25,398 Up but added M15

Magic 2015 is on Pre-order so I needed to add all those cards to the list, so the card count has gone up, but as an awesome addition I did a trade with ABU Games and got a lot of good stuff added to the collection.

I had a couple of Unglued Sealed Booster boxes sitting around that were extra, and decided to see what I could get in trade for them.

www.abugames.com

These guys gave me a pretty good price and 25% more in store credit, and considering the price I bought these boxes for when they were released, I think the trade was even up.  This is what I was able to get:

Duel Deck: Elves vs Goblins
Planechase: 2009 4 deck set
Premium Deck Series: Graveborn and Slivers
Deckmasters: Garfield

Now I know that with this trade for these sets I pretty much got the backend of a good kick, but I consider that I bought the Unglued boxes for around $60 each, and if you consider that I think I made out pretty even trading for a $250 Deckmasters: Garfield set when it sold for $25.95 list.

I was also able to complete these sets:
Revised
Legends
The Dark
Conspiracy
Timeshifted

I was also able to get all the basic lands for Mercadian Masques that I needed, and an Ihsan's Shade that I was missing for an Anthologies set that I had.  Most importantly, I think the only things now that I need for small expansions are Battle Royal, Beatdown, and Duels of the Planeswalkers.

I should be putting together the M15 card separators this week and opening packs this weekend.  Lets see if I can get all the cards that I am looking for.

As a side note, I just setup my own Minecraft server, and have been spending a lot of time with that.  Since I don't have a good play group with Magic, I might just move down to collecting one of every card rather than the playset, but that just might be a fad, and I am just bored with Magic again.  Still muddling around with the idea of getting 6 sealed booster boxes each set for the commons and uncommons, and then just buying the rest of the rares and mythic rares I need to fill out the sets.  That way I could also save up for older booster boxes I don't have and not spend most of my money on the new sets that come out.

Card Separators

Trade with me on CardSphere  <---Click here!

This blog is going to be about how I keep all my cards separated.  I have gone through the majors of how I keep my collection separated, but is going to be about the cards themselves.  What am I talking about?

This:

Sorry a little fuzzy.  The car separator is in the back, and for every card that I have will follow the separator.

Dimension:

So we have these tan looking separators, and they are 2 1/2' X 3 3/4' cards.  They are just a tad taller than the normal Magic the Gathering card, and have the same width.  Why tan?  Why not.  Honestly though, they are tan because that was the extra scrap paper the printing store had on the cheap, and instead of changing the color I just kept with that color.  And really, the color works well.  It allows the label to stand out without being too bold, and it is a gentle enough color as a background for the magic cards.

For the strength of the separators, they are pretty firm.  I don't remember the grade of the paper, but they are close to the strength of a magic card.

Basically what I did, I found a commercial printing place and gave them a sample of the separator cards I had and they matched up the paper with samples they had.  Once they had the dimensions of the cards needed they figured out how many they could cut from a sheet, and they were able to tell me how many I get per sheet.  From there, they told me how much a sheet was and you can go from there.  I believe I bought 4 boxes full of these separators for about $400.00 US, and I ended up with over 90,000 separator cards.  This price also included the cut cost for the printing place to cut the separators to my dimensions.

In the first order, there was two boxes full of separators, and I think my father paid $90.00 for that order, and there was about 20,000 cards.  Cost of inflation, I think I made out with a good price, and I won't need to get any new separators for quite some time.

I should also add that a friend of mine saw my separators and got some cut from Kinkos, and they did not do as well of a job that the commercial printing place would do, but he also only spent no higher than $20.00 for a stack of separators.  So if you wanted to go that way, puddle it up.  I am also pretty sure you can just go to a paper store and try and cut the separators yourself.

Color Coding

I color code by rarity.  Since I keep all the cards of the same color in the same box I wanted some type of distinction of the different cards.  Now I need to remind you that back in the day there was no way to tell what the rarity of a card was by just looking at the card.  Now you get the different color of the set symbol, so it is a lot easier to tell what the rarity is.

Common:

I stuck with just a basic Black.  I also use Black for land and tokens.

Uncommon:

Here I went with a Blue because it is hard to read silver letters on a white background.

Rare:

Yeah, it is fuzzy...  You can barely tell, but yes it is Green

Mythic Rare:

And of course, I went with Red

Labels

So the labels, quick run down; go to Office Depot, or Staples, or Amazon and pick up some Avery labels.  I went with 1/2' X 1 3/4' labels with the part number of 5167.  With Avery labels, you can also download the Microsoft Word template that will allow you to copy and paste your information directly into the cell, and it prints pretty well.  I had some issues printing my labels in the beginning, where the drivers on my printer could not read the top margin, and I would lose that top row.  But HP updated their drivers, and we are good to go now.  I am pretty sure the normal consumer would use these labels as envelop return labels, but here we use them for Magic cards!

Now before you think about making labels and selling them, I already asked WotC if I could do that, and they put a stop to that in one e-mail.  I can see why they would not want my crappy labels on no art separators, but hey I had to try.

In making the Labels I massage the data from the spreadsheet in order to get it to the format where it is really easy to cut and paste into the Microsoft Word cells.  Basically I will get the data to the point where all the names will have the set underneath it, and then the Type - Rarity at the bottom.  Once I paste in all that data, I will then color code the cards and print.

Once printed I take all the labels and place them at the top middle of the separators.  If anyone really wants to know my keystrokes I can post something.  Also let me know if you want labels for a set.  I have most of them ready to print.

24,324 Conspiracy opened

Yeah so I opened up some of my Conspiracy to try and get my full set.  After opening 3 boxes I was able to get everything except for 3 cards.  After opening the packs I wish I would have just bought a couple of boxes to keep, and then a full set.  The price of the set just keeps dropping, and I cant use any of the cards in tournament decks, so I do have a lot of trading fodder from it, but in the end I should have just bought a full set.

I guess I did get the tokens, but still have opening remorse...

I also got a couple more cards from pucatrade.com, but still on the fence with that site.

24,534 to go, and found a doosh I won't trade with again

So I got 1 card from deckbox.org and 3 lands from pucatrade.com.  First off, I don't want to flame anyone on my blog so I am not going to say the username here, but honestly if you start a trade and move forward with a trade, and then pull out some cards you put up don't lie about why you don't want to trade the cards.  Don't tell me you can't find the cards only to open another trade with me with the exact cards that you lied about.  Seriously, it only puts you on my Do Not Trade list.  It just shows me you are dishonest, and you are not to be counted on when you try and setup a trade.

Anywho, received another Zendikar Mythic Rare from deckbox.org, and another name I put on my Do Not Trade list.

