[Official] Bitching About Prices, Buyouts and Reprints Thread

[from Cairo]

Right, so why would you want to play with the obscure P3k version when there is a cheaper and easier to find portal version of the same card, ontop of an instant speed even easier to find version of the card that allows you to use Scepter for infinite turns?

I assume one'd be playing it in addition to.

Sundial of the Infinite, Iscochron Scepter, Final Fortune, Last Chance, and Warrior's Oath to try to chain turns. I guess with some sort of Tutoring or card drawing - it doesn't strike me as that great, but I guess there's the possibility of it working.

[jandax]

I'm from a country where selling weed is a very profitable business, and attracts millions of people each year. just so you know

I think his point is that because it happens, not everyone is entitled or apt to do it.

I wonder what the tourist industry here in NL would be like without the coffeeshops around...now that is speculation

[dahcmai]

You have to admit that Warrior's Oath is a bit more cool than using that old Final Fortune if you're going to play with that crap. So you get +1 cool points for your bad combo. And trust me, it's not so hot, though amusing. I really wanted it to work too, but sadly it's only mildly good with that Talisman and such utter crap without it. Final Fortune is not a card you cast unless you have a win on the spot next turn and let's face it, if that talisman is Gripped in response, you have a large problem on your hands.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'm from a country where selling weed is a very profitable business, and attracts millions of people each year. just so you know

It's a profitable business everywhere. The analogy was selling weed if you smoke weed is usually a losing battle for the people who do it and anyone who knows someone like this knows exactly what I'm talking about. First they think they know what they are doing because they are involved with the activity. Second they always are off about 1000% on the profit estimation because they end up smoking more then they sell. Third, they usually underestimate what people are willing to pay. Fourth and most importantly, it is usually a hair brained scheme from the get go that is more about the acquisition of something they want instead of being about profit and by saying they are going to make money buying/selling something they like to justify spending more money than they usually would on what is basically a luxury.

People think of buying and selling Magic cards in usually the same way. They go into it with dollar signs in their eyes, they assume that as soon as they want to sell something they are going to find a buyer, they assume people are going to pay market value for any given card, and they usually end up in the short term spending outside of their budget, ect. It's the same deal, you like Magic cards and you are probably going to end up spending most of your profits on personal cards. You are going to buy a card for $10 then when it is worth $20 no one is going to want to give you $20. It will take you a while to find anyone who is going to pay Ebay prices for cards since at they would have already bought them off Ebay if they wanted them bad enough. Example, locally there is a store probably 60 people a week who play Magic look through the case. They have had $3 Mother of Runes in there for almost a year. Sure at the beginning it was a $2 card then it was a $3, now it's a $4-5 card, still no one has bought them. If a store can't sell them under priced what chance do you have? You will have to buy enough cards to have stuff people will want but at the same time that means you will probably end up with a lot of stuff you will never sell. I mean sure you can buy Warrior's Oath @ 10 but even if it does hit $20 did you really win? I mean you are still going to have to find someone who wants it enough to pay $20 for what is basically a junk rare. Sure you can sell on Ebay and make a couple bucks. If you buy @10 and sell @20 + shipping/handling on your end you probably made $5-6 tops and it takes you a week to get the cards and then when you send them you have to wait to get your money. So you spend $10 and wait 2 months minimum to maybe make $6 if you're lucky. I keep going over and over this. Sure there are people who make $ off MTG cards, lots of money, but they have the kind of investment you little guys don't and they usually have a stock of thousands of cards. Buying a handful of cards and waiting for them to go up is a suckers game a high enough % of the time I feel the need to repeatedly remind people who see this thread and think about rolling the dice to not waste their time. Literally, don't waste your time. Taking 3-4 months average to turn out a small profit is a total waste of time.

[kiblast]

You have to admit that Warrior's Oath is a bit more cool than using that old Final Fortune if you're going to play with that crap. So you get +1 cool points for your bad combo. And trust me, it's not so hot, though amusing. I really wanted it to work too, but sadly it's only mildly good with that Talisman and such utter crap without it. Final Fortune is not a card you cast unless you have a win on the spot next turn and let's face it, if that talisman is Gripped in response, you have a large problem on your hands.

