A funny thing happened with BCW

Total Trade Count: 206,770
Total Foil Count: 3,742

I have been posting more and more into the Reddit-verse, sharing more and more of my experiences.  And with that sharing I have had some really cool conversations.  Today was no different.

A while back I posted to someone looking to see how some other folks might be storing their collections, so I decided to share a picture of what I do.

Reddit Link

Here is the Picture:

Just for reference, the tall rack is my Modern Collection minus the Standard cards.

There was not a lot of communication on that posting, and I think I was the only one to share anything, but a few days later someone from BCW hit me up and asked if they can share my picture I posted on the BCW site.

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I occasionally buy supplies from BCW.  Since I do a lot of trading, and I send out a lot of cards, I have had to make purchases for shipping supplies.  What better way to get those supplies than go right to the source and buy in bulk!

Shop at BCW!

I used to pick up my BCW supplies at my LGS, but since I needed a large quantity of supplies I had to buy in bulk in order to save a little money.  There was also an issue with my LGS not having enough of what I was looking for, as I can only assume it is rare to have someone come in looking for 50 3 Row 3000 count BCW boxes.

https://www.bcwsupplies.com/super-shoe-storage-box-3000-cards

I am always for buying things at your LGS, I just needed to buy more than what a LGS would normally expect to sell to a customer, so I decided to just go to the source.

In the early days of trying to meet my collection goals I would receive more cards than I do now, so I would get a lot of shipping supplies from those traders.  Now I am in the position where I am mostly sending cards, so I have to make sure I have enough supplies to be able to ship properly.  This includes team bags, top loaders, and penny sleeves, and since I send in such higher numbers I also needed to buy in bulk.

Then there is the storage and organization of my collection, and with my collection being so large, I am constantly looking for better ways to protect that investment.  Not only do I want to try and protect the cards, but I want to be able to find the cards easy and put them away so I can find them again when I need them.

In my previous blog about why I decided to go with BCW storage box:

https://dogonsiereht-mtg.blogspot.com/2014/06/collection-storage.html

In this entry I go through my thought process on why I decided to go with these boxes.  Let me tell you, I am super happy with the choice I made back in 2014.  I am able to organize everything to my liking, and the expansion of my collection has never been easier.  And the taller boxes with wider rows I am able to fit cards stored in top loaders along with all my other cards, so I do not need to keep those cards separate.  They just fit so well into the wire racks, and I have found that the weight of 3 of these boxes full of Magic the Gathering cards is not too much for the boxes to handle.

I have actually expanded using these boxes on my bulk trade cards that I accrue in picking up new sets and collections.

So yeah, this BCW person wrote to me asking if they could share my picture of how I use their product and I was more then excited to allow them to share it.  I just love their products, and buying products from them is very easy to do.  With that, I asked them if they would mind if I blogged about this interaction, just because it is super cool that a vendor thinks what I do is cool!  They offered to share my blog after I wrote it, so if you are reading this from their link, "Welcome to my Blog!"

I guess I am just a fan boy, and think it is neat they took an interest in what I do with their products!

I would also like to add that this is not a sponsored link, or anything like that.  They do not pay me to use their products, and I have been using their products for a very long time (over 20 years).

CardSphere update:

This lovely set came in, and finished out my Guild Kit basic land needs.  CardSphere is just a wonderful tool in getting cards like this in.  It just works so well.

And yet another reason to love CardSphere.  This came in, finished out my Mirrodin block for sealed product, and put me at needing 5 more booster boxes to finish up my Sealed phase of collecting.  Just amazed on what I am able to pick up with this site, and I love it!

Lodestone Coffee and Games Update:

I had an afternoon and wanted to stop up at my FLGS to see what they had.  I am still trying to finish out my Ultimate Masters set, so heading up there to see if they brought anything new in, and it is always a great excuse to stop by.  I was able to snag these, just cause I wanted to have a second playset of this Man-Land card.

I also picked up another one of these.  I just think this is a great card, and I will pick up as many of these as I can.

One thing that people do not advertise about their FLGS are the conversations they have.  The interaction I get to have with the folks up at my FLGS is just great.  I think I spent a good chunk of time just going over how excited we are about Modern Horizons, and all the brews we are planning to make with the new set.  It is just wonderful to have a place to go and talk about the things we love.

