Bulking to Buy Lists

June 2, 2014 Jared Yost 1 Comment

By: Jared Yost

I’ve heard others ask me from time to time “What is the best way for me to get rid of all these extra basic lands, commons, and uncommons that I never use!?” Bulking them out to a store that isn’t in driving distance may not occur to them. Believe it or not, there are several ways that you can bulk out pretty much any extra card you might have and still wind up with some value at the end of the transaction. It will require a ton of work on your part, in addition to the massive shipping fees you will incur if you are unable to do this without a local store to get rid of bulk, however it is a way to get rid of your dregs without having to worry that no one is going to buy it.

Many times, players who try to sell their extra cards in bulk to stores will either not be able to sell it or receive an abysmally low offer that barely factors in the time and gas they put into taking the cards to the store. Selling them online is another avenue you can pursue if your local venues for selling bulk are either nonexistent or do not seem appealing. Let me show you some of the prices various buy lists I’ve researched offer.

CoolStuffInc.com

(Click Magic, then Bulk Magic)

We’re making razor thin margins selling cards to buy lists in the first place, so it is a good thing that CoolStuffInc offers us several ways of organizing our collection so that we can get a little more money for having piles of cards that fit certain criteria that they are looking for. By doing this, they give us an incentive to help better target cards for their store and also reward us by giving a dollar or few cents more per bundle than we otherwise would have gotten if we just bulked them all together into one generic package.

For example, if I had 200 bulk rares from Tempest and Urza’s block I could separate those out and receive $24 for those by themselves. If I just sent in 400 rares without doing this, I would have received only $40 instead of $44. If you’re in the habit of moving large collections a lot then this is a lot of money that is left on the table for something that doesn’t really take all that much time to sort. That extra $4 pays for a good portion of you shipping those cards to CoolStuffInc.

Overall, I like this bulk buy list. If you have experience using it feel free to leave a comment and let me know what was your experience was selling bulk to CoolStuffInc.

ABU Games

Compared to CoolStuffInc, ABU Games doesn’t have a lot of options. This doesn’t mean that it is necessarily bad to buy list at ABU. They do offer 25% trade in value for items in their buy list compared to the normal 20% trade in credit for CoolStuffInc (however, this month CoolStuffInc has a special where they are offering 25% trade in credit).

Since ABU is such a large store they have the option of listing out all the non-foil commons and uncommons they want and just buying those up on an individual basis rather than picking through bulk. The rest they can receive through the sheer amount of product they are opening on a daily basis. I would only recommend using this buy list if there is something you want to purchase at ABU that you can use the trade in value.

One thing I do like about this buy list is that they are buying played cards in bulk. This way you don’t have to worry about not being able to sell cards that aren’t NM if you decide to sell bulk to ABU.

Troll and Toad

I like that Troll and Toad buy common / uncommon mixes by the card rather than per thousand. This way, if I just have a random box of stuff I want to sell them I just have to count up my cards and not worry about sorting them into thousand card piles. It may appear to be a rip-off since they are listing cards at less than one cent each. However, that still gives us $2.50 per thousand with a 25% trade in bonus. Not bad if you have been eyeing something for sale on Troll and Toad and want to make your useless cards help pay for it.

One item to note is that T&T is paying $0.60 per bulk mythic and $1.05 per bulk mythic rare, which is really high compared to most other shops on this list. The other side to this coin is that they only pay $0.07 per rare, which is lower than most vendors would give.

ChannelFireball

Simliar to ABU, ChannelFireball has a lot of stock so they aren’t in the market to pick up commons and uncommons as much as the other stores. They do buy bulk commons and uncommons but for only $1.30 per thousand which is much lower than we’ve seen with other buy lists. Also, they don’t offer their legendary 30% trade in discount to bulk which is disappointing.

Generally, their bulk buy list isn’t anything special. Most prices are the same or worse than other buy lists mentioned so far.

