What to do, what to do...

Total Card Count: 148

Someone from CardSphere asked to see a picture of my sealed collection, so I thought I would post it here too.  Not sure what type of interest there is to seeing my collection, but here we are.  Let me know if more would like to see what my collection looks like.

This is only my sealed collection, and it is missing the Commander decks I have on another shelf.  I also am not sharing my sealed stuff that I use for trading and drafting.

Went up to Lodestone to finally pick up my Global Series deck set.  I did only pick up 1 of these, because I am treating them like Duel Decks and picking up 1 of each.

I also grabbed a bunch of stuff for Dominaria, but I inventoried them before I could take pictures, but you can see that the card count is lower than previously posted.

I did get my second Teferi and Arena Rector for the collection.  In addition, I picked up another playset of Mox Ambers.  Why would I do that?  Because I really like the card.  I think it is a really good Commander card, and I think someone will make a Legacy deck that uses it.  It is one of those cards that I would rather pick up another playset at $11 than $60 later.  I just think it is going to go up in price much further out of rotation.

So yeah, kind of just sitting around waiting for my M19 to get released.  I did pick up another case of Dominaria from Alpha Investments for speculation, and I could grab another one later on in the year.  I really think they are going to trickle the availability of the set and it is not going to have a large print run.  I honestly think we are heading back to Pre-RTR printing levels.  I could be wrong, but I think they are going to sell out of these new sets faster than people think, so I might as well grab them while I can.

I am not sure if I am going to get more of M19 than my pickup for the collection.  I really like the set, but it is a reprint set.  I just do not see the sealed product holding value than expansion sets.  I did grab more Battlebond than normal, but that is cause of the lands.  I also grabbed more Ixalan then I needed, but again because of the land.  M19 is just a cool set and I would rather just invest my cash in the playset and call it a day.

I am still up in the air of the new Ravnica block.  Pretty sure I am just going to get my case and try and get my playset, and do the whole speculation of more sealed product if it plays well.  Dominaria is a no brainer based on home much people love drafting the set.  It is like Innistrad.  People just love that set, so might as well grab some sealed for later on.

So yeah, not a lot of pictures this post.  Off to fix my toilet with my cousin.  Let me know if seeing pictures of my collection is something people want to see.

Where have you been?

Alpha Card Count: 230

So, I have been AFK for a bit.  Multiple reasons, all the same players with work and family, but also it is summer time.  With the new baby, and good weather, comes spending time outside away from my office.  But really, work has been kicking my ass.  There are times when people in my life say the phrase, "This is why you make the big bucks..." it really did hold true within the last 3 weeks.

My company is trying to do work that would take a year to complete, and ram it into 3 months, so everyone at my company is crabby and working long hours.  But the end is at the back end of July, just in time for GP Minneapolis and PT 25 in Minneapolis, so I am not complaining.  I just need to make it though this summer.

I should have a ton of PTO to use up at that time, so I hope to catch up with some more content around then.  So for now, I was able to make it to the Source Comics and Games to browse through their shelves and found this beauty!

That is right!  Alpha common!

I was also able to pick up my pre-order of the new Spellbook product.  I only pre-ordered 2 of the, but the store had a lot more so I asked if I could get 5.  I wanted to have a playset of them along with 1 sealed to keep in the collection.  Luckily they agreed to my wants and I got my 5 packs.

I liked the FTV series a lot more, but considering all the cards they were throwing out there, a refresh of product was a welcome change.  They were just putting out worse and worse products with newer and newer cards.  Not much of a vault feeling.

I have also put in my pre-order for M19 with a case from Lodestone and I will just pick up a couple Bundles when I grab the case.  Again, if I want to get some more sealed to speculate on the set, I will pick them up from Rudy.  But considering these are standard set boxes, I know I can get cases from my LGS for only $10 more, which in the end you all know I do not mind spending money at my LGS to support them.  And considering I give Rudy $20 a month it pretty much evens out with just buying from my LGS.

I still need to pick up my pre-order of the new international series, but I am not in a hurry for that one.  I never liked the Duel Decks either, but just bought them to keep the collection going.

So yeah, lots going on that is not hobby based, but getting a lot done.  I have even slowed way down on my CardSphere trading due to lack of time.  I do hope to pick up on that work once the summer hell is over.  Hope to see more updates in Aug.

And then there are weekends like these...

Total Card Count: 176

So this was a pretty eventful weekend for me.  Stopped off at the PO Box on Thursday like I normally do and I had 2 packages waiting for me.  One to pickup and one in the locker.  To my surprise the sexy shipment came in!

