So close!

Sealed Booster Box Count: 14
Total Card Count: 271

That is right, I need 14 more sealed Booster boxes.

6th Edition
7th Edition
8th Edition

Homelands
Urza's Legacy
Urza's Destiny
Mercadian Masques
Nemesis
Prophcy
Planeshift
Fifth Dawn
Saviors of Kamigawa

Portal
Unhinged

I still am looking to maybe get a Starter 1999 Booster box, but I really do not think I will ever find one at a price that I could afford.  I do have a bucket list of boxes, but I am more than likely never going to be able to buy them.

The Dark - $4,000
Legends - $25,000
Antiquities - $50,000
Arabian Nights - $100,000
Portal Three Kingdoms - $25,000

I could maybe at some point get The Dark sealed booster box, but I am not betting on it.  The only thing I have going for me is that I have a sealed booster box of Revised and Alliances, and I could think about hopefully trading into some of the boxes I am looking for.

But the main reason for this entry to the Collection blog is updating what boxes I did get.

This was a delightful pickup closing out the Time Spiral block.  The trade came in from a single trader that was pretty keen on clearing out my balance with some sealed product.  I got this box along with a couple other boxes.

Then I also got this box.  Now I only need that Saviors box to close out the block.  And yes, it is just crazy to think that I am putting these booster boxes into the collection.

Finally, this little beauty.  I know it is only a Tenth Edition booster box, but those core sets are not easy to get.  I just think people considered them throw away sets, so there is just not a lot out there for sealed product.  Strange thing about this box, the shrink wrap had the WoTC symbol covering up the set name.  In most all my other sealed boxes, those WoTC symbols do not cover up the set name.  I should say that I do have a Core 2019 booster box where the WoTC symbols are on the set name.

With all this going on, I was thinking about doing a blog series about what I have seen with all my sealed product.  Looks like there is not a lot out there, and it would be a good reference for other traders.

Now for some more fun.  My second box of Guilds of Ravnica Mythic Edition came in from eBay.  Of course I am keeping this one sealed too, but I was going to open one of them.  Lucky Hasbro sent me another one that I could open.

Sleeved and laid out, here they are.  The only reason I wanted the stupid booster box.  I actually did not even open the extra 16 packs that came with the booster box, and just opened up the Mythic Edition packs for these Masterpiece cards.

As of right now, the prices keep going down and I think in the end it might be cheaper to just buy the singles instead of the booster box to open.  But with any new release of product, it is always smart to at least splurge on the first product, and wait a bit on the second release.

Also, a nice trade came in from Australia!  These stupid fucking Planeswalker deck cards...

So yeah, big things finally happening from the trade of some of my power, and I am getting even closer to the dream of all my sealed product!

It is Sexy Time again!

Yeah!  So back around 2012 I was in possession of a sealed booster box of Future Sight.  I gained possession of said box in North Dakota in a big trade with a LGS up there, and I am pretty sure I was trading Power 9 cards in return for a ton of sealed boxes.  This was also around the time I was getting back into the game and wanted to get playsets of all the cards again.

If you can guess what this guy did, I opened all those sealed boxes to get cards for the collection.  That is right, I traded a ton of older power and reserved list cards for sealed booster boxes.  And if I would have kept those boxes sealed, I could maybe rationalize the trade now, but no.  I went ahead and opened all those sealed booster boxes for commons and uncommons.  Oh yeah, dumb ass.  I do have to say that I did get 1 Tarmogoyf.  One...

I do have to add that I was not planning on getting any sealed product into the collection at that time, and I was just looking for playsets of singles, but hind sight I would not have opened up any of those boxes.  I still think I would have traded for them since that was all extra Reserved List cards, but yeah opening them was a huge mistake.

So yeah!  I was able to get this sealed beauty back into the collection.  I picked it up on eBay, and was using some of my newly added funds from the trades on CardSphere.  Now I just need to figure out a way to trade my Revised Booster box away for a Urza's Legacy, Urza's Destiny, and The Dark booster boxes.  I really don't know how I am going to get those sealed booster boxes, but I do hope owning a Revised booster box will help.

This is the first of three Mythic Edition boxes I am going to be getting in.  I was one of the many unsuccessful customers of the Hasbro online store on the release day, so I ended up going to eBay for my two boxes.  Yes, I am paying the inflated price around $550 per.  It is not a good buy, but the prices are not going to go down.

At first I just bought 1 for the collection that I am going to keep sealed, and I was going to just pick up the singles in the after market.  After a week or so, I saw that it was going to cost me more to pick up the singles then just picking up another box and opening it, so I went to eBay and picked up my second box.

Then about a week ago I got a lovely little e-mail from Hasbro saying they suck and I can pick up 1 box at MSRP if I wanted.  I then told them, "Yes.  Yes I would take them up on their offer."  And that is how I am ending up with 2 sealed boxes in the collection.

I will get pics of those when they came in, but wanted to share this one out of pure joy.

