I remember playing the SWG CCG. Itersting game. I just don't think it could compete with Magic.
I have to disagree about the sportsmanship thing, in fact I would say it got worse. I play mostly casual, and the people there usually don't even say anything. No GG, hello good luck, or anything. You get the occasional, but not as common as it used to be.
Nice to see you came back. Try out some commander. Hopefully you will like that.
Great to finally read another one of your articles Paul! Really interesting set of topics you covered. I've got to dive into Heirloom some time soon, sounds like fun. Also nice to note there's a Magic community in New Zealand, since I'll be emigrating there at some point over the next few years.
On a geeky presentation note, nice sidebar! I'm not sure how you did it, but it works very well.
Just curious about whether you think the following situations are unethical. Clearly I think they are not.
1) Bot A is selling a card for 10. Bot B is buying the card for 12. Is it unethical to buy from A and sell to B. No value is being added, in terms of your descriptions. But those Bot owners are people. Do you think this is immoral?
(Though they don't come up often, personally, I really enjoy finding and profitting from such arbitrage opportunities.)
2) What if A and B are actually people? What if they both have ad's up in the classifieds?
3) You acknowldge that you have no problem with people speculating on cards that may gain value due to the metagame, and decks they might be played in.
You say "It only becomes problematic when it is not a gamble. If you know something, rather than predict something, you are no longer speculating.".
This seems like a huge grey area to me. For example if I have the ability and time to read Japanese tournament reports, and pick up metagme shifts, (that may or may not actually materialise into pricce difference) do I KNOW something? What if it is SCG Open tournament results? What if it is Pro Tour top 8 decks?
Am I required to point this info out to my trade partner, to make it ethical?
Is that me knowing rather than speculating, if they haven't seen the same websites?
Like 1, this seems to me like I am putting in work/time/effort to make better trading decisions, and exploit inefficient markets... but it seems you think this is unethical? Should a person who does this extra work, not be rewarded for it, but have to disclose it to their trade partner?
All of these, as Plejades suggested, come from my willingness to use my time/effort to find advantageous opportunities, thereby adding value for myself. I don't feel I'm ripping people off, but I am always trying to look for value in any trade I do.
I won't lie about values, especially if asked. I will tell them that it's in my favour, and that I am trying to trade up and often even say they might find a better deal elsewhere!
If they don't ask about prices, we both confirm, and I get a good deal, that's good enough for me. They were happy with the value they got for the card they got, regardless of the website price.
In regards to my last example. I was drawing a parallel between studying for school and knowing your prices. The "test" being the trade tables. Like anything in life you have to enter the world of trading with a mindset of preparedness. You can't depend on your trade partner to do the work for you and we cant call traders immoral for not educating someone who didn't care to learn prices for themselves. Just like we cant call these imaginary classmates immoral for not giving an unprepared student the answers to a test.
(Here is my education to the uneducated)
If you don't know the prices of your own cards, then don't trade them.
...
It's simple but people have a hard time with this one. I don't have the skills or the knowledge to cook blowfish (Fugu), so I don't. People should follow in my footsteps if they don't want to be taken advantage of at the trade tables or die from eating ill-prepared fish.
You stated that you don't know how I trade. My instinct is to break it down for you, but instead I will direct you to the pages of content the I've written on the topic.
If you're going to call it stealing you should at least read the series right?
In regards to educating people, I do,(probably more than any other person has on the topic), but I am not going to give everyone that I trade with the rundown and full pricing portfolio of every card that's on the table. I'll tell them how much I'm giving for a card, they can take it or leave it. If they misjudge the value of a card then that's on them not me.
For the Record: I have moral guidelines that I follow which align with my spiritual beliefs. I still defend the position of free market and knowledge / time is valuable and deserves to be compensated.
I am not a fancy, educated economist like yourself, but to say that making money off cards that are raising in price is unethical, is just silly. The whole stock market is driven by these types of deals.
Anywho, Take some time to read my article "The Myth of Ripping People Off" and some of the Pack to Power stuff. This will give you a better idea of where I stand.
Quick question: you are buying some donuts at a grocery store. The clerk bags them and writes the price - $2.35 - on the bag. Walking away, you realize that the actual total should be $2.55. Do you go back hand have them correct it?
Happened to me yesterday. I went back and had the lady change the price.