Pucatrade.com is becoming more interesting, and I think I might be able to get some trades done for the lesser wanted items.  I think I will be able to send unwanted rares/cards to people just like me who are looking for the same types of cards, in the hopes that they will look at my needs list and send me cards.  I still don't like how you are supposed to setup your wants/haves but I do like the theory of sending and getting based off of what you send.

Still thinking about it, but I did get 400 points for setting up an account, and got 3 Zendikar (a) lands sent to me for doing nothing, so that was pretty cool.  And then when I finished my first trade I got another 100 points, and 2 more cards are headed my way.  So we will see.  But yes, still have not sent anything in return, but there is a guy looking for Homeland cards, so I might try and send some.

Online Trading - Pucatrade.com

https://pucatrade.com/

Puca Trade

So just saw something about this site on theMeadery and oh boy, not sure how I feel about it.  First off I don't think there is a lot of people on the site now, and it is really hard to see who all the traders are.  So I signed up for the site, and you get 100 points for signing up, than 200 points for giving them your cell phone number, and then another 100 points for setting up a want list.

The object of the site is that you get points for giving cards to other members, and you can only get cards based off the points you earn.  Each card is given a specific point value, and that determines how many points you would get or spend.

So if you start out with 400 points for just following their rules, and you put 2 cards on your want list that are worth 200 points each, and someone sends you those cards you would end up with 0 points, but have the 2 cards you were looking for.

If you have 0 points, then no one can send you cards, and you need to find people that need your cards, send them the cards, and then you get points.  With 0 points you need to find people to send cards to, so the next step would be to setup the 'Cards Have' part which will fill out your inventory, then you can go to the 'Send Cards' section.  This will show you people that have 'Card Wants' that match your 'Cards Have' and you can send them cards.  This will then increase your point total, and more people can send you cards on your 'Card Wants' list.

I am just not sure about this whole thing.  It seems like you can send cards and get points, but you really need to keep an eye out on what you have on your want list.  From what I can tell, everyone just has super crazy expensive cards on their want list.  There is no real way to look at what some people might want, or maybe no one needed the cards I was looking to give.

Honestly I am just not sure how I feel about this site.  I think in theory it is a good idea, but most of the people on the site just want the really expensive cards and it really does not have value when it comes to trading.  Maybe I am more of a traditional trader and I want cards for cards rather than building a pool of points for giving people cards in the hopes that someone sends me cards I am looking for.

What if I were to give a bunch a cards away and no one gives me any cards in return, and all I get are these points I never get to use.  Not sold on the idea at all.

24,541 to go

Boom!  So yeah, I just inventoried a large trade from deckbox.org.  It was mostly throwaway Modern rares but still a pretty awesome pickup for me.  This trade was for extra sealed product that I had laying around, so for me it was a huge plus.

So it was a huge plus to me because there is no time that I will open the extra sealed product because I already have a crap ton of it in opened product, and already have my playsets collected.  So rather than open more of it to get the cards that I can trade, I can just trade the packs away in the hopes that whoever I trade the packs to will get something awesome.  Yes, I really do hope that the traders get that wicked awesome $50+ rare when we only traded for a $14 pack.  It is exciting!

I get to fill out cards that I really need for the sets that I did not collect in, and that person has a chance to double-up and get a cool card they will play with.  I consider it a win/win, just because I am getting cards that they don't want and most likely use in a trade, and I trade away something that I don't want or need.

It is like the risk is a little better to take when it is pack for throwaway rares.  It is a lot better than trading a dual land for a bunch of pack, because it is not a high valued rare for maybe something good.

Well that is how I consider it, and I just hope I can find more people that want to make trades like this because I really want to know what are in those packs!!!

Thank you trader, you know who you are!

Mythic Rare: 147
Rares: 6810
Uncommons: 8350
Commons: 7902
Lands: 1332

24,973 Conspiracy +210 add

Conspiracy has come out so I needed to add that total to the count.  Hopefully I will get my pre-order in and I can trim this down a bit.  I am still a bit on the fence with this set, and I don't know if I am going to open my packs or not.  I think the value in the draft format will increase their value, so I am thinking of just holding off on opening these for a year to see where the prices go.  As a collector it seems silly that I would not open them, but also as a collector I know that keeping them in the packages might raise the value with holding onto this product.  Once again, it is still up in the air, but since the release of the product the set has gone from $288.00 to $237.00, and I only see the prices going down on the mythic rare and rare cards.

But since this is a multiplayer draft format, I also don't see WoTC doing another print of this set, so this also leads me to think that keeping sealed product of this set around could be more beneficial for the collection.

This is a small update, but I did just get in a trade that I am trying to inventory right now, so another update to come soon.

Conspiracy is here!

Got the e-mail that my cards are coming from iDeal808, and to tell you the truth I was getting a bit scared I was not going to get the pre-order from this site.  I did not get the e-mail until around 10PM CST time with the tracking number.  Granted they are in Hawaii, and there is a huge time difference, but I have never purchased anything from this site before so I always get a bit scared.  Lets just wait and see what the boxes look like when they get here.

I was also able to get a single box from an LGS that I cannot name, due to them doing me a huge favor and just selling me a box.  They requested that I do not say anything to anyone, but since I asked to buy a box, they bent their rules to sell me a single box.

So, I am going to have 5 boxes and I have decided to just collect a single card from the set because having a playset would not do me any good because this is more of a Cube set once you have drafted. I have even been thinking about not opening any of the boxes since it is such a cool draft set, and after I open the cards it might be worth less.  But even with that being said, Cube set might be a completely different collecting pile.

Even if I were to open the boxes, how and where will I sort them into my collection.  These cards are not Standard legal, nor will they be any other sanctioned tournament legal deck.  First thought was to just sort them into Pre-Modern like I do with my EDH cards, and just make sure I don't use any of the cards in any of my decks.  But now that I think about it, I could just start a new box for multiplayer type decks.  I am not sure if they are going to do another printing of this set or not, but since I sort my "Un" and Portal sets in Pre-Modern I will most likely just sort this set the same way.

So I will be waiting a couple weeks before I try and open these boxes, just because I want to see where this set goes because I think the set might have more worth if I keep more sealed of the set.

Collection Storage

So what does the outcome look like?

This is a picture of my collection, left is my Legacy and to the right is Modern with a small box of Portal and Portal Second Age (why is it there?  I have no idea.)  Each box has a single color assigned to it, with Legacy having 2 boxes per color,  and the Modern boxes are just about to break into the 2 boxes per color.

So I started out with using 3200 count boxes (One of my cats likes to watch me):

With these boxes I had an issue with my racks that I store my boxes in, I could only hold 6 boxes on each shelf and I was wasting a lot of space so I moved to 4000 count boxes (seriously I need to feed my cat):

These boxes worked a lot better with the racks I am using.  You can fit 9 boxes on each shelf, and the boxes only stick out a bit.  I have found that they are also better for storing cards that might be in larger sleeves.  Granted I would never really use the larger sleeves, but you could if you wanted to.