Let's Get Core 2019

Total Current Needs: 279
Core 2019 Needs: 10

It is going toward the end of the year, and it is just before the next Pro Tour cycle, so I figured I would start putting my needs for finishing up the Core 2019 cards.  Part of just not wanting to see the cards I need, and part of just having a decent balance to start pick up cards.

So I uploaded on CardSphere all my needs from the Core 2019 set, and I got a pretty decent response.  Most of the cards I needed were from the fucking 5 planeswalker decks and those damn beginning player weekend decks.  All cards that I just don't need.  I know, I was thinking about just skipping the Planeswalker Decks only cards since there was 5 of those decks, but since I have CardSphere it is just too easy to get the cards.

So I threw up all the cards I need, and this is the response I got!

Starting it off, a trader thankfully sent me these.  Take notice of the Llanowar Elves.  These things shot up to around $18 each on the release of the new set.  Someone on TCGPlayer decided to raise their price to some ungodly target, for some stupid reason.  I was able to snag these around $0.80, a little more than they are worth, but hey why not.

Yes I still need Uncommons from the set itself.

Here are some of those Planeswalker Deck cards.

Yup more stuff.

And even more cards!

These are some cards I need for the set, and I actually got some Mythics.  I am pointing this out because most of the Mythics I have on my Want list are set at some crazy low prices.  What I am trying to do is set the price at which I want to pick up these cards at during rotation.  Right now they are only around 15% of current Standard prices, but I am looking forward to the Rotation pricing.  It is an experiment and hope I do not need to check too much later next year, but lets see how this goes.

And this one is just great timing.  Those Banefires popped right after I posted this, and I got them for a great deal.  There is some deck going around and a ton of people tried to pick up these along with the Phoenix from GRN.  Let's wait to see how that turns out, but the older printings popped higher than the M19 ones.  Just wanted to point out that this was pure luck on my side, there is no skill in picking these up at this time.  FYI - I picked them up for around $2.00 each while they spiked above $4.00.

So really this pickup was to finish out some Core 2019 set needs along with testing out my Wants with after rotation pricing.  Since I am starting to not have a lot of Wants, I am starting to see what I can do to get the chaff for prices I will be willing to pay at anytime, and keeping the long tern pricing in mind as well.

I know there are some CardSphere people that just hate the low bids for cards, and I was one of those traders, but now I kind of know what they might be trying to do.

Oh yeah, and if you are shipping cards out, fucking use top loaders...

The Loathe

Total Cards Needed: 304

I have started to put up my Standard needs up on CardSphere to see what I can get from the site.  So far I just uploaded my Hour of Devastation and Core 2019 needs.  Hour has rotated out, and I only needed one card from that set, so I figured I would give that card a shot.  If I do not get the card I will then head up to the LGS to pick it up.

The Core 2019 does not rotate for a bit, but I thought I would give that one a shot because they released 5 Planeswalker decks instead of 2, so there is a literal ass ton of Planeswalker Deck only cards that I need to get.  I was only going to post those Planeswalker Deck cards, but figured I would go full on with that set mainly because I do not think it was opened a lot, and there seems to be a lot of extra cards just sitting out there.

I got these in from a trader, and he decided to send me the cards without top loaders.  Don't do that...  The cards came in fine, and there was no damage to the cards, but if you do not have the ability to trade correctly then you should keep it to your in-person trades.  It is just common courtesy.

Now, I know these are just cards that fill out my set, and are not really playable, but still.

There was an incident on CardSphere and I find it annoying.  I committed to send on Oct 9th, but then saw a mistake for sending so I pulled the cards I did not want to send back on Oct 11th.  It was my mistake and I should not have said I was going to send them.  He then writes to me and says something to the effect that I need to send what I had ASAP.  That really pissed me off.  What else am I going to do?  Just hold cards so that I would not send the cards?  Captain Obvious was just upset that I cancelled a couple cards and wanted to say something.

Those types of comments make me upset, and I hate getting upset when I am trading so I cancelled the whole trade and blocked him.  I also let him know that he was being pushy and that is why I cancelled the trade with a block.

That seemed to piss him off because this is what he wrote back:

"You must ship Items within 3 business days following the moment you initiated a Trade. Failure to do so may result in disputed Trades.- Your obligations as a sender. I understand after reading your personal overview that you only process on weekends, I am not compelled to read the background of every person that "commits". We have quite a number of people committing everyday. I take note once someone goes three days without shipping and that's why you were contacted. You refer to it as pushy, I consider it a failure to follow the terms and conditions set up by Cardsphere. I thank you for blocking me as it will save me valuable time, dealing with someone who fails to abide by the terms and conditions. Have a happy day [Trader]."

This in it's self is just weird to say to me since I still had a full day to get his cards out, and him pointing out the fact did not really prove anything.  CardSphere also sends a notification to the sender that they are past the 3 day period so that they know they are beyond allotted time to send.  So for him to spend the time to write all this out is just funny.

