How to be a Jackass

June 11, 2014 Travis Allen 10 Comments

By: Travis Allen

You know the guy. There’s always one or two that float around a local community. Even if they’re likely to have the card you need it’s easier to just not trade for it. So unpleasant is the trading experience that when faced with trading with this person or not having the 75th card you need, you go ask your friends what you should run in that slot instead. From start to finish the process is agonizing, uncomfortable, frustrating, and almost always expensive. There’s no doubt the guy has one of the best binders in the room. The problem is that his method of getting there makes him the scummiest guy you know.

Don’t be a shark.

Trading as a spike is 100% totally acceptable. Go for it. Be competitive. Want to have the best binder and collection of anyone you know. Ask every person in the room if they want to trade. All of that is totally fine. Just be ethical about it. Grind towards the best binder within the rules of the social construct. Once you step outside acceptable civilized behavior at the trade table you become that which gives us all a bad name: a shark.

A shark is one who engages in trade practices that are considered unethical. I’m not going to debate the philosophy of ethics and morality because several thousand years after first discussing it we still don’t have a universal answer. We’ll simply use the gold standard: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you wouldn’t want someone to do that while you’re trading, then don’t do it to them.

Any self-aware trader will have times they’ve wondered if they were crossing a line and sharking someone. My plan today is to create a (non-exhaustive) list of activities that will flag you as a shark. Some of these you may have done before, some you may in fact still do. So long as you’re willing to reform we can forgive past transgressions.

Don’t Lie

This one seems like it should be pretty straightforward. Don’t lie to people. Here’s the most common way this comes up:

Them: “Sure, my Courser is for trade. What’s it worth now?”
*Liar knows that the card is on SCG for $15*
Liar: “I think it’s about six dollars.”
Them. “Ok that sounds good.”

The temptation to do this is greatest right after a card sees a huge spike. Ensnaring Bridge is $5 and then someone wins a Legacy event with the card and it sells out overnight. You’re flipping through someone’s binder hoping to pick them up cheap because you doubt anyone in your local shop has figured it out yet. There’s a Stronghold copy tucked in with some Scars of Mirrodin artifacts in a random trade binder and you pull it out of the sleeve, knowing full well this guy has no clue how much they are. He’s glad to trade it because nobody has touched it since he put it in there months ago. “Ensnaring Bridge is definitely for trade!” You’re cheering inside your head because you know you’re going to grab it real cheap then take it home and buylist it for $10. You each turn a few more pages when he asks. “Any idea what the Bridge is at?”

Here’s the opportunity. Right here is where it strikes. There’s nobody standing over your shoulder to call you out on lying. He certainly isn’t going to know. It just went up last night so there’s complete plausible deniability. Even if someone said something you could claim you had no idea. It’s easy money. Only you and God will know, and he isn’t going to interrupt the trade.

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”

There are right ways and wrong ways to handle those types of situations, and flat out lying to the other guy is most definitely the wrong way.

“What’s this worth?”

This is a game nobody enjoys. If you’ve ever traded at a GP you’ve definitely had to go through this before. You sit down, swap binders, and suddenly you’re in the middle of a pop quiz. He points to a Vraska. “What’s this worth?” It turns out that from where you’re sitting there is actually no right answer.

Let’s say Vraska is worth $5. (Whatever that means.) If you say three or four bucks he’s going to pull it out. If you say $5 or more, he leaves it in the binder and keeps going. The only time the shark takes a card out of your binder is if you think it’s worth less than it actually is. He isn’t looking for any particular card he needs for an EDH or Legacy deck. His goal is only to pit his encyclopedic knowledge of card prices against yours and take any card that you improperly value as too cheap. Each time he slides a card out of your binder after you give him a number you know you messed up. By the time he’s done, each card removed says “you done goofed.”

The common reason for this game is that the victim wants some cards from the shark, but the shark wants nothing in particular from the victim. He then switches into value mode, looking to take near anything that will increase the value of his binder a few bucks. The resulting behavior will alienate your trade partner with astounding swiftness. They’ll feel terrible, they won’t want to trade with you again, and anyone watching will similarly be turned off to trading with you. Plus it makes you a jerk.

When you find yourself in the situation of needing to find cards to trade for and they have nothing you personally want, set your sights on items of high liquidity. Even though they’re nothing you need in particular you can still flip these types of cards easily and there’s always room to haggle some value out of the deal once each party has their options laid out on the table.

Keep Things Reasonably Fair

For most of us the goal when trading is to make value every time. We’re all on the same page on that. And that’s fine. Making a few bucks or a reasonable percentage gain on each trade is the payoff you get for having a large, well-stocked binder and better market knowledge than the next dude. The other guy gives up a little value in exchange for a wide selection.

