Welcome back to part two of Wheel and Deal!
In part one we talked about the different types of players/collectors and today I we will examine how to use this knowledge and how to find these players. Lets look at the points that are vital to maximize your profit:
1. Peers make bad trading partners
“If you are trading for standard staples, don’t surround yourself with standard players.” Replace the word “standard” with any of the subtypes from part I. It amazes me how many players are hanging out with one’s peers for trading. It is wrong! You can get that (insert any hot standard card here…) from a peer but you will pay a high price if you get it at all. Look for the Foil Collector, the Drafter etc. your chance increases substantially.
2. The other party determines the card values not you
Sure, most of the time you have an expectation when trading a card and know its value. What I am trying to say is that it does not matter that much what you think the card is worth but what the other party thinks it is!
You can try to convince me for 15 minutes how that “Tablet of Awesomeness” is super hot right know and worth 10 tickets, if I don’t believe it you will not make a deal. The good side of this thought is that most people don’t feel comfortable asking for the right price if they don’t like the card or believe its not worth that much. It might very well be that the other party appreciates this “crap foil” much more then you do! Make sure you find out.
3. Find the right place to buy, trade or sell
MTGO players often feel like in their own enclosed world and stay within for anything related to trading. Unfortunately you will miss many opportunities if you only trade within the MTGO client and don’t look outside this “universe”. The internet is big and all the subtypes I mentioned in part I tend to gather at places outside of MTGO….imagine you can reach a pool of players that is only interested in foils; that would make for some good foil trading deals.
Well, there are places where standard players, drafters, foil collectors and sharks hang out and you better know them too.
I would stay withing the MTGO client if
- You have current standard cards you want to sell
- You need tix fast to enter a draft or tournament
- You are trading cards of little value or you are looking for crap rares for your fun deck
The most popular medium outside of MTGO is probably Ebay. While misguