Tag Archives: ProTrader

Danny Brown, ProTrader

PROTRADER: A Cheapskate Casual’s Guide to the Last Three Years of MTG

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With Modern prices going crazy lately, now seems like a reasonable time to review some cards one might want to acquire before they too increase in price. As Jason Alt often tells us, a rising bite lifts all toads (or something), so there’s reason to expect that a lot of Modern stuff that is also played casually is going to increase soon, too.

If you’ve been waiting on picking up something from the last three years, now may be the time. Let’s go through in detail and see what seems primed for an increase, compared to what should be avoided at all costs.

Disclosure: While I have a couple Commander decks, Cube is my main interest when it comes to casual MTG. So I’ll try to touch on some Commander staples, but my knowledge base and interest is much more Cube-centric. Additionally, a lot of these cards are also good in eternal formats, so we’ll be looking at quite a few competitive cards today, too.

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expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader

PROTRADER: Buyouts, Buyouts Everywhere

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I don’t even know where to begin. I spent last week in Florida, enjoying a pleasant New Year vacation while largely disconnected from the MTG world, though I did check in from time to time.

I come home, and everyone’s gone crazy.

The Buyouts

First, I want to link to Jim Casale’s piece on the use of the word “buyout.” In most cases, it doesn’t mean what you think it means, and the negative connotation attached to the word doesn’t always ring true.

Take, for example, Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple. Sure, in the simplest terms they were “bought out.” But rather than plummeting over the next week as the race to the bottom began and people saw that the market manipulation couldn’t hold true, the prices actually held over the course of the week. That doesn’t happen unless there’s real demand for a card, and it’s another bit of proof that shows that manipulating the market is not as easily done as many like to claim. Anyone can buy out TCGplayer and move the price of a card for a day, but all that really matters is where those prices settle after a few weeks or months. Simply raising the TCGplayer average doesn’t make anyone a profit, and I’ve written before at length about The Myth of Making Money.

So where does that leave us today?

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expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

City of Traders, ProTrader

PROTRADER: Their Second-Best Album

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By: Travis Allen

If you’re reading this the day it goes live, Christmas is in two days. My condolences to all of you that receive intro decks from well-intentioned relatives. I suppose it’s too late for my open letter to friends and family members of Magic players to be useful, though if you have one aunt that waits until the last second to do her shopping, perhaps she’d take it to heart.

Gift-giving holidays make me anxious in a way that few things do, and receiving things like Theros intro decks is part of the reason why. This person tried—genuinely tried—to give you something they they thought would be meaningful to you, and you’re forced to feign excitement for a stack of cards you normally wouldn’t accept for free. Nothing stirs up a slurry of decisively unseasonal emotions like off-the-mark Magic card gifts. Blegh. Here’s hoping you handle it better than I do!

This year I took control of the holiday and opted to buy myself a Magic-laden Christmas gift. I have to say, I really surprised myself with my generosity. My magnanimity knows no bounds.

kkkkkk

I ended up purchasing nearly $2,000 worth of Expeditions lands over the course of the last week and a half or so, with the intention of keeping basically none of them. This is a speculative purchase, and I’m looking to profit on these within the next four months or so. I’m not just horn-tooting, though. I want to show you why I considered this, the research I did, and how I arrived at my decision. It’s my hope that by illustrating my process, you’ll see that doing your homework is vital to succeeding in these endeavors, and hopefully be able to apply these techniques to your own purchases down the road.

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.

expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader

PROTRADER: Selling the Massive Collection

Hey, guys, today I’ll wrap up my three-part series on collection buying and selling. If you haven’t read them yet, I highly suggest checking out part one (buying) and part two (sorting/picking), as that will lead you up into this week’s piece. After wrapping up this series (thanks for the great feedback, by the way!), I’ll be back next week as we dig into Oath of the Gatewatch. Until then, you can find our full spoiler coverage by Douglas Johnson and Jason Alt here.

When we left off last time, you were picking and sorting your collection into the things you were going to sell. Today, it’s time to take these big stacks of cards and turn them into money.

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.

expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

P.S. If anyone’s interested in some strategy content, it turns out I do a little bit of that from time to time as well. This week I wrote a detailed primer, complete with videos, on the Mono-Blue Extra Turns deck in Modern over at Brainstorm Brewery. Feel free to check it out and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you enjoy the content.