Armadagames

Armadagames has below average bulk prices compared to the other stores I’ve mentioned. No discount that I saw. Not worth it here unless you live close enough to drive to them and drop the cards off yourself. This way, the amount you save in shipping might be worth selling to them lower than you get at another website.

Oasis Games

Oasis offer a pretty decent price for bulk commons and uncommons if you have a lot of them to get rid of with a 15% store credit. The rest of the numbers unfortunately are lacking compared to other vendors.

Millennium Games

Below most other vendors listed with no discount for bulk. Not really a buy list I want to go to but still available if you are within driving distance to where of their physical location.

CCGhouse

CCGHouse buys really old cards at very high bulk prices. Who knew $20 was bulk? Pretty awesome if you’ve got a lot of Alpha rares around just waiting buy listed…

For the rest of us mere mortals who don’t have a ton of Alpha rares, there are other options. Bulk Foil basic lands are $0.10 each which is pretty high. They actually specifically list Time Shifted purple cards as bulk too, in case you happen to have a lot of those.

Their only downside is you don’t get store credit for selling to their buy list. Still, I really like that they break out their buy list so much just like CoolStuffInc. This makes it so that you have opportunity to get value out of organizing your collection.

Hotsauce

Similar to CCGHouse, Hotsauce buys foil basic lands at $0.10 each which is fairly high for that category. Unfortunately, their other categories for bulk are either the same or lower than other vendors.

How to Ship

This article that I found on Quietspeculation.com, though four years old at this point (for example a medium flat rate box is now $12.35 to ship), still provides us with valuable information about how much 1,000 Magic cards weighs and has excellent estimated costs for shipping a collection. I highly recommend that you read this article if you are going to be bulking out 1,000’s of cards at a time to some of the vendors I mentioned above. If you do, you will find the best way to maximize your profit by cutting down on your shipping costs.

Way of the Bulk

Each vendor seems to take their own approach to how their buy list is organized. Vendors like Hotsauce and Millennium Games offer simplicity to out your bulk while websites like CoolStuffInc and CCGHouse are much more in-depth about what they are looking for and are willing to pay you to search through and organize your collection by finding very specific items for you to sell to them.

Would I recommend this approach over going to a Grand Prix or other large tournament in your area and walking around to each vendor to get the best quote? Yes and no.

I would say yes to this if you have a ton of cards that you know are bad and fit the criteria that falls into each of these buy lists. You know that when you take this box to a dealer at a GP or other large tournament, it is almost guaranteed that they will take a look at the first 100 cards in your box and go “Uh, no thanks.”

The pitfall to this is that your shipping costs are really going to eat at your profit margins when bulking to websites. Though riskier, at least you have a chance of outing your bulk without paying for shipping if you go to a large tournament and try to pass it off to a dealer. You’re still paying for gas and using your time in this case. Yet, time is something you’ll use anyways trying to sort your bulk according to the various ways that the online vendors want them arranged.

What do you guys do when you bulk out cards that you’ll never play with? Have you been using these online sources or doing it mostly in person? What in your experience has been more profitable?

Uncategorized

Weekend Recap for 5/31/14

May 31, 2014 5 Comments

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. Martyr’s Bond (Commander)
From $1.74 to $2.00 (14.94%)

I got really excited when I read this the first time. I dreamed of a Grave Pact effect that could extend to all sorts of permanents.

Using a Planeswalker’s ultimate ability would get rid of opposing Planeswalkers.

Artifacts and enchantments could be sacrificed for good effect.

That is magical Christmas land. If someone wants to trade you for this at $2 then I say jump at it.

It is too expensive and unreliable unless you build combos around it. You could usually just use Planar Cleansing to get the desired effect without all of the work.

The name is generic enough that this could show up in any set. I think the honeymoon is over.

9. Apocalypse (Tempest)
From $3.09 to $3.59 (16.18%)

It is a rare from an old set on the reserve list. It has a massive impact in multiplayer games and it currently buylists for $0.24 more than you can buy it for.

I would grab as many $2 copies as you could find before everyone updates the price to $4.

8. Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker (Betrayers of Kamigawa)
From $2.29 to $2.73 (19.21%)

He is a great budget Commander from a set that was printed long ago. He has an interesting effect and works well with other Commanders has well. His flavor makes him difficult to reprint outside of supplemental products.

He can still be found for $1.48 and Buylists for almost $2.

I really cannot make a better recommendation than that.

Remember he is insane as a build around me or as the Commander for a Shadowborn Apostle decks. The Apostles will be rotating soon. I would look to grab as many as you can find if they dip in price.

7. Nin, the Pain Artist (Commander)
From $2.68 to $3.31 (23.51%)

Every time I read this card I want to play it with Stuffy Doll and Mogg Maniac.

All of the original Commanders are being targeted due to scarcity and growth in the interest in the format.

She can get you cards, play as repeatable removal and is one of the many cards that is only better with Nekusar.

Due to only using two instead of three colors she is easier to reprint as Basandra, Battle Seraph has shown us in Conspiracy.

Nin, the Pain Artist is still priced to move. I would look at Ruhan of the Fomori and Zedruu the Greathearted for other cheap Commanders with room to grow.

6. Konda’s Banner (Champions of Kamigawa)
From $4.07 to $5.13 (26.04%)

This is an excellent Commander card. You always have a Legendary creature ready to equip it that shares a color with every other creature in your deck.

Even with a minor tribal thing this can be very helpful.

This has been growing slowly but steadily until recently.

It is difficult to reprint outside of a supplemental product because its name is tied to a character on a very unpopular plane.

This is something I would be glad to have in my trade binder.

There is a negative spread on this which is an excellent opportunity for arbitrage or aggressive growth in the near future.

5. Courser of Kruphix (Born of the Gods)
From $9.99 to $13.14 (31.53%)

Courser of Kruphix has been making its mark on Standard and Legacy.

Courser and Domri Rade or Archangel of Thune can make for some exciting turns.

It has also been played to good effect in Modern Jund decks.

This is part of what has pushed it to the next level. It requires a heavy commitment to green or excellent mana fixing so I think it will definitely surpass $15 but I don’t think it will hit the $20 mark without some serious help from M15.

Born of the Gods will not be drafted as heavily as normal with Conspiracy being such a hyped event. I think this will help Courser of Kruphix.

I would sell into the hype just after it crests $15. You make not make all of the money but if you got these in a draft or back when these were $5 to $6 you should be sitting pretty.

I would hold onto foils for Modern as those keep their value better.

4. Memory Jar (Urza’s Legacy)
From $4.22 to $5.59 (32.46%)

What can I say about a card so powerful it was the subject of an emergency ban mere weeks after it was printed?

It is somehow so broken that it made it into From the Vault: Relics despite being on the reserved list.

It is restricted in Vintage but for is legal in Commander.

It is completely insane in normal situations but when you make each player draw seven cards Nekusar the Mindrazer starts salivating.

This no longer enables crazy combos. Now it enables widespread death and destruction.

Many players of MTGO will be giving this card a spin as part of Vintage Masters and that can only enhance interested.

I don’t think you can lose trading for these. They will always have a home in Cubes and Vintage.

3. Breathstealer’s Crypt (Visions)
From $0.99 to $1.36 (37.37%)

This little known rare from Visions is on the reserved list. Most people (myself included) did not even remember that it exists.

It is excellent for a Nekusar the Mindrazer Commander deck but also works in other Dimir or Grixis Control decks.

It has only started getting attention and some places still have it listed below dollar. Others have it as $2 on its way to $3.

It currently has a negative spread meaning some Buylists are paying more than the lowest price you can purchase it at.

We have already seen Nekusar cause rises in price in a number of rares and this one can still be found cheap.

I would suggest striking while the iron is hot.

2. Nether Shadow (5^th Edtion)
From $2.30 to $3.29 (43.04%)

Manaless Dredge continues to be one of the most affordable ways to give Legacy a try. It works on a completely different axis as most decks.

Instead of generating card advantage through drawing cards it actively tries to mill its entire deck then Dredge Return a Flayer of the Hatebound in a gigantic Golgari Grave-Troll.

It has some ways to fight through traditional graveyard hate like Deathrite Shaman and makes your opponents Wastelands look like a joke.

Nether Shadow and an ever increasing graveyard make playing cards like Cabal Therapy and Dread Return easy to do.

I expect all of the cheaper components of the deck to continue to rise as this deck catches on.

The deck plays a lot of commons, uncommon and budget rares. I would grab some cheap foils like Flayer of the Hatebound and Balustrade Spy. Their effects are essential to the deck and difficult to replace.

1. Decree of Pain (Commander’s Arsenal)
From $6.94 to $9.99 (43.95%)

When you are building a Cube or making a Commander deck you want powerful and unique cards that jump out and make a splash. There are few ways to shift the momentum of a game than to wipe the board and load up your hand at the same time.

Both of these formats love their foil cards and there are only two ways to get your fix.

You can get the original Scourge foil or for a third the cost you can get the new artwork from Commander’s Arsenal.

I had discounted this card because of the amount of copies flooding the market from the Mind Seize Commander 2013 deck. They were not foil but they were exerting a lot of downward pressure on the existing copies.

Once players get into the format after tinkering with their ninety eight card decks they want to start pimping their decks. When they do this will be the copy they target.

I see this one continuing to climb. There are still some other targets from Commander’s Arsenal that are available at low costs. I am looking at possible Commanders Vela the Night-Clad, Diaochan, Artful Beauty and Edric, Spymaster of Trest which has been seeing some Legacy play and has come down considerably recently.

5 Big Losers of the Week

5. Necropotence (5^th Edition)
From $8.39 to $7.86 (-6.32%)

Last week I said the only foil copy of this card was the one from From the Vault: Exiled.

Several readers kept me honest by reminding me that the Deckmasters copy has the original art and is one of the few foils printed in that set. Thank you readers!

This card was recently reprinted online in Vintage Masters. It is a great candidate for any monoblack build in Cube or Commander. It is restricted in Vintage but any casual deck will welcome it through the end of time. I see this as a hiccup.

It is a part of Magic’s history as well as being completely broken. This will always be a safe buy and hold.

4. Mutavault (M14)
From $29.40 to $27.48 (-6.53%)

Mutavault has been one of the most played cards its entire time in Standard. It was around $33 before it was reprinted in M14 and I think that price memory counts for a lot.

It is still used in several Modern decks including Merfolk, Faeries and others.

I don’t think it will have quite as rocky a road as most cards do upon rotation but I think picking them up at $15 to $20 around rotation is quite realistic.

Anyone who plays Standard but not Modern will probably be trying to get these out of their binders soon. This could be a good opportunity for someone who is willing to wait a few years for prices to get above $30 again.

3. Misdirection (Mercadian Masques)
From $29.98 to $27.54 (-8.14%)

This rare is played a surprise in Legacy decks like Sneak and Show and Cephalid Breakfast.

Your LGS is about to get an influx of them as Conspiracy is drafted.

I expect the original foils to retain most of their value but I suspect the regular printing will be taking a bath. I would move them sooner rather than later.

2. Domri Rade (Gatecrash)
From $19.99 to $17.37 (-13.11%)

Domri Rade still has some fight in him. As mentioned above he is best friends with Courser of Kruphix. They two together provide a stream of card advantage.

His time in Standard is coming to an end. He has not seen much adoption in Modern yet.

He is a strong planeswalker and will always retain some casual appeal but I expect him to dip below $10 in the coming months.

I would get rid of him.

1. True-Name Nemesis (Commander 2013)
From $29.98 to $24.78 (-17.34%)

True-Name Nemesis was recently featured in the winning deck in the SCG Somerset Legacy Open. There were ten out of a possible thirty two copies in the Top 8 alone.

So why the dip?

It’s been a rough month for the fish.

The first reason is simple supply and demand.

Stores can order two copies of Mind Seize for and three other Commander 2013 decks instead of just one of each. Wizards has made Mind Seize a box full of value but it is no longer a $20 bill sitting on the shelf that leaves you with ninety eight free cards.

The second reason is that Conspiracy has announced card called Council’s Judgement which can just exile him despite protection, shroud or hexproof. For the price of an Oblivion Ring you can vote for any nonland permanent and exile it in a duel.

I expect it to shake up the Legacy metagame.

True-Name Nemesis is still a strong player but the invulnerable just became vulnerable. The $40 days are over. I expect it to settle around $15 to $20 depending on the metagame.

Casual Fridays

The Foil Gap

May 30, 2014 Cliff Daigle 3 Comments

By: Cliff Daigle

For many people, there’s no point or value in dealing with foils. They are just shiny versions of a card that is needed for a deck. If you don’t care, though, you’re missing out on a financial opportunity, especially for the casual markets.

Interestingly, foils were introduced before Cubing was invented, and before EDH was formalized…and those formats have really driven foil prices up.

Because two of the major casual formats require only one of a given card, the thinking is that you might as well make it foil. Foiling out a deck or a Cube is an undertaking, a project that people feel passionate about. Combine those factors, add a touch of collector fever, and you get casual cards that are FAR more valuable in foil than regular.

There is another factor at play when it comes to acquiring foils as long-term investments: reprints. The only time that foils were done in large amounts was the Premium Deck Series, and the all-foil Alara packs, ideas that won’t be used again. This means that reprints will either be nonfoil, judge foils, or in new art when they are put into boosters again.

Your investment in foils will be rather safe…and might go up a lot!

The Fountain was ticking upwards despite being in Return to Ravnica, because the original set foil was that much rarer.

Even Modern Masters hasn’t made a dent in most foils.

This is notable because the original set foil has the same art and the same wording…but costs twice as much just for a different set symbol! That’s the power of being a collector.

Generally, the foil to non-foil multiplier is two to three times the price. If a card is $1, the foil should be around $2-$3. Mythics may or may not have a bigger gap. The more formats a card is played in, especially Eternal ones like Legacy, Vintage, or Modern, the more the gap will be due to players wanting to pimp out their decks.

Let’s take a look at one of the biggest gaps in recent years: Abrupt Decay.

The regular one is about $13 right now, while the foil has a value of $90. Ninety dollars. You could have bought this for $30 for more than a year after its debut. I know for a fact that multiple people were trumpeting Decay as a foil spec and now the ship has sailed. This high gap is because of the eternal playability of the card, because it’s nearly universal and dodges all the counterspells that are played in such formats.

Today, I want to go through some cards that have a larger or smaller gap, and explore if that is going to get better or worse over time.

Shocklands ($10-15/$30-50) – Considering that these got a little bit of a bump in nonfoil, thanks to Dragon’s Maze and some Event Decks, the price on foil shocks has not gone up significantly…yet. These are a very good candidate to start an upward trajectory. Not a huge spike, but a gradual increase as they are put into Cubes/Commander decks and kept there, lowering the supply. I’ve been trying like hell to trade for these before they go any higher.

Boros Charm ($3/$10) – The gap is normal, but the use isn’t. This sees a lot of Modern play as a two-mana, four-damage Burn spell. It’s also amazing in casual formats for saving everything of yours from sweepers. I’ve got a spare foil playset in addition to three foils in different decks, and I’m happy with this potential.

Chromatic Lantern ($4/$24) – SHHHHH! Not everyone is aware that this is such a sought-after foil. It’s only the best fixer ever, and colorless, and an accelerator. I’d be on board with picking this up now, as there’s a good chance it clears $30 before the end of summer.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben ($7/$41) – This little lady sees play all over the place. She’s not an EDH fixture, but there are hatebear decks all over Eternal and this is one of the best, making Brainstorm a 1U spell and adding mana to the ‘free’ cost of Force of Will. This is another that’s only going to go up, because as a small set between two large ones, there’s a rather short supply of her in foil.

