Card Acquisition for an FNM
-or-
How do I keep Magic from breaking the bank?
TL;DR: Go to Ebay and look for Common/Uncommon play-sets of the current year's core set and block. Get an "Event Deck" if you want to play immediately.
This guide assumes you've read the previous post regarding the basics of Wizards of the Coast organized play program for Magic the Gathering.
If you're getting back into paper magic again and wanting to play with strangers - your most basic event will probably be a Friday Night Magic event, which is usually "Standard" format.
The advantage of having a standard legal deck is that you can walk into a card shop most anywhere in the country on Friday night and have a "legal" deck to play with. A disadvantage that will be discussed below is that tournament quality magic decks cost between $150-$600 on an average; for reasons which will be discussed further down the post.
If you're getting back into magic, this post should show why one thing you should decide ahead of time is a rough budget for your magic expenditures, particularly if you have a competitive streak where winning greatly affects the amount of fun you have playing magic. If other players refer to you as "Spike" for some reason, you may fall into this category.
If you're getting back into magic, this post should show why one thing you should decide ahead of time is a rough budget for your magic expenditures, particularly if you have a competitive streak where winning greatly affects the amount of fun you have playing magic. If other players refer to you as "Spike" for some reason, you may fall into this category.
The Magic Lottery
The most common way to acquire cards is the "Booster Pack". Booster packs are about $4.00 retail and are guaranteed to contain 11 commons (black set symbol), 3 uncommons (silver set symbol), and one rare or mythic rare (gold/burn orange set symbol) per pack.
As much fun as opening booster packs can be, they are better treated more like lottery tickets instead of a viable way to build a collection; though some returning players choose to play limited so they can get additional enjoyment out of opening pack while they work on their collection.
Building your Initial Collection - Goals and Budgeting:
The goal this advice seeks to achieve is to allow for the greatest amount of deck building options, balancing out the goal of spending the least amount of money and time acquiring cards.
Without getting into deck construction advice, the ability to build a solid deck is greatly enhanced by having play-sets of cards, i.e. 4 copies of one card, usually, as 4 is the maximum number of any individual card, besides basic lands, that you can have in your minimum 60 card deck and 15 card sideboard.
Buying singles or even single play-sets of non-rares, particularly for the newer sets, is an expensive way to go about it unless you're picking up a second set to have two decks built.
The best general advice to new players about acquiring cards for Standard:
Go to Ebay and look for Common/Uncommon play-sets of the current year's core set and block. These sets will run about $35 a piece on average for 500-800 cards & provide the basic fodder for any deck; by comparison collecting 800 cards via booster packs is about rounds out to about $215. If a listing for a common/uncommon play-set states that it's excluding a card, it's usually because that card has risen in price to the point where it's price is measured in dollars instead of cents.
Go to Ebay and look for Common/Uncommon play-sets of the current year's core set and block. These sets will run about $35 a piece on average for 500-800 cards & provide the basic fodder for any deck; by comparison collecting 800 cards via booster packs is about rounds out to about $215. If a listing for a common/uncommon play-set states that it's excluding a card, it's usually because that card has risen in price to the point where it's price is measured in dollars instead of cents.
Play-sets for the previous year's block are more difficult to find and possibly be more expensive, so it's a personal choice whether to just wait until set rotations to make collecting the older block a moot point as far as standard goes.
The reason for getting the common/uncommon playsets is that the usual first line of deck building advice is to increase most of the cards to playsets to reduce variance in the deck's draws; so it will just save time if those who are answering a request for a deck critique can assume that the deck designer has access to playsets of anything that costs under $0.50.
After you have "caught up" to the point of having common/uncommon playsets from all of the sets in standard, the next step is to choose your deck and acquire the rares individually either by bargain hunting or through trades with other players. While playsets that include the rares and mythic rares are available, the cost of these sets are a few hundred dollars and can run into the thousands of dollars.