Now you might see some weird tan colored card behind each of the cards, with some small label behind them, but I will go over that in some other blog.  They are separator cards that I use to organize my collection, because WoTC reprints cards spanning multiple sets and I needed to keep each card in different sets split up.  But yeah, I will go through the stupid OCD process I use when a new set comes out for the labels.

I do have another shelf for my Standard cards, but I am not going to post it here.  I still use my 3200 count boxes for Standard but that is because those boxes fit better in that shelf.  Since Standard cards rotate out of that play type into Modern I just kept using those 3200 count boxes and sort the cards into the 3 row 4000 count boxes.

But as you can see if I were to make a 2 color Legacy deck I would be pulling 6 of the 4000 count boxes, and the 2 standard boxes, and that is just for the color cards.  Then I would have to go through 3 Artifact boxes, 2 Land boxes, and 2 Gold boxes.  You could only imagine what my tables look like when I make a 3 color EDH deck.  It is a lot easier to build Modern or Standard deck when you think about boxes to go through, Legacy and EDH has to be the most number of boxes I go through to build a deck.

FYI I bought the racks at Target and the boxes at BCW.

24,763 to go, Scars of Mirrodin Complete!

Top story - Koth of the Hammer received!

Oh wooo, so I got a playset of Scars of Mirrodin, bla bla bla...  Well for me it was a pretty big day.  Since I came back to magic around New Phyrexia and I did not get a lot of the Scars block, it was a pretty big deal to me.  It is just an accomplishment for myself having left the game since Urza's block and finally getting the playset of the block that I came back with.  Innistrad, Return to Ravnica, and Theros are pretty much gimmies because I had been actively been playing in those blocks so I had been purchasing the boxes and fat packs as they came out, but Scars block I had to back trade for cards that were close to out of print.  I also did not know what I was doing, so I made a lot of mistakes when I was purchasing that block.

It is pretty much the fact that every block that I am able to finish, it is a big win for me.  Before I was just trading for everything and anything I needed.  It did not matter if it was a common or a mythic rare, I was trying to trade for them.  I have since then focused my trading to the oldest block, and the most recent block out of standard just so I was not using a shotgun approach to the cards I am trying to obtain.  That means that now I have completed the Scars block I can move on to the Zendikar block, which in itself is a huge deal!

Now for the oldest block, I am still working on the Mercadian Masques block with needing some of the MM set left, completed the Nemesis set, but I have almost nothing of the Prophecy set.  Granted a full set of Prophecy is only $49, but it is still pretty hard to get cards in good condition let alone finding someone who has some for trade.  I will be writing a blog on my method on getting the cards I need, and how I am approaching this task, but for now I wanted to share that I am done with the Scars block!

Podcast - Magic: the Amateuring

Magic: the Amateuring
http://www.magictheamateuring.com/
Grade: B+

Favorite Running Stories: Ben's Phone number and Nicol Bolas

So I write reviews on websites I go to, and the LGSs I go to, so hey I figured I would do some write ups on what I listen to as well.  Now, I have just started to listen to Magic the Gathering podcasts about a year ago, and I really only listen to 3 of them, but if it is anything like I have been doing with financial investing I am pretty sure there will be more.  Since this was my first MTG podcast I have listened to, this will be my first review.

So, these three folks, what can I say.  Most of the "Intense" podcasts I have tired, you always here the other contributors trying to talk over each other to sound cool, and make a point to tear down the other person and what they are saying.  But with these folks, you get a sense of entertainment.  Almost like they feed off each other.  I do have to say I am quite a big Fan Boy when it comes to these guys, and I am a really big fan.

Ben is the straight man, his dry humor and quick witted responses are really funny.  He is the veteran player, and has the most insight as how to play and what the rules are.  My favorite parts of the show is when Ben will list out two possible cards and Meghan and Maria have to guess which one is the real vintage card.  Best part of it is that he actually makes up the flavor text, and it is some good stuff he comes up with.

Meghan is the rookie wanting to go pro.  I would have to say she is the more serious player out of the trio and she seems more interested in the professional side of the game.  Great humor, and her small little bursts of quirky attitude really make you want to root for her.  As a Fan Boy I really need to point this out, I loaned her a couple of cards one time for FNM, I had to drop off the cards at the LGS and I got to meet her.  Yeah, it was pretty cool.  Funny thing is that it was the day before I was getting married, and we were having the party near the LGS so I figured it would be ok for me to make the pit stop.

Maria, oh boy Maria.  Funny as hell, but holy balls you need to make sure you are listening to the podcast with ear buds.  Not that she is a potty mouth, but I would have to say she is the perverted one of the bunch and not afraid to share.  It brings a brighter side of the whole Magic the Gathering experience, and not to sound too sexist, but it is great to hear some of this humor coming from a woman.  It is "Bridemaid's"esk.  A really warm sense to the listening holes.

So with the three you get straight man, quirky, and dirty all in one.  They almost feed off each other and it works so well.  There have been a couple of off episodes, but for the most part I don't miss any of them.  I should also say that you do get to learn about Magic: the Gathering, but I enjoy listening to them more from the not so serious side of the game.  It is truly entertaining with a hint of education.

They also do have some great guest that show up and make great contributions to the show as a whole.

Again, need to give a shout out to Mead Hall Games and the Meadery for letting me know about this wonderful content.

Spreadsheet Update - Foil Tab

Ok, so now we get to the Foil tab.  So in earlier blogs I talk about not even wanting to collect foil cards, but the fact is there are foil cards and people want to collect them, and I have some for trade.  The question I need to figure out for myself is if I want to try.  I am pretty sure you will hear a lot more about my internal battles about doing something like this, but for now my opinion is that they are stupid and only serve as a purpose for the bling wanters.

So, with that here is the spreadsheet:

So as I covered in the Trade Tab, we are taking that same design with this tab.  With every Set tab there is a section that collects data from the Foil columns and SUMIF them.

Set Tab Total

We are looking at this section
_
  |
  |
  |
  |
  |
  |
  |
_|

Just like in the Trade Tab we are gathering data on each of the Set tabs, but that data is in the same row and column.  This data is using SUMIF to gather and separate the data on rarity, just like the Trade Tab.  It pretty much is the same tab, but gathering different data specific to the Foil columns.

I don't really think I need to get into this, but I will leave a list of the formulas that I have used to look at the specific Foil data.

Journey Into Nyx:
Column B: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$26
Column C: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$27
Column D: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$28
Column E: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$29
Column F: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$30
Column G: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$31
Column H: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$32

One thing you will notice is that there is no Book section because I am not keeping track of the foil cards for trade because I never put them in the trade binder.  I just list the extra cards above 1 to my deckbox.org tradelist.