My moral compass may not be typical. There were plenty of excuses / justifiations for doing nothing. Had I taken the bag to the register and said nothing, there was no way I could get in trouble, and almost no chance anyone (besides me) would ever realize what happened. Yes, it wasn't my fault: it was the bakery lady's mistake. The store probably does a couple million dollars a year in business: twenty cents was not going to break them. etc. etc. All excuses aside - the store was entitled to the $0.20, and it was my moral responsibility to pay them.
Not everyone sees morality the same way I do.
I try to be as morally correct as I can, within my own limits. Yes, a cow died to become my dinner. I've spent a lot of time in close proximity to cows, and I have no qualms about that. Others do. YMMV. However, as to the topic of this article - I don't view trading as unethical. I have a trade binder. However, I will only trade if I feel that I am not taking advantage of the person I'm trading with. It's not enough that he or she is happy with the trade. I'm too good with words. I know I can con people, if I try. I only do that nowadays in role-playing games, and games like Diplomacy. In real life, I need the trade to be balanced, or slightly in their favor.
Not everyone sees the world the same way.
Several people have commented about their trade experiences. I'd be glad to trade with Raddman. I'd be a lot more careful trading with some of the others. It appears that they will be more than willing to take advantage of my mistakes, so I have to make sure I don't make any. Actually, as many people have mentioned, caveat emptor (buyer beware, for those without classics training) - so this buyer simply does not trade with any of the small traders. I amy occassionally trade with other players at my local store, but most of my serious trading consists of taking a box with everything I want to get rid of to a major dealer, like Pastimes.com (paper) or MTGOTradersBuyBot online, and simply selling it to them. I may not get top dollarm but I don't get ripped off, and I don't have to waste a lot of time.
Could I make more working harder at trading? Well, that's next week's article.
I won my MTGO SoM prerelease flight. Even a noob like me couldn't screw up Elspeth and Masticore. Also, I had Strata Scythe which was awesome. I did lose a game to a Liege of the Tangle when I had 30+ life and he had 4. Loved the Trigon of healing. I gained so much life from it all night.
I was going to take these in order, but I have to clear up at least one misconception. My undergraduate and graduate work was in economics, and that's my profession. The furniture making is self taught, and a hobby.
To clarify - I don't think that trading is per se unnethical. What I do find unethical is a trader presenting a trade that he/she knows to be weighted in his/her favor as balanced. That's lying. John, I hjave never watched you trade, I have no idea if you represent your trades as even. If you don't, and will admit - when asked - that the balance is in your favor - then you are not one of the people I consider unethical. (I would not knowingly making unbalanced trades, but that's a personality difference. I was trained in econometrics. Some take that training and become quants creating derivatives. I didn't. I have a far more constraining moral leash. Doesn't make me right or wrong - just more constrained.)
You raised the knowledge of card values issue. That's a big chunk of part two - the cost of developing that knowledge. You can either earn it - by spending the time you did - or you can rip it off by copying major dealer price lists. A lot of people rip off SCG and MTGOTraders - which is both theft and less efficient than earning it. Either way, it is critical to trading for a profit.
As for whether you should educate - I believe in altruism. I believe the answer is yes. YMMV.
A deeper question - you appear to be saying that your advantage is that you have studied values, so you know them better than anyone else. That may well be true. What I cannot understand is how that can benefit you in a balanced trade. It can only benefit you if you make trades that you know to be weighted in your favor. That means you are profiting because your trading partners are misidentifying the present or future value of their cards.
If I'm missing something, please clue me in.
There is a long spectrum of moneymaking techniques, from crafting from nothing but pure intellect/skill (e.g. some artists, scientists, etc.) to outright con men. Trading where the proft is derived merely from knowing the value of something better than the people you trade is not illegal. It is not even clearly unethical. It's too close for me: I don't have the stomach for it.)
Your final analogy is irrelevant, of course. In no way is recommending fair trades equivalent to condoning cheating on tests. That's like saying that that, since cannibalism is unethical, I must consider all traders to be cannibals. I suspect that you were either rushing your response, or you should have taken some time off from studying card prices to study logic. If all As are Bs, and all Bs are Cs, then A does have property C. However, that does not work going backwards. In any case, I didn't say that all traders are unethical - just that all traders who lie or msrepresent thier trades are unethical.