The issue comes up when that value you’re grinding is less of a grind and more of a smash-and-grab. What do I mean?

Trade A
Your: $1 card
His: $3 card
Ok

Trade B
Your: $100 worth of cards
His: $130 worth of cards
Ok

Trade C
Your: $8 worth of cards
His: $56 worth of cards
Not Ok!

In Trade A you’re getting 300% but it’s only an absolute net gain of $2. While the percentage is high, the actual dollar value is low. I’ve been on both sides of this trade many times. Often the guy with the $3 card is well aware of what’s going on but he really needs that $1 card so he’s fine with it.

In Trade B you’ve made $30, but you’re seeing only a 30% increase. That’s a healthy profit margin for sure but it’s not something you need to feel bad about. If that $100 is a dual land and the $130 is all Master of Waves and Brimazs, the other guy is probably fine with what’s going on. Regardless of whether or not your trade partner is aware of the difference in the value nobody is going to think poorly of you here. Even if it’s not a dual land and it’s just two piles of Standard cards there is no abuse occurring.

Trade C is where there is an issue. You’re making $48, which is a good chunk of change but not unreasonable when the trade piles are several hundred on each side. The real problem is that his pile of cards is worth 700% of yours. This is a situation where clearly the other guy in the trade doesn’t know something you do, and you’re taking him to the cleaners for it. Making profit on someone else’s lack of information or knowledge is fine, but something this severe is very much pushing the boundary of what is acceptable behavior. You could easily cut his pile down to $30 or bring yours up to $25 and still make a healthy profit without being the sleaziest guy in the room.

There’s no algorithm or clear line that establishes exactly when a difference in piles is too great. You have to do it by how it feels. A good rule of thumb is to consider how willing you would be to tell others about the trade afterwards. When considering how much profit is too much, ask yourself if you would feel comfortable telling your friends and peers about the trade. Would they pat you on the back for a good trade, or would they tell you it was a crummy thing to do to someone?

I’m aware that there are economic lessons that would tell you that any trade you can arrange is an acceptable trade, and that if the other guy is unwittingly taking that much of a loss it isn’t your problem. I’m not going to discuss economic theory here. Instead I’ll point out that when you’re trading locally it isn’t some theoretical market with no faces and no repercussions. These are local players that are needed to support a community. If you and a few other people start dragging huge gains out of the binders of the naive, pretty soon there won’t be enough people left to support your FNMs. Think “sustainable farming,” not “scorched earth.”

Leave Minors Alone

Do you remember being thirteen, fifteen, or seventeen? Do you remember having no money? I can recall not wanting to spend a dollar on a McDonald’s burger when I was in my teens. Kids in general are poor. While it’s easy for many of us to look at a card and go “it’s a few bucks,” to some fourteen-year-old kids there’s a big difference between $.80, $1.70 and $2.65.

Young kids don’t necessarily have regular access to smartphones or internet access so the knowledge playing field isn’t fair at all. It is super scummy to punish a kid in trade because his parents don’t have the resources to provide him with regular access that you have.

I don’t really feel like I need to discuss why raking kids over the coals is a crummy thing to do. There’s a reason minors are protected under so many state laws.

When a kid’s collection is meager at best and format rotations can knock 85% of the value out of his entire collection, there’s no need to scrape a few extra bucks off him in trade. In fact, you should be trying to help establish their collection, not gut it. Instead of grinding value on minors look to give them just a bit more than you’re getting back. You don’t have to feel bad about trading for a pair of Thassas, just leave him with a Courser of Kruphix or another solid $15-17 in product.

Once you accept that trying to value trade kids is a bad idea, there’s two more groups you should include in your ‘protected’ status: the mentally challenged and those that are in noticeably worse socio-economic standings than you are. There are plenty of enfranchised individuals at the trade tables to make money on. Don’t do it to those that don’t have the wherewithal to handle themselves appropriately or those that look like they have pretty poor financial outlooks. Remember, you’re part of a community. Treat it as such.

“Oh I’ve got a set of those too.”

You’re trading with a guy who has a foil Temple of Malady you really would like. He asks if you have any Kioras. You inform him that you don’t, and he starts to look back through the binder. A bystander overhears and chimes in. “I’ve got some Kioras and I’d like your foil Temple too.” The guy with the Temple pushes your binder back at you and starts trading with the third dude.

That third dude is clueless at best and a total jerk at worst.

If two people are trading leave them alone. Here’s some things you should not do as a bystander:

Offer unsolicited information about card pricing
Make suggestions on what is/is not good to trade for
Say things like “Man did you see how expensive that got recently?”
Wonder aloud why someone is trading for such a bad/useless card
Tell someone that you too have a card that the other guy may or may not have and that you’ll gladly trade it
Comment on whether a trade is good/bad

I know a guy that does literally all of these, and if you’ve traded at more than one or two major events in the North East in the last two years chances are you do too. He’s typically a nice guy but I want him nowhere near me when I’m trading because any of those comments, offered unsolicited, is infuriating.

There is a right time to chime in and it’s typically after the trade is over. If someone is looking for Kioras, feel free to tell him you have some – after he’s finished with his current trade. If your buddy is picking up an odd card, question him about it once he’s away from the trade table. You don’t want to tip off his trade partner that the card he’s grabbing is actually buylisting for 95% of it’s trade floor value or that the card is the hottest paper around ahead of the Legacy event tomorrow.

The rule of thumb is that if two people are trading, keep all commentary and questions to yourself. Treat it as a Competitive REL match of Magic. Feel free to discuss all you want afterwards, but be aware that even asking seemingly harmless questions can change the dynamic.

Sharks give anyone into Magic finance a bad name. Irreuptable behavior and predatory tactics perpetrated by some do not reflect the nature of all. At this point I actually have to avoid talking too much about my interest in the field during a trade because I’m concerned about how my partners will perceive me.

As long as you keep what in mind what I’ve outlined above you should be able to avoid most of the major unintentional sharky behaviors. There are of course many more, but those tend to be actively and maliciously decided upon rather than accidentally performed. If there are other trading behaviors you can’t stand to see feel free to share with all of us.

Think Twice

Magic Online Sucks Part Two

June 10, 2014 Camden Clark 12 Comments

By; Camden Clark

Today, I could have talked about the Modern PTQ season and cards to pick to capitalize on it.

However, there is an issue far more pressing than the Modern PTQ season.

It is the lack of one on Magic Online.

Not only were this but the issues I outlined in the article I wrote last week barely scratched the surface of the issues. I feel obligated to go deeper on the many issues with the Magic Online BETA and, more importantly, how this affects everyone who is investing in Magic at all.

Without further ado:

The Beta Part Two

I touched on the trading issues but the magnitude here is huge.

The beta makes trading between players more complicated and impossible. With the introduction of the “trade binder” system, the Magic Online developers had an opportunity to code an “auction house” or a way to seek out other players who have matching haves and wants in order to be able to support the economy. The old client’s infrastructure of merely marking cards as “tradable” made this infrastructure impossible.

This opportunity was missed and thus the economy defaults to the limiting economy of the bots. However, few bots can work on the beta. The bots drive the economy of Magic Online. They make everything tick. If the infrastructure cannot support bots, the economy suffers.

The beta makes trying to find a game ridiculously complex with a system that is both inefficient and worse than the old one. I appreciated the old categorization system that allowed easy access to the room with Scheduled Events, one for Limited Events, etc. There was a simplicity that made it easy to find a game.

The new system is contrived and confusing. It is the kind of system that makes you wonder, “How could this be designed so poorly?”

As an aside, it is extremely embarrassing that Magic Online still does not have a Mac version. Although this does not affect me personally there are many players who would appreciate a Mac version. The beta ignores this and furthers the issues by being based on Visual Basic (a Microsoft program) which will cause inevitable issues in a transition to Mac.

The failure of the beta to address any of the underlying issues is not only the current developer’s faults. I honestly think it is the underlying infrastructure that causes this. It begs the question:

Why was Magic Online created in the first place?

Magic Online failed from its inception to recreate the fun of interacting with other players to play the same game. The token trading and classifieds system incentivized the creation of bots to drive the economy. There was no underlying infrastructure to allow easy trade between humans. None of the…magic of paper Magic exists on Magic online, except the game itself.

The logical conclusion is that Magic Online exists merely for players that are serious about the game and just want to grind against other competitive players.

The infrastructure is well set up for this: bots allow players to purchase cards at insulting upmarks and Wizards sanctioned tournaments allow the best players to shine.

However, there are so many inefficiencies in the programming that these growth problems were inevitable. When you have thousands in a tournament and your code is poor there will be problems.

It has hit this ceiling. The beta client attempts to paint over these problems with flashier graphics but misses the point that there are issues in the underlying infrastructure. Since the beta must connect with the old client it means the underlying infrastructure is still there. That does not just go away.

The beta should have scrapped that baseline and figured out a way to transfer the cards over to the new system. It would suck and be annoying at first but at least they would be doing something. The developers have dug themselves into such a deep hole with this it seems there is no way out.

That does not excuse the…

Insults

The handling of Magic Online’s issues has been insulting at best.

I think the easiest description of WOTC’s indifference to the issues is the simultaneous release of a new product, Vintage Masters, while cancelling the entire PTQ season.

