Trading, always trading...

Phase 2 Card Count: 77

What is going down on the Greatest Magic the Gathering Blog in the world!

Let's start to track this since we are so close to Phase 1 being complete.  The wife and I were out and about, so I decided to check into the PO Box to see if I had anything, and to pick up some more international stamps.  Low and behold I had three envelops in the box.

- "What's in the box?!"

I was expecting some CardSphere trades and also 3 Deckbox trades, and to my surprise it was the three Deckbox trades!

Here we go!

So these are for my Standard needs, and came from a trader I will always try and get a trade done. She is a long time trader that I have been dealing with for years now.  She was looking for a Revised Copy Artifact, and we figured out a trade.

I also picked up these for trading fodder, and if you were to add up the prices of the cards you would see that she had the better end of the deal by a lot.  Not only did I trade away a reserved list card for some Standard cards, but also go less than what it is worth.

Well the Copy Artifact was not in the best condition, so that knocked down the price by a couple bucks, and most of the time when I trade with someone I have traded with a lot before then I try and do my best to get any trade done.  Even if I might be down $1 or $2.

This trade was for complete fodder.  Why did I go for this trade if I did not need any of the cards? Well the cards that I sent were mainly Invasion block Rares, Uncommon, and Commons that I had sitting around for the longest time and they were not going anywhere.  And the trader that I had been working with, this had been the third trade in the matter of a couple weeks we had done, so I felt like I should try and get something done.

The Dig Through Times are a power play in a couple years.  Hoping that something comes of them sooner or later, and I seem to just pick them up if I can't find anything else.  They are always a good $2 filler.  The Ghost Quarters I think are just great for land destruction.  The next version of Wasteland.  Vesuva, well what more can I say?  Just a good pick up.

Here is the money maker cards, straight to the Phase 2 count.  I was able to pick these up for a bunch of Revised cards.  Seems like I found a collector that is just starting out on Deckbox, and he might be trying to finish up his Revised playset.  For me it is a great pickup since I am not having any luck picking up these final cards on my wishlists.

The reason for this trade is quite simple, I am trading away old Revised cards for cards that I need. Simple as that.

I am hoping that I can keep writing more blogs like this, with the reason why I do the trades I do.

Let's Go Bowling

Card Count: 9

The Greatest blog on Magic the Gathering brings you!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, by the card count you might be able to guess that I am totally sick of trying to trade for these cards to finish up Phase 1.  I started out with just picking out cards for Phase 1, but then decided to see what I could find to finish up Phase 2.

I do have to say that I am pretty lucky to be near an LGS that keeps a fantastic online store with a great inventory and good prices.

Dreamers - Lotus Vault

They are local to MN and currently have 3 stores, with an online store.  They have been doing some growing within the last 5 years, consolidating the online business with the retail stores, and then going out and buying up another location.

They have been around since the 1990's and here in MN were the shop to play at when I was first starting in Magic.  It was definitely considered the place to play for the higher skill leveled players, and I had never actually gone there to play because I was more of a kitchen table player.

Now a days, there is more of an up and coming vibe in their St Louis Park store, with a lot of younger players.  They have also branched out to tabletop games, and sand pit games like Warhammer, and are not just a Magic store.

One great thing about the online store is they manage their own prices, and do not follow TCG Mid for pricing, and with that small piece of information you know they pay attention to the game.  I have found that places that just go off of TCG Mid are lazy and just turn over the cards.  When you find a store that prices out every card, you know they know what they are doing.

I do have to admit that since they manage their own prices, the prices are a bit lower.  There are some times that you can catch cards that have spiked, and their site has yet to adjust the prices.  It does not happen very often, but it does happen from time to time.

Let's see what I picked up, Here we go!

Starting out with a couple Invocations I picked up.  Now I only need 1 more before I have the full set. I know!  I said I was not going to pick these up right away, but with them canceling the addition of Masterpieces in the expansion sets, I figured I would be more safe than sorry and just grab them.

I only need one more 6th Edition card to complete the set!

And with these, there is only one more I need.  I was supposed to get it from a CardSphere trader, but it has been over a month and I have yet to see it.  He said it was returned to him by the post office, but I have my doubts.

Ninth and only 3 more to go!!!!

Suck it Tenth Edition!!!!!  Done!!!!  I am surprised because I thought this was going to be the last set to complete, but Boom!!!

And that brings Phase 1 down to 9 more cards needed.  I have put in a request to my LGS Lodestone to see if they can finish up on the last 9, but if they can't I will be heading to TCGPlayer.  I am just sick of trying to get all this done.

With the kid coming, I would rather spend my extra time building decks and adding cards with new cards.  I can finally stop worrying about all the old cards I need, and focus on the new stuff.  I also plan to spend the extra cash on sealed product, but yeah just want to call this done.

I do plan on re-counting all the cards in the collection, and grade everything.  With that, I will be re-doing the spreadsheets to account for graded count.  This will allow me to see what cards I can replace due to poor quality.

So Phase 2, this should be my last Unhinged card I need if the CardSphere trades come in.  Let's hope I can call this one done too!

Starter 1999!  I am actually excited to take my time with these.  The hard to find sets are just more exciting to find.

Starter 2000!!!

/sings Poooooooortal!!

Portal Second Age...

Ok, so Phase 2 I am looking at needing 80 cards.  Well really it is 68 because I should be getting the Unhinged cards in the mail soon.  Portal, Portal Second Age, Starter 1999, and Starter 2000.  Once that is done, I will keep going with the sealed product and pick up the ABU cards I need when I can find them.  Pretty exciting though.

Oh yeah!

I am finally done with Aether Revolt.  Had to just go out and buy these commons from the Planeswalker decks.

Was also able to find some Hour of Devastation Planeswalker deck cards.

Portal Add

Card Count: No fucking change... 47

Today, on the Greatest Magic the Gathering Collecting blog in the world!

So yeah, I picked up a CardSphere trade today and it was a single Portal card that I needed.  Nothing big, but need to post it.

Here we go!

Woo....

It is a slow going time, so much so I even thought about adding my Standard cards I need....

Pretty sure I am going to go diving for junk rares at Lodestone this weekend.

Hascon bitches!

So I did not go to Hascon, but I knew they were releasing these Promo cards, and I was chopping at the bit to get some.  Unfortunately they were released to the public at around $29.99 a piece, and they sold out very quickly.  Off to the secondary market I went!

Bam!  I was able to get this off eBay for $92.00.

So now, I paid three times as much for this set, but when I was looking there was sets well above the $92.00 for the set.  Right now there is only 2 sets for around $100 and $114 per sealed set, so I do feel somewhat lucky to pick it up at the price that I did.

This of course was the set of promo cards that consisted of a Nerf, Dungeons & Dragons, and Transformers card.  The Dungeons & Dragons card came with a Dragon token.  These were all silver bordered cards, so that means that you can't use them in any organized play, but they are free to play at your local kitchen table.

So yeah, spent a bit for these, but as a completionist you know I just needed to get them quick before the price started to go up too much.

Pre-Order Ixalan!

And here it comes!  So I know I am a bit more excited for this set than normal sets.  With everything that has been going on with the set releases, and changes to Masterpieces, and block formats I think this set has a lot of room to run to pick things backup.

WotC is on the front foot trying to innovate game play within the Standard environment with this set. The flavor of the set is spectacular consisting of Pirates and Dinosaurs.  They are bringing back old school power through flip cards.

This is just an example of what they are attempting to do.

Ixalan has power, flavor, answers, flow in what seems to be a very well thought out set.  What potential does this set have?  Well with the power cards that they are putting in this set, but at the same time they are removing the Masterpieces from the sets, this is going to be the first set that has been released that could have mass box openings for the rares.