I agree that there is a huge difference between online trading and offline trading and it is quite lamentable. I traded up to half a beta set over the course of a few years using mainly standard staples. In the end my collection sold for $500 at a fairly large discount to the buyer and I did not feel bad about that at all because I needed the money and it was roughly about 3x what I'd spent (not including the many hours trading). I also did not feel particularly bad about trading cursed scrolls away for beta duals. (The duals were played so the value was roughly equal at the time.) I think where people feel ripped off online is where party a goes in knowing not only the various price margins for a card but trying to capitalize on someone else lack of familiar to trick them into giving up value. Whether this is wrong or not is a question of personal ethics as Pete says (sort of) but I would not do this.
The thing that people forget is that while Magic is a game for some, for others it is a living. And people will do much to protect their income. Personal ethics tend to not enter into it in such situations. Then it becomes a question of 'why shouldn't I use my vast knowledge to exploit the system and those who use it? It's not like I am the only one who can and will.' I guess everyone has a different line to draw.
If it makes you feel better I split the finals in my SOM paper prerelease and friday night went 4-0 (8-0) in a FNM Scars draft after going 5-0 (10-2) in the FNM std event. Here was my draft deck which is just crazy imo.
3 Myr Galvanizers
2 Copper Myr
2 Leaden Myr
1 Myr Reservoir
2 Necropede
1 Pallidum Myr
2 Perilous Myr
1 Persecutor Golem
1 Sylvok Replica
2 Painsmith
1 Skinrender
1 Blight Mamba
4 Cystbearer - yea I said 4
1 Untamed Might
16 lands
2 Corpse Cur - decided not to play either.
In the finals, I put out t2 painsmith, t3 painsmith and attacked for 12 on t4 and people say this format is slow.
As far as the Legacy decks go..........BLAH.......if they print one using wasteland the peasants will revolt. A little bit of notice wouldn't hurt the people who have invested some money in this game, gesh.
As a MTGO player who just started playing pants magic 3 months ago, I can surely relate to this article.
First of all, trading on mtgo is non-existant. People online trade value for value and the ease of getting any staple you need makes trading practically a waste of time.
After starting pants magic I realized this trading this was as important to me as playing. It has almost become a mini-hobby, a game inside the game.
Just this friday alone I made the following trades.
Elspeth + Darkslick + Summoning Trap + Inquisition of Kozilek x2 for his Koth. If you use capefeargames prices I ended up around 5 dollars to the good.
Memorcide for his verdant catacombs. Clearly gained here
Lotus cobra for his 4x Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin - might of lost some here.
Frost Titan + Mindbreak Trap for his All is Dust and Awakening Zone. Again in my favor
A few weeks ago I traded 3 crap black rares for one Foil Scalding Tarn. I even told the player it was heavily in my favor. He said he didn't care, would never use the card. I still felt bad so I threw in Gaea's Revenge, but still ended up +20.
I am sure everyone has stories like this, but the truth is never once did I lie in these trades. If they want a certain card of mine I ask what they value it at, if I agree then I proceed to find cards equal to, if I don't agree I tell them my value and we go from there.
It is way to hard to put values on cards for paper when players will always have the "want" factor. A few weeks ago I had another player who was dying to have my 3x Traumatize. I know that the deck won't be very competitive, but I told him what I was interested in his binder, told him the price variance and we completed the trade. I made out probably + $15, but in the end he didn't care, he simply had to have those cards to finish his deck. I didn't cheat him, was completely honest about values.
Not every player at local FNMs are trying to make metgame competitive decks. Some take great pride in using their own deck ideas with cards that hold little value. Just because they are willing to part with tournament staple cards in order to build their rogue decks doesn't make me a terrible trade person. It makes me a smart investor, looking to capitalize on the wants and needs of others. People in the business world have been exploting the wants and needs of consumers for centuries. I just happen to be on the profitable end of that business transaction.
As another Pack to Power trader, I would like to echo Medina's comment and hopefully add another salient point to this discussion.
You've done a great job of addressing the primary market and what makes it tick. Raw materials manufactured into goods, which distributors resell to stores, who then resell to individual customers. All of what you said about that is well and true.
What you neglect to give much credit to is the secondary market.
After the primary customer buys a manufactured item, this item still has value. And if the primary customer decides that they don't want the item anymore, they can choose to engage the secondary market as a way to gain some of that value.