After you have "caught up" to the point of having common/uncommon playsets from all of the sets in standard, the next step is to choose your deck and acquire the rares individually either by bargain hunting or through trades with other players. While playsets that include the rares and mythic rares are available, the cost of these sets are a few hundred dollars and can run into the thousands of dollars.
If you're looking for casual kitchen table fodder, then you can look at some of the smaller site's "grab bag" type deals where they send you "X" hundreds of jank cards for $10-$20. Another option is to proxy cards. While you can just write the name of a card on a land with a sharpie, the more aesthetically pleasing way to proxy card would be to go to Magiccards.info; this site allows for you to search for a card and it will give you the option to print the card yourself if you want to play with it causally.
The best general advice for attending a Standard Event without currently owning a deck:
Wizards of the Coast has started to produce what they refer to as Event Decks which are released alongside the Magic Game Days that they hold on a quarterly basis.
Event Decks should not be confused with Intro Pack Decks, as Event decks are usually superior in their construction and are pre-packaged with a side-board for competitive event. The superiority in construction comes from the fact that Event Decks will actually contain play-sets of cards and have more rares, increasing the consistency and card quality beyond that of an Intro Pack Deck.
Trading and Card Valuation:
Once you actually have trade-fodder, study up on your card values for the formats you play. Prices range from $.10 for most commons and land to $50 for a tournament playable mythic rare.
The best general advice for attending a Standard Event without currently owning a deck:
Wizards of the Coast has started to produce what they refer to as Event Decks which are released alongside the Magic Game Days that they hold on a quarterly basis.
Event Decks should not be confused with Intro Pack Decks, as Event decks are usually superior in their construction and are pre-packaged with a side-board for competitive event. The superiority in construction comes from the fact that Event Decks will actually contain play-sets of cards and have more rares, increasing the consistency and card quality beyond that of an Intro Pack Deck.
Trading and Card Valuation:
Once you actually have trade-fodder, study up on your card values for the formats you play. Prices range from $.10 for most commons and land to $50 for a tournament playable mythic rare.
As a side note, if you sell "bulk" commons and uncommons to retailers they go for $7.00 per 1,000, so don't expect anyone to pay you $.10 a card for random Type II commons unless they're trade throw-ins.
Now, a brief and incomplete comment on what drives prices for the $600 decks - rarity is obviously one of the most important factors, as is age of the card, but the defining factor of a card's value is tournament playability.
As discussed in in my initial blog post, there are two broad classifications of magic players, "casual" and "competitive". The competitive player has the greatest effect on the price of an individual magic card because they will purchase tournament playable card at a much higher price than a causal player is willing to pay.
The more decks and formats that a tournament playable card can be played in, the more expensive it will be. A historical example of this is Jace, the Mind Sculptor, as the graph found in the link shows his rise in price over time.
JacetMS applies every possible reason for being a potentially valuable card outside of age, as he was released in January of 2010. JacetMS was a Mythic rare that was played in every standard tournament deck with Islands before his banning in standard in July 2011 and he was also seeing play in Legacy and Vintage decks as well. JacetMS was also a linchpin for a Standard Legal deck which was the most dominant at the time by a wide margin, Caw-Blade. The price for Caw-Blade was up in the $800 dollar range prior to the JacetMS banning from standard and modern, with half the value of the deck being the 4 JacetMS found in the deck. JacetMS is still playable in Legacy and Vintage, so he'll likely remain a $50 to $100 card for as long as he's playable in Legacy.
Casual demand will affect prices as well, particularly for formats which allow older cards like Commander. Doubling Season is the poster child for a casual-only card that has risen in value with the rise in popularity of the Commander format.
There are several good sites for researching the prices of cards. TCG Player, Find Magic Cards, and All Magic Cards. All of these sites have several different stores contributing to their price lists. You don't want to use an average price from TCG Player because it includes foils and for older cards - random levels of wear and tear & because some stores randomly put in $100 as a price for no good reason; If you are going to use the store aggregators just look for the cost from the lowest price provider that can provide the card in the quantity and condition you are trading for as a baseline & factor in instant gratification & lack of shipping costs. A maximum price for any card should be Ebay' s "Buy it Now" price for that card.
