MTG thread

Heylel · Aug 18, 2018

That's kinda the problem though and why fakes are even around. Standard is really a pretty cheap hobby compared to just about anything most adults spend their time and disposable income on. Cars, computers, even most casual outdoor activities end up costing more. People like to fuss about rotation costs but that's when things like modern come into the equation. Most people aren't diving in all at once, it's a slow drip over time. The majority of standard staples end up costing less than a Starbucks coffee after the draft craze dies down.

I realize I'm a weirdo with a bunch of dumb expensive shit, but that also means I pretty much just buy cards like a standard player now. For any given legal set release, it costs me maybe $100 to get anything in a set I want, and I usually go ahead and snag things to stay current because it's nice to have for edh and random things end up mattering in other formats later. I probably spend, on average in a year, $40 a month on MTG like that. That might be high for a typical magic player, I don't know. It's definitely not high for hobby expenditures for anyone else I know that does shit like kayak, hike, larp, build PCs etc.

What I'm getting at is I weigh the financial incentive of fakes against the integrity of a hobby I enjoy as being worth more than $40 a month.

ronne · Aug 18, 2018

Chris said:
Anyone know where to get the good enough for sleeves chinese fakes from?

Could be fun to play FNM with a perfect tournament deck without paying the crazy cost.

Can they do the hologram foil thing though? No point doing it for modern FNM since I already have a real deck for that.

Those Teferi pics I posted are from the current get of standard/holostamped fakes, and they are probably good enough to just play random standard events with or whatever?

It seems like there is really only one major supplier or printer or whatever these days, and then a few outlets selling them at various prices from shittily made websites or ali-express.

Most of it comes from here these days:

Magic the Gathering Proxies Card MTG PROXY

ronne · Aug 18, 2018

Heylel said:
That's kinda the problem though and why fakes are even around. Standard is really a pretty cheap hobby compared to just about anything most adults spend their time and disposable income on. Cars, computers, even most casual outdoor activities end up costing more. People like to fuss about rotation costs but that's when things like modern come into the equation. Most people aren't diving in all at once, it's a slow drip over time. The majority of standard staples end up costing less than a Starbucks coffee after the draft craze dies down.

I realize I'm a weirdo with a bunch of dumb expensive shit, but that also means I pretty much just buy cards like a standard player now. For any given legal set release, it costs me maybe $100 to get anything in a set I want, and I usually go ahead and snag things to stay current because it's nice to have for edh and random things end up mattering in other formats later. I probably spend, on average in a year, $40 a month on MTG like that. That might be high for a typical magic player, I don't know. It's definitely not high for hobby expenditures for anyone else I know that does shit like kayak, hike, larp, build PCs etc.

What I'm getting at is I weigh the financial incentive of fakes against the integrity of a hobby I enjoy as being worth more than $40 a month.

It's not quite as cheap as you're making it out to be here. $40/month on average barely gets one you playset of whatever chase mythic is in a set these days.

I agree it's not quite as bad as people whinging on the internet make it out to be, but I really wouldn't call it cheap either. Most tier 1 standard decks have been north of $300 for quite some time now (and are even pushing past $500 in some cases)and they tend to use a ton of cards that will be essentially worthless on rotation. Claiming that your standard cards just convert in to modern cards on rotation is a bit disingenuous when it's really like 0-2 cards or so per set that have any relevance in older formats. Standard players are currently taking a huge bath of Scarab God etc with rotation looming and him losing ~90% of his value.

And this is all using American/first world economies. I can't imagine the level of proxy use or whatever you want to call it in places like central asia/south america etc.

Heylel · Aug 18, 2018

Exactly right. I'm not saying all decks are $40, I'm saying $40 a month is plenty to play standard. Cards stay good for 2 years, more or less. Conservatively call that 20 months x $40. $800 keeps you in tier 1 decks the entire time they're in standard.

We've had more and less expensive eras than that for sure, and cards DO go down. They also don't become worthless most of the time, and eventually things bump back up. You lose money selling them. Never sell your cards. Just treat it like a sunk cost in any other hobby and don't bother trying to unload a bunch of old stuff. You'll find a use for it eventually. Cards aren't stocks and focusing on value isn't the same as playing. You CAN do that, but it's not relevant to playing the game.