When you open a booster pack, you will probably lose value. There's a chance that you will open some sweet card like a Koth, but you have almost certainly traded ~$3.50 for a piece of disposable foil and 15 pieces of cardboard that are mostly worthless. Think about the sum value of all the packs you've ever opened. Yeah. This is the game we play.
The hope, then, is that you either crack enough packs to get the cards you need for your deck (unlikely, unless you are very wealthy or don't want a very good deck) or you will find a way to trade what you open for what you need.
Most of us understand the need for big dealers like Star City Games. They provide the ability for you to sell them cards at their buy prices, and buy what you need at their sell prices. Everyone who trades cards in this way knows that the large retailer is going to buy for less than half of what they are going to sell at, and we're ok with this. On MTGO, the 'bots behave the same way.
Another option is to trade around with others who have small personal collections. The upside is that if you can complete a trade, you will probably get a very fair deal going both ways. Of course, this system breaks down if they have personal attachment to the card you want, or too many people in your store are building the same deck and there just aren't enough of the same 3 sweet cards to go around.
This is where the Pack to Power style traders come in. They don't have any emotional attachment to their cards. They aren't trying to build the hottest deck with the stock of their binder. All they need is a marginal profit coming their way - less than the major dealers - and they're usually up front about this fact.
Without traders like this, the secondary market for Magic just becomes the huge dealers making huge profits. In effect, the P2P guys are a little like the small business owners of Magic - they need to hustle just as much as the big boys to understand pricing and trends, but they aren't getting to buy and sell thousands of dollars of cards each day.
As a trader who usually trades for value, I feel that I provide an important niche in the market of my local store. I usually have the cards you need. I am willing to part with all the tournament staples. I have tons of sweet EDH rares for less than the $4-$5 they'll cost you online. I trade for hot cards at large events, and bring them back to my area. And losing a couple bucks trading with me is going to provide you MUCH greater EV than trading in your cards to a store or dealer. And a MUCH MUCH better deal than selling your cards on eBay and buying mine once you factor in fees, time, etc.
I don't see the problem with having a vibrant trading community like this.
I also went 1-3 at the Scars prerelease... I had no bombs or decent cards to speak of and I just deckbuilt really badly. My next article was going to be about my efforts there, and I may still touch on it briefly, but that changed as I managed to get another interview.
I'm just curious if you think I'm devious for selling cards to a major dealer knowing they will go down in price in the near future. Here's an example I didn't cash in on. I could have sold my Tarmogoyf playset just a short while ago for much more knowing their price was going to dive with the format rotation.
Also, have you people studied economics or something? This discussion is pretty knowledgeable.
I've played a few games now with my suboptimal version, and so far have found it to be very powerful. I need more removal (really want those Grasps!), and am tempted by Skinrender, but haven't been using Gatekeeper. I'm liking Brittle Effigy so far, partly because it also gets around pro black, which can be a problem in this deck.
I like the idea of Tainted Strike, I mentioned that as a good possibility when I first talked about Infect a couple of weeks ago. I'll test it out when I get some.
My MVP so far has (oddly) been Cystbearer. As I said in the article, he really is horrible to block, and horrible not to. I've got a couple of Giant Growth in the deck too, which can be ridiculous.
One thing I like about the deck is that it's got both early and late game. You can get an early win with Cystbearer, Rats and Growth, or stay for the late game with Steady Progress (which I don't want to lose, the cantrip is great) and Contagion Engine (which I absolutely luuurve at this point).
I've also got a playset of Plague Stinger in at present, which hasn't done an awful lot for me. One poison counter at a time isn't good enough I think. I'm eager to try out the list I quoted above once I get hold of the rest of the cards. I'll keep Cystbearer at a playset though. Can't wait to get hold of a couple of copies of Skittles too...
I remember playing the SWG CCG. Itersting game. I just don't think it could compete with Magic.
I have to disagree about the sportsmanship thing, in fact I would say it got worse. I play mostly casual, and the people there usually don't even say anything. No GG, hello good luck, or anything. You get the occasional, but not as common as it used to be.
Nice to see you came back. Try out some commander. Hopefully you will like that.
why????
"Hey guys I have a great idea let's release Landstill as a premade and give everyone free Force of Wills with a pack of gum"
where does it end?