Look at it this way, with the removals of the Masterpieces, the crap Mythics they put in the set, and the power they threw into the Rares and Uncommons, this set is going to be a cracker of a set.  The Limited play will see a lot of flavor with the Pirates and Dinosaurs.  The Constructed play with the rotation of Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows Over Innistrad, and Eldritch Moon we will see all sorts of new deck types.  The collectability of those flip cards for the new Modern power, I can only see that this is going to be another turning point in the game.

I have some really high hopes for the set, and I am thinking that I will be digging into my extra spend to pick up some speculation booster boxes to keep sealed.  I currently have my pre-order in at my LGS Lodestone Coffee & Games with 8 booster boxes and 4 bundles.  After I do my initial opening, and things look good, I could possibly try and pick up a couple more cases through Alpha Investments.

I mean come on.  Uncommon?!

And of course, since I was up at the LGS I decided to hang out and search through some bulk to see what I could find.  I was not disappointed.

One of the owners called me early in the week to let me know they were doing a push on selling some of their Masterpieces this weekend so I was able to pick these up for the set.  Crappy thing, I already had an Oketra and needed a Kefnet.  Oh well, now I have one for trade.

 BAM!! Starter 2000!

KAPOW!  Starter 1999!

And yeah, that is all I found toward Phase 1 or 2, but still some good pickups.  Then I just started to pull out some cards for speculation.

Here are some Unlimited cards I found.  Now I just pick these up because they are older and I don't think they will spike much, I just have a history with those older sets and I just like them.

Found a couple of Beta cards.  One was signed and the other was pretty beat up.  I actually just pulled them aside and I was not planning on buying the, but oh well.

These were some lovely rare that I found in the bargain bin bucket.  Two of these are above $10 and older rares.  Now I think the spike has been because of recent speculation in the older cards, but I just had to pick them up because they were rares, and they were in good condition.

Total speculation of a speculation as this card evened out around $15.

ahhhhhhh yeah same thing...

 These I just picked up because I like them.

What is that?  Oh yeah, Spec U Nation!  I have been watching these cards for a while now, and just thought it was time to pick some up.  So at $7 each, I think they have a nice road to run for EDH and casual players.

20 of these at $2.75.  Now you might think I am crazy but think about it.  3 CMC artifact that sits there, and for 2 mana you can get a copy of a target artifact, creature, enchantment, or land until the end of turn.  For 2 mana you can get a copy of anything out on the playing field.  Anything until the end of the turn.  The possibilities are endless.  Time will tell, but I do think they are worth more than $2.75.

So yeah, excited for Ixalan and picked up some cards.  2 weeks is a long way away.

Returned USPS fail

Card Count: 47

So in today's episode of the best Magic the Gathering blog in the whole world, we go over a returned USPS shipment and heading down the old card count river!

Yup, big old 47 today!  This was accomplished by a shit trader that "Just got to college" and forgot to send me my fucking Goblin King, but who is counting...  Yeah I am.  Found another knob that I will not trade with again.  Not that he is a bad trader, but I don't have time to deal with the idiot who trades on their way to college and then does not do anything for the trade.

I also got a trade returned to me.  This was a trade that I had sent out, waited for over two weeks with nothing showing up at their house, and then having to send the cards out again to finish the trade.  I had to head up to the LGS Lodestone Coffee & Games and grab cards that I did not have to finish the trade.  But lucky me!  The cards actually made it back to me.

Fucked up part though USPS...  The envelope that I sent it out in looked like it went all the way to the address I shipped it to, and then got sent all the way back.  It was beat to shit and had a stamp of "Return to Sender, need more shipping".  Why the hell did they ship it all the way back if it was all the way out there.  Of course it could have just made it through the processing area at USPS, but still it had looked like a used condom after a bachelor party.  AND!  It seriously took 4 weeks to end up back in my PO Box.

Fuck it Dude, let's go bowling...

Here we go!