This is also why I just block people that make me upset when trading.  There is no talking to them, or trying to work something out, they just want to go off and ruin the trading experience because they are upset all the time.  It is just card board, and we are all trying to enjoy our hobby.  All you really have to do is have a good time, and treat people nicely.  That is it, and people like this will only bring you down.

My response: "I think you just proved my point. Good luck on the site."

Oops I did it again...

I don't like Brittney Spears that much, but I am a child of the 90's so that is the title for ya...

I know!  I was not supposed to buy Guilds of Ravnica singles until rotation!

Just buy sealed boxes or cards that have rotated out and wait the two years for rotation to finish up sets!

Well go fuck youself!  I did it, and I am not ashamed at all!  Ok, a little bit, but they were really good deals.

So I had a day off, and I was heading up to Best Buy to pick up a new Apple watch so I decided to stop in at the LGS near the house, and low and behold they had some GRN singles setup with some really not up to date pricing.  Because earlier that morning I was doing what I do while pooping, and I was on MTGStocks.com noticing that some of the GRN cards were spiking, Experimental Frenzy was one of them. 

"Well, well, well.  Looks like someone found a Red Deck Wins in Standard."

The LGS had set the prices to pre-release pricing, and had not updated them since that morning!  Score one to the informed!  Well actually score three!  The price they had set on these Frenzy's was at $2 each while the spike showed them to go up to $6, so I picked them up and now I am waiting to see what may come out of the first Pro Tour with the new Standard. 

I am hoping there is some deck that everyone wants to play and I can trade them in on CS for a nice little profit.  But longer term, I can see that it might be a Modern card that people will build around, and if that is the case I might be in for a larger win fall.  You could see a RW Miracles deck in the making in Modern.

So yeah, I did it.  I bought some Standard cards when I said I would not.  I did it!  I am guilty, but really that is the goal of the new budget and spending.  Being able to pick up these buys in the LGS when I see them.  It will help out the LGS in sales, and help me in being able to profit off of their lack of diligence.  Ok it helps me out more, but early bird and all, so I do not feel bad.

I might also send up another blog soon about how I am lowering my per-order limits again.  I am just really tired of all the bulk, so I am going to buy sealed product but I am going to be opening less of it and plan on picking up cards at the LGS more and more.  I am even going to be putting more money into CS to see what I can pick up on that site.

Really, it comes down to the price of playsets vs the price or cracking packs.  I do no help to the LGS in buying sealed product from them on Pre-order when I can really hit their profit lines with just picking up singles.  That way most of my money goes to the LGS instead or WoTC.

USPS Scare

Yeah so I get this from a CS trade, but it had been a while since the trader sent the package.  I sent him a message to see if he had tracking on the package because it has not come into my PO Box.  Worried, he sent me the tracking and it looks like it was delivered over 10 days ago!

I go into panic mode!  Not that I was too worried about not getting the box, or being out the cash, but mainly I am scared about the drama that something like this could cause.  There is always the fear that a higher priced item gets lost in the mail, and people think of you as a scammer.  It could cause issues for you and future trades.

I really just did not want to be sitting under a cloud of a package that might not have been delivered, and have someone having doubts for my honesty.

I ended up calling up USPS and opened a ticket to see where my tracking number was.  They just said they were going to call up the post office to see if they knew what happened, and it was at that point I just said I would go up there myself.  There I found my favorite grumpy postal worker, and he found my package pretty quick.  A slight banter back and forth, and I was on my way home to take this lovely picture!

1995, that was the last time I saw one of these boxes, and the feels did come rushing back.

Then...

I was at the Post Office so I might as well check the PO Box, and bam!  An Unlimited Mana Vault.

And then...

OoooooOOooooOOOOOooooo my favorite card!  I know I am hated for having Stasis as my favorite card, but I really had some fun back in the day with this card.  I am a Control player at heart, and this is a pure joy to look at.  I love the card, I love the art, and I am really happy to add this to my collection.

Picked up a couple cards that will be going toward the Unlimited set and now I am 20 cards away from that full set!  How crazy would that be to have a full Unlimited set.

Guilds of Ravnica

So I opened my pre-order and once again I am posting my results.

I picked up 6 booster boxes and 2 bundles, but I have yet to come into possession of the bundles.  I only opened up 4 of the 6 boxes keeping one of them for the collection, and I will try and trade the other one later on.

How did I do?

Cards Needed: 153
Amount Needed as of 9/30/2018: $528.45

42 Mythic Rares
86 Rares
1 Uncommon
25 Basic Lands

And again, I am saying that I will not pick up the cards I need to fill out my playsets until the cards rotate out, and I hope I can keep it that way, but we will see.  I only got 2 Assassin Trophies, so I think I will be picking up at least 2 more for my playset.

I am also interested to see what will happen with these.  They are priced above $10 right now, so lets just see if they hold that price.

I am not sure if I am going to crack my Bundle packs or just keep them around.