Download and Discuss Episode 19

[Somnolence]

In regards to your post about the benefits of buying playsets vs boxes, I await a comment from our Chief CCG Financial Correspondent, Somnolence (Bryan on the show) as he has experience selling cards at a store.

From a strict $$$ standpoint, buying packs is almost ALWAYS the WRONG choice. (Future Sight and Morningtide were recent exceptions)
As a 'regular guy' you will hardly ever be able to flip what you pull for a profit, and when you do...all it will do is offset previous/future negatives.

However, opening packs is much more 'fun' than buying sets.

[Notpalc]

I guess I should add a revision - if I had one or two Baneslayers I'd probably spend the $100 to get two so I did have a playset.

I should also note that I am not spending massive amounts of time each week building decks. When I first started I liked the bloodbraid to cerdon yearling (sp) or jack hundblade (jund hackblade) mix, so I've been toying with the Naya realm. But I branched out to FNM end of last year but was getting crushed because I just didn't have the pool of cards. I only did this because the casual group wasn't playing enough for my preferences and the amount of time and money I initially invested.

I guess it's a difference of casual vs competitive. I originally didn't like MTGO - but the fact that I can build 100s of decks on the fly has switched me to that more and more as I can play whenever I want. Where as in physical cards I have to put markers in slots when I cannibalize a deck for a new deck.

I would like to hear Bryan's take on cardboard vs MTGO cards - as I think buying singles is much more cost effective given the shear number of cards available instantly. Take the Fetches for example - $11 bux at the shoppes - $2.50 to $4.50 on MTGO.

I've moved more to limited for my competitive play and then use those cards to fill out my casual decks - which I can "get away with" not having the 4x of cards. EDH has really relieved my 1x needs.

As for casual around me - yeah we still play, but for example one of our players was reorganizing his decks for his WW cards - so he had no decks ready - if it were MTGO that would take about 3 minutes to put together and run. We also don't trade, because 3 guys traded all their vamps in 2010 to a guy when the Noc was $4.... now no one wants to trade

See there is a 20 - excellent maybe I have some comments on that. Keep it up.

[Notpalc]

In regards to your post about the benefits of buying playsets vs boxes, I await a comment from our Chief CCG Financial Correspondent, Somnolence (Bryan on the show) as he has experience selling cards at a store.

From a strict $$$ standpoint, buying packs is almost ALWAYS the WRONG choice. (Future Sight and Morningtide were recent exceptions)
As a 'regular guy' you will hardly ever be able to flip what you pull for a profit, and when you do...all it will do is offset previous/future negatives.

However, opening packs is much more 'fun' than buying sets.

That was my thought - but a couple of places I read said the most effective way to get a playset of cards is to buy a case for the large sets four boxes for the smaller.

Thoughts on the offset of why MTGO cards are so much cheaper and the packs are on average $1.25 more - I guess it's just the sheer volume of cards as I said in the previous post.

Opening is more fun - sorting is not

Thanks for the response.

[quartermouse]

Hey there. Long time listener, first time poster. I am a casual player who enjoys his FNM's and do multi-player games on a pickup basis.

I totally agree with the wonkiness of card values today. It makes no sense to me how cards like Baneslayer, Jace, Fetch Lands, etc. hit the market like a nuclear bomb and people pay those prices for it. While a part of me celebrates the high prices for the card shops that will find people to lay out $200 for a playset of Baneslayers, it kills me that the casual player gets priced out of the market right from jump street.

I remember when M-10 came out and trying to find packs was hard! My local hobby shop (Olde World Games in Vacaville, CA) said that they placed an order with their distributor for three cases of boosters and one case of fat packs. All they got in the initial shipment was four boxes of boosters and three fat packs. When players were asking about buying a booster box, the response was that they were more than willing to sell an entire box, but asked if we could hold off so that more people could have a chance of buying packs. Thankfully, most of the FNM regulars were cool with that. We had all hoped that Wizards would fix this problem when Zendikar came out. They didn't. Same with Worldwake.

That may be the root of the problem. If they (Wizards) was able to ensure initial demand for a card set upon it's initial release, I think that it would cool the speculative nature of the secondary market. Thinking back to basic economics, supply will dictate demand and I have no problem if a seller can find a buyer that will meet their price. Yet, if the supply is scarce at the start, of course the market will drive the prices higher...we just have to wait for the "bubble" to burst on the prices. Just look at Eldrazi now. Some of the cards are already selling in the $30 + range. There hasn't been one second of competition play with any of these cards and I foresee the prices for booster boxes and fat packs already marked up from MSRP. I believe that if the supply was plentiful from Launch, we wouldn't see $50 cards from Day 1 and the casual player can have all the same kicking cards as the Pro's do.

[Christian]

Thanks for listening and glad you like the show!

You might be interested to read our discussion that sparked after the Zendikar pack shortage:

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=396