Also, NEVER OPEN PACKS. Waste of fucking time and money, and it's where most standard players go wrong. If you "win a box" at a FNM or something, take the credit option and buy cards directly. Packs are a sucker's bet.

Sterling · Aug 18, 2018

Standard, modern and previously extended decks tend to have roughly the same average price over time within their formats. There's always outlier eras for the formats, but on the whole this has proven to be true. If you play a mono colored or nearly mono colored aggro deck you'll tend to have a lower priced deck vs playing a 3 color deck with 20 rare lands and 10 planeswalkers obviously. Even reprints in modern don't really change this long term, just in the short term. The reprinted cards go down and then over the next few months stuff that wasn't reprinted tends to go up in price until the average works itself out. Legacy/Vintage/Commander are different animals and they trend upwards over time.

ronne · Aug 18, 2018

And here we go. Jessup isn't a pro, but he's real, real close. I'd be far more inclined to think he didn't deliberately register a bunch of counterfit cards, but if someone this in to the game didn't even notice half his TCG order was fake? Yeesh....

Heylel · Aug 18, 2018

Yup. Like I said, mid-tier modern cards. No one's going to pay that much attention to shit like that.

Arbitrary · Aug 18, 2018

ronne said:
And here we go. Jessup isn't a pro, but he's real, real close. I'd be far more inclined to think he didn't deliberately register a bunch of counterfit cards, but if someone this in to the game didn't even notice half his TCG order was fake? Yeesh....

Oof, you don't even get to replace the fakes with real ones provided you can buy/borrow some right quick? Maybe between rounds but not during the match itself?

ronne · Aug 18, 2018

Heylel said:
Yup. Like I said, mid-tier modern cards. No one's going to pay that much attention to shit like that.

Yea I agree, we're a long, long way off from someone printing any kind of reserve list card that will stand up to the scrutiny that shit gets. The tournament staples though? Gonna be real hard to trust ordering shit like forces/wastelands/dark confidants/goyfs etc in the near future.

Punko · Aug 19, 2018

Pretty sure modern cards are more easily reproduced then anything revised and older. Wouldn't surprise me if MTG cards used some kind of standard print method these days to save costs.

Wonder if the chinamen can reproduce the curling foils though, unsure if they can produce such a low quality product.

Punko · Aug 19, 2018

Heylel said:
We've had more and less expensive eras than that for sure, and cards DO go down. They also don't become worthless most of the time, and eventually things bump back up. You lose money selling them. Never sell your cards. Just treat it like a sunk cost in any other hobby and don't bother trying to unload a bunch of old stuff. You'll find a use for it eventually. Cards aren't stocks and focusing on value isn't the same as playing. You CAN do that, but it's not relevant to playing the game.

Uhm, the majority of standard staples become worthless, losing easily >70% of their peak pre-rotation value.

Lets look at some current decks and their staples:

- RB agro - rekindling phoenix, currently valued at 25$, unplayable and bound to become a bulk bin rare
- Mono green - ghalta valued at 10$, might be worth 2$ after rotation, probably less
- Grixis midrange - nicol bolas at >30$, 5$ value after rotation, maybe, also has vraska's contempt at 15$, which is not being played outside standard, so another future bulk bin rare
- Turbo-fog: nexus of fate at 45ish$, not being played outside standard, 3-5$ value because its a nice effect, also has teferi at 40$ a pop, which sees some minor play outside standard, but will see its value crushed after rotation due to supply massively outnumbering demand, the 18$ carnage tyrants will be 2$ after rotation

Do you disregard the financial value of everything that isn't stocks?

Silly argument.

"never sell your cards" is terrible advice when it comes to standard.

Heylel · Aug 19, 2018

I'm familiar with rotations. I've been through pretty much all of them since Fallen Empires and I know what happens to prices. Do I expect everything to stay valuable? Of course not, but I also don't expect my hobbies to pay me for having fun. If the paper chase gets you hard, go for it. I just don't see that as a defense in favor of buying counterfeits, which is what my original statement about standard costs was about.