Bragging time!

CardSphere just celebrated their 2nd Anniversary and they posted their numbers.  I ended up on their top 20 list of traders that have sent the most cards, and I was second!  That is just insane!  I mean I know I have sent and received a ton of cards when I was on Deckbox.org, but to see that I am on a top 20 list is just cool!

And then I also ended up on the top 20 list for All-Time Senders for the Value of Cards being sent at 6th place!  I do have to credit Woadworks for a lot of it since I was trading with him the most towards the end of 2018, but hot damn!  I am in the top 10!

Come Trade with me on CardSphere!

BCW, CardSphere Top 20 Lists, finishing up my sealed collection!

Just a ton of stuff happened this last week, and very excited to be writing this update!

Modern Horizon and CS Receives

Total Trade Count: 206,966

Total Foil Count: 3,744

So the hype train is coming on strong with another EDH Masters set.  I know, that is what others are calling it but based on the cards that are getting spoiled it does look like a really good set for us EDH players.  The only thing I am not happy about is that most of the cards are first print cards, so I need to try and get a playset.

With that, it also is not a rotating set, so there will not be a lower price point at which I can plan to pick up the left over cards I need after I open my booster box.  I do plan on picking up at least 4 boxes on release, but like Conspiracy and Battlebond this will be a "Print to Demand" set, which only means that if stores run out they will print more to sell to the stores.

What I have seen with these sets is that it does kick off pretty well, but then dies down quite quick.  After the initial rush people move on to the next sets, but luckily WoTC is releasing this set at the right time to keep it moving through the summer.  The only thing we really have to look forward to after this release is Spellbook, Core, and Commander.  With those three releases in the near future it looks like Modern Horizon could have a nice 3 month runway.

Spellbook is just a lower version of From the Vault, and frankly they should have released it closer to the WAR release.  Core 2020 is going to be stale because that is what it is supposed to be, and used just to support the Standard environment.  It should not be a hot seller, but WoTC might make it more important by putting more power in the set, but I doubt they will go back to 2010 cards.  And then Commander is Commander.  That will just sell like it always does, people will speculate on it, and EDH players will pick it up no matter what, but it is nothing special.

This means that Modern Horizon has a better chance than Battlebond, Conspiracy: Take the Crown, and Conspiracy.

Conspiracy: June 2014
Going back to the first Conspiracy it was just a dud release because no one was really sure what this draft specific set was all about.  It was interesting, but not as interesting as Fetch reprints in Khans of Tarkir, so most people just waited for the Khans release.  I can recall my dread thinking that they were going to be releasing a new Conspiracy set every other year following each new Master set release.  Boy was I fucking wrong on the Masters sets.

Conspiracy: Take the Crown: August 2016
June 2016 - Eternal Masters
July 2016 - Eldritch Moon
Aug 2016 - Conspiracy: Take the Crown
Sept 2016 - Kaladesh

This was doomed to fail as a release.

Trailing on the insane release of Wasteland, Mana Crypt, and Force of Will in Eternal Masters there was the hype of finding out that Emrakul is coming back in Eldritch Moon.  Then this new Conspiracy sets hits while we are finding out about Masterpieces in the new steam punk world of Kaladesh.  There is no way in the world this set was going to sell much at all.

Eldritch Moon had the same fate.  I personally feel that Eldritch Moon was a great set, with great value, but considering what it had to compete with I was able to pick up booster boxes at $65 from my LGS because it was not selling at all.

I think there was some small fan fair with the second release of Conspiracy.  I just know that this was one of those products that I just picked up 4 boxes on pre-order, opened up 2 boxes, and left it at that.  This was also one of the sets that I picked up a playset of the first prints and right now I am very happy I did that.  All in all, it was a silent release.

Battlebond: June 2018
So let's really get in-depth on this one.  At the beginning of 2018, it is the 25th Anniversary of Magic the Gathering and to start off the year we are gasping for a breath because of the failed release of Iconic Masters, and we had just been smacked in the face with success of Unstable.  We were all looking forward to GP Las Vegas, and everything looked rosy.  We knew we were going back to Dominaria, a set that Sir Richard Garfield was heavily involved in.