Great to finally read another one of your articles Paul! Really interesting set of topics you covered. I've got to dive into Heirloom some time soon, sounds like fun. Also nice to note there's a Magic community in New Zealand, since I'll be emigrating there at some point over the next few years.
On a geeky presentation note, nice sidebar! I'm not sure how you did it, but it works very well.
Hi
Just curious about whether you think the following situations are unethical. Clearly I think they are not.
1) Bot A is selling a card for 10. Bot B is buying the card for 12. Is it unethical to buy from A and sell to B. No value is being added, in terms of your descriptions. But those Bot owners are people. Do you think this is immoral?
(Though they don't come up often, personally, I really enjoy finding and profitting from such arbitrage opportunities.)
2) What if A and B are actually people? What if they both have ad's up in the classifieds?
3) You acknowldge that you have no problem with people speculating on cards that may gain value due to the metagame, and decks they might be played in.
You say "It only becomes problematic when it is not a gamble. If you know something, rather than predict something, you are no longer speculating.".
This seems like a huge grey area to me. For example if I have the ability and time to read Japanese tournament reports, and pick up metagme shifts, (that may or may not actually materialise into pricce difference) do I KNOW something? What if it is SCG Open tournament results? What if it is Pro Tour top 8 decks?
Am I required to point this info out to my trade partner, to make it ethical?
Is that me knowing rather than speculating, if they haven't seen the same websites?
Like 1, this seems to me like I am putting in work/time/effort to make better trading decisions, and exploit inefficient markets... but it seems you think this is unethical? Should a person who does this extra work, not be rewarded for it, but have to disclose it to their trade partner?
All of these, as Plejades suggested, come from my willingness to use my time/effort to find advantageous opportunities, thereby adding value for myself. I don't feel I'm ripping people off, but I am always trying to look for value in any trade I do.
I won't lie about values, especially if asked. I will tell them that it's in my favour, and that I am trying to trade up and often even say they might find a better deal elsewhere!
If they don't ask about prices, we both confirm, and I get a good deal, that's good enough for me. They were happy with the value they got for the card they got, regardless of the website price.
People who lie are unethical?
Duh, right?
In regards to my last example. I was drawing a parallel between studying for school and knowing your prices. The "test" being the trade tables. Like anything in life you have to enter the world of trading with a mindset of preparedness. You can't depend on your trade partner to do the work for you and we cant call traders immoral for not educating someone who didn't care to learn prices for themselves. Just like we cant call these imaginary classmates immoral for not giving an unprepared student the answers to a test.
(Here is my education to the uneducated)
If you don't know the prices of your own cards, then don't trade them.
...
It's simple but people have a hard time with this one. I don't have the skills or the knowledge to cook blowfish (Fugu), so I don't. People should follow in my footsteps if they don't want to be taken advantage of at the trade tables or die from eating ill-prepared fish.
You stated that you don't know how I trade. My instinct is to break it down for you, but instead I will direct you to the pages of content the I've written on the topic.
http://www.mananation.com/author/jonmedina/
If you're going to call it stealing you should at least read the series right?
In regards to educating people, I do,(probably more than any other person has on the topic), but I am not going to give everyone that I trade with the rundown and full pricing portfolio of every card that's on the table. I'll tell them how much I'm giving for a card, they can take it or leave it. If they misjudge the value of a card then that's on them not me.
For the Record: I have moral guidelines that I follow which align with my spiritual beliefs. I still defend the position of free market and knowledge / time is valuable and deserves to be compensated.
I am not a fancy, educated economist like yourself, but to say that making money off cards that are raising in price is unethical, is just silly. The whole stock market is driven by these types of deals.
Anywho, Take some time to read my article "The Myth of Ripping People Off" and some of the Pack to Power stuff. This will give you a better idea of where I stand.
Correct. As well as burn.dec.
Quick question: you are buying some donuts at a grocery store. The clerk bags them and writes the price - $2.35 - on the bag. Walking away, you realize that the actual total should be $2.55. Do you go back hand have them correct it?
Happened to me yesterday. I went back and had the lady change the price.
My moral compass may not be typical. There were plenty of excuses / justifiations for doing nothing. Had I taken the bag to the register and said nothing, there was no way I could get in trouble, and almost no chance anyone (besides me) would ever realize what happened. Yes, it wasn't my fault: it was the bakery lady's mistake. The store probably does a couple million dollars a year in business: twenty cents was not going to break them. etc. etc. All excuses aside - the store was entitled to the $0.20, and it was my moral responsibility to pay them.