Evernote

https://evernote.com/

What a wonderful application!  I use this application to keep track of all the cards that I need for each set.  I have a single notebook, and I have chapters for each set.  Then within the sets I have labeled out the card type, the rarity, the card name, and the number of cards I need to fulfil my playset.  But the best part of this is that I can have the application on my iPhone, iPad, and my Macbook Pro.  This way I can manage it from any of my devices and edit any of my lists to keep a running track of everything I need.  Normally when I am shopping I will use my iPhone, but if I am trading I will bring my iPad and use that to find cards I need, but when I am doing work at home with deckbox.org I will use my Macbook to edit my trades.

This works well when a new set comes out and I need to edit all the new cards I need after I open my pre-order boxes.  It works well when I have a trade in the hopper, and have to mark the cards that could be coming in so I don't trade for cards that are already coming in on a trade.  I do have to say I use it the most when I am shopping.  Again, I can also see what cards are coming in on trades, but it is so mobile that I can just reference my lists on my phone, I don't have to worry about carrying around my laptop or iPad.

Here is an example of what I have for Shards of Alara:

Blue M Tezzeret the Seeker 3

Gold M Ajani Vengeant 2
Gold M Hellkite Overlord 2
Gold M Kresh the Bloodbraided 2 (2)
Gold M Prince of Thralls 1
Gold M Rafiq of the Many 1
Gold M Sarkhan Vol 1
Gold M Sphinx Sovereign 3
Gold R Stoic Angel 2

Red R Goblin Assault 2

White M Elspeth, Knight-Errant 3
White R Knight of the White Orchid 2
White R Knight-Captain of Eos 1
White R Ranger of Eos 3

Here you can see the Type, Rarity, Card Name, and number of cards needed.  You can also see that I have Kresh the Bloodbraided with a (2) which means that I have 2 of them coming in on a trade.  This will allow me to know not to trade or buy this card because I will have the full playset.  I have had this issue a couple of times where I traded for cards that were already coming in for a trade.  Once the set is done I will erase the cards that I have full playsets, and if the set is complete I will just use the word Complete.  This will allow me to look up the set from the list and see that it is complete so I will not bother with looking at cards from that set.

Here is an example of what the application looks like.  You can see I sort the list on the left alphabetically, and each set has it's own note.  Then each note has the list of cards posted on the right.  There are sets that are complete, and then you can see I am almost done with Scars of Mirrodin with (1) coming in.

Now you can see what the application looks like on my iPad.  It shows the lists on the left, and the note on the right.  Every note will sync when there are changes, and each device will get the new changes no matter what device has made the changes.

This is a free application, and it does not work without an internet connection, but it will allow you to manage everything you need.  Now there are applications like deckbox.org that could do the same thing for you, and they did put a privacy setting on your inventory, but I have yet to go all in on the website and want to keep my inventory needs differently.  I have also found that there really is no website, or application out there that can manage my collection in the ways I need.  There is also no application that will give me the visibility that I want to see where I need to focus my resources.

So for now, I love Evernote for what it can bring to my collecting, and I can also keep my spreadsheets for what I have in my inventory.  Maybe someday I will be able to create that MacOS application that will do everything I need.

**EDIT**

I no longer use this application, but I use Apple Notes

24,769 to go, and got some more stuff

It has arrived!

Stopped up at my favorite LGS Mead Hall Games in Minneapolis and picked up this beauty today.

Not sure if I am going to open it or not.  I might just keep it with my Duel Deck and keep them sealed, but I do like having those cards free to build decks with like I do with my commander decks, but I am still on the fence.  I also broke down and finished off my Fetchlands, and picked up the final 3 Bloodstained Mires.  I know there is rumblings about the Fetchlands being reprinted, but I look at that from a collector, and having the originals will be worth more than the reprints.

I honestly hope they reprint them.  They are really good cards, and make game play much better.  The game is nothing without the competition and game play, and with more of these around would only make the game more accessible for others to play.

Also picked up this to finish out the set:

Now this is something that I would not open because I think it is just a collecting thing that I like to have.  I dont think it will go up in price, but it rounds out the collection.

I also picked up my last Stoneforge Mystic that I needed.  Now I have all the Worldwake rares, and just really need to concentrate on those last mythics that I need to get all the expensive cards in the set.  Still thinking about buying a seal booster box for the commons and uncommons that I need.

I have a Modern rare trade for sealed product coming in, so hopefully I will have another update.  I also was able to get a trade done for my last Scars of Mirrodin card that I needed to get my playset, so cant wait for that trade to come in too!

To foil or not to foil

So you have your foil cards...  I have been contemplating for quite some time if it is worth keeping all the foil cards I have in the case where I decided to start trying for a single set of each.  Would it be worth it?  Then, what all do I deem foil cards to collect?  Do I try and get them all?  Or just the main release ones?

I have been battling this question for quite some time, and I have always just put it off.  Keeping one of every card that I get a foil, and then trading the rest away.  I am just not sure what I will do.  Even as I write this, I am going back and forth in my head as to if I should try, even at a later date.

So for now, I am just going to keep at least one of each foil, just in case I decide to collect those foil cards...

I am leaning more toward not doing so, because I think they are stupid...

24,772 and counting

So today I got a very good trade come in.  I was able to get a large amount of Unlimited commons, and granted they were just commons, but now I only need 83 more Unlimited cards to fill that set.  I also got some Modern cards, but the Unlimited was the coolest part about that trade.  Also it looks like I only need one more Rare in Worldwake which is a Stoneforge Mystic, so that is pretty cool too.  I still need 14 Mythic Rares, and 274 Uncommons/Commons, but at least I am getting the rarer cards out of the way.

So all in all it was a good trade day.

Spreadsheet Update - Trade Tab

Here we are going to take a look at all the extra cards outside of the collection.  I call it the Trade tab because technically everything in this category is available for trade in order to complete the collection. This tab will look just like the Sealed tab by listing all the sets, Core, Expansion, and any opened special set that I have opened.

So you can see, we have all the sets listed on the left.  Then at the top I have split out the rarity with total column, and columns for Mythic Rare, Rare, Uncommon, Common, Land, Token, and Book.  We will get to the Book column in a second.

All of the rarity columns totals are being pulled from the set tabs in the Trade total sections.

Set Tab Total

We are looking at this section
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If you remember on each Set tab we have formulas that will look at the Trade columns and SUMIF up the totals by rarity.  This was done so we could see what type of rarity we had, and how much of that rarity we could put up for trade.

