MTG thread

Yesterday I wanted to find out what day the prerelease events were starting and it was a pain in the ass.

Type in wizards.com/magic and the front page says nothing about Khans. Alright, I'll check this drop down menu that says Products. Products -> Coming Soon? Nope. Nothing about the new set. Products -> Featured Releases? Nope. Wait, Events? Events -> Event Types -> Preleases -> Khans of Tarkir. Does this page have a link to the visual spoiler maybe? Nope. Oh, it looks like the info I am looking for is under Card Set Archive.

I mean obviously, right?

Is that bit about Hasbro exec's saying Hearthstone isn't a serious competitor to worry about true?

Yes, yes it is.

Fun fact, Jim Ward of TSR way way back in the day said upon seeing Magic the Gathering said "we will bury you." Direct quote. I had hoped that Hearthstone would be the kick in the pants that Hasbro needed to have MTGO not be a pile of shit but I guess not.

Haven't played magic in forever but damn if I don't want to draft me some crappy Jeskai deck with monks and martial arts in it.

The GURPS group I played with had to institue a No MtG policy since we skipped like 2 weeks in a row playing cards instead of our campaign.

Anyone got a link to the Khans of Trakir Community Cup Sealed event videos they had today (Sunday)? I clicked on the links provided by the mothership and there is only some vintage type shit going on.

Had a good time at the Atlanta Open. Didn't play Saturday and scrubbed out fast Sunday (some very poor last minute deck design choices), but the trade tables made it worthwhile. Opened up two more legacy decks, added another 5 foils to Maverick, and left the event with close to $700 credit sitting on my SCG account waiting for a good sale.

Who needs prizes when you can trade well.

Heylel_sl said:

Had a good time at the Atlanta Open. Didn't play Saturday and scrubbed out fast Sunday (some very poor last minute deck design choices), but the trade tables made it worthwhile. Opened up two more legacy decks, added another 5 foils to Maverick, and left the event with close to $700 credit sitting on my SCG account waiting for a good sale.

Who needs prizes when you can trade well.

Click to expand...

Damn, were you hustling a bunch of 12 year olds into bad trades? I order from Star City so often, I wish they had a So Cal store.

Burren_sl said:

Damn, were you hustling a bunch of 12 year olds into bad trades? I order from Star City so often, I wish they had a So Cal store.

Click to expand...

Nah. I just had specific cards I was targeting, all of which I managed to pick up, and then dumped a bunch of acquisitions since the last event in Atlanta. $680 was a lot more than I was expecting to get, but I usually drop a few binder pages every event when I realize the cards aren't moving at my local shop and I haven't played them in ages (perfect example this time was Splinter Twin and Dark Depths).

I'm not even close to being one of the power traders, but I do pretty well for just a guy who likes to trade cards. It seems like everyone and their brother these days starts a trade with "so I'm primarily here as a shop, so I'm doing 80% value..." or some other horseshit that I hate. I do understand that store owners have profit margins to meet if they want to remain in business, but that doesn't give anyone the right to arbitrarily devalue someone else's stuff just because they have bills to pay. Honestly, I'm not convinced most of them have more than a TCG storefront. They just like to be able to assert the dominant position in a trade before it starts.

^^ and that is the reason I never, ever make trades under any circumstances. I simply refuse to deal with the neckbeards trying to be a shop or a business or what the fuck ever that spend their entire night at FNM having to "step outside" to avoid getting kicked out by the actual store for being scumbags trying to fleece people.

I know you want to defend people who trade for value because you do it on the side but he's talking about the human scum that congeals around game stores. They are a totally different animal.

What you've done here is confused "it is impossible to rip me off" (which I believe 115%) with "it is impossible to rip people off." It's actually the opposite side of Dunning-Kruger. You are assuming others have your level of expertise, information, and discipline. They don't. People engage in shitty trades all the time even with accurate totals for each card being traded or at the ready access to that information. Emotion can play a big role. Is that the last couple cards you need to play the Hot New Thing at today's FNM?

When Ronne talks about people not allowed to trade in the store he means it. We knew people that were legit banned from trading. I know a couple people right now that fuckingalwaystrade down. They are young and just don't really give a fuck. If you point out they made a shitty trade its "whatever, I don't care, I got what I wanted" and next week they are taking a hit trying to trade for the next hot thing.

I'm not talking about value traders. I don't have a problem at all with them, and do that myself (especially when I'm about to buylist something). That's just good sense, and everyone wins. They get their playset of whatever they were after, and you squeeze a little more cash out of the cards. I'm talking more about the newer breed of sharks that crop up around the trade tables at large events. They start every trade with things like "I trade for 75% of what I would sell the card at" or something to that effect, and push as hard as possible to avoid a standardized metric. Basically they try to push you into giving up the same margin to them as you would to SCG or worse, just for the privilege of dealing with them. These aren't just the guys with giant collections, or the three or four people with thirty grand in foils sitting in a little book that only comes out between each other. It's almost ALWAYS some dude who says he runs a store because claiming that puts them into some category where it makes it alright for them to lowball you, and you're just supposed to be okay with it.

That's the attitude that pisses me off. "I'm a shop owner" is not some magic phrase that makes me open up my wallet, but I see a lot of people act like it should. I'll trade with damn near anyone, but my approach is always that unless you're standing behind a booth you paid for at an event, you're just a dude. There's nothing separating you from six hundred other people in the room with a binder full of cardboard. It might be a very impressive binder, but I don't care where you work. If you have something I want or vice versa and we can come to an agreement, fine. I'm not a rube, and I'm not going to let myself fixate on any individual card. If there's one thing I've learned by now, there is ALWAYS another copy of it somewhere out there. Probably in the room (niche foreign foils aside).

edit: One last thing about the smartphones... I don't know of any app that makes searching buylist spreads on the fly easy. Maybe mtg trader tools does it. I haven't kept a QS account in a few months and I haven't had a chance to play with tt3 yet. Last I saw, the site looked terrible on a smartphone.

Mist_sl said:

The step outside stuff is for when you want to buy a card for cash at buylist prices, or sell a card at near retail, because store owners don't appreciate seeing cash change hands in their store.

Click to expand...

I just offer people credit, or allow them to pay me with credit at the store. It's as good as cash when I'm just going to put it right back into the game. I'm lucky to play at a place where I can more or less order anything I want, and if they don't have it they'll go out and find it for me. I realize for some people in more remote areas that may not be an option.