This is the first Kamigawa block booster box I have got in.  Betrayers is no Champions, but I am enjoying the lovely sealed booster box!

Then I filled out all my Lorwyn / Shadowmoor block sealed booster boxes with this one!  I do have to say that I am very happy to have finished with that block.  Those sets are pretty high on my value list, and to get that all locked in really made me happy.  Now if I can just get the Fat Packs!

And this lovely beast.  This one rounds out my Odyssey block and I can move on with the Mercadian and Invasion blocks.  I still do need Urza's Legacy and Destiny, but with the prices where they are at now, I think that goes into the long term goals pile.

So I have been getting most of my sealed product on CardSphere from 1 single trader, and I can only assume that he is getting these boxes from Facebook group and having them send me the boxes directly.  Just because the names on the return labels are all over the place and they are not from stores.  Not that I care, because as I have posted on here before, if I were to pull my cash out to buy the boxes I would be losing 10% for the withdraw fee CS puts on it's traders. 

Also would like to add that I am not against that fee, it is just nice not having to pay it, and having someone go out and find these boxes for me.  I just hope he is making some money on his end!  Love my CS!

Before we move on to the next topic this week, let's reflect on how much we need still for Sealed Booster boxes.

I need 11 more boxes that are pre-Modern, scary ones are the Urza's Legacy and Destiny.
Then I need 7 boxes from the Modern age, top priced box is the Future Sight one.
Unhinged, Portal, and Starter 1999 are some of the supplementary sets I need.
And then I need 7 Core set boxes.  Good thing is I have Revised, bad thing I need 7th Edition.

So that is a total of 28 more sealed booster boxes that I need, and there is no way I am counting any thing pre-Ice Age, just because of cost.  Although I will be looking to pick up Homelands and The Dark if I can, but still the prices on The Dark is a bit crazy right now. 

ABU or AAL are not even on the want list.  Unless I win the lottery, I am not going to get anything sealed from those sets.

Let's move on to Friday and what we picked up that is new!

P R E T T Y excited about this one.  I know, new Commander Anthology, but come on!  More Commander cards I can build decks with?  Fuck yeah!  Of course I bought 2, one to keep sealed and one to open.

Funny thing, when I opened up one of my sets, I got some extra rares from the Red/White deck.  Fiery Confluence was a big winner!

I also should add that I went up to my favorite LGS Lodestone Coffee & Games to pick up my pre-order for the Battlebond set that came out this weekend.  I am keeping this bad boy sealed.

I then stopped at my PO Box again because I did an order for more Battlebond from Rudy at Alpha Investments.  Why they hell did I buy so much this set?  It is a supplementary set that you can't play in Modern or Standard.  Oh but yes, my wee little friend, you can play these cards in Commander, and that is what I love to play.  More importantly I wanted these:

These are dual lands that come into play untapped if you are playing against more than 1 player.  Perfect for Commander.  I see these lands as having a huge runway, and I will be picking up as many of these as I can.

Since this is a really good set for the type of MTG I like to play, it really is not a speculation, but it is admitting to the fact that I want a lot of this set.  This is another reason we stopped buying so much of the Standard sets, so that we can pick up new releases like this.  So yeah you can call it a speculation, just like how we plan to pick up some more Dominaria, but we had to grab this product now because of the limited print run.

And then there were these.  I know I know!  Why the hell am I paying list prices on these Standard cards?  When my Goal is to pick up Standard cards after rotation, why would I pay the highest prices for cards like this? 

Well first, I did it because I see these cards being good in Modern and Legacy as well as in Standard.  So really, I am just picking these up now knowing that my price point is not the highest price point in the long run.  I just wanted to get these cards.  This is not like spending $20 on a Glorybringer, knowing that it will be sub $2 after rotation.

Second, I wanted to support my favorite LGS.  The way an LGS makes the most of it's money is buying singles off people that are looking to cash in at a discounted price, and then selling the cards back to the players.  They do not make much money on sealed product at all.  This way I can get stuff I want, and support the LGS I want to stay in business.  Granted this might have only been $100 profit for the store, but I knowingly went into this with that in though, so it makes me feel better.

And with these pickups I took down the amount I need to finish up Dominaria by $210.00.  That is a significant reduction.

So yeah, this was a pretty big weekend, and I am going to be busy sleeving, sorting, counting and all the stuffs.  Hopefully I will have another update soon with what I pulled from Battlebond!