Really? I mean…REALLY?!

Vintage Masters looks like a good product. R&D is WOTC’s strong suit and I have no doubt it will be a very fun set to draft. Nevertheless, it is insulting to cancel ALL Pro Tour Qualifiers for the upcoming season at the same time as releasing a new product.

That shows WOTC does not care about returning service that the competitive players want and use Magic Online for. They only care about getting the product that people will pay seven dollars (7!!!) a booster for.

That, is insulting.

If Magic Online was created to serve a more competitive crowd, it fails tremendously. Once you cancel PTQs on Magic Online, what is the point? It exposes Magic Online as being a cash grab for WOTC.

People spend so much money getting Modern decks online. They spend more money on Daily Events to prepare for the PTQs that should be online. Even the cheapest of the Modern decks are still hundreds of dollars. If you want to play Jund you will be paying about a thousand dollars.

Prices will catastrophically drop with this news. It will be immensely hard to sell cards back to the bots at even a small fraction of the price.

The players are getting alienated. PTQs used to run, at least. Now there is nothing but the Daily Events and the draft room.

Not only were the PTQs cancelled but the MOCS finals were cancelled as well. Many players grind Magic Online just to get QPs (qualifier points) just to get into the MOCS tournament which has a very good payout. With these cancelled, there is no reason for these people to play Magic Online more.

The vision of Magic Online was to allow for people who did not live near a local PTQ to be able to go into a major event and have that opportunity. You could also participate in a few of the Magic Online PTQs to be able to play at that competitive level outside of local events. That is all gone now.

Magic Online has failed in every respect to accomplish anything and is an insult to anyone who supports WOTC.

The Economic Effects

This obviously has many implications for the wider world of MTG finance.

Modern PTQs will not run which means that there will be no event reports that show the best decks on Magic Online. That removes a HUGE gap in the potential information we had to invest on. We are entirely dependent on local PTQ results which may or may not reflect the wider metagame.

Many of the potential opportunities are gone. Whether you like it or not, Magic Online is where all of the professional players come to test their decks and play in PTQs. As more and more players lose their faith in Magic Online it will lose its importance. There will not be as much data for us to scour.

We are already seeing the effects on Magic Online itself. Past in Flames has dropped by 5 dollars. The economy cannot support being tested like this.

It shows in real life too. WOTC looks inept. The situation is embarrassing. There is a general low morale for anyone who has ever booted up Magic Online.

Conclusion

It is really a shame what has developed on Magic Online. There is no end in sight to the problems.

There is no timeline for a full switch to the beta. There is no timeline for the resumption of MOCS and PTQs. There is no timeline for a Mac client.

The only timeline we have is the release of the cash cow Vintage Masters.

That should be eye-opening to how WOTC really feels about Magic Online.

There is no outreach. The “community outreach” people for Magic Online fail to acknowledge the glaring issues with the infrastructure or provide a solution to them.

The players on Magic Online are not valued by WOTC. They can release anything and people would buy it. Drafts will continue to fire. People will continue to invest thousands into Modern, Standard, and Legacy decks. Why do they do that? Because they love the game. Not because Magic Online is worth anything.

I am going to stop with the Magic Online articles for now. I hope to revisit at a time when there is good news to talk about. I am not optimistic. I don’t see an out for the developers to create a better client. We were screwed from the start.

The Gilded Goblin

King of the Buylists

June 9, 2014 Jared Yost 1 Comment

By: Jared Yost

It was a great disservice to many when I excluded Card Kingdom from my buylist data crunch article, so I decided to gather the buylist data from their website for uncommons, rares, and mythics legal in Modern in order to compare them to the other Modern buylists that MTGPrice tracks.

I will also list out the TCGPlayer updated information I was able to calculate based on the 8.5% TCGplayer fee + a PayPal / credit card processing fee of approximately 3%. Hopefully this will paint a more realistic picture of the costs associated with buylisting and selling on TCGPlayer.

I also want to mention shipping costs, which can be significant over time depending on the volume of cards you are buylisting or selling. It usually costs about $2 to ship a padded envelope First Class USPS. This is what I find myself shipping the majority of the time if I am buylisting something. If you include insurance your mileage will vary, but if you are sending hundreds of dollars of cards to a buylist you may want to consider adding insurance to the shipping cost. If we add insurance it would come to approximately $1.65 for every $100 worth of cards that we ship. If we assume that the average buylist shipment is about $200 per shipment, that’s another $3.30 we need to account for insurance if we are including that. That comes to about $5.30 to ship a package, whether that is to an eBay / TCGPlayer user or to a buylist.

