Expansions Complete!

Card Count: 51

Fifty-One.  Fifty-One.  Less than a deck.  Less than a deck of poker cards.

So.  Considering I am so close to the end game here, I am really letting things go with how trades are going through.  I am not really complaining about issues with cards, and I am accepting trades that I normally would not be.  It is really affecting my state of mind, and I am becoming more bothered by it.  I just need to keep looking at that end game number I am sitting at.

I am only bringing this up because I am accepting new trades with new traders, and forcing them to send first.  They are sending me trash, but I am not complaining too much about it, when I completely should.  I am doing "even" trades for cards I should be asking for a little more for.  My drive to end Phase 1 through trades I think might be causing me too much pain, and I should just buy the cards straight up.

The thing is, since it is such fodder I am looking for, there is nothing to say that the seller won't send me trash too.  So now, I am resorting to venting on my blog while I just chug along.

Here we go!

These are listed as NM.  This is why I don't want to do trades with new traders.  This piece of shit card is what the trader thinks as NM.  I know, I should just give them a bad score, and in reality the card is not worth that much, but you just have to love how shitty people can be.

These were the standard cards I got with the trade as well.

Here is a fodder card I decided to pick up with the trade

And then these other Commander cards that would fill out the playsets for first prints.

The trader decided it was a good idea to send me this card, I assume to make up for the shit Commander card, but if you look close enough, you almost see the big fucking teeth marks in the top left corner.  Let's just say I won't be trading with this Deckbox person, ever, again.

This was another trade that came in from Deckbox.  Here are the cards that are going toward the Card Count.

And this beauty came in too to Card Count Phase 2!  I just get happy to get Starter 1999 cards.

Then I got this one in!  This is the last Natural Order I needed for the playset.

These card were very appreciated from CardSphere.  All these cards are from Planeswalker decks.  I seriously hate having to get these cards, and it is pretty great that there are folks that want to send me these cards.

This came from another Deckbox trade, and here are the Standard cards that were included with this trade.

 Fodder...

 Phase 2 needs, but yeah nothing special.

And here are the Modern cards.  What was that?  Saviors of Kamigawa?  BOOM!!!  I have all the expansion playsets.  All Expansion playsets.  It is completely insane.  Completely insane!

Ok ok ok.  Little story time here, because it is completely insane that I actually finished gathering a playset for every Magic the Gathering expansion.  So a bit ago, I found out that a co-worker of mine plays Magic.  I was at my LGS and ran into him.  Which is great for me, because now I have a new person to talk to about playing the game.

So today at work, I asked him if he traded because I was looking for some Core set cards to finish up my playsets.  He explained that he did not really trade much anymore, and a lot of his collection was not sorted.

I then mentioned that I have playsets of all the expansions and I was looking for my last core set cards, and he took a long pause.  An awkward long pause.  The look that he gave me was of shock and awe, almost like he thought he mistook what I heard.  He then asked, "Playset, of every expansion?"  At that point I knew how crazy it sounds.

Think about it, from The Dark to Aether Revolt I have a playset of every single card.  Mythic Rares, reprints, rares, everything...  I just can't believe I was able to do it.  Only took me 5 years.

Moving on!

CardSphere Planeswalker deck cards!!!

More CardSphere Planeswalker deck cards!!!

CardSphere Phase 2, and I know I added the Phase 2 cards to CardSphere, but I really needed to considering how much I was not finding on Deckbox.

And a great pick up from a new CardSphere trader!

So yeah, I was pretty happy with all these pick-ups, but it has slowed down again since adding Phase 2 to CardSphere.  I did have to force all the trades on Deckbox, and it is really getting hard to keep trading on that site.

Hope to have more updates for you soon.

Marit Lage!

Card Count: 59

So I had a Deckbox trade that wanted one of my City of Traitors, and I normally don't do trades like that if there are no cards in the card count I would be getting, but I just could not pass this one up.  I will go through the trade when I post the cards.

Here we go!

So I pulled this one from CardSphere.  Good to keep getting cards, and yes, these are the only cards that go toward the card count this post.

Deckbox, still pulling it out!  Needed this standard card and the Starter 1999 card for Phase 2 and Standard.