Not everyone sees morality the same way I do.
I try to be as morally correct as I can, within my own limits. Yes, a cow died to become my dinner. I've spent a lot of time in close proximity to cows, and I have no qualms about that. Others do. YMMV. However, as to the topic of this article - I don't view trading as unethical. I have a trade binder. However, I will only trade if I feel that I am not taking advantage of the person I'm trading with. It's not enough that he or she is happy with the trade. I'm too good with words. I know I can con people, if I try. I only do that nowadays in role-playing games, and games like Diplomacy. In real life, I need the trade to be balanced, or slightly in their favor.
Not everyone sees the world the same way.
Several people have commented about their trade experiences. I'd be glad to trade with Raddman. I'd be a lot more careful trading with some of the others. It appears that they will be more than willing to take advantage of my mistakes, so I have to make sure I don't make any. Actually, as many people have mentioned, caveat emptor (buyer beware, for those without classics training) - so this buyer simply does not trade with any of the small traders. I amy occassionally trade with other players at my local store, but most of my serious trading consists of taking a box with everything I want to get rid of to a major dealer, like Pastimes.com (paper) or MTGOTradersBuyBot online, and simply selling it to them. I may not get top dollarm but I don't get ripped off, and I don't have to waste a lot of time.
Could I make more working harder at trading? Well, that's next week's article.
At least 2 months for any major changes would be a good start.
I won my MTGO SoM prerelease flight. Even a noob like me couldn't screw up Elspeth and Masticore. Also, I had Strata Scythe which was awesome. I did lose a game to a Liege of the Tangle when I had 30+ life and he had 4. Loved the Trigon of healing. I gained so much life from it all night.
Bad luck in the Swiss, but nice write-up. Haven't played any Scars limited yet, but I can see how hard the deckbuilding is going to be.
wait ok so im rereading this article, you mean to tell me wizards is releasing DnT as a premade???
I was going to take these in order, but I have to clear up at least one misconception. My undergraduate and graduate work was in economics, and that's my profession. The furniture making is self taught, and a hobby.
To clarify - I don't think that trading is per se unnethical. What I do find unethical is a trader presenting a trade that he/she knows to be weighted in his/her favor as balanced. That's lying. John, I hjave never watched you trade, I have no idea if you represent your trades as even. If you don't, and will admit - when asked - that the balance is in your favor - then you are not one of the people I consider unethical. (I would not knowingly making unbalanced trades, but that's a personality difference. I was trained in econometrics. Some take that training and become quants creating derivatives. I didn't. I have a far more constraining moral leash. Doesn't make me right or wrong - just more constrained.)
You raised the knowledge of card values issue. That's a big chunk of part two - the cost of developing that knowledge. You can either earn it - by spending the time you did - or you can rip it off by copying major dealer price lists. A lot of people rip off SCG and MTGOTraders - which is both theft and less efficient than earning it. Either way, it is critical to trading for a profit.
As for whether you should educate - I believe in altruism. I believe the answer is yes. YMMV.
A deeper question - you appear to be saying that your advantage is that you have studied values, so you know them better than anyone else. That may well be true. What I cannot understand is how that can benefit you in a balanced trade. It can only benefit you if you make trades that you know to be weighted in your favor. That means you are profiting because your trading partners are misidentifying the present or future value of their cards.
If I'm missing something, please clue me in.
There is a long spectrum of moneymaking techniques, from crafting from nothing but pure intellect/skill (e.g. some artists, scientists, etc.) to outright con men. Trading where the proft is derived merely from knowing the value of something better than the people you trade is not illegal. It is not even clearly unethical. It's too close for me: I don't have the stomach for it.)
Your final analogy is irrelevant, of course. In no way is recommending fair trades equivalent to condoning cheating on tests. That's like saying that that, since cannibalism is unethical, I must consider all traders to be cannibals. I suspect that you were either rushing your response, or you should have taken some time off from studying card prices to study logic. If all As are Bs, and all Bs are Cs, then A does have property C. However, that does not work going backwards. In any case, I didn't say that all traders are unethical - just that all traders who lie or msrepresent thier trades are unethical.