It is hard to account for shipping concretely in my calculations – how often are you actually spending $5.30 to ship something? If I used that number and tried to calculate a percent earned after paying for shipping it wouldn’t look realistic at all. There are ways to reduce your shipping costs by introducing risk but that’s not something I’m looking to get into right now. Just as an example, maybe all you need is $0.49 to ship a plain white envelope (PWE) with the cards in it. I’ve done this plenty of times on eBay and have never had an issue. For buylists this is the same, if you are only sending a handful of cards. It all comes down to trust in the system yet I think you should err on the safe side and think about getting insurance if that handful of cards starts climbing past three digits.

Before I list the updated data, some notes about the Card Kingdom data set:

I’ve only included Card Kingdom and the market competitors in this data set. If you want to see my first data set for the other vendors TCGPlayer tracks, please see my first article on this topic.
I’ve updated the TCGPlayer % Loss to account for their fees and Payal’s fees for selling through TCGPlayer.
I’ve decided to leave out commons for this one – the numbers last time were so abysmally low that I didn’t think it was worth it for me to gather the data from Card Kingdom for them. If you think otherwise, leave me a comment and I can update the article to include common information.

Now, the updates:

MYTHIC
Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay/TCG Total	Real eBay/TCG Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$9.41	324	$3,048.12	$5.56	$1.30	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$7.86	324	$2,546.42	$4.50	$0.99	100.00%	7.86	-16.46%	$2,189.92	-28.16%	-28.16%
TCGPlayer	$7.10	323	$2,292.86	$3.51	$0.60	99.69%	7.08	-24.78%	$2,029.18	-33.43%	-33.43%
Card Kingdom	$5.62	307	$1,726.92	$2.50	$3.00*	94.75%	5.33	-43.34%	n/a	n/a	-43.34%

*Only 10 mythics on Card Kingdom’s buylist were at $3 – like ABU and other large vendors, they have a very diverse buylist for mythics since they are buying 307 mythics.

RARE
Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay/TCG Total	Real eBay/TCG Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$2.83	2752	$7,800.37	$0.71	$0.38	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$2.62	2746	$7,206.26	$1.00	$0.99	99.78%	2.61	-7.62%	$6,197.38	-20.55%	-20.55%
TCGPlayer	$2.02	2741	$5,548.69	$0.42	$0.25	99.60%	2.01	-28.87%	$4,910.59	-37.05%	-37.05%
Card Kingdom	$1.62	2063	$3,348.43	$0.26	$0.05	74.96%	1.21	-57.07%	n/a	n/a	-57.07%

UNCOMMON
Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay/TCG Total	Real eBay/TCG Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$0.44	3016	$1,325.46	$0.21	$0.17	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$1.14	3002	$3,428.58	$0.99	$0.99	99.54%	1.13	158.67%	$2,948.58	122.46%	122.46%
TCGPlayer	$0.24	2985	$724.00	$0.10	$0.10	98.97%	0.24	-45.38%	$640.74	-51.66%	-51.66%
Card Kingdom	$0.34	641	$217.98	$0.09	$0.05	21.25%	0.07	-83.55%	n/a	n/a	-83.55%

NON-COMMON
Vendor	Average	Total Buying	Sum Total Prices	Median	Mode	% Buying	Avg * Buy%	% Loss Total	Real eBay/TCG Total	Real eBay/TCG Loss	% Loss Total Update
Fair	$2.00	6092	$12,173.95	$0.39	$0.17	n/a	n/a	0.00%	n/a	n/a	0.00%
eBay	$2.17	6072	$13,181.26	$1.00	$0.99	99.67%	2.16	8.27%	$11,335.88	-6.88%	-6.88%
TCGPlayer	$1.42	6049	$8,565.88	$0.23	$0.10	99.29%	1.41	-29.64%	$7,580.80	-37.73%	-37.73%
Card Kingdom	$1.75	3011	$5,293.33	$0.24	$0.05	49.43%	0.86	-56.52%	n/a	n/a	-56.52%

Card Kingdom Compared to the MTGPrice Vendors

Adding Card Kingdom to the average buylist graph shows us that it is indeed a competitive market player. They offer a higher mythic buy price on average than ABU, which was previously the vendor that offered the highest average. They also are very competitive on pretty much all non-common cards as well by offering 0.86 on average based on the amount of cards they buy versus ABU’s 0.85 average. A slight edge, but still significant in the big picture since it means that they buy just about the same amount of cards as ABU but generally offer higher prices on those cards.

Here again we can see that Card Kingdom has a ton of cards on their buylist compared to the other vendors. Like ABU, they have an exceptional amount of mythic rares on their buylist and have a demanding want list. Card Kingdom slightly eeks out the edge with 307 mythics versus ABU’s 293 mythics. They also buy about the same number of rares as ABU, only behind them by 24 rares.