Thespian’s Stage ($1.50/$14) – Look at the price difference between the foil and the regular. Nine times the price gets my attention. That’s a sign of strong casual appeal. If you only need one of a card (for an EDH deck or a Cube) then you might as well make it foil. I do not expect this to go much lower, because all of its appeal is casual. Only cards with high prices due to Standard are going to crater at rotation.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel ($.50/$4.50) – Your eyes do not play tricks; that is indeed a $4 foil common. Zombies are one of the most popular casual tribes out there, and this guy is amazing. What makes this stand out just a little more is that Zombies and black decks are very good at mass reanimation, especially in EDH. If the Merchant comes back at the same time as three or four other Zombies, the devotion will be good for seven or so. I’ve drained an EDH game for fifteen each, and it was worth being targeted for the rest of the game. The foil is $4 now, but it’ll creep up over time.

I’m going to leave you with a set of speculations that are rather safe, and have big-time potential. Foil Onslaught fetchlands. If these ever get put into Standard, that makes them Modern legal as well. The old frame will command a premium, and foils of that doubly so. I know there are judge foils out there, and those are spicy too if you don’t want to shell out $400+ for a foil Polluted Delta. The supply on these is very small, and there are already Legacy decks shelling out for these. Even if they never make it into Modern, they are going to be a safe place to stash value for a while.

Join me next week when I cover what you should be going after in Conspiracy!

Think Twice

Magic Online Sucks and You Should Care

May 29, 2014 Camden Clark 9 Comments

By: Camden Clark

I recently booted up a game called Hearthstone.

You may have heard of it like I have. There are thousands and thousands playing this game as we speak. It is made by Blizzard and features similar mechanics and a lot of shared cards with the discontinued World of Warcraft trading card game. However, it is entirely online.

Hearthstone is well designed. It features a well thought out tutorial and a brilliant user interface that is flashy and intuitive. It took me only a few minutes to figure out how to do virtually everything in the game. The crafting interface makes up for a lack of trading and is extremely innovative. “The Arena” is similar to drafting in Magic Online except that you can stop and start in between games and picks and the drafting is single player.

People are flocking to this game in droves. Streams have went from a few hundred viewers to competing with League of Legends. This is astonishing growth for any game and shows how well designed this game really is. Even many Magic Online streamers have moved to Hearthstone.

Magic Online is, by contrast, poorly designed. It never really occurred to me how broken Magic Online really is until playing a better game. The sheer apathy towards improving Magic Online is insulting to everyone who pumps insane amounts of money into the system.

What exactly is wrong with Magic Online?

Event Cancellations

If Magic Online is so broken that their premier tournaments, the Magic Online Championship Series, and the Pro Tour Qualifiers are being cancelled, something is seriously wrong. Many professional players use Magic Online as a platform to play PTQs if there is not one locally. Aspiring players who live in more rural areas may not have an opportunity to play Magic Online.

Read the full announcement here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/03112014/ptqannouncement

One comic line from the release follows:

“our high standard of fidelity”

If you have played Magic Online, you’ve experienced the irony of WOTC’s official jargon. If you have not booted up Magic Online you cannot even fathom the joke that WOTC maintains a “high standard of fidelity” for Magic Online but I hope I can give you even an idea of what long time players have experienced.

Not User Friendly

Imagine you are new to Magic Online. You want to play standard. You boot up Magic Online and sign in.

This is what you see when you first log in. You say, “oh, I need to trade for the cards… what do I trade them for? Money?” Eventually, after much googling and asking random people, you realize you have to use the currency of event tickets to purchase cards. Thus, you buy event tickets. Now you are ready to trade with all the other real live human beings on Magic On–

-what?

What is this bull? I guess there are bots to get the cards you need but how would you know that? How do I know if I’m not getting ripped off? Are there standard card prices? Can I have a fraction of an event ticket or will the bot store the credit for me? What if the bot runs off with my credit? Do I have to keep credit on a bunch of different bots just to get the cards I need? Can I trade with real people? Are there real people who want to trade with me like in real life?