Fifth Dawn fodder!!

Standard Fodder!!

Fodder fodder!!

You just can't go wrong with Pithing Needles, and I had no idea the dragon was so expensive.  Bla, bla bla bla bla, bla bla, fodder.

Woot, I have not started trying to get the Commander first prints, and these cards are going to that, but I don't know when I am going to start this up.  Pretty sure it is going to just be here and there.

DON'T CARE!!  This is why I did the trade.  This right here.  Foil token!  I know, what is so special about this card?  I can tell you that I have no idea, but it is just awesome to own.

Scary thing that I found out today, my Foil Urza's Legacy Grim Monolith priced out at $1999 today. Fucking $1999!  The bubble is real.  No way is this card worth that price.  Seriously, I am waiting to hear people who know nothing about Magic, start talking about Magic.  There are a lot of people that are going to lose a ton of money.  I am just happy I am as far as I am with the collection, and very happy I started with all the Legacy cards.

Bad Trades

Card Count: 61

One from CardSphere and one from Deckbox.  Just a horrible trade day.  Just horrible!

Ok, so not that bad, 1st world problems...

So not as bad as it could have been but come on.  Let's start out with the Deckbox one.  This guy, he sends the cards with top loaders, but decides that it would be a good idea to use top loaders with sticky tape residue all over without sleeving the cards themselves.  What do you think happened?  Yup, the Mythic rare cards stuck to the top loader.  So the card that was damaged was trading fodder, and it is not ruined, but come on dude.  People need to learn how to ship...

Here we go!

 So you might not be able to see, but the Mechanized Production at the top in the middle has a white mark.  That mark is the top layer of the card being pulled off the card itself.  So yeah, I will be trading that card as damaged.  It is not an expensive card, so I am not too upset, but come on.  Let's all be good traders, not ass hats.

This goes toward the Phase 1 countdown, and really the primary card I was trading for with this ass hat.

Nice little Phase 2 pickup, and the back is all sorts Fucked.  Let's take a look shall we?

As you can see down at the bottom and over off to the right, there is considerable wear.  He had mentioned it before the trade was sent, and now I am regretting accepting the trade.  It was the last one I needed, and I really needed that Rowen more, but oh well.

And yes, Standard crap to fill out the trade for a single Rowen from 6th Edition...  I hate this part of collecting...  Will... Not... Buy... the... Cards...

Then!!!!!

Then!!!!

Fuck me!!!

CardSphere...  Korean Trader, sending me 13 Battle for Zendikar non-full art lands.  Non-Full Art!!!  I was so excited to finally fill out the Battle for Zendikar sets with these stupid fucking basic lands.  I was sooooo happy to see the envelope come in from Korea.  As you can guess by my lovely sarcasm, I open the fucking thing to see that they are full art lands...  I know right, who the fuck would get upset by getting full art lands by mistake?  Yeah I would!

I did not take a picture of them to post as that would just be stupid.  They went into the stacks of full art lands I already own, and I will never use, but I will keep forever because they are fucking full art lands...

So I updated my wishlists and Wants to contain the fucking non-full art lands from Battle from Zendikar again, and I will sit and wait to see if I get them in.

I did get to add this little sex pot though.

Will O Smith.  Getting Giggy Wit It...

Grand Prix Minneapolis 2017

So this is going on, and I enjoy heading up there to visit with the vendors and grab some artist stuff. Last year I went up there to play in side events, but my friend could not make it so I just ended up shopping.  I mainly purchased singles and other higher end cards I was looking for to finish up some decks I was trying to build.

This year, my plan was to pick up some sealed product.  And with trying to pick up said sealed product, I tried to implement the plan of trading away the extra older sealed product for the stuff I have been missing.  So I grabbed my backpack, loaded it up with sealed boosters of Visions, Weatherlight, Portal Second Age, and sealed tournament deck boxes of Mirage and Tempest.

First thing you should always do is check out every vendor.  This gives you a high level of visibility of who is providing what.  You can assume that most vendors have a ton of Standard and Modern staples, and if you are looking for Vintage or Legacy staples you will need to look at inventories and ask more of the vendors.