One thing Card Kingdom lacks is Uncommons – even going through the buylist manually collecting the data I could see this. For many Modern sets, Card Kingdom only looks for about 5 to 6 commons from each set. They clearly must have a lot of uncommons in stock that they want to sell or another reason they aren’t actively buying uncommons from players. Looking at the graph you can see this, but citing the numbers they only want 641 uncommons versus ABU’s 794 and CFB’s 888. For uncommons, it is more hit or miss for Card Kingdom than other big store buylists.

I’m going to skip showing the Median and Mode buylist by vendor as I’ve realized that they can be misleading, especially considering the variety of prices that the big box vendors offer. So I will skip right to the percent loss.

Here we’ll want to look at TCGPlayer and Card Kingdom since I’ve updated the TCGPlayer loss to account for the fees just like eBay. Compared to the old data, accounting for fees you are losing -37.73% rather than the -29.64% than I had originally indicated – this is a pretty huge oversight on my part! That’s another 8% loss that I didn’t originally account for and really makes a difference when you also consider shipping and possibly insurance. It helps bolster the argument that when you buylist something, you don’t have to wait to sell them to get your cash – time is money after all and we’ve just found out that TCGPlayer isn’t quite as profitable as previously indicated.

eBay hasn’t changed unfortunately, which is because of the absurdly high averages for uncommons I was getting since MTGPrice was probably also including sold playsets in their calculations for a fair eBay price. That and I failed to account for other factors like listing fees, (which only really happen for big time sellers who have more than 50 listings per month) shipping, and shipping insurance if the order required it. I’ll talk about shipping more in the next section since I didn’t really know how to integrate this into my current data set.

Shipping

Now I’d like to talk about how shipping factors into all this. There are several options you can pursue for shipping, some of which I mentioned above:

$2 for a 3oz padded envelope package through USPS First Class mail. This is to anywhere in the US if you are mailing within the US.
For those who are international, I’ve heard that $6 is the average cost to ship something to the US – this is eating further into any profits you might make if you decide to buylist cards to American shops.
Shipping insurance. For USPS First Class mail that’s about $1.65 per $100 worth of value. Internationally USPS offers insurance up to $2500, which could be up to $24 to insure – I’m not sure if other countries offer similar rates but I would assume that the USPS would base this on a global metric.
PWE for $0.50

Which option is best for a buylist? I’ve had success with mailing 3oz padded envelopes to vendors like ABU and Card Kingdom on several occasions without an issue. I’ve fit entire tournament packs stuffed with cards into these envelopes and the USPS has shipped them, no issue. When I had packages valuing $200 or more, I bought the insurance which was about $4 more for shipping and gave me peace of mind. I would recommend this approach for buylists because generally you will want to send them a ton of cards at the same time in order to collect a big payoff quickly from any financial opportunities you’ve had. Using a padded envelope in addition to insurance will allow you to send off these larger packages without leaving too much on the table – trust me, losing $200 in the system once is enough to make you want to get insurance forever. Please don’t be that guy!

I’ve also shipped $0.50 envelopes when someone won an eBay auction where I was selling something. I think I even sent a playset of Jace, Architect of Thought this way without an issue. Obviously this was a huge risk I was taking on my part but I wanted to discover for myself just how big of an issue it was to ship with PWE’s – never had a problem so far but I always seem to hear horror stories from people. In my experience if you are only selling a playset of a card then I would ship in a PWE and not worry much about it but make sure you get insurance if you are selling something like a foil Snapcaster Mage or a playset of Thassa’s. At least you could do that to save a few bucks on a padded envelope and extra shipping for that envelope through the USPS.

The guideline I follow is ship lower cost items cheaply so that you save on shipping costs. PWE’s for any uncommons or other random rares you may sell in playsets is fine and it will hardly eat into your profits like the eBay or TCGPlayer fees would. Buy better packaging for larger orders or pricy cards (think dual lands or other Legacy staples) and include insurance if it starts getting up past $200 or more. I’ve done this so far without a hitch and I can say I’m quite happy with the approach.

Last Word

Hopefully my inclusion of Card Kingdom has shown that they are also competitive in the buylist world and go toe to toe with ABU on mythics and the amount of cards that they buy. Once MTGPrice adds more card sources to their data set, including potentially European or other international sources, it will only further help us all understand where to better focus our efforts when buylisting.

Maybe I’m missing something simple but shipping seems hard to include in the dataset without greatly skewing the numbers the more I think about it. It could be included but I would need more time to think about specific rules and scenarios of when to use and not use shipping insurance and how to calculate the risk of a PWE versus a padded envelope with the insurance. Jason might be able to chime in here since I’m sure he has way more experience in this realm than me. At the very least, you’ve all read about my experience with shipping and can take it as you will. I wanted to talk about it though because it is a real cost that sometimes gets forgotten in the excitement of buylisting something for higher than you bought or traded.