These are all obvious questions that you would have to ask if you were playing on Magic Online. The only good answers are ones provided by third parties. WOTC, despite incentivizing the use of bots due to the broken and unhelpful trade system, fail to address the obvious issues that a new player would face. They sidestep them and pretend like they don’t exist.

For example, look at this conversation between me and one of the WOTC employees on Magic Online:

As told, I go to the auction chatroom

I find nobody. Ok then, I’ll check the classifieds again…

There are almost no human people trading for cards on Magic Online. You MUST go to the bots or you will never successfully construct a deck.

Why didn’t WOTC create a system to find other people who want to trade the same cards? You could put a “want” list and an “offer” list. It would be simple to program this even with the online currency. However, we are left to sludge through the bots to find all the cards we need. These bots need to turn a profit and therefore cards have a steep markup compared to the buy price from the bots.

A common counter to this argument is “well, card shops are the same way.” Sure they are. But there is almost NO way to get cards by human trading. This turns off many more casual players who just want to build fun decks with their friends. It makes Magic Online a grind and only for the most masochistic of us.

The poor design aspects of Magic Online are very apparent once you consider why Magic was a popular game anyways. People enjoy the social aspect of gaming. They want to hang with their friends and play Magic. They want to build decks and show them off. They want to trade with other players. Magic Online ignores all these elements and supplements a poorly designed interface instead of creating an engaging game.

Worsening Prize Support

I recently vented about the worsening prize support. There have been so many recent reductions in prize support for events and lowering the amount of events for various formats. The support in the community shows how everyone else is angry about this.

Many say “well, redemption makes it so the heightened prices and low prize support have some paper backing.” However, I can say it no better than /u/falterfire:

“Fine, let’s stop ignoring redemption for a second – Every non-redeemable product is still equal in price to its paper counterpart. Commander decks are still $30. Duel decks are still $20. Heck, Vintage Masters is absolutely completely non-redeemable and is $7/pack.”

It is painfully obvious how this is a big deal. While WOTC cancels many events, they are charging 7 dollars a pack for a brand new product.

The Beta

I wish I could say things are looking better for the Beta. They aren’t.

0dd894ae701b5ea68e556f0aa1a9ea15 — I just want to play Magic!

Trading is even worse on the beta and virtually impossible for anyone to figure out in less than an hour. You have to “create a trade binder” and fill it with the cards you want to trade. However, you also have to mark it as the “active trade binder” which took me a while to figure out. Then there are the bugs. I know it is in beta but the bugs are astonishing. Cards appearing in double on the trade client is inexcusable and really annoying.

Just about everything with the beta is more annoying or broken. Sure, it looks a little nicer. It still sucks and addresses zero of the underlying problems with Magic Online.

Why You Should Care

It would be nice to say that this is the extent of the problems with Magic Online. In all honesty, I’m barely scratching the surface in this article. People pay so much just to get onto Magic Online that we should be entitled to a working, efficient client.

Ultimately, all of this has a major effect on the paper market as well. Magic Online is where many of the professional players test their decks and test the new drafting formats. If less people are playing PTQs online there is less obvious experimentation with the format. This means there are less opportunities.

It also looks really bad on the game. The relationship between WOTC’s client and Hearthstone are analogous to the differences between a Geocities blog and Twitter. WOTC’s client really looks like trash. It looks like a ten year old designed it (perhaps that is insulting to ten year olds, they would probably design a better system). It is the laughing stalk of the gaming world. Yet, WOTC makes bank off of people who sludge through the embarrassing client just to play the awesome game that Magic is.

If Magic Online plays poorly, less people will want to play because the testing platform is annoying. The fundamentals of Magic Online’s design were all wrong.

This is why I wanted to create an initiative to boycott MTGO until the issues are addressed. There was a lot of support from the community and if you want to participate be sure to follow: https://twitter.com/mtgoboycott

Magic Online shouldn’t suck, but it does. The long and short of it is that it is an embarrassment to anyone who has ever played Magic, especially when compared to its main competitors. What issues have you had with Magic Online? Leave it in the comments.

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