English WB versus foil 7th which is the greatest layout ever? foil 7th wins hands down.
(Anyway, yes, bad combo is bad : P)

[Mr.C]

People think of buying and selling Magic cards in usually the same way. They go into it with dollar signs in their eyes, they assume that as soon as they want to sell something they are going to find a buyer, they assume people are going to pay market value for any given card, and they usually end up in the short term spending outside of their budget, ect. It's the same deal, you like Magic cards and you are probably going to end up spending most of your profits on personal cards. You are going to buy a card for $10 then when it is worth $20 no one is going to want to give you $20. It will take you a while to find anyone who is going to pay Ebay prices for cards since at they would have already bought them off Ebay if they wanted them bad enough. Example, locally there is a store probably 60 people a week who play Magic look through the case. They have had $3 Mother of Runes in there for almost a year. Sure at the beginning it was a $2 card then it was a $3, now it's a $4-5 card, still no one has bought them. If a store can't sell them under priced what chance do you have? You will have to buy enough cards to have stuff people will want but at the same time that means you will probably end up with a lot of stuff you will never sell. I mean sure you can buy Warrior's Oath @ 10 but even if it does hit $20 did you really win? I mean you are still going to have to find someone who wants it enough to pay $20 for what is basically a junk rare. Sure you can sell on Ebay and make a couple bucks. If you buy @10 and sell @20 + shipping/handling on your end you probably made $5-6 tops and it takes you a week to get the cards and then when you send them you have to wait to get your money. So you spend $10 and wait 2 months minimum to maybe make $6 if you're lucky. I keep going over and over this. Sure there are people who make $ off MTG cards, lots of money, but they have the kind of investment you little guys don't and they usually have a stock of thousands of cards. Buying a handful of cards and waiting for them to go up is a suckers game a high enough % of the time I feel the need to repeatedly remind people who see this thread and think about rolling the dice to not waste their time. Literally, don't waste your time. Taking 3-4 months average to turn out a small profit is a total waste of time.

Sigg'ed. Awesome post.

Edit: I would sig it if I could.

[death]

MtG is a hobby. By definition, a hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.

If a hobby turns out to pay $5-50/month for my leisure time, hell I'll take it. Because irl, the opposite is true about most hobbies where you end up losing cash.

Also, I consider Portal 3K English Rares with no identical reprints > any foil card. +1 cool points.

[kusumoto]

Preference is a bad reason to want Warrior's Oath when Final Fortune is strictly better.
There is also Last Chance which is identical to the P3K card and cheaper + black bordered (or white bordered if you'd like)

The card might gain a little bit of value before people realize they're being stupid, but that's it.

[death]

Last Chance has been printed twice, functionally the same, not identical. +1 cool points.

as from Cairo has pointed out, it is assumed that one would be playing it in addition to ..

Pre-Xth ed., black bordered = cool. Since all cards are BB now, WB are actually getting cool.

[kusumoto]

I think the point of the matter is that it's a terrible idea.

So we're suggesting playing 8+ cards that are terrible in some terrible deck?
People really want to speculate on something like that?

I think the card has to actually be good at some point for any decent money to be made. Things like Strategic Planning and Loyal Retainers were once good cards. That's why the value of them is high still.

This card will settle at 10-15 like all the other crap rares from P3K. The fact that the starter and portal 1 versions exist really stands to hurt the value of it. Even in this crappy deck, you don't want more than 8 whatever versions(s) of RR bad cards you're going to use. 4 of them must be the instant, so most people will want 4 cheaper or black bordered cards if they're playing more.

Don't bet on Warrior's Oath

[dontbiteitholmes]

MtG is a hobby. By definition, a hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.

If a hobby turns out to pay $5-50/month for my leisure time, hell I'll take it. Because irl, the opposite is true about most hobbies where you end up losing cash.

Also, I consider Portal 3K English Rares with no identical reprints > any foil card. +1 cool points.

The point being you could just buy good cards for your collection and keep them until you are done with the game and some of them will roll over multiple times then you can cash out at the end. Instead of spending your time buying shitty cards you should be looking for cards you need to complete decks at better prices. Any card is a good buy if the price is right, but $10 for Warrior's Oath is a little more than I can agree with. You could easily buy any number of better cards for that price.

[hyperchord24]

I was looking at my selling history and I sold 1 ancient tomb for 2.75 USD and 3 Maze of Ith for 12.50 USD each (to a store) in October of 2009. Based on this logic, I should never sell my cards ever. Further more, I should buy every card that's even remotely good because it'll probably be more expensive in a year.

What a difference two years makes.

[troopatroop]

I was looking at my selling history and I sold 1 ancient tomb for 2.75 USD and 3 Maze of Ith for 12.50 USD each (to a store) in October of 2009. Based on this logic, I should never sell my cards ever. Further more, I should buy every card that's even remotely good because it'll probably be more expensive in a year.

What a difference two years makes.

That's just idiocy from the start, selling cards to a store? God, how to get raped in the butt is more like it.

[dontbiteitholmes]

That's just idiocy from the start, selling cards to a store? God, how to get raped in the butt is more like it.

12.50 for a maze in 09 was a good selling price but this highlights my point. If you are constantly buying and selling the "hot" card of the month that is supposed to jump through the roof that means you are not buying all that other stuff. I mean for example you may put off buying old fetchlands because you have the new ones and you are speculating some card. So you buy that card and 2 months later you sell it, but since you didn't buy old school fetches they have now gone up in price, so if you ever plan on buying them you can take the "profit" you made buying and selling some garbage card you never expected to hold on to and subtract however much extra you paid for whatever card you actually wanted to keep and play the game with 3-4 months later when the price is higher.

I think a lot of people go into it like, "Yeah, I'm gonna turn a profit then I can afford all those cards I want." But while you are pedaling away on some flavor of the month everything else is slowly rising as well. I mean say you went in saying, "I'm going to turn a profit of $260 so I can buy those Underground Seas" a year ago. By the time you made the $260 profit (if everything goes according to plans) Seas are $400 a set, so now if you just eat it and buy them anyways you just wasted a shit load of time and you could have just bought the cards you wanted and still been up $140.

If you don't have all the cards you want don't go dicking around buying cards you don't want. Do you have GSZ? Because I can assure you that you can get them for cheaper now then you can once people stop cracking Mirrodin. I just scooped up a set for around $12. No I'm not going to wait till they "blow up" and cash in, I'm going to keep them till I don't want them anymore I just don't want to buy them when they're $8+ a piece.

[hyperchord24]

That's just idiocy from the start, selling cards to a store? God, how to get raped in the butt is more like it.

I wasn't that stupid. They were close to ebay prices, IIRC. Didn't want to get raped by ebay's fees

[dontbiteitholmes]

I wasn't that stupid. They were close to ebay prices, IIRC. Didn't want to get raped by ebay's fees

You never would have made 12.50 profit selling a maze of ith on ebay in oct. 09. It was a $15ish dollar card until 3-4 months ago. So at the time it was a good choice I guess.

All you fools speculating prices in this thread. It's like the blind leading the blind. The better way to go BY FAR for the casual player than trying to see the future is to just save whatever money you would have blown buying P3K junk rares and wait until an actual good deal comes up. I'll buy any card if the price is right. I have 8 Seas but if I see one tomorrow at $75 I'm gonna buy it, I've gone through another playset too earlier this year. These kinds of things happen from time to time but if all your money is tied up in speculation you can't take advantage of the chances that pop up to buy cards at 60-70% of their current Ebay price.

[swoop]

less then a year ago I sold 2 maze of iths DCI judge foil for "pennies" as I needed some hard cash.
few months earlier I sold another one.

I'd like them back please

[Tha Gunslinga]

That's just idiocy from the start, selling cards to a store? God, how to get raped in the butt is more like it.

Seriously? If you're doing it right, you can sell stuff to stores at much higher-than-ebay prices and make a killing.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Seriously? If you're doing it right, you can sell stuff to stores at much higher-than-ebay prices and make a killing.

Yeah, I traded a bunch of T2 garbage to a store for a Jace + Misty Rainforest when Jace was $80. It was like a playset of Baneslayers when they were 15 (and dropping fast), 2 frost titans when they were 8, and 3-4 garbage T2 rares from bad draft decks that were about $2-3 a piece. Sometimes stores can be pretty lose but overall, yeah they rape you.

[dahcmai]

Not always. I occasionally deal with a few stores since they will take trade in on some non-money rares. They may only give 50-75% of the value, but if I couldn't even get that much out of them on Ebay minus the fees, it's worth it to me to trade them in for something I can sell for better money. If anything, some of those cards like Exalted Angel for example are good cards, but incredibly hard to sell for decent money. A store will give you much more than what you could sell it for on Ebay just because they sell decently for a store so it's worth more to them.

Slivers/Angels/Dragons are a prime example. I can barely trade the stupid things, but they are lifeblood to stores due to the tabletop crowds that never show up to tournaments.