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.
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