Speculation + 4 to the Countdown!

Countdown: 1612

Traded a LP Demonic Tutor from Revised for these beauties!

These were all good pickups because all of them were above $1 and have a chance to go higher. Normally I find it harder to find people trading away fodder less than $1 because no one wants to clutter up their tradelist with those types of cards, so these cards are readily available, but it is still good to be able to pick stuff up like this in these types of trades.

I consider these types of trades the benefit of using Deckbox.org because people might fill up their tradelists with these types of cards, but trade binders at LGS are not filled with these cards, and they are hard to find with in person trades.

Here is another card I am speculating on, and this is a second copy I have grabbed.  Let's see where it goes.

Traded for a Dissension Card, 1677 left

Deckbox comes through again with another Rare for Dissension.  This card came with a wonderful price, and leads me to think that Deckbox is getting some more new traders.  I was able to pick this card up for some Standard cards, 4 Elder-Deep Fiends and 1 Stasis Snare.

You normally know it is newer traders because they trade for Standard cards, or maybe they are big on trading and they just want the Standard cards?  I am only saying this because there is such a huge drop when the Standard cards go out of rotation, so trading a value card for Standard cards is not the norm for the power collectors.  Those traders usually wait until after rotation, or trade away fodder for the Standard cards.

Anyway, this was a nice pickup for the price.

I call it supporting my LGS, others just think I am crazy

Yeah, I know.  But really I always want to buy these from my LGS if I can.  It helps them stay open, and makes them profitable.  Some would say, "You just bought 2 of them from the other LGS!"  And to that I say "Good Day Sir!"

But in reality, this was all the Masterpieces that they opened on their set release opening, so I really expect it to slow way down from here on out.

Still have no idea if I can keep up with all these Masterpiece cards, but we will see.

Alpha my Origins for the Investments in Jan!

Alpha Investments Patreon deal for Jan 2017 was Magic Origins for $79.99!

So yeah, I am a Patreon for this guy, mainly to just support him, but from time to time he has some merch that I am very interested in getting.  This month was Magic Origins!  This totally was up my alley as to what I have been trying to grab because I really enjoy the set.  There are so many useful cards in the set, and I am not talking about the high priced cards.  It is just chalked up full of cards for decks that the casual player would love.

Maybe it is just me, but really the value in this set is just never ending.  I have said before in previous trade blogs, I am really picking up any Origins cards to even out any trade.

So yeah, picked up a case of these.

There is a bit of buyer's remorse on this one, since I put the order in before I heard about having a baby, but hey how many diapers will we really need?

Couple of Trades! 1678 is the number...

First trade to talk about was a first time trader.  Five of the cards will go to the countdown, but one was a mistake and I did not need it.  Still working on evening out the wishlist on Deckbox and what I have documented in my spreadsheet and Notes.  The card in question was the Seize the Soul from Guildpact.

So the condition was not perfect, but I traded away a lot of bulk so I can't complain.  For a first time trader I don't think I will trade with him again unless it weighed heavily in my favor.

******

Next trade that I got to come in was filled with countdown cards and some speculation.  Lets hit up those first.

Some Shadowmoor additions, still need a bunch from this set, so everything helps.

Lovely Tenth Edition!  I need the most of this set, so I just love it when I can grab anything from this set.

Guildpact is a good grab.  All uncommons, and it is hard to believe I still need these.

Some Kamigawa and one Ravnica card.  I think next time I will keep the pictures combined with the block.  Just looks better.  But again, just some countdown cards I really needed.

Ugh, more Core sets and one first print from Conspiracy: Take the Crown.  Remember I am trying to get a playset of the first print cards outside of the expansion sets.  I really think the Core sets will be the end of me.

Here comes the fodder!  So yeah, I have really just started picking up more and more fodder with these trades.  I just hope some of these cards will start to pop in the next 5 years, and I can see a return from them.

And here is the final fodder cards.  This picture pretty much sucks, and I really need to get a better setup for pictures with better light.  One thing I want to point out here, you should be seeing more Magic Origins cards in my trades.  I have a funny feeling about this set, and I really like a lot of the cards that is contained in the set.  They are good utility cards for almost any set, and I see a lot of good value for EDH in these cards.

One LGS close, another one Opens

So yeah, here in Minneapolis a bunch of hobby stores closed called Air Traffic Kites and Games, but someone bought out the store near my house and re-opened it as the same type of store but gave it a new name. Grey Duck Games was born.  I had bought a bunch of stuff while they were doing their fire sales, so I decided to stop in and see how things were going.  While there, I saw they had these beauties.

So of course I had to pick them up.  Got them close to list, but have to throw some support to the new store.  I am hoping to make it down there for an FNM sometime.

I will be doing a Store review sometime soon for this store.

Aether Revolt in and Inventoried

New set, new number: 1705

Aether Revolt came out on Friday and I again picked up my pre-order.  Same order was done, but as we have been talking about, with the new baby I am not sure I am going to be able to keep up with the amount I have been buying.  We will wait and see how it goes.

I was able to pick up 3 Pre-Release decks along with my order, so that was an added little bonus with this set.  Normally I don't get any pre-release decks because I don't play in pre-release.

So here is what all the glory looks like!

That is the standard order of 10 Booster boxes, 4 Bundles, and this time 3 Pre-Release packs.

Now, I still do the standard openings of 8 Booster boxes, and 3 Bundles, but I did open all 3 Pre-Release packs.  I don't think I will buy the Pre-Release packs again and really only got the bug to get them because my friend picked one up and got an Invention out of it, so I thought they might have had a better chance to get an Invention.  FAIL!

I was able to get a couple of Inventions with this opening.

Not great, but not terrible.  I really like the Black Vise, just cause I am a 90's player and love those old cards.

Here are all the Foil cards, the thing to point out here is I did get Planar Bridge and Paradox Engine in Foil!  I also did pull a Foil Fatal Push, which was a great bonus!

Here are all the Mythic Rares.  Aetherwind Basker and Lightning Runner were my only trade bait I got out of this opening, and I only need 3 Mythic Rares to get my play sets.  As openings go, this was a very good one.  Only 2 extra's and only needing 3 to complete the sets was great!

I would like to add that I did get 4 Mythics in the first Bundle I opened.  I had to triple check everything because I was in a bit of a shock that happened.

These are the good pulled cards from the Pre-Release packs I got.  The Torrential Gearhulk was a great pull, and I am keeping an eye out for any of these I can get.  I needed the Angel for the collection, and just threw the foil in there, but I still hate them.  I really think that Torrential Gearhulk is going to be like Snapcaster Mage.  There is a high casting cost, but that Instant for free in the graveyard is priceless.

And all the Commons/Uncommons fit nicely into a 3200 count BCW.

Now I did a little test with this opening.  Considering the other posts I had about the new baby, I wanted to know how much I would actually get from just opening 4 Boosters and 3 Bundles.  From list prices, it showed I was still going to need around $266 just to get the cards that I was missing. This did not include the Planeswalker deck cards that I need, and it is all based on release weekend prices.  Considering that, I would be able to pick up what I needed after rotation for less than $100, and that is a complete guess.  With those numbers I am hoping my plan works.

Now with the new plan, I am looking at just getting cards that I need and try and cut out the bulk.  I am going to be missing out of trading fodder that I currently get.  Currently I am seeing $282 worth of trading fodder.  If I were to only open 4 boxes, I would be missing all that extra inventory.  I know I brought up the fact that I am almost done with my collecting, and I would not need the fodder in the future, but I wanted to go through it here.

4 Booster Boxes: $360
Trading Fodder: $282
Missing Cards: $266

(282 + 266) - 360 = $188

So what the hell do I mean with all these numbers?

- Trading fodder is what I pulled from the 4 extra boxes.
- Missing Cards are the list release weekend prices for the cards I would need to buy when only opening 4 booster boxes.
- Booster boxes is the cost I would need to spend on pre-order.

You can say I am trying to talk myself into ditching the new plan, and sticking with the old plan.

So with the extra $360 dollars I spent with my order, and opening 4 more boxes of boosters, I saved myself from having to spend $266 on cards I still need and I also got $282 of cards that I can trade away at a future date.  You can see my math is really theoretical here.  I am taking release weekend prices of the cards that I got for trade bait, and adding the cost of what I would have had to spend at release weekend prices to get my play sets, then taking out the $360 worth of booster boxes I could have got, and I end up with an extra $188.  So really, that means I would be $188 in the green basing it all on release weekend pricing.