"Never sell your cards" sounded silly back in 94 too. It's simply not worth the effort. The margins are so small compared to the time investment that it's much easier to file away playsets of anything remotely interesting and not worry about what the Internet says they're worth. I know what I bill an hour of my time at vs how much of a hassle it is to try and beat the market. Hard pass.

Arbitrary · Aug 19, 2018

Discussing the costs of Magic with Heylel is like having a discussion with a masochist about having your scrotum nailed to a chair. Their perspective isn't invalid but the amount of overlap between how you see things and how they see things is going to be pretty low.

Sterling · Aug 19, 2018

For most people some middle road is probably good. Going through hoops to get 4 dollars for some Standard rare that will end up bulk is probably not a great use of time, but selling off a set of 40 dollar walkers that will be fringe at best in bigger formats isn't a terrible idea, since even if you're wrong and it turns out it becomes a Modern staple you can rebuy them and even in the off chance you end up losing on one card like this you're not likely to miss every time. Or you can just trade into a deck that has less cards rotating or whatever. On the other hand chasing down random shit rares you need later in Modern or for Commander or whatever can be annoying so selling so keeping some of the cheaper but interesting cards can be worthwhile.

Heylel · Aug 19, 2018

Arbitrary said:
Discussing the costs of Magic with Heylel is like having a discussion with a masochist about having your scrotum nailed to a chair. Their perspective isn't invalid but the amount of overlap between how you see things and how they see things is going to be pretty low.

I have a lot of expensive shit, but I bet I spend less than your typical modern grinder by a wide margin.

Heylel · Aug 19, 2018

Sterling said:
For most people some middle road is probably good. Going through hoops to get 4 dollars for some Standard rare that will end up bulk is probably not a great use of time, but selling off a set of 40 dollar walkers that will be fringe at best in bigger formats isn't a terrible idea, since even if you're wrong and it turns out it becomes a Modern staple you can rebuy them and even in the off chance you end up losing on one card like this you're not likely to miss every time.

I'm trying to think of the last walker that held onto $40 beyond preorder than didn't end up having eternal implications. I guess flip Jace? That was a really unhealthy standard when he was like $80 and in every single deck as a 4x. It's still around $25, but people can be quite justifiably upset about losing a couple hundred bucks on one playset after rotation. WotC rightfully caught hell over that and standard turnout really tanked.

Looking at the current batch, Karn is a little overpriced considering his prevalence in older formats but he'll hold most of it. Teferi is an all star and might dip a tad from rotation as standard only players unload him, but that would be foolish. He'll be a fixture in Modern, Legacy and Vintage for some time to come. Plus, he preordered low. It took playing with him for Teferi to show his power, and having Jace unban around that time didn't help. It masked a lot.

Arbitrary · Aug 19, 2018

Heylel said:
I have a lot of expensive shit, but I bet I spend less than your typical modern grinder by a wide margin.

The guy that worked a second job for a while to maintain his Percocet habit pointing out he isn't in nearly as deep as the methodone crowd doesn't look like less of an alien to the rest of us.

edit - like this but for Magic cards

"Once you get locked into a serious drug collection the tendency is to push it as far as you can."

Heylel · Aug 19, 2018

I did volunteer as a judge for a couple of years, yes. Was pretty fun actually. Wish it was worth bothering with in California but there are too few shops and too many L2s.

Radikus · Aug 20, 2018

Went to grand prix LA this weekend and played some modern side events as I get back into MTG. Waiting for rotation to pick up standard and hit some pptq's again. My buddy was selling his brothers alpha time vault. We went over to the CFB booth and as my friend was selling his bros other cards we were waiting for some dude to come over to tell us if the time vault was sp or nm. As we were waiting some random dude comes by eyeing the time vault and offers to buy it. They CFB guy tells us it is NM, which is a $700 difference from 1100 to 1800. The random joe pulls out a wad of cash to make an offer. The CFB boss guy who said it was nm got super mad and said we couldn't sell for cash if not a vendor. The random joe starts mouthing off to him, it was fuckin great. We told CFB to kick rocks and walked outside and sold it the guy and he was so psyched to have it.

ronne · Aug 27, 2018

Patrick Sullivan is a national treasure

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