So on the Trade tab, we are taking all that information from all the Set tabs and compiling it to see the greater picture.  The sets are again split up by color to define the blocks, and Bold defines a Modern set, but we have added the same coloring for the rarity.  You will also see a dark grey only in the Mythic Rare column, and this was done to show that those are the sets without Mythic Rare cards.

Lets just take a look at a single set's formulas, and we will use Journey Into Nyx because we have values populated for that set.

Journey Into Nyx:
Column B: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$16
Column C: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$17
Column D: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$18
Column E: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$19
Column F: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$20
Column G: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$21
Column H: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$A$22
Column J: ='Journey Into Nyx'!$AE$1

You can see for the set Journey Into Nyx we are taking the totals from the Set tab ('Journey Into Nyx'), and we are looking as specific cells.  What are the $ for?  Well since we have a template for all our Set tabs, and you can find the same data in most of the same cells, we will use the $ when you define the cell to make sure that it does not increment when you copy a row to add a new set on the Trade tab.

What does that mean?  Well there are 4 new sets every year, and with those set adds every year I wanted an easy way to just copy a Row and paste it under the currently new set, and change the name of the set so that row would point to the new set tab name but keep the same cell values.

So, for the new set of Khans of Tarkir what I will do is create a 'Set tab' from the 'Set tab template' we created.  I would rename the Set tab to be 'Khans of Tarkir'.  Then I would go to the Trade tab, copy the Journey Into Nyx row, and insert the copied cells under the Journey Into Nyx row.  I would then rename the set name cell to be Khans of Tarkir, and change the color of the cell to light yellow to follow the Block separation.  Finally highlight the columns B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and J and click 'ctrl H' to pull up the replace sub-menu.  Find 'Journey Into Nyx' and replace it with 'Khans of Tarkir' and hit Replace All button.  This will replace the Set tab formulas with the set you are looking to change, but you need to remember to create the Set tab before trying to replace the set tab names in the formulas, or the replace will fail because the targets don't exist.

Khans of Tarkir:
Column B: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$16
Column C: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$17
Column D: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$18
Column E: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$19
Column F: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$20
Column G: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$21
Column H: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$A$22
Column J: ='Khans of Tarkir'!$AE$1

Just to give you an example of what I used to have to do before I started using the $ in the cell definition, I would do the exact same thing as above, but I would then have to go back into the cells and change the cell number because without the $, those number would change.  So if you copied that same row and copied it under the latest set, all the numbers would increment by 1 because of the way the spreadsheets work; 16 would become 17, and 17 would become 18, and so on.  Also in the same vein, if I were to paste the cells to the right by one cell B would become C, C would become D, and so on...

Now lets touch on the Column J used for 'Book'.  I have this formula looking at Cell $A$AE which is the total of all the cards that are in my tradebook for each set.
  - Earlier I explained that I wanted to keep track of all the cards in my tradebook so I could know what the value is on cards that I carry around with me for trade.  While all the totals on this sheet define the complete trading fodder in all the cards, the Book values is used just to define what I have in my trade binder.

Then at the bottom row I have the totals for each column which will give me a quick peek as to what the value is for each type of rarity.  I only find this important when I have thoughts of selling my entire collection.  Since stores really only look at valued cards, it is pretty easy to grab the Mythic Rare and Rare and set a specific % to how much I could get from a store, then lower that % for each Uncommons, Commons, and Lands.

Spreadsheet Update - Sealed Tab: Packs

So we have gone through the decks that WoTC releases, but now lets go through the sealed packs and the different variations of how packs are released to the public and what we keep.

I have a goal to have at least 1 sealed booster box per Core and Expansion set all the way back to Revised and The Dark.  Yeah, totally crazy but I am hoping to at least one day have a sealed box of Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends but I really have only seen Legends for sale on IDeal808.com.

So the rest of this tab is going to be used to keep track of all the the sealed product I own.  The issue that I have hit with this tab through the years is that there are many different forms of packs.  I have tried to gather up the data on every type because I own many different variations from many different sets.

Dk = Preconstructed Deck
Bo = Booster Pack
Box = Booster Box
St = Starter Deck
Fa = Fat Pack
FB = Fat Pack Box

As you can see I have grouped the expansion sets by block, and separated the blocks by different colors.  There is no defined reason for the color other than to separate them from each other.  You will also notice that some of the sets are in Bold, those sets are the ones accepted in Modern, and the non-bold sets are Vintage/Legacy sets.  I know you can use Modern cards in Vintage/Legacy decks, but I needed a way to split up the older cards with the newer cards.  This also follows the way I have split up the cards stored in the boxes.

Column B, C, D, E, F, and G are used to keep count of the different products.
 *I keep track of opened Fat Pack boxes in Column G, there is no card count assigned to these counts, but I just like to keep track of how many boxes I have.

Column H is used to show the price of a complete Sealed Booster box that is manually inputed.
Column I is used to show the price of a complete Sealed Starter Box that is manually inputed.
Normally I gather the prices from www.abugames.com.

Column K is going to be the card count total for all the sets
Column L is going to be used to get the card count for Preconstructed Decks
Column M is going to be used to get the card count for Booster Packs
Column N is going to be used to get the card count for Booster Boxes
Column O is going to be used to get the card count for Starter Packs
 - Some of the older prices are based on deck rather than boxes of Starter Packs.
Column P is going to be used to get the card count for Fat Packs

Column R is going to be used to get a total price count of Booster boxes

Formulas
Column L: =IF(B2="","",(B2*60))
 - This will look at what is in cell B2 and multiply it by 60 as preconstructed decks have 60 cards

Column M: =IF(C2="","",(C2*15))
 - This will look into cell C2 and multiply it by 15 as booster packs have 15 cards

Column N: =IF(D2="","",((D2*36)*15))
 - This will look into cell D2 and multiple it by number of packs then by number of cards since booster boxes have 36 packs of 15 cards

Column O: =IF(E2="","",(E2*60))
 - This will look into cell E2 and multiply if by 60 as starter packs have 60 cards

Column P: =IF(F2="","",(((9*15)+80)*F2))
 - This will look into cell F2 and multiply it by ((number of packs * cards in pack) + land pack) since fat packs normall have 9 booster packs of 15 cards, and an 80 basic land pack

*If you notice, all the formulas for the count will do a check to see if the cell is empty.  If it is empty, then it will stay empty, but if there is a value in the cell it will preform the formula.

Column R: =IF(D2>0,D2*H2," ")
 - This will look into cell D2 and see if the value is greater than 0, if it is it will multiply the number of boxes by the price manual gathered, if not then it will post a blank cell.

So in this section we have all the Core and Expansion, then we have all the pack types, and we should be able to keep track of the numbers of each pack/box.  Then we will find the card count of the sealed products as well as the total prices of the sealed booster boxes.  We will use this later on the Total page, but for now on this page you can see the totals on Row 97.