I made it!

Taking a walk this morning with my wife and son, I took a peek on Twitter to see what all the happenings that were going on.  Low and behold I have a couple of notification.  A couple of small little updates on my account.  A little whisper from the Tweet angle saying, "Hey, there is something here you should look at."

Now, I normally do not really care about those notification because they are usually some BOT following me based on some financial tweet I retweeted, or I liked some funny thing, and those notifications are just something I need to clear out because I see that little bubble with the number on it and I can't just leave it there.

Well well well, fuck me in the goat ass...  I see that @realCardSphere account with the Following bubble next to it.  I had to take a second look because I did not believe what I was seeing.  At first I was like, oh look the CardSphere twitter account, that is nice.  Then I asked myself, "Self - what does that even mean, did I send them a message over night?"  And it slowly crept into my twitter brain that CardSphere decided to follow me on Twitter.

Like /u/trodney thought it was important enough to follow me on the tweets.  Like he thinks I am cool enough to keep up with!  Like he thought that DogonSiereht guy is someone of importance that I NEED to follow him.  Ok ok, he most likely just recognized the userID from CS and figured it was me and though "Heh, why not..."

But fuck you Ted!  I love it!  I was so excited that I tweeted about it!

In all honesty, I am really happy about it.  I was so ecstatic I told my wife, "You know that site that I use to send all those pieces of cardboard that you hate so much?  Well those guys just followed me on Twitter!"  She smiled!  No really, she actually smiled!  (She does not really hate MTG, but she will never play...)

I am not much of a tweeter, and I really do not promote my Blog or anything I do on Twitter, and just use it for news and updates from the things I like (Manchester United!), but to see that the site I spend most of my extra time on decided to follow me was just a treat!

If you have not done so, you should get a Twitter account and start following anything you like.  It is a great tool, especially if you are shopping around for MTG deals.  I cannot tell you how many times I see a local store's tweet about some awesome deal or new product, and then I race down to the store to pick up said item.  It is a great tool for updates and news.  A really specific connection tool.

So yeah, it might not be such a big deal, but to me it was an honor, and I am happy that they thought it was something they wanted to get updates on.  I can only assume they will mute me though, unless they want to get all my retweets on investing and finance.

/hugs Ted!

Unlimited Count: 23

I have to admit, I thought it was fake.  I was really scared about this on coming in, just because it was so well kept.  It is a nice addition to the Unlimited set, and now I am sitting at 23 more for the complete set.  There are only 2 cards that are on the Reserved List, but I am hopeful with CardSphere's help.  I really think I am someone that can take advantage of CS and how it works, since I am a collector I can pay TCGPlayer Mid prices, and people will be more than willing to send at those prices.

I do not have to worry about getting cards at a lower price point, even though I do try.  For things I really want, I will up my pricing to make it worth folks to go out and get the cards for me.

I know I keep repeating myself, but I am using everything that is totally extra to me and sending out those cards to get balance.  That balance is what I am using to get the cards I want.  That to me is just amazing because of the amount of extra cards I have laying around.  I might be paying out $100 for a card, but to me that is like spending $90, just because I can avoid pulling out the cash and getting hit with the 10% withdraw fee.

I am also using the power of the pack with CS.  All the folks on CS have the ability to go out and find the cards at their LGS to send to me.  I have found that there are a lot of LGS's around my house that have no online presence but still have a lot of cards for sale.  CS traders might find cards at their local LGS to fulfill my needs at the same time building up their CS Balance.

Or they might have a trade-in balance with an LGS, and they can pick up the cards at discounted prices to gain balance on CS, so they can get what they are looking for.  You can do Buy-Listing with the larger retailers to maintain a balance with them, and then find someone on CS looking for something, then cash out their trade-in balance to send those times within CS and build up that CS Balance.

Really, I have said it before, and I will say it again, CardSphere is just a great trading floor for the MTG community.  When you are dialed into the CS membership, you are able to see all the best % based items people are looking for, and then go out and find them for those traders.  Those items are usually for the people that are willing to pay more than 100% for an item, that means you are more than likely going to be making money on the deal. 

Most of the sealed product is well above the 100% mark that MSRP was posted on.

So yeah, I know I just posted something, and I was going to hold off on the new Unlimited card for next week, but I thought I would just post again because CardSphere decided to follow me on Twitter. 

Again, help me get my referral badges on CS and click this link and join me on CS!
https://www.cardsphere.com/ref/711/e4031f