CardSphere bitches!  Look at this beauty!  Final of the playset, and bam closer to Phase 2.

Shit ass trader from Deckbox, someone is going on the do not trade list.  FYI if you ever see a finished trade on Deckbox with DogonSiereht as the trader, and the comment says, "Thanks for the trade." it means I had a shit trade, did not want to give them a bad trade score, but want nothing to do with them ever again.

This trade might look familiar, but yeah so I had sent out a trade and the other person did the same. We waited for +2 weeks and his cards did not show up.  We decided that he would buy the cards online and send them to me.  Literally 1 day later I got his cards in the mail!  I contacted him, hoping he was a procrastinator and did not buy the cards yet, but he had already bought the cards from an online store and they were on the way.  So instead of just sending the cards he bought back to him, we figured out a deal where he picked out another card he wanted and I just kept the other cards that came in.  So bam!  More cards for me.

And here are the cards I sent and got returned 4 weeks later...  USPS I am watching you.

So yeah, all in all a good day.  1 more card down from the count.  Keep it coming MFers!!

Panic Mode all around...

Fuck you Wizards of the Coast, and Fuck you Hasbro!


The only thing that makes me have any comfort with all the money I use to invest in this hobby is that I have Hasbro stock and invest in the company itself.

Commander 2017 was just released in Aug.
Ixalan is getting released in Sept.
Iconic Masters is getting released in Nov.
Explorers of Ixalan is also coming in Nov.
FTV: Transform is also coming in Nov.
Oh yeah and the new Duel Deck is also coming in Nov.
Unstable is coming in Dec.

Rivals of Ixalan is then coming in Jan.
Master 25 then in Mar.
Dominaria is then coming in Apr.

So let's just hit up the end of this year.

XLN: $800
IMA: $1100
Explore: $60
FTV: $40
DD: $40
UN3: $360 (I hope)

So really I am looking for close to $1500 more than I was expecting to spend this year.  This all following up on last year, where I spent well above my budget because of the Conspiracy and 2 Master sets within the year, along with those Masterpiece sets.

So now what I am expecting to spend a year, if the trends keep up with what we are seeing.
3 expansion sets
1 core set
2 master sets
1 commander set
1 anthology set
2 duel decks
1 FTV
1 set of something

The only good thing is that there is no longer Masterpiece sets.  Again, there are no more Masterpiece sets.  That is close to $6000 in list prices that is really going to free up.  Following along with Phase 1 48 cards need, and Phase 2 122 cards needed, all totaling up to $283 for everything I need, I am not too worried about what might be happening.

Basically they are freeing up $6000 worth of Masterpiece cards and adding an additional $1100 for another Master set.

But the trend does look like it is 4 sets, 2 master sets, 2 duel decks, 4 commander decks, 1 FTV, and 1 Anthology.

$800*4 = $3200 (Expansion / Core)
$1100*2 = $2200 (Master)
$360*1 = $360 (Something Set)
$35*8 = $280 (Commander Decks)
$150*2 = $150 (Anthology)
$35*2 = $70 (Duel Decks)
$40*2 = $80 (FTV)

This totals up to $6340 a year.

So in reality this was ($6340 - $1100) + $6000 = $11,240.

Now I did not go out and buy up all the Masterpiece cards all at once, but those prices were all going toward my bottom line if I was going to be able to get all the cards I needed.

Now my Phase 3 cards for the ABU sets are going up a lot by speculators, and I am really not sure I am going to be able to pick up those at all, but it is a nice long term goal.  Considering that I only need 24 Beta cards, and 50 Unlimited cards, I will keep searching for those cards as I go to LGS's.

Yeah, Phase 4 with all the booster boxes can just go fuck itself...

All in all, with the removal of the Masterpiece sets, I feel like the additional Masters sets should be ok for now, I just need to keep up with only collecting a single card in those sets since they are all reprints.  Also, since 1 of the Expansion set is turning to a Core set again, we might go with 1 single set, but playsets for all the 1st print cards.