By no means did we really know what we had in store for us until it exploded our minds with the pure genius of the set itself.  Everyone was in the hype that was Dominaria.  It was a magical set that engulfed everyone it was in contact with.  To this day I still think there is hype for this set, and I am pretty sure this set will continue to live as one of the best sets ever made, but that set the tone for the entire year.  It was the year of Dominaria, and that is what happened to Battlebond.

Masters 25 was released soon after, and instead of following in the footsteps of Dominaria and the aura of the 25th Anniversary, the set followed in the shadow of shitty ass Master sets.  Now in reality I do not think that any of the Masters sets are crappy, but with the glory of Dominaria everything else just seemed like crap.  I honestly think Masters 25 was a good Masters set, but as Masters sets go there are only 2 "poor" ones, and this is considered one of them.

Then we get hit with the last Duel Deck, and the thud was pretty quiet.  There was a slight cheer when this product went away, as WoTC just failed to deliver on any value with this product.  But not to worry, they were able to make it worse and came out with the first Global Series dual decks.  Who would have thought that they could not possibly make the duel deck product worse, but they did.

Then the bright light of Commander was supposed to make everything better!  And for some reason it did not pop, folks were still disappointed with the set.  The Loyal cycle was a toilet flush away from a good poop, and there was no real lift in EDH play.  The lack of an EDH chase card was a problem, and the commanders were considered less than stellar.  Commander Anthology did come with some excitement, but it was quick lived.  It sold out pretty quick and pretty much everyone picked up the product.

Spellbook: Jace was just a huge disappointment only from the fact that they lost a chance to really excite people about this product.  They could have used some really great Jace based cards to really insure this first release product would make an impact, but instead WoTC decided to just dull us with the cards in the set.  From the Vault it was not, and they sure wanted to make sure they increase the value of those FTV sets with the poor replacement product.

Core 2019 is released and Core sets are back.........  I for one was super happy they brought this set back, only to say that there is a product I do not need to go out and buy a lot of.  It is pretty sad when I hope they release crap products because then I can just spend a little bit of money on.  This product needs to be there, but in no sense did this make an impact on the value of product being released in 2018.  It is one of those products I can try and pick up slowly.

Nuzzed in there was the release of Battlebond.  Another set that was considered Commander Masters, with a wicked good land cycle.  Some first print cards that really looked good, but the big call up was the reprints that were sorely needed for EDH.  Marketed as a 2 Headed Giant sealed set, it was not sought after at all.  Just another dud for the years of duds.  No one cared about this product.

Except for me!
https://dogonsiereht-mtg.blogspot.com/2018/06/and-then-there-are-weekends-like-these.html

Not that I went into great detail of what I thought of the set, but I did point out what I really wanted with this set, and reasons why I went and picked up more than I normally pick up.  Right now I am sitting on 8 extra booster boxes of this set and I plan on holding them for quite some time.

But as you can see, I am trying to point out the feel of 2018, and that Dominaria pretty much ruled the entire year, and that Battlebond got caught up in the hype cycle that I still feel to this day.  Dominaria had such a positive effect on the MTG community, it was hard to let go.  Everything that followed it was just fodder to those feels.

Even now in 2019, I get the feeling that come fall time, there will be a nostalgic feeling for what Dominaria did.  It brought in new players to feel what the old MTG players used to feel.  It brought the feels to the older players, back to the day on how it once was.  And it forced players that left, to come back just to catch a glimmer of what they fell in love with so long ago.

Modern Horizon
Enter this set and there are a lot of things going for this set.  Most first print cards, with some juicy adds to the Modern Meta with older reprints, a very good land cycle, and the return of Slivers!  Not only with the long runway with only this product being in the hype cycle, it could sell a lot of packs and not get over shadowed with more releases.

Now you could say that what I am writing is opposite of what I am saying will happen, and the success for the set will not really be the success for MTG collectors.  With a good runway like it has, more people will be interested in this set, and will have the opportunity to pick up some packs, while in the other 3 sets I mentioned did not get the runway and folks just seemed to forget about them.  In turn, that is what is driving the value up because of scarcity.

This is all true, but what I am saying is that Modern Horizon will be a hit because of this runway.  It will not be a hidden gem, but a successful release of a new MTG product.  Does that mean it is less valuable?  I do not think so.  It just means more people will have the product in hand, and therefore there will be other opportunities to make collecting this product easier.  I am saying that the timing of the release of this product will make this a more popular set because players will be able to actually enjoy this product.  WoTC is doing a good job with this product and giving it a nice runway to be able to pick up product and open.