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Weekend Update for 6/7/14

June 7, 2014 1 Comment

By: Jim Marsh

Every week, some cards from Magic the Gathering increase and decease in value based upon a number of factors.

Let’s take a look at some of the cards whose values have changed the most and the factors behind why those changes have occurred.

10 Big Winners of the Week

10. Celestial Colonnade (Worldwake)
From $20.35 to $22.35 (9.8%)

Is everyone ready for Modern season?

UWR Control and Midrange decks have been very prolific in the meta recently. 4 Color Gifts and UWR Twin decks have also adopted play sets of Colonnade main deck.

This card works as mana fixing and a finisher that dodges sweeper cards like Supreme Verdict. Usually a land that enters the battlefield tapped has a minor upside like 1 life or Scry 1. The ability to turn into a Serra Angel is nothing short of incredible.

You can attack with it and leave up mana for a Spell Snare or Path to Exile.

I would trade these away happily.

These are much easier to reprint in Standard or a supplemental product than Fetchlands.

9. Privileged Position (Ravnica)
From $13.80 to $15.38 (11.5%)

Commander and Casual players do not like it when you mess with their stuff.

Once you have built up enough mana for an Eldrazi or Kor Spiritdancer loaded with auras the last thing you want is a removal spell destroying all of your hard work.

This has been a steady gainer for a long time but I would not expect indefinite gains. The name and mechanics are generic enough to fit into any set or product that Wizards feels it can be used in.

I see nothing against getting a few to trade to Commander players but I would not go in much further than that

8. Pact of Negation (Modern Masters)
From $8.90 to $9.95 (11.8%)

You can never go wrong with a free counterspell. It protects combos and vital pieces of your board. Play it once and your opponent will always wonder if you have one in your hand.

The Pacts were printed in Modern Masters but it has been a year and prices are once again returning to starting to climb back up.

I think this is a card poised to make a vital return at a key moment in upcoming PTQ coverage.

Currently it is used in Ad Nauseam, Amulet of Vigor and even a UR Possibility Storm deck. I expect it will see wider adoption within the next few months.

7. Shivan Reef (10^th Edition)
From $8.22 to $9.19 (11.8%)

Modern Storm decks do not have the luxury of waiting for lands that enter the battlefield tapped. They need their fixing and they need it now.

Shivan Reef is seeing play alongside Steam Vents, Sulfur Falls and Scalding Tarns. That is good company to be in.

It has been printed several times and Storm is an infamously complex deck to play. I don’t think players will support it in enough numbers to keep this price where it is.

It is approaching the price of Shocklands and that does not seem sustainable.

6. Sylvan Caryatid (Theros)
From $6.36 to $7.64 (20.1%)

This card is well positioned come rotation. It plays defense, fix and accelerates your mana without giving your opponent the potential to set you back a turn with a Shock.

It can help you power out a turn three Reaper of the Wilds, Eidolon of Blossoms or Polukranos, World Eater.

It is already a heavy lifter in Standard and I don’t expect that to go away any time soon.

The only unfortunate thing about it is that it was a rare in a heavily drafted set and it was a promo. I think it will approach $10 but I don’t think it will be able to do much better than that.

5. Sigil of the Empty Throne (Conflux)
From $5.00 to $6.07 (21.4%)

I know people have been brewing both Monowhite and Azorius Prison decks with Sigil as the finisher.

Journey into Nyx got a lot of people discussing Constellation. I don’t know if Nyx-Fleece Ram is good enough to buy time but I am sure someone is testing it.

Legacy has also been experimenting with a Selesnya Enchantress deck that runs Sigil as a high end finisher.

This card has gotten a lot of attention recently and I would trade into the hype.

4. Courser of Kruphix (Born of the Gods)
From $13.14 to $16.30 (24.0%)

Courser of Kruphix is the hottest thing in Standard. Pretty much any deck with green mana wants to play the full four. You get card advantage just for running it in the same deck as lands.

You can combine it with Domri Rade for even more hilarity.

Eidolon of Blossoms loves the fact that is it an enchantment.

Opposing aggressive decks packed with two power creatures for one mana hate it. Burn decks resent the incidental life gain that adds up over the course of a game.

It is even being used in Modern Jund and 4 Color Gifts decks.

The one big question is if it can break the $20 glass ceiling for rares.

As much as I love this card I don’t see a lot of room for it to grow. If you want to turn it into cash you will not be leaving a lot of money on the table.