Cell K97: =SUM(K2:K96)
Cell R97: =SUM(R2:R96)

Spreadsheet Update - Sealed Tab: Decks

So, now we have the set tabs all setup so we can collect the data and then see what we have, what we need, and how much everything is worth and how much we need to collect for every Core and Expansion set out there.  So now we are going to get into the weeds of taking all that data, and putting it into forms that we can use to summarize the entire collection as a whole.

Just remember, this is how I use the data to keep an inventory, average how much I need to spend to finish my collection, and to plan on how much more space I need to finish the collection.  I not only keep track of the dollar value of the collection, but I can get card counts and see what is available for trade.

I will be working backwards to the Collection Tab because that tab gathers data from all the sub tabs, which collects data from all the set tabs.

Sealed Tab: Decks

This section of the Sealed Tab shows counts and inventory of sealed decks that are in the collection. This would include Duel Decks, Commander Deck, From the Vault series and so on...

Lets take a look at the section:

Set Color Code:
Red = Need to get
Black = Have

Price Color Code:
Black = Need to get
Blue = Have

Total Color Code:
Green = Total

Just wanted to add that I use color to gain focus so that is why Sets Needed has a color, and Price has a color.

























Column Definitions
Column T: You can see that I keep track of the years these small sets were released
Column U: Sets and Set Names.  Here I try and keep everything together, like all the From the Vault decks, all the Premier Deck Series, Planechase and so on...
Column V: This is the count column, but it will also accept a 'O' which stands for Opened.  I wanted to keep track of the sets I have, but I also wanted to keep track of the sets I have opened for the cards to play with in my Cube.
Column W: I use this column to keep track of what I have paid to get the set.  In some cases I have put 'Trade' to define that I have traded something to obtain the set.
Column Y: Current Prices that have to be manually looked up
Column Z: Listed card count in the set, I am using this for the level set in the formulas, so if I own more than one set I can gather an accurate card count.
Column AB: Value total column where we will take the count column and multiply it by the current price column.
Column AC: Total count column where we will take the count column and multiply it by the listed card count column.

Column Formulas:
Column AB: =IF(V3="O","",V3*Y3)
Column AC: =IF(V3="O","",Z3*V3)

So what does this do for us?  This will allow us to keep track of all the subsets that are released, and we can also keep track of the ones that are open as well.  I should add, that any set that has been opened will have a set tab so that we can keep track of the cost of the set in the set tab and not a complete sealed deck, and that is why we needed the 'O' option so we did not double count the price and card count of the sets that were opened.

24,833 to go

Couple of more trades came in, and I am wondering if I should start posting my trades and why I did them, but that might be too much.  But the trade I am really waiting for is the Unlimited commons coming from Canada.  I am always worried about trades from Canada for some reason.  I have only done 3, and all of them have gone very smooth.  I think it is just the fact that it is not cost effective to pay for tracking that worries me the most.

Here is the count
Mythic: 146
Rare: 7341
Uncommon: 8377
Common: 7932
Basic Land: 1344

I got 5 rares and 2 mythic rares in these last two trades.
1 M11 Mythic Rare
1 Zendikar Mythic Rare
1 Shards of Alara Rare
4 Darksteel Rares

One of the Darksteel rares needs to be traded out because it came in as Played, but since they were just throw in rares to get the trade more even I am ok without saying anything.  And it was a full playset, so it accomplished something outside of just getting a trade done.

Spreadsheet Update - Color / Rarity Needs

4. Number of cards needed by color
5. Number of cards needed by rarity

Through my counting and planning I wanted to know how many more 3200 count boxes I would need in order to keep the organization I have setup.  I had not completed playsets for each of the editions yet, but I wanted to know if the needed cards would be too much for the boxes I already have.

With this feature enhancement I can look at the Cards Needed columns, look at the Type, and sum those number counts that I needed.  Then I could gather all the needed numbers from all the edition tabs and compile them in a single spreadsheet to find the totals.  From those totals I could separate the Modern from the Legacy cards, and figure out how much space I would need to store all the cards together.

I also wanted to validate how many more Mythic Rares, Rares, Uncommons, and Commons were needed to fill out my playsets.  So in the same formulas I did the same thing but looking at the rarity.

Here is the new spreadsheet, and we are going to be looking at Column A and B with Rows 42 - 59.

W stands for White
U stands for Blue
B stands for Black
R stands for Red
G stands for Green
D stands for Gold
C stands for Colorless
A stands for Artifact
L stands for Land



M stands for Mythic Rare
R stands for Rare
U stands for Uncommon
C stands for Common
L stands for Land
T stands for Token



Cell A42: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"White",Z2:Z602)
Cell A43: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Blue",Z2:Z602)
Cell A44: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Black",Z2:Z602)
Cell A45: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Red",Z2:Z602)
Cell A46: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Green",Z2:Z602)
Cell A47: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Gold",Z2:Z602)
Cell A48: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Colorless",Z2:Z602)
Cell A49: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Artifact",Z2:Z602)
Cell A50: =SUMIF(W2:W602,"Land",Z2:Z602)

This should look into the W column and check the color of the card, and then SUM the number of cards needed from the Z column.  So for each category I am able to see how many of each color I need. And since we are sorting by Vintage/Modern/Standard, then by color this will allow me to total up all the counts for each of the Vintage/Modern/Standard sets to see how much space I need when filling up the boxes I have.

Cell A55: =SUMIF(X2:X602,"M",Z2:Z602)
Cell A56: =SUMIF(X2:X602,"R",Z2:Z602)
Cell A57: =SUMIF(X2:X602,"U",Z2:Z602)
Cell A58: =SUMIF(X2:X602,"C",Z2:Z602)
Cell A59: =SUMIF(X2:X602,"L",Z2:Z602)
Cell A60: =SUMIF(X2:X602,"T",Z2:Z602)

This should look into the X column and check the rarity, and then SUM the number of the cards needed from the X column.  So this will basically let me know what I need to concentrate on when trading.  I have my need lists in Evernote, but as I am trying to concentrate on Modern blocks and Vintage sets I want to make sure that I look at the sets that I need rares in.

So for instance, Worldwake I only need Mythic Rares, so I am not as worried about that set as I am the other sets where I need more of the rares.  The issue was that I just had a total number of cards that I needed per set, but I really didn't know what that meant.  So not I can see that Worldwake total at 296 and out of that number I really only care about 17 Mythics, and 5 Rares.

Or I can see my Mercadian Masques total is set to 64 more cards needed, but with this new enhancement I know that 58 of those needed are basic lands.

You will be able to see more from the Total and Collection tabs when I get there.

**EDIT**

I needed to add some Cell configurations and decided to edit this blog to incorporate the changes.  Just in case someone wants to follow along and build their own spreadsheet.  This way they will not need to go back and edit all their Set Tabs with this new information.