But also with that being said, I do not think it will be like the Conspiracy and Battlebond sets.  Those were lost releases that no one paid attention to.  MH1 will be different, and there will be funds thrown at this product without any other hype taking away from it.  So it might be in between a Masters set and a set like Battlebond, but it will see some play.  Not to mention that it is a Modern product so folks will like it.  And like I mentioned before, it is shaping up to be a good EDH product, so that alone will make it a hit.

Having that higher price tag and only getting 24 packs per booster box makes it feel like a Masters set, but with the print to demand policy we get the Conspiracy feel.  And since it is for a non-rotating Meta we could be seeing this set for quite some time, and with nothing else in the hopper for a while we could see a lot of this set in the marketplace.

Honestly my plan is to sit on the sealed product I will grab on release, and only open the single Booster Box.  I could pick up more sealed product later on if I find a lot of joy in the set, but for now I am making very slow moves with this set.  I am looking forward to the singles market 60 days after release, and hope to finish up my playsets pretty quick.  Then I expect after two years the sealed prices to increase when the supply dries up, and the singles will start to go up even further after four years.

The demand is higher so you cannot think of this set like the other non-rotating sets, but you cannot think of this product like a limited supply Masters set.  The value exists in the set, and there is some good Hype for it.  In the end, my money is on War of the Spark but Modern Horizon is something I will pick up and I have no fear of it losing too much value.

Now that is over, let's see what I pulled in!

Ok these are some cards that I was very happy to get in, not for the cards, but for what I did to get them in.  In CardSphere you are able to set the price, and then you can just wait for someone to send you the cards at the price you want.  I added these to my Want list back on release and I set the price to post rotation pricing.  My goal was to sit back and wait to see how accurate I was in my pricing the cards I wanted.  That way, someone could send me the cards earlier than rotation, but I was really trying to force my insight at what I valued the cards at, and then see how accurate I was.  So my pleasure was the fact that it worked!

Two more!  Only two to go and I am done with my Guild Pack basic land sets!

Just finishing up my Player Promos!

This one is interesting just from the fact that USPS does not lose mail.  It just took quite some time, and the sender reached out to me questioning my address.  After some back and forth, it ended up getting returned to him and he sent it out again.  I am not saying they never lose mail, but it happens very rarely.

Back from Vacation

Total Trade Count: 207,243
Total Foil Count: 3,750

Big news!  
The wife is going to be heading to a city wide garage sale tomorrow and there was one seller that was promoting the Magic the Gathering cards for sale.  She will be give me a call, and we can do a Facetime to see if it is worth it for me to put in an offer on what might be there, but considering that I am trying to get rid of all my bulk I doubt I will put in an offer.  Ok, maybe if they had "the stuff" and were selling cheap I will think about it.

I will not be going because it is her Mother's Day gift.  Every year she goes with her sisters and they drink and shop all day long.  So while she does that I will be hanging out with the kiddo, having our own little party.

Update
So yeah, before I left for vacation I tried to get a Mythic Edition: WAR booster box and failed, and my last post I went on a long rant about chasing the chase cards was really destroying my internal soul, so I was no longer buying new products.  Well now that I am rested and thinking straight, I am going to update my statement to I am no longer going to go after the chase cards.

That means I am only going to get the cards I will play with, and since I am not a foil player I am just going to be skipping out on all that crap.  I don't care about Judge promos, or Masterpieces, or Mythic Edition releases.  I might pick up a Mythic Edition booster box after the release, but it will not be a priority.  The only thing I care about are the Standard Sets and my playsets for the collection.

I will be finishing up the Box Topper set, and be done with it.  Now, I might try and pick up the cards that I enjoy like the Judge Promo of Teferi's Protection, but it is no longer a collection goal just like it was never a collection goal to get foil sets of anything, well except that Urza's Legacy set because I was so close at the time.

Stocks!
I love investing.  I have been investing into Stock, Bonds, ETFs, Index Funds, and many other financial vehicles since I could earn a paycheck.  I think I know how to see value in something, and put a little extra cash into it so that I can try and make a profit.  With most of my investing I usually use those gains to increase my positions into that venue, and that just means that I roll those profits right back into my financial investing.