Since I was going for sealed product, I took a quick glance to see who had what.  Alter Reality Games again came to the GP prepared with pretty much every Modern set with a sealed booster box. There were a few other vendors there that had some sealed product, but there was not much outside of standard sets.

So Alter Reality Games it is!

There is a lot of waiting in line when you need to trade in product, and ARG had a good setup.  There were a couple buyers off to the side where they sit and go through what you have to give you a quote. Once I got to the desk, I let them know what I had and what I was looking to get to see if they were interested.  He agreed to the booster boxes, and passed on the Tournament decks.  This hurt a little bit because I was really hoping to turn that Tempest box into a Lorwyn box.  Anywho, I pulled out all the boxes, and he proceeded to check them out.  A little typing on the computer he came out with some prices.

I ended up getting $730.00 for the three boxes.
Visions: $185
Weatherlight: $225
Portal Second Age: $320

Some of you might be thinking "$730!  That is it!!!  WTF!"

You need to remember that I picked these boxes up back in the 90's when I was working at the Source, and I had a 40% employee discount.  I was pretty much pickup booster boxes at vendor prices.  I think I might have paid $40.00 per box at the time?  If it wasn't that price, it was pretty close to that price.

What did I do with that balance?  Well let me show you!

 This finishes out my block set of booster boxes.

 Back half of this block.

And rounded out this block as well!

I think I could have got more product if I were to pick out less expensive sets, but I really wanted these boxes.  I could have tried for a Future Sight box, but I am planning on buying that one next year after I pay off the Urza's Saga box I got.

I still had the 2 Tournament boxes that I wanted to get rid of, so I went over to the other vendor that had a large amount of sealed product.  I think it was Pink Bunny Games?  But after talking with the vendor we settled on $450 for the Tempest box, and $225 for the Mirage.  Again, I don't care because my cost basis on those were $40 - $60.  With a little haggling and $25 cash I was able to pick up these!

As you recall, I opened up my sealed FTV sets in order to put my Vintage Cube together.  Where is that Cube now?  Yup, no where.  At some point I think I will put one together again.  So I basically have all my FTV opened up, and no more sealed ones.  I am trying to pickup those FTV sets again, so I can have them sealed as well as opened.  What I show as list prices on these, and considering I traded in $100ish, I think I came out ahead on this one.

Issue
So, when I left the convention center I got an e-mail from my purchase /  trade-in with ARG.  The price that they charged was something a bit higher than what I thought we agreed to.  I was very puzzled as to why it was so high, and so I called the number on the receipt.  I ended up talking to one of the guys at the actual event in Minneapolis.

I told him that the price they charged was a bit off, and I just wanted to clear it up.  He went through what was traded in, and what was priced out in their system.  He found out that the cashier did not include the trade-in value that I had, so they had overcharged me.

Many hugs out to ARG for being able to resolve this really quickly.  With their inventory system, they could see that the trade-in value had been inventoried, and they saw the purchase total I was looking to get, and they could find out that there was a mistake that occurred.  No argument, no hassle, just quick resolution to an issue that a customer brought to their attention.  I have to give it to them, great customer service.

I have no problem being charged for the items that I want, and I am willing to pay for anything that I want.  It is just comforting that they feel the same way with how they sell.  Just all in all another great experience with this vendor.  They will keep my business for now.  Let's hope that the refund happens soon.

**Edit Update** They did the refund all is well!

Art
Also at GP Minneapolis I was able to stop off at every artist that was there and picked up some prints and playmats.

Jason Felix

Just had to grab that playmat!

Victor Adame Minguez

Zack Stella

Aaron Miller

Sorry, not Magic the Gathering, but come on.  So damn sexy!  That R2 print is going in the baby's room!

So yeah, I picked up all those playmats, but I did not have anything to keep them in.  I then saw that the Pastimes booth had the tubes for playmats.  Went over there, and they were selling them for $5 each!  That was cheap, so I decided to grab some more Invocations!

Ugh!  Ok, it was a long day, and now I am done writing.  All in all it was a good pickup day.  Put in a huge dent on the sealed booster boxes I need.