How much notice?
I mean that there are lots of broken 'I win' interactions. Not broken as in unplayable but as in 'dude! that's broken!'
I agree that there is a huge difference between online trading and offline trading and it is quite lamentable. I traded up to half a beta set over the course of a few years using mainly standard staples. In the end my collection sold for $500 at a fairly large discount to the buyer and I did not feel bad about that at all because I needed the money and it was roughly about 3x what I'd spent (not including the many hours trading). I also did not feel particularly bad about trading cursed scrolls away for beta duals. (The duals were played so the value was roughly equal at the time.) I think where people feel ripped off online is where party a goes in knowing not only the various price margins for a card but trying to capitalize on someone else lack of familiar to trick them into giving up value. Whether this is wrong or not is a question of personal ethics as Pete says (sort of) but I would not do this.
The thing that people forget is that while Magic is a game for some, for others it is a living. And people will do much to protect their income. Personal ethics tend to not enter into it in such situations. Then it becomes a question of 'why shouldn't I use my vast knowledge to exploit the system and those who use it? It's not like I am the only one who can and will.' I guess everyone has a different line to draw.
If it makes you feel better I split the finals in my SOM paper prerelease and friday night went 4-0 (8-0) in a FNM Scars draft after going 5-0 (10-2) in the FNM std event. Here was my draft deck which is just crazy imo.
3 Myr Galvanizers
2 Copper Myr
2 Leaden Myr
1 Myr Reservoir
2 Necropede
1 Pallidum Myr
2 Perilous Myr
1 Persecutor Golem
1 Sylvok Replica
2 Painsmith
1 Skinrender
1 Blight Mamba
4 Cystbearer - yea I said 4
1 Untamed Might
16 lands
2 Corpse Cur - decided not to play either.
In the finals, I put out t2 painsmith, t3 painsmith and attacked for 12 on t4 and people say this format is slow.
As far as the Legacy decks go..........BLAH.......if they print one using wasteland the peasants will revolt. A little bit of notice wouldn't hurt the people who have invested some money in this game, gesh.
Relic WW, is a decent budget replacement for standard. Although, poison.dec might improve over the next 2 sets.
I'm not sure I'd go to say legacy is broken by far, what's your reasoning?
As a MTGO player who just started playing pants magic 3 months ago, I can surely relate to this article.
First of all, trading on mtgo is non-existant. People online trade value for value and the ease of getting any staple you need makes trading practically a waste of time.
After starting pants magic I realized this trading this was as important to me as playing. It has almost become a mini-hobby, a game inside the game.
Just this friday alone I made the following trades.
Elspeth + Darkslick + Summoning Trap + Inquisition of Kozilek x2 for his Koth. If you use capefeargames prices I ended up around 5 dollars to the good.
Memorcide for his verdant catacombs. Clearly gained here
Lotus cobra for his 4x Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin - might of lost some here.
Frost Titan + Mindbreak Trap for his All is Dust and Awakening Zone. Again in my favor
A few weeks ago I traded 3 crap black rares for one Foil Scalding Tarn. I even told the player it was heavily in my favor. He said he didn't care, would never use the card. I still felt bad so I threw in Gaea's Revenge, but still ended up +20.
I am sure everyone has stories like this, but the truth is never once did I lie in these trades. If they want a certain card of mine I ask what they value it at, if I agree then I proceed to find cards equal to, if I don't agree I tell them my value and we go from there.
It is way to hard to put values on cards for paper when players will always have the "want" factor. A few weeks ago I had another player who was dying to have my 3x Traumatize. I know that the deck won't be very competitive, but I told him what I was interested in his binder, told him the price variance and we completed the trade. I made out probably + $15, but in the end he didn't care, he simply had to have those cards to finish his deck. I didn't cheat him, was completely honest about values.
Not every player at local FNMs are trying to make metgame competitive decks. Some take great pride in using their own deck ideas with cards that hold little value. Just because they are willing to part with tournament staple cards in order to build their rogue decks doesn't make me a terrible trade person. It makes me a smart investor, looking to capitalize on the wants and needs of others. People in the business world have been exploting the wants and needs of consumers for centuries. I just happen to be on the profitable end of that business transaction.
As another Pack to Power trader, I would like to echo Medina's comment and hopefully add another salient point to this discussion.