I very rarely take profits from one investment to put it into something else, and what I mean by that is I will not sell a stock to buy a Magic card and in the like I will never sell a Magic card to buy a stock.  This way I can keep each investment in separate buckets and if there is a down turn, it will not effect the other bucket.  For instance, if we hit a lull in the stock market I will not see a down turn in my ability to purchase Magic cards.

I know that some people take their investing profits and invest them into different asset classes, but I am much more of a buy and hold guy.  What does that mean?  Well I have been investing for a very long time, and in those over years I was able to finally figure out how I want to invest.  I would say that this was the most important decision that I made in my investing career.

I tried to do the buy low and sell high, but I always hated waiting around for a stock price to go up so that I could sell.  It just never made any sense to me.  Like every beginning investor, I dabbled in penny stocks for a very short time with buying a small amount in a single stock, and in that short time I lost it all and moved on, never turning back to that waste of time.  I also did the Mutual Fund thing for a bit, but then moved into the way I invest now.

In the mid 2000's I started to think about how wealthy people actually live.  They sure did not work to make salaries to elevate themselves to the lifestyles they had, and a lot of them did not work at all.  How in the world did they make a living to support their lifestyles?  Enter the passive income strategy.  I picked up some books on dividend investing and started to really dig in to how I can make the money I already made, make me more money by doing nothing.

In the simplest terms, I buy shares of stock that pay out a dividend and then I take that dividend to buy more of the stock that just paid that dividend, so my position grows exponentially.  So hopefully by the time I want to retire I have a large amount of stocks that will pay me a dividend for free every year, and instead of buying more stock with those dividends, I will just cash them out and live off that money.

It is a buy and hold strategy, and I really do not need to pay too much attention to the market as long as I get that dividend payment.  I just find a company I really like that pays a dividend, buy some shares and put it into DRIP mode (Dividend ReInvestment Plan).

That is also how I deal with Magic the Gathering cards.  I might do some speculation on cards that I think will go up later on, but that is only so that I can make a profit to buy more cards.  99% of my collecting is to buy and hold, and then watch as my entire collection goes up in price.  I do not worry about the spikes in card value because I already have my playset and I can build my decks out of those cards.  Honestly, I never have to go out and try and pick up cards for a deck while worrying about a price spike.

In most cases, when there is a price spike I will go out and pick up some more of that card because I follow my logic that I use with stocks, "Keep buying your winners".  If you own a stock and it is doing really well then I try and pick up more.  In most cases, a company that is doing really well will do well in the future, so why would I not want to own more.

But really, if I own everything then I get to sit in the back ground and know that I own everything that will be going up or down.

Honestly, the only thing that I keep away from are the newest cards.  Unless I have a Standard deck that I want to play, I will no longer pick up Standard cards while they are in Standard.  There is always an inflated price to those cards while they are Standard legal, and once they rotate out you will see that price drop.  Through the years, I have found that trying to predict what is going to do well in Standard is never a winning battle.  I would really just wait until the card prices drop after rotation and then pick everything up at a much cheaper price.

Just an example, Kaladesh on release was close to $425 per set, that is close to $1300 for a playset.  And right now it is over 6 months since they rotated out and I can pick up a playset of Kaladesh for a little less than $600.  That is a $700 swing that can be avoided if you are just patient.  To me, that means I can get everything I wanted at a hugely discounted rate if I just stay away from Standard, and since I am an EDH player it makes that really easy.

This way I can keep collecting my playsets at a cheaper price to own cost, and I can be involved in the price spikes that usually occur 3 years after the set has rotated out.  There are some sets that keep going down after rotation, but that is only another reason to wait for rotation to occur before you pick up those sets.

It was a bit of a stretch to get there talking about stocks and how I buy Magic cards, but I think I got there.  I hope I can keep merging my investing life with my MTG blog, and explain my experiences with both, and it is worth something to someone.  Maybe my son will be reading this later on in life, and get some value out of it.

This CardSphere trade finally came in.  Not sure why this trader sent me a $0.50 card while paying $0.52 for postage, but I am thankful!

Here is another Guild Kit land and a Player Promo!