I really need to keep speculating down to a minimum, focusing on Phase 4 with the booster boxes. And trying to pick up cards for the trade binder, but concentrate on what I really need.  Because with having everything I need, I really don't need a trade binder?  Let's wait and see how that goes.

Australian Trade!

Card Count: 48

Yeah, no change in the card count after this trade, but fuck all this thing came all the way from Australia!  That Continent Island Country on the other side of the world from the US.  This is the first time I have ever traded with Australia, and I can only thank CardSphere for it.  I know, it is not that big of a deal, but to me it is a big deal.  Having grown up before the internet and cell phones this is just insane to me.

Just to know that I can post cards that I am looking for on a website and just wait for people around the world to send me the cards.  The whole concept is just interesting.  Without the community I do not think it would be possible.

Here we go!

Promo's all around!  It is nice to be able to pick all these up just for sending cards.  I have been sitting over my balance for quite some time, so it is nice to know that I can just keep building the balance up in order to pick up these cards here and there.  Within Aether Revolt, I am missing a bunch of common cards, so I might pick those up from the LGS, but I do feel that at some time I will hit someone that will send me the cards I need for these Promo cards.

I have yet to add my Standard needs on either trading sites and the plan is to wait until after rotation to get those on there, so I could see those get filled out once I add those.  I really feel that I am not getting those cards because of the cost to ship cards.  So most people wait to get above $1 to $2 cards before they ship, just because stamps are close to $0.50 each.

So yeah, let's just wait and see how this all goes!

A Lost Trade

Card Count: 48

So, it is Tuesday so I head on up to the PO Box to check the cards that might have come in over the weekend.  I really have only been expecting a couple CardSphere because one of my Deckbox traders sucks and is not responsive, and the other Deckbox trade had not come in for a while so we kind of gave up on getting them, and he was going to buy the cards I was looking to get.

Well low and behold, the cards showed up!  Now, I know people say you need to wait a good long while from time to time, but the cards were marked shipped on Aug 14th, and on Sept 3rd we had agreed that they would not be coming.  Normally 2 weeks is enough time to get cards, but in this case it looks like we should have gave it one more week.

So yeah, he had already went out and purchased the cards that I was looking for in the trade, but since I got his package today I am going to be getting another set of cards because we thought it was lost to the USPS monster.  I am actually checking to see if he wanted another $11 card instead of me sending back the cards he bought, that way I can get some more cards for trading fodder.  Also I would not be wasting a stamp!

Here we go!

So yeah, this is one of the cards that I really needed, so was one of the two reasons I went through with the trade.

This was another reason I went through with this trade.  This would make #4 in my playset, so I am really happy about that.

Fodder!  So yeah, this is all speculation for future trades.  But why?  Why do you want to pick up Mythic Rares for Fodder.  Rarity and First print.  I like some of these Mythic Rares for those two reasons.  I am not saying that these are going to be $1000 cards, but I do think that they will increase in value based on what I traded for them

This is a nice card I got from a CardSphere trade.  This is the only card that is going against the card count...  I know, I know, but come on we are 48 away!

/sings-high-pitched Unhinged!!!!!  I think I am going to finish my full set sooner than I think.

So yeah, that is what I picked up today.  I keep sending out cards through CardSphere since Deckbox has dried up.  It is not so much that it has dried up, but having to always match cards that I want for cards that are wanted, it is just getting that much harder to find something work.  I think it would be much easier if I was going for a lot of fodder cards, but trying to get cards that I really need is getting harder.  Just because I am able to find a single card along with a lot of fodder for cards that the other person wants.  I do find myself forcing trades on Deckbox just to get those 1 or 2 cards I need, but it is getting more an more harder to get done.

CardSphere it is a lot easier, since I have that balance and all I need to do is wait around for new traders to join and send me cards.  I do feel that at some point CardSphere will completely dry up because there will not be enough cards for people to send to make it worth their while.