For cards in Standard, generally Bulk/Junk rares will go for a $1, Bulk mythic rares will go for a bit more. Expensive rares go for $10~, and the sky's the limit for mythic rares as JacetMS has shown. Sometimes common & uncommon cards that are very sought after can go for a the price of mid-ranged rare.
The reason you want to know prices is that trading is a good way to get rares you might want to use later & you don't want to insult someone by offering them a Lightning Bolt for their mythic rare planeswalker, and similarly you don't want to be trading away a rare planeswalker for a five cent common either.
Some advice for new players on trades is to use your or your fellow magic player's cellphone's web browser or any number of app's to check on the price of a card prior to making a trade if you're at all unsure about the value of your cards.
A common tactic in trading for a savvy trader will be to ask "What do you value this card at?" The rub being that your opinion on the value of a card is irrelevant to the market and if you undervalue it, they'll be happy to trade it from you at your mistaken value.
An historical example of why this distinction matters: If you look at the value graph for Splinter Twin you'll note that it went straight up from $.50 to almost $10.00 seemingly overnight. The reason for this was the printing of another card which could be combined with Splinter Twin to make a "I win on this turn" two card combination. Being one-half of a combo' took what was a "bulk rare" care to "tournament playable" overnight. Players who don't track the competitive scene may have missed the distinction and traded away these cards at 5% of their value because Splinter Twin was a $.50 card for the first year after its release.
The flip side of this is that when you're making a trade, it clogs up the process if you're attempting to match values down to the penny. Remember that the prices you see on the web don't include the convenience of having the card immediately, any possible taxes or shipping from ordering it off of the web, or the value of having some good-will with a fellow magic player.
Further Magic "Finance" Reading
There are several resources on for those who would like to learn more about the market for magic cards.
The premier site for the Magic economy is Quiet Speculation, though the site requires a subscription, similarly Jonathan Medina at Star City Games writes an article that is behind a pay-wall for a month prior to becoming available to the public. Free resources for magic finance are Quiet Speculation's editor Kelly Ried, who is writing a column at TCG Player and Channel Fireball author Brian Grewe.
Some advice for new players on trades is to use your or your fellow magic player's cellphone's web browser or any number of app's to check on the price of a card prior to making a trade if you're at all unsure about the value of your cards.
A common tactic in trading for a savvy trader will be to ask "What do you value this card at?" The rub being that your opinion on the value of a card is irrelevant to the market and if you undervalue it, they'll be happy to trade it from you at your mistaken value.
An historical example of why this distinction matters: If you look at the value graph for Splinter Twin you'll note that it went straight up from $.50 to almost $10.00 seemingly overnight. The reason for this was the printing of another card which could be combined with Splinter Twin to make a "I win on this turn" two card combination. Being one-half of a combo' took what was a "bulk rare" care to "tournament playable" overnight. Players who don't track the competitive scene may have missed the distinction and traded away these cards at 5% of their value because Splinter Twin was a $.50 card for the first year after its release.
The flip side of this is that when you're making a trade, it clogs up the process if you're attempting to match values down to the penny. Remember that the prices you see on the web don't include the convenience of having the card immediately, any possible taxes or shipping from ordering it off of the web, or the value of having some good-will with a fellow magic player.
Further Magic "Finance" Reading
There are several resources on for those who would like to learn more about the market for magic cards.
The premier site for the Magic economy is Quiet Speculation, though the site requires a subscription, similarly Jonathan Medina at Star City Games writes an article that is behind a pay-wall for a month prior to becoming available to the public. Free resources for magic finance are Quiet Speculation's editor Kelly Ried, who is writing a column at TCG Player and Channel Fireball author Brian Grewe.
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