You've done a great job of addressing the primary market and what makes it tick. Raw materials manufactured into goods, which distributors resell to stores, who then resell to individual customers. All of what you said about that is well and true.
What you neglect to give much credit to is the secondary market.
After the primary customer buys a manufactured item, this item still has value. And if the primary customer decides that they don't want the item anymore, they can choose to engage the secondary market as a way to gain some of that value.
When you open a booster pack, you will probably lose value. There's a chance that you will open some sweet card like a Koth, but you have almost certainly traded ~$3.50 for a piece of disposable foil and 15 pieces of cardboard that are mostly worthless. Think about the sum value of all the packs you've ever opened. Yeah. This is the game we play.
The hope, then, is that you either crack enough packs to get the cards you need for your deck (unlikely, unless you are very wealthy or don't want a very good deck) or you will find a way to trade what you open for what you need.
Most of us understand the need for big dealers like Star City Games. They provide the ability for you to sell them cards at their buy prices, and buy what you need at their sell prices. Everyone who trades cards in this way knows that the large retailer is going to buy for less than half of what they are going to sell at, and we're ok with this. On MTGO, the 'bots behave the same way.
Another option is to trade around with others who have small personal collections. The upside is that if you can complete a trade, you will probably get a very fair deal going both ways. Of course, this system breaks down if they have personal attachment to the card you want, or too many people in your store are building the same deck and there just aren't enough of the same 3 sweet cards to go around.
This is where the Pack to Power style traders come in. They don't have any emotional attachment to their cards. They aren't trying to build the hottest deck with the stock of their binder. All they need is a marginal profit coming their way - less than the major dealers - and they're usually up front about this fact.
Without traders like this, the secondary market for Magic just becomes the huge dealers making huge profits. In effect, the P2P guys are a little like the small business owners of Magic - they need to hustle just as much as the big boys to understand pricing and trends, but they aren't getting to buy and sell thousands of dollars of cards each day.
As a trader who usually trades for value, I feel that I provide an important niche in the market of my local store. I usually have the cards you need. I am willing to part with all the tournament staples. I have tons of sweet EDH rares for less than the $4-$5 they'll cost you online. I trade for hot cards at large events, and bring them back to my area. And losing a couple bucks trading with me is going to provide you MUCH greater EV than trading in your cards to a store or dealer. And a MUCH MUCH better deal than selling your cards on eBay and buying mine once you factor in fees, time, etc.
I don't see the problem with having a vibrant trading community like this.
I also went 1-3 at the Scars prerelease... I had no bombs or decent cards to speak of and I just deckbuilt really badly. My next article was going to be about my efforts there, and I may still touch on it briefly, but that changed as I managed to get another interview.
lol for real I needed Google for this.
Additionally, what about me selling any cards I get during prerelease events and early during release events that I know will quickly drop in price?
We also seem to have a lot of people here who have studied Latin... :-)
I'm just curious if you think I'm devious for selling cards to a major dealer knowing they will go down in price in the near future. Here's an example I didn't cash in on. I could have sold my Tarmogoyf playset just a short while ago for much more knowing their price was going to dive with the format rotation.
Also, have you people studied economics or something? This discussion is pretty knowledgeable.
I've played a few games now with my suboptimal version, and so far have found it to be very powerful. I need more removal (really want those Grasps!), and am tempted by Skinrender, but haven't been using Gatekeeper. I'm liking Brittle Effigy so far, partly because it also gets around pro black, which can be a problem in this deck.
I like the idea of Tainted Strike, I mentioned that as a good possibility when I first talked about Infect a couple of weeks ago. I'll test it out when I get some.
My MVP so far has (oddly) been Cystbearer. As I said in the article, he really is horrible to block, and horrible not to. I've got a couple of Giant Growth in the deck too, which can be ridiculous.
One thing I like about the deck is that it's got both early and late game. You can get an early win with Cystbearer, Rats and Growth, or stay for the late game with Steady Progress (which I don't want to lose, the cantrip is great) and Contagion Engine (which I absolutely luuurve at this point).
I've also got a playset of Plague Stinger in at present, which hasn't done an awful lot for me. One poison counter at a time isn't good enough I think. I'm eager to try out the list I quoted above once I get hold of the rest of the cards. I'll keep Cystbearer at a playset though. Can't wait to get hold of a couple of copies of Skittles too...