Cell A65: =SUMIF(X2:X600,"M",AA2:AA600)
Cell A66: =SUMIF(X2:X600,"R",AA2:AA600)
Cell A67: =SUMIF(X2:X600,"U",AA2:AA600)
Cell A68: =SUMIF(X2:X600,"C",AA2:AA600)
Cell A69: =SUMIF(X2:X600,"L",AA2:AA600)
Cell A70: =SUMIF(X2:X600,"T",AA2:AA600)


This will gather price totals for all the cards that still need to be bought, and separate those totals out by rarity.

Conspiracy Pre-Order - IDeal808.com

www.ideal808.com

So, what to do about this new set coming out....

I have no idea what to think about this set, and frankly I hope it does not sell a lot and they stop making sets like this.  It was hard enough to get Modern Masters last year, and now I have to get some of this to keep up the collection.  Now, I know I have a full play set of Portal, Unglued, and working on Portal Second Age, but I consider this set like those.  Do I get a full playset?  Do I treat it like Modern Masters and just get a single card of the set?  Well, I did pre-order 4 boxes from IDeal808 and I should have one more booster box coming from The Mead Hall Games, but really this set just makes me upset as a collector.

To me it seems like WoTC had such a good showing with Modern Masters that they decided to make a little more money with this set.  Now this set is not priced higher than normal packs, so I have a hope that they will be treated like any other set, but I have heard grumblings that it will be a short print like Modern Masters.  I really think that with the 4 sets a year to collect was good enough.  I mean come on...

Year sets:
3 Expansions
1 Core
2 Duel Decks
1 From the Vaults

And now I hear that they will be doing Commander Decks every year!!!!!  Man....

I have budgeted to get all this with the addition of 2 of the Holiday boxes, in which I hope they keep doing because I like the sticker/card separators/boxes, but if they keep adding an additional set to get I might have to consider just collecting 1 of every reprint and then a full playset for all the new cards.

Rant off: so I was able to pre-order a box from www.ideal808.com for around $115 and I dont know what the price from the Mead Hall Games is just yet.  It is coming out soon, so I hope they let me know what the price is going to be.

The set only has 210 cards, with 65 of them being new.  I will have to see how this set goes, I might have an update to this later once I open the packs.

Update: Looks like Mead Hall Games is not selling any of their boxes, as they want to get people in the stores for multiplayer drafts, so not going to be getting a box from Mead Hall Games.

24,840 and Counting

So today I go a Big trade, a Middle Trade, and a single card trade in the mail today.  I am now down to 24,840 cards needed.  All the cards I got today were Rares and Mythic Rares, so all in all it was a good day.  I was able to remove them from my deckbox.org Inventory because I dont trust my entire Inventory on that site, I removed the cards from my Evernote notebook, and added them to my spreadsheet inventory.

I also tried to start my Mac application, but did not get far...

For the best note, I was able to complete my playset of Nemesis!  I love completing playsets, it allows me to just move on to the other sets that I do need.  Most of the cards that I got today were from Prophecy to Scourge, and I did take a big chunk out of my Coldsnap needs.

Looks like I still have 4 more trades waiting to come in, but making progress in total.

Mythic Rare: 148
Rare: 7346
Uncommon: 8377
Common: 7932
Basic Land: 1344

Vintage: 9136
Modern: 16006

I am still trying to get all the Pre-Modern cards first while working back from the most recent sets in Modern.  I just need one more Scars of Mirrodin to finish that set, Rise of the Eldrazi I need 9 but are all mythics, Worldwake is mostly commons and uncommons, and Zendikar is rares and mythic rares.

The next closest block that is complete is the Shards block, but that is pretty slow going.  I only need Rares and Mythic Rares from those sets.

For most of the sets, I plan on buying Fat Packs and Booster boxes for the common/uncommons.  And I have found that I need to go to LGS for the basic lands.

More later!

25,576 to go

So I thought I would document my travels into trying to complete my collection.  Currently I am at needing 25,576 more magic cards.

Why 25,576?

I am trying to get a playset of all the Core and Expansion sets.  With the exception of Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Legends, and Antiquities; where I am just trying to get 1 of each because I am not a millionaire and I still need to save for my retirement...  :-)  Also, I am not going to start on Starter and Portal Third Age because again I am not loaded, and the only reason I have Portal, Portal Second Age, and Unglued is because those were released when I was playing back then.

Now if you have been following my poor attempts at writing blogs on how I have my collection setup, then you know of my spreadsheets, and how I have everything laid out.  You also know where my LGS are, and some of the things I have purchased.  So now I am just trying to add more of a reason to write, because writing this blog without a purpose is getting dry to me, and I need something to flavor it up.

So here we are 25,576 left.  From deckbox.org I have some more cards coming in.  I found this wonderful couple in East Grand Forks, MN that was willing to trade me bulk rares for sealed product, so I am trying to get some of my loose packs (Not in a sealed booster box) for those rares.  I figure it is a good trade off, where they can get rid of rares they don't need or use, and I can get rid of packs that I dread opening because I dont want to sort them...

I am hoping to get 500+ cards this weekend from trades that I have done this week.  I also received my first purchase from deckbox.org which finished my Fallen Empires and Revised plays sets, so that was pretty exciting.  I also got 2 more cards closer to my Legends set, but the Cleanse was a bit beat up more that I would like, so I will most likely try and trade for a better one later after I complete phase 1.

Phase 1, yeah I should go into the phases that I am trying to complete, so...

Phase 1: Get Playsets for all the Core and Expansion sets
Phase 2: Get all the Duel Decks/From the Vaults/Beginner sets
Phase 3: Trade the not NM/M cards for NM/M cards
Phase 4: 1 Sealed Booster Box of every Core and Expansion set

Of course that will change, and I already got all the FTV sets and I am only missing 1 Duel Deck, but you get my drift.

Oh and I forgot, I think I am only going to get 1 of the reprint sets IE Modern Masters.  I only say 1 because if I am going to try and get the play sets of the originals then there is no need to get a play set of the re-releases.

I am still on the fence with Conspiracy, but I have my pre-order in and I am waiting to see what that is all about.

Commander and Planechase I already have a full set of those as well, with Commander 2013 being the only set that I kept another full set unopened.

Spreadsheet Update - Verification

3. Verification of cards in inventory vs cards in my trade inventory

So I hit an issue with having cards in my collection and then cards in my trading fodder, but my collection was not to the playset count of 4.  This feature enhancement is to validate that the collection count in Column G, if set lower than 4, Column O is empty.  Column O is the sum of Column S and T, which represent cards that are extra in the collection and cards that are in my trading book.

