of just relying on the local players who irregularly ask me to piece together decklists for them.

If I pick a more specific, measurable, and achievable number for a month’s worth of TCGplayer sales, I’ll be able to constantly keep track of where I am in my goal, instead of just guessing on the vagueness of an unclear finish line. To start us off, I’m going to try and have 150 TCGplayer orders in the month of December. If I really work towards it and start listing a larger portion of my collection, this is almost certainly a realistic number for me to achieve, as it boils down to 5 orders a day. Depending on where we end up at the closing of 2015, we can increase or decrease that number based on how close my estimate is to my real potential.

End Step

Having a personal goal to stick to that’s specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound should help to increase my personal productivity, and remove some of the emotions from the equation to help me focus entirely on the business aspect of Magic. Even now, there’s still a lingering emotional satisfaction when I buy a collection, sort everything out, and have the pile of all of the relevant and listable stuff on my desk. Sometimes it takes me much longer than it should to actually incorporate those new assets into my existing inventory, simply because the cards are tangible in front of me, and the changes in numbers for my bank account are much less so. Here’s to hoping that I manage to fix this personal problem, and help you set some goals in Magic finance as well.

Casual Fridays

Time to Buy In?

November 26, 2015 Cliff Daigle

By: Cliff Daigle

You may or may not know this about me, but I have one foiled-out Commander deck. It’s tribal Vampires, Grixis colors (Garza Zol, Plague Queen), and I didn’t intend for it to be the all-shiny deck, but it is and it’s the only deck I aggressively chase foils for.

As you can imagine, the foil manabase has been an expensive proposition, to the point that I only have a foil Bloodstained Mire that I opened early on in Khans drafts. The deck really wants a foil Scalding Tarn and a foil Polluted Delta, and until recently I’d resigned myself to spending a little of my Christmas bonus, likely about $100, to get a foil Khans Delta.

Then Battle for Zendikar, and the Expeditions, landed. Now I had a new decision about which version I wanted and as I kept an eye on eBay, a strange thing happened:

The price on eBay has gone down by $20-$30 since Battle for Zendikar came out.

Now I’ll be the first to admit, I was telling you to get foil fetches when Khans block ended. That’s traditionally when the prices are lowest on things and that was certainly the case for the nonfoil fetches. Those have gone up significantly since, while the foil trends downwards.

If I was a fan of foil fetches before, am I a bigger fan now? Mostly, yes. Personally, I feel that the Onslaught versions are more aesthetically pleasing, but more on that in a moment.

Other writers, on this site and on other sites, have pointed out that we are reaching the floor on the Expedition lands, and that if you want them, you should get them relatively soon. I agree with this viewpoint, and if I wanted Expeditions, I’d buy them now. We will have a small amount added during Oath of the Gatewatch, but the draft format is going to be Oath/Oath/Battle so it’s not a large addition, especially at Sealed events.

Also worth noting is that the rush of players who HAVE TO HAVE THE NEW SHINY has passed, for the most part. You can see the effect of these types of acquisitions on Blade of Selves, a card I mentioned last week, as it started low, spiked massively as players flocked to get the new toy, and has come back down to earth.

This is what happened with Expeditions, as players out of the gate wanted these and wanted them badly. Prices were insane, the frenzy was real, and thankfully the hype has died down.

As part of that hype, though, a secondary effect took hold: players spent less on the other versions, especially the Khans fetches. The foil versions of shocklands are due to go up too, but the Expeditions have sucked up a lot of the money that would have gone into Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash foil shocks.

With the extra supply of Expeditions, there’s simply more to choose from. A lot is going to depend on a player’s personal taste. Are you into old-frame foil fetches? Maybe judge foils catch your fancy? Perhaps the three-quarter-art or the kooky border on the Expeditions make it worth your dollars.

It’s interesting to watch how Expeditions have helped keep the prices lower on the included cards while adding a new version of those cards.

One other factor to note: It appears vendors are cutting their buylists on the Khans foil fetches across the board. All five fetch lands have a decrease in their buylist price recently, indicating that they have a full stock and don’t feel they need to pay more.

The buylist dip is also an indicator of retail demand. People aren’t buying as much of this version anymore, and that’s a chance for us to move in.

If you want to have foil fetch lands, do it relatively soon. I’m placing strategic eBay bids and being patient, because I’m sure I can land a foil Delta at $60 on eBay, unless one you of you sniples it from me.

I also want to give you a caveat: the presence of Expeditions is probably going to keep the prices of the regular foils down. Expeditions are something different and unique, qualities that Magic players love to have in their Cubes and Commander decks. The more foil versions there are, the less chance that all the money will be concentrated. Players have a variety of ways to invest their foil dollars, and that will keep all of them pretty stable in the long run.

So if you pick up some foil fetches or shocks or battle lands, don’t expect a huge return anytime soon. I do think they will slowly go up in value, but this injection of supply will keep prices low.

One more thing about Expeditions: There are more yet to come. Speculation remains rampant, but most agree that the 20 Expeditions of Oath will be the new five battle lands, the ten filter lands, and then five more. Those other five might well be the Scars of Mirrodin ‘fast lands’ like Seachrome Coast, since it needs to be a cycle of five. Regardless, I’d expect the pre-existing foils to take a hit on their prices, so if you’re sitting on a playset of foil Twilight Mire, you might want to think about selling high.

MTGPrice Blog