I ended up stopping up at my FLGS and picked up my Bundles I pre-ordered.  I am not sure when I am going to open this up, or if I will open it up at all, but we will see.

Ok so I grabbed these because I feel like this will be a good card to pick up.  I think I will be getting some more of these to get 2 playsets, and I might spec on these a bit.

Being an EDH player, I just had to snag these.  I think this will go a lot higher than $4, which is the price I paid for these.  Just being able to Proliferate for 4 and a tap, I just see value on this one.

And I just said fuck it and picked up these lands before rotation occurs.  I know that the price of these lands do go down after rotation, but I just wanted to pick these up now.  The price on these lands always rebounds after rotation, so it is not a loss for me.  It is just not making much of a gain, but since I am just going to be holding these, and I am a land whore, I am good with paying the prices I am paying for them.

Mythic Edition - I am done

Yep, I am calling it. 

I am just going to finish my sets, get the rest of my sealed boxes I am looking for, and leave it at that.  War of the Spark is going to be my last Magic the Gathering set I will be collecting for the foreseeable future.

I do not want to bad mouth Wizards of the Coast, or eBay for their handling of the sale.  I do not want to hit out at content creators that people think are manipulating the market to take advantage of people.  I am just seeing what these hype cycles are doing to me and I am not happy with it.

So let's go over what my experience was like for the War of the Spark: Mythic Edition / eBay sale on May 1st 2019.  I was ready to go at 2:00PM CST and found the listing on eBay.  I was able to get through my order for the 2 boxes just fine.  From there I kept hitting refresh to see how fast the sale would be, and in 5 min everything was gone.  I was a happy camper!

Then about 40 minutes later, I decided to check Twitter to see what was being said, and that is where I started to see the messages about cancelled orders.  In a panic I went to my eBay account and checked the status of my order.  I had yet got the e-mail saying that my order went through, so I was a bit shaky.  There is saw it, in the Cancelled area of my Purchase History, the two boxes from War of the Spark: Mythic Edition were sitting there, cancelled saying I needed to put my order back in.

Of course I then started to hit up Reddit to see what was going on, and of course there was a lot to be said. 

I tried to stay positive, and think that WoTC will fix the issues with the mix up with going back to see what went wrong and ship out at least 1 box to people that got their order cancelled, but the more I was reading, the more I just got sick of it all.

None of this is fun anymore.  I am now keeping up because I feel the need to keep up, and I am not finding any joy from this.  Maybe it is because I no longer have a play group that I can get together with every month.  Maybe it is because I am a new father and find it more pleasing spending time with my family.  Maybe it is from all the change that WoTC is putting us through with nothing good coming out of it.

At the end of the day, I am just sick of keeping up with the hype cycle.  These "special release" products that keep failing are just the straw that broke my back.

In the past, it was fun to build that relationship up with my FLGS and show them support with just buying from them.  Being able to count on the FLGS to get me the product I was looking for, and building a better relationship with going into their store to talk about the things we have in common.  And now, I am just saving up my money to buy the next more expensive product, and the supplier is just releasing more and more expensive products.  If it is not FTV it is SDCC sets, if it is not SDCC sets it is Masters sets.  If it is not the Masters sets it is Mythic Edition series, if it is not Mythic Edition series it will just be another product.

All I am doing is chasing the chase products, and that reminds me of the 90's and sports cards.

So I am done.

I am not saying that I am going to sell my collection, and I am not saying that I am done buying Magic the Gathering products, but I am saying that I am no longer going to buy any new products.

I am just tired of what is going on with what is being sold to us, and Magic the Gathering is no longer the game I am playing.  I am playing the Hasbro game of how much can they suck out of me with all this stuff that is being released.

I am just going to concentrate on the sets that I currently have, and finish those booster boxes I need along with the Fat Packs.  Then I will just wait to see what my son decides to like.  If he does like the game, then I will think about getting back into it with him, but for now I am done playing this chase game.

I will be still trying to get rid of all my extra cards, and I will still be playing when I can, and at some point I might start buying again, but from what I am seeing I just want to stop putting effort into collecting this card game and be happy with what I have.  If I do get back into collecting, then at least I just need the newer cards.  So for now I am just done putting my money on new product.

I might end up selling my collection and focus on other hobbies, we will see.