If the collection column has a value of less than 4 and there are no extra cards in the trading fodder it should result in "Good".  But if there is a value in the collection that is less than 4 and there is cards in the trading fodder, then the output would be set to "Fix".  But on the same hand if the collection column is set to 4 and there are cards in the trading fodder column it will also be set to "Good" because the playset would have been filled.

Column G: Has a value
- This is the total number of cards that are left in my collection.  The goal is to have a playset of 4 cards.

Column O: =S2+T2
- This column is used to add the amount of cards in the extra cards, and the amount of cards in the tradebook.

Column S: Has a value
- This column is used to keep track of the extra cards in my collection.

Column T: Has a value
- This column is used to keep track of the number of cards in my tradebook.

Column U: =IF(AND(G2<4,O2>0),"Fix","Good")
- This column is used to verify that Column G is less than 4 and Column O is greater than zero, and if that is true then Column U would be set to "Fix". If those values are not set than Column U is set to "Good".

From the example, you can see that there is a single instance of "Fix" where the collection total is set to 3 and the trading fodder is set to 2.  This means that there are cards in my trading fodder while my collection is still not set to 4.  Once I move a card from my trading fodder to my collection then it will be set to Good.

Spreadsheet Update - Tradebook List

2. Cards that I have in my tradebook

So here is the new spreadsheet again.  Now we are going to be looking at Columns S, T, AC, AD, and AE. I needed to keep track of the cards that were for trade, but also what I was keeping in my tradebook. This also helped when I was using the columns to populate what I put on deckbox.org, but the more I used deckbox the more I wanted to put all the rares I had along with uncommons that were worth more than $1.00.  I still use this for what I keep separate in my trade supply.

Ok, column S listed as "Ex" stands for Extra.  This is the count of the cards that are extra in the collection so therefore considered trading fodder.  But with the problem of bringing every extra card with you to a LGS in hopes to get a trade is a bit much.  That is why we are using column T listed as "Bk" which stands for Book or Tradebook.  This way I can keep track of my trading fodder that is worth being in a tradebook.  If something were to happen and the tradebook was stolen then I would not have to count everything over again to figure out what my inventory is.  I would only have to count what is in my tradebook fodder and not have to count everything over again.

If you now look at AC, AD, and AE.  This will give us the count, name of the card, and price total that is in the tradebook.

Column AC: =IF(T2>0,T2," ")
- This will look to see if there is a count in Column T which is the tradebook count and then populate the Column AC with the same count.

Column AD: =IF(T2>0,F2," ")
- This will look to see if there is a count in Column T which is the tradebook count and then populate the Column AD with the name of the card.

Column AE: =IF(AC2=" "," ",AC2*C2)
- This will look to see if there is a count in Column AC.  If Column AC is blank then Column AE will be blank, or if the Column AC is not blank then the count should be multiplied by the price and totaled.

Cell AE: =SUM(AE2:AE602)
This will get the total of all the prices of all the cards in the tradebook and total them up.  This will show the total price of all the cards in the tradebook for that specific edition.  This will be important on the Total tab to see a complete price total for all the cards in the tradebook.

The only reason I have done this was to split off the more valued trading cards from the extra cards of the collection.  I am using the same formulas as I did in the Card Needed columns where if there is a count I will populate the cells with the information, and if there is not a count I will leave the cell blank.

Spreadsheet Update - Cards Needed

So being away from writing I was not just sitting around doing nothing.  I was still trading and purchasing cards, but in doing so I hit some snags and needed to find out more information in concerns with my collection.

Issues that I hit:
1. Cards that I need for my Evernote listing
2. Cards that I have in my tradebook
3. Verification of cards in inventory vs cards in my trade inventory
4. Number of cards needed by color
5. Number of cards needed by rarity

1. Cards that I need for my Evernote listing
So I am not going to go into detail with how I use Evernote just yet, but I will explain the changes I made to my spreadsheet in order to accomplish what I needed.  So for this I needed to easily copy and paste the cards that I need into something mobile that I carry with me for in person trades.
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Ok so here is the new inventory sheet I have created.  Instead of doing a copy and paste of all the cards and then parsing the data in a notepad, I needed an easy way to populate some cells, do a copy and paste of those rows, sort them, and add them to a list of cards that I needed on Evernote.  So I added some Columns.

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Here is the new spreadsheet.  I am only showing the top rows, but it will be enough for you to understand the new features.  For this section we are going to concentrate on Columns W, X, Y, Z, and AA.

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Here you can see what is being populated.  You will also notice that some of the Rows are empty.  I did this so that once there was a full playset that collected then the data in those cells would be nulled out.

Column W: =IF(G2<4,D2," ")

- This will look at the G2 cell (Card Count in the collection) and see if it is below 4, and if it is then it will populate the cell with what is in cell D2.  If G2 is not less than 4 it will leave the cell blank.

- Column D is filled with the card type (ie: Artifact).

Column X: =IF(G2<4,E2," ")

- This will look at the G2 cell (Card Count in the collection) and see if it is below 4, and if it is then it will populate the cell with what is in cell E2.  If G2 is not less than 4 it will leave the cell blank.

- Column E is filled with the card rarity (ie: R for Rare).

Column Y: =IF(G2<4,F2," ")

- This will look at the G2 cell (Card Count in the collection) and see if it is below 4, and if it is then it will populate the cell with what is in cell F2.  If G2 is not less than 4 it will leave the cell blank.

- Column F is filled with the card name (ie: Altar Golem).

Column Z: =IF((4-G2>0),4-G2," ")

- This will look at the G2 cell (Card Count in the collection) and see if it is below 4, and if it is then it will populate the cell with what is in cell G2.  If G2 is not less than 4 it will leave the cell blank.

- Column G is filled with the card needed count (ie: 3, the number of the specific card for the collection to fulfil the playset needed).

Column AA: =IF(Z2=" "," ",IF(C2="SOON",0,C2*Z2))

- This will look at the Z2 cell and see if the cell is blank, if it is blank it will leave it blank.  If it is not blank then it will do another check, it will check to see if C2 contains "SOON", if it does then it will use a zero, but if it is not "SOON" it will multiply C2 with Z2.

- What this formula does is check to see if there is something in the count column for the needed cards.  If there is something there it will check to see if the price pulled from the TCGPlayer is "SOON", and if it is no that means there is a price set.  It will then multiply the card needed count in Z2 by the price in C2.

You should be able to highlight rows W, X, Y, Z, and AA and drag it down to the bottom of the sheet row populated with cards.  This should configure each of the cells with the formulas so you can see what cards are needed for your playset.

Cell Z1: =SUM(Z2:Z602)

This cell will give a total count of all the cards needed.

Cell AA1: =SUM(AA2:AA602)

This cell will give the total dollar amount needed to fill out the playset.