You won’t regret holding onto them either. It is very well positioned for rotation as shown by the variety of Theros block decks that pack the full four. I expect it to keep its new price tag for the rest of its time in Standard.

3. Seizan, Perverter of Truth (Champions of Kamigawa)
From $3.31 to $4.08 (26.3%)

Nekusar, the Mindrazer has breathed new life into a lot of group hug cards.

Giving away cards is usually a good way to pacify your opponents but the Mindrazer also makes it a great way to kill them.

Seizan, Perverter of Truth is supposed to give everyone a free Night’s Whisper each turn but with your Commander out it is at least a Harrowing Journey for your opponents if not worse.

His flavor makes him difficult to reprint outside of supplemental Products.

I would happily trade him to anyone fine tuning their Nekusar deck.

If you find your play group looking for a good way to deal with the influx of Nekusar decks I would suggest Omen Machine. It turns their Commander into a Pillarfield Ox and lets everyone else play their spells for free. It is a bulk rare and easy to slide into any Commander deck.

2. Slaughter Pact (Modern Masters)
From $3.19 to $4.08 (27.9%)

Free spells are always handy and free removal is no exception. Any Modern deck that has black mana should at least be asking if they want to run this spell.

Jund, Melira Pod and even Amulet of vigor and a host of other decks use it to keep Twin decks at bay.

Anyone who is experimenting with the format due to the release of the Modern Event Deck will also be looking for this card.

This is exactly the kind of card I would want to have in my binder to trade to Modern players.

1. Garruk Relentless (Innistrad)
From $3.75 to $5.22 (39.2%)

The fact that this is a double sided planeswalker makes it unique and unlikely to ever be reprinted.

Modern has been toying with it in Junk midrange and it even sees play in the sideboard of Legacy Nic-Fit decks.

It has a home in Commander decks that play both black and green so there will always be some demand.

I think that this is a pretty safe investment in the long run with some potential growth in the short run if any of the decks that use it take off.

I would not actively try to seek them out but I would happily trade for them from players that were have stock left over from last year’s rotation.

5 Big Losers of the Week

5. Krenko, Mob Boss (M13)
From $4.85 to $4.46 (-8.0%)

Goblins will always be a popular choice in casual formats of all kinds. They are one of the oldest and most aggressive tribes in every format they populate.

Krenko is not a goblin lord but he does play very well with them. He is four mana so he is sitting on the top of the curve of playable goblins.

He does see play on both Modern and Legacy Goblin decks but normally only as one or two copies.

He has demonstrated slow but consistent growth since he rotated and I expect that to continue.

I think this was just a hiccup.

4. Deus of Calamity (Shadowmoor)
From $2.90 to $2.52 (-13.1%)

Duel Deck: Heroes vs Monsters reprinted this card and that is where things get interesting.

You can now pick up the new version of this card for $0.99.

This has led to several sites underselling the original card. It actually has a negative spread right now.

You can find copies as low as $1.49 and buylist them for $1.51.

This is not going to make you a lot of money but it shows that there is an underlying confidence in this card.

Any time you can buy a card at or below buylist is an amazing opportunity.

Look for these in trade binders.

3. Steel Hellkite (Scars of Mirrodin)
From $1.70 to $1.41 (-17.1%)

Here is another glitch in the Matrix. The current Beta is a slightly negative spread.

People are treating this like a bulk rare when it gets played in Legacy MUD.

It is only played as a single copy but it still sees play.

It is also compatible with any Commander deck and it is a dragon for the casual crowd.

Do not be fooled. I would get in on these.

2. Spirit Mantle (M12)
From $2.56 to $2.00 (-21.9%)

I love this card. It is exactly the kind of uncommon I like to see when I purchase “bulk” from people.

Did you know you can buylist them for $1.50?

Most people see an uncommon and assume it is $0.25.

You can even find copies online for $1.35 as I type this.

If free money does not interest you then maybe Modern Hexproof decks do. Several of them are trying this out in the deck.

I think you could be in a lot worse place than sitting on a small stack of these while the Pro Tour is focused on Modern.

1. Echo Mage (Rise of the Eldrazi)
From $0.93 to $0.68 (-26.9%)

Commander 2013 has really shaken up a lot of prices. It giveth but sometimes it taketh away.

Echo Mage was included in Commander 2013 in the Mind Seize deck. Everyone pillaged it for True-Name Nemesis and Baleful Strix and converted the rest to a Nekusar deck.

Unfortunately Echo Mage does not belong in a Nekusar deck. You need to invest a total of nine mana before you can copy a Winds of Change or Burning Inquiry. Almost all of that is blue which can be quite demanding on a three colored deck.

It is quickly becoming bulk and I do not see any reason for it not to.

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