Now, if you look at the $282 of the small set and compare it to the other trading fodder that I have from older sets and compare them, we can see what that equates to after time.

Aether Revolt: $273 / 135
Eldritch Moon: $120 / 106
Oath of the Gatewatch: $45 / 53
Fate Reforged: $35 / 83
Born of the Gods: $45 / 123
Dragon Maze: $56 / 61
Dark Ascension: $19 / 40
New Phyrexia: $244 / 61

Aether, Eldritch, and Oath are still in Standard.  I also opened the same amount in all those sets, but you can see that I have been pretty active with Oath of the Gatewatch in trading.  But considering that those sets are still in Standard the pricing pushes this picture into the nice category, which in reality it shouldn't be so rosey.

There is a fairly large drop off with Fate, Born, and Dragon.  And in seeing those numbers it does almost seem better to buy low amounts of sealed product, fill out what I am looking for when rotation comes, and then pick up trading fodder here and there that will pull in what I need rather than hope for pops in value.  The steep decline in price / inventory is what is shocking.  After rotation the value of those cards goes to nothing and now you are playing the long game, hoping that there is a spike in value with some deck in the future.

I know I have Dark Ascension and New Phyrexia in there, but those sets were outside of my plan of buying sealed product, and those pre-orders were not nearly the amount that I have been doing, and plan to move away from.  The low price of Dark Ascension shows how much of speculation I have not done with that set because there is a lack of value, and New Phyrexia shows that I did a lot more speculation with those cards because I saw value.

Example: Surgical Extraction
- I purchased 20 of those single rares for around $1.50 each on a large eBay order.
- My perception of the card was that it had massive growth value within the game because of the Phyrexian mana cost at Instant speeds to do a wonderful ability for Black.
- I considered this a Black standard in any Modern / Legacy deck.

This was only 1 of my speculations that actually hit, and I am waiting for some others to come true, but just like the stock market, you have some winners and losers.

Looking at this and seeing the prices that are there for the cards that I have, it is almost glaring to keep spending less on cracking packs and then just buy what I need.  Then purchase cards for trade bait straight up, and not crack packs for it.

I do understand that I could be showing the leftover cards from a set because I traded all the good trade bait away, and that is why the numbers are so low on the card count.  But that still does not justify the overspend to get bulk that might not appreciate in value, and the extra spend on bulk.

This is even more fuel to just buy 6 boxes, open 4 of them for the commons / uncommons and what rares I can get, and then fill everything else out with trades or buys after rotation.  Considering I like to pick and choose what to buy during standard, it does make more sense to stick with the plan and see how it goes.  If anything I might just open 2 boxes play pauper and buy what I need for EDH.

I am also not against picking up the Bundle pack here and there to get some trading fodder and to open packs, but I am hoping that this will open up some more budget to get things that I want to keep for the long term while saving up to finish up the playsets after rotation.

Apple Notes removed Evernote

So Evernote started to charge money for using the app, this all came in the wake of Apple releasing more features in their Notes application.  I would have stayed with Evernote if they kept it free, but there was no way I was going to pay for the application if Apple had something I could use for free.

So let's take a look at what I think is a better Notes application.

So you can see that the application looks a lot like Evernote.  You can have your notebooks off to the left, and keep all your notes separate.  This again allows me to keep a note for every set that I still need cards, and I can add what ever I want to the note itself.

This information is all kept in iCloud and so like with Evernote, you can keep these notes on multple devices.  The image above is what it looks like from my Computer

Here is what it looks like from my iPad.  You can see the comparison to Evernote is very close, and since it is an Apple app, I tend to think it is more secure.  Well, that is if I keep my iCloud password secure.

It looks identical on my iPhone, just smaller.

My wife and I also use this app to share notes between each other.  She does most of the shopping since I am more willing to impulse buy then she, and I tend to spend more money.  I will update the list we share with what ever I need, and she just needs to check that list when she is shopping for us.

What you need to do is create another gMail account that will be for the both of you, then on your Apple device you create an internet account with that gMail username and password.  Sync the Notes feature and boom!  Since you can add multiple internet accounts to your single Apple device, you can have this new account be a shared account just for notes.  Then you do the same thing to your significant other and you are sharing notes with them.

I would love to be able to share my MTG notes with her, but I don't think she would ever buy me a Magic card, ever.

1664 Did a LGS Buy before I picked up my Aether Revolt

Normally I go through my LGS's website before I head up there, and grab what I can that is needed. This all contains bulk stuff that I am looking for, and it is normally in LP to NM condition.  Today when I picked up my Aether Revolt order I picked up some Ravnica block cards, and tried to take a dent out of my 10th Edition needs.

Found some good stuff, and got the count number down to 1664.  The best part of it was while I waited for them to put my order together I searched through their basic lands.  Picked up a bunch of Starter 1999 lands, 8th, 9th, 10th, Champions of Kamigawa, Ravnica, and Lorwyn lands.  When I was going through the checkout, the owner gave me the lands for free!

I was at shock, but considering how much I spend up there, it was a pleasant surprise.  Man I love the Mead Hall!

No pictures on this one either, there were just too many cards.

I hope to have my Aether Revolt openings up in the next couple of days with Pictures!

1850 With a medium trade, only decreasing by 1

I got in 18 cards in, but only the 8th Edition Evacuation is going toward the countdown.  Why would I do a trade like this?  Because the trader wanted a bunch of Portal Second Age to complete his set.  I will always try and do a trade with a collector, just because I know how important it is to find someone with a bunch of cards you need, and to get a trade done.  Also, I find it beneficial to make good trades with other collectors, just for the chance they might get cards that I need, and it just makes it easier to trade with collectors than players.

The trade was a little bit to the advantage of the other trader in this case, because he was looking for mostly common and uncommon cards, while I got most rares and >$1 cards.  Since the cards I received were considered better, I try and cut them a deal since they are clearing out my common / uncommon cards.

Most of the stuff I grabbed were speculations, and I am really grabbing a lot of Magic Origins rares because they are so useful when building casual decks.  I did extend myself in grabbing some Kaladesh cards, but with the introduction of Energy I thought what I grabbed could be a winner if they keep up with Energy within the game.  I would say the big pickup was the Sword of Feast or Famine was the big winner, and forced me to give him a pretty big discount.  Even if they reprint the card again, I still see those swords as winners.

1851 Forgot the pictures

Got in a nice trade yesterday that brought the count down to 1851.  I normally take pictures and post them on here, but I completely forgot to do that piece.

When I take in an order, I have to pull the cards and verify them with the Deckbox trade.  Then I have to validate them to my Notes to keep up with those lists I carry around with me on my phone.  Then I need to add them to the spreadsheets so I can update my inventory.  Once that is done I will perfect fit them all and get them sorted into my pre-sort box.

I normally have a smaller box set aside for all the cards I get in.  That way I don't need to sort everything that comes into the collection right away.  It gets really difficult to have to sort handfuls of cards at a time.  This way I can get a couple hundred sorted into the collection when it gets to that point.

So what happened with this trade is I accepted the cards, verified everything, inventoried and sleeved everything, but by the time I was sorting them into my pre-sort box I remembered that I forgot to take pictures.  With that being said, I am just updating the blog with this post in that I am a little bit closer to my goal.

I was able to pick up 4 Portal Second Age cards, and 3 Starter 1999 cards!

Collecting on a budget

There comes a time in every Magic the Gathering collector where something in life changes the way that you are able to afford your hobby.  For me, that was Friday 13th, January of 2017 when my wife came down to show me this:

With this wonderful yet shocking news comes a whole new outlook on how I need to spend money. My days of just picking up a playset of Eternal Masters: Force of Will's has come to a halt, and I am no longer able to just pick up sealed boxes of what ever I think might be hot in 5 years.  My shotgun approach to collecting has been reworked to account for the increased savings and spending on the next Pro-Tour MTG player (I hope)!

So let's take a look at what I used to buy per year.

Expansion: 10 Booster boxes, 4 Fat packs Pre-order
Master: 8 Booster boxes
Conspiracy: 4 Booster boxes
Commander: 2 sets of 5 decks
Gift Boxes: 2 boxes per release
Duel Decks: 1 deck per release
From the Vault: 1 box but more if I was allowed to pick some more up
Anthology: 1 box
Perfect Fit Sleeves: 2 cases

That was just what I picked up during the year for any new product, and that added up to around $8000.00 per year.  Even with all that, I still spent around $500 on singles to grab the other Rare and Mythic Rare cards I did not get in my packs that I opened, and that did not include all the other stuff I would pick up just because I wanted to hold on to some stuff (Speculate).

Now with all the newly released boxes, I would always keep 2 booster boxes and 1 sealed fat pack for future gains, and I still want to keep up with that.  The plan is to wait at least 5 years for the newly released booster boxes to go up in price, and then be able to trade that box away for an older booster box, or fat pack.  That way I am not spending so much money on the older stuff I am looking for. Thus far, New Phyrexia and Innistrad have been the only real gainers of the bunch.

The new budget looks more like this:

Expansion: 6 Booster boxes, 3 Fat packs Pre-order
Master: 4 Booster boxes
Conspiracy: 4 Booster boxes
Commander: 2 sets of 5 decks
Gift Boxes: 2 boxes per release
Duel Decks: 1 deck per release
From the Vault: 1 box
Anthology: 1 box
Perfect Fit Sleeves: 2 cases

With these changes I am still going to be keeping 2 sealed booster boxes and 1 fat pack of each release, but I am not going to be finishing up the playsets until after the set rotates out, or gets closer to rotating out.  This way I am not going to be paying top dollar for Standard cards.  Considering that I don't play standard much, it should not be an issue.  I might pick up the cards that I want to use for decks I might be playing with, but in reality I will not be spending much to finish playsets.  Now my cost basis per year is going to be closer to $5000.00 a year and I really just need to stay away from the impulse buys that I have been doing over the last 6 years.

Booster / Fat Packs

Here is how I account for a lot of the savings.

I would spend on average $1150.00 per set on sealed product, and that would be for every major release.  I would only open 8 booster boxes, and get around 80% of a large set, and 90% of a small set.  The rest of the cards would be picked up here and there, but still cost me around $200 per set if I didn't wait for rotation.

Jan of 2017 Rare / Mythic Rare playsets
Battle for Zendikar: $425
Oath of the Gatewatch: $402
Shadows over Innistrad: $597
Eldritch Moon: $697
Kaladesh: $854

You can see the price decrease as time goes on until the set rotates out and you can get the real price of the cards.
Khans of Tarkir: $493
Fate Reforged: $226
Dragons of Tarkir: $354

With the exception of Khans of Tarkir, you can see a dramatic decrease in prices, and the only thing keeping Khans up in price are those Fetchlands.

This is where the pickup happens, and this is where I am hoping to save a bunch of money.  The trick is being able to keep putting money away in the budgeted savings account and not splurge on impulse buys.  The plan is to keep putting round $8000 into a savings account, lowering my per set spend and only opening half of what I opened before, and then waiting for rotation to pick up the playsets at that moment.  Also at this time, I hope to have a spend kitty so I can pick up the Modern/Legacy staples on the cheap to do a little speculation.

I look at it like the 6 month wait after an IPO to look and see if I want to invest in a company after the hype.  But instead of 6 months, I need to wait 2 years.

I used to spend $4483.48 on booster boxes and fat packs a year, and that is now going down to $2780.60 a year.  Saving me $1702.88 a year on sealed product, technically putting that savings into an account to spend in 2 years.  Then being able to pick-up the missing Rares and Mythic Rares for less than $1000 (Reference to Khans block) because I already pulled around 432 (12 *36) Rares and Mythic Rares with my packs that.

This is also considering a 3 set block rather than a 2 set block.  When considering a 2 set block, what we can do is pull from the last 2 blocks and grab a big and small set.  Going back to the Theros block and including the Khans block we can come up with this.

Theros: $685 (Theros and Born of the Gods)
Khans: $581 (Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir)

When considering this we have to know that Theros has been out of rotation longer, and there has been a slight uptick on prices because of the trend, but in reality Theros was a shit set, so we are just going to say it is the best guess we can come up with.

Hoping that this planning will happen, we would need to spend $1226.20 to get full playsets of all the Rares and Mythic Rares after rotation.  But with two 2 block sets leaving that would mean I opened 16 booster boxes, and that would be minus 576 (16 *36) cards from that total.  We would hope that the cost of the cards needed would be well below the $1000 mark for finishing up the playsets.

So for this planning we will want to round up the spend for the year after rotation to be $1000, and expect a savings of $702.88 that will stay in the savings account for other purchases.

**Now I know some people are going to say, why don't you just buy 2 sealed boxes to keep around for pre-sale prices, buy full playsets of Common / Uncommon sets for $60 and then save the $515 for the playsets of Rares and Mythic Rares after rotation?  And I can only say that I like to crack packs.  It is fun for me, and this way I am not buying extra bulk just to crack packs that might not bring me any return and I can still afford getting my full playsets.  You also don't get tokens and insert cards if you just buy the singles.  Also, the main reason I enjoyed opening so many packs was to get trading fodder.  Considering that I am almost done with the getting the cards I did not have before, I can be more specific on what I pick up.  Building up my trading folder with more wanted cards rather than hoping something will spike with the shotgun method.

Masters

This is a big one.  I was spending $2067.21 each Masters set, but only collecting 1 full set because they were all reprints.  I had done this for every Masters set except for Modern Masters 2013 because of the availability of the booster boxes.  I am now cutting the cost basis back down to the Modern Masters 2013 pick-up, and setting the spend at $1033.61 and only opening 2 booster boxes.

I increased the spend on this before because I was using all the extra cards for trading fodder, but again since I am getting to the point of having everything I need from the sets I missed, I am comfortable with lowering this cost basis down to just get the full set.  I am not happy, but I am comfortable.

**The extra save on this does not go anywhere, and the spend is not included into the yearly budget.  It is just something I have push down the priority list due to the baby.

Future Spend

So really what I am trying to do with this is to come up with a budget to buy new product and then save for 2 years so I can pick up needed cards on rotation.  This first year's budget will be closer to $9000 in hopes to spend around $5000, and then every year after I will add $8400 with the hopes of only having to spend closer to $800 to pick up the Rares and Mythic Rares once they rotate. Considering the timeline, I should have an extra $3500 this year that will go to a spend in 2019 where I can pick up the block after Kaladesh.

I have already done my buy for Aether Revolt, and it is outside of this new budget because I already did my pre-order before I found out about the pregnancy.

In 2019 when everything should start, I hopefully will have close to $6500 saved up for spending with the hopes that I will only spend closer to $1000 for all my playsets that just rotated out.

With the extra money I am saving, I am hoping to get older sealed boxes that I still need to complete the collection

Masterpieces

The big question is, what the fucking hell am I going to do about the Masterpieces?  I have yet to figure out what I am going to do about this.  I was getting 2 Masterpieces with each set opening and then going out and purchasing the rest I needed.  With this new budget, there really is no room to account for another $4000 spend per block to get all the Masterpieces.  Considering the price drops, I really think I will be waiting for rotation before picking up any of these.  Of course, I think I might put a rule into place with Mead Hall, and check there regularly to see what they get in, and then just buy from there.  This is going to be an ongoing project to find out how I am going to pick these up.

Moving Forward

Considering my 2016 spend, where I spent well above the budgeted numbers proposed here, this change is substantial.  Let's just say I spent over 3X what I have budgeted for moving forward.

I was able to complete a lot of the sets I needed, I bought all the cards I needed that were above $10, and I did splurge on speculations.  I also did a major spend on perfect sleeves, and that accounted for most of the money I did spend.  I have a separate blog about that.

I really feel comfortable with this spend, and I am hoping I can add as the years move forward, but in reality I am pretty happy with having to come up with this new budget.  It makes me set a limit to what I splurge on and puts controls on my spending.  It also gives me a purpose on how I spend, which is something that gets more and more enjoyable the more I think about it.

I got a trade in and the final card from the purchase, 1897!

Finally got all my cards from that purchase, and I finally got a trade I made before Thanksgiving. Let's start with purchase.

Cardstosell
- (2) 9th Edition: Lord of the Undead

Great buy, just wanted to pick up some higher end items I needed before they really spiked.

Now with this next set of cards, the guy I traded with on Deckbox.  The trade got lost in the mail and then he had to get the cards on TCGPlayer.  He then had some school stuff, and I think went on vacation for the holidays.  I guess I am telling this part of the story because I wanted to share that no matter what, trades will go through if they are good traders.  It might take a couple months, but the should always go through.  Most people on Deckbox will always try their best to get trades complete.

The two Champion of Kamigawa cards I needed, but the Dragonmaster was just to even out the trade and I will be using it for trading fodder.

1899 with an incoming trade

I did get a new trade in today, but most of the cards were trading bait and Conspiracy: Take the Crown cards, I really only got 3 cards toward the countdown.

Here are the Conspiracy cards that do not go to the countdown, but I am happy to get these cards.

I picked these up for trade only because I am seeing a lot of good black cards coming through.

These beauties are going to the Countdown.  Two Legacy which is really nice, and one Modern.  Still no idea what I am going to do if Frontiers becomes a thing.  That is a lot of re-sorting.

7 sets are done!

Count: 1902 left!

Another big part of the Pre-Xmas order came in today and these are the sets I just finished up with.

5th Edition
Coldsnap
Darksteel
Fifth Dawn
Magic 2010
Time Spiral
Urza's Legacy Foil

Let's go through the stuff!

Hotsaucegames 
- (1) Urza's Legacy: Beast of Burden (Foil)
- (1) Conspiracy: Take the Crown: Queen Marchesa

Great buy, nothing to say here.

MTG Deals
- (1) 8th Edition: Grave Pact
- (1) 9th Edition: Weathered Wayfarer
- (4) Coldsnap: Juniper Order Ranger
- (1) Coldsnap: Forest (155)
- (1) Coldsnap: Scrying Sheets
- (1) Darksteel: Viridian Zealot
- (1) Darksteel: Well of Lost Dreams
- (2) Fifth Dawn: Beacon of Immortality
- (1) Fifth Dawn: Mephidross Vampire
- (1) Fifth Dawn: Raksha Golden Cub
- (1) Fifth Dawn: Retaliate
- (1) Fifth Dawn: Roar of Reclamation
- (1) Fifth Dawn: Vedalken Orrery
- (1) 5th Edition: Dance of Many
- (2) 5th Edition: Dragon Engine
- (1) 5th Edition: Jokulhaups
- (1) 5th Edition: Magus of the Unseen
- (1) 5th Edition: Necropotence
- (1) 5th Edition: Nether Shadow
- (2) 5th Edition: Sengir Autocrat
- (3) 5th Edition: Seraph
- (2) 5th Edition: The Wretched
- (3) 5th Edition: Titania's Song
- (1) 5th Edition: Truce
- (1) Time Spiral: Kher Keep
- (1) Magic 2010: Jace Beleren
- (1) Urza's Legacy: Thran Weaponry

Great communication, let me know he did not have the foil Beast of Burden, and that is why I picked up the Queen Marchesa.  This buy finished out 5th Edition, Magic 2010, Kher Keep, Urza's Legacy Foil, Coldsnap, Darksteel, and Fifth Dawn.  Really happy I could find all this from a single seller.  I also picked up a couple higher priced items just to get them before the price jumped even more.

Higher priced pick up!

Coldsnap done!

 Darksteel done!

Fifth Dawn done!

5th Edition done

Magic 2010 done!

Time Spiral and Urza's Legacy Foil done!


GTA Gaming
- (2) Tenth Edition: Lord of the Undead

Great buy, just wanted to pick up some higher end items I needed before they really spiked.

Five Eleven Gaming
- (1) 9th Edition: Weathered Wayfarer
- (1) Guildpact: Leyline of the Void

Great buy, again just wanted to pick up some more higher priced items.

1923 Another trade Tenth trash!

Picked up these for some throw away Alliance rares.  Well worth the trade.  I know, commons and uncommons for throw away rares is not worth it, but considering that Tenth is going to be the last set I fill out, I am just happy I can get people to trade me these cards.

Yep, that is it...

1937! Incoming Trade

Deckbox, have to love it!

So I did pull in a trade yesterday.

So really it is only 1 to the collection total and 1 to the Conspiracy collection.  I am not putting sets outside of the core and expansion until I get all the phase 2 collection complete.  Remember Phase 1 were the Legacy cards, Phase 2 are the Modern cards, and then Phase 3 will be the other sets like Un-sets or Portal.  Conspiracy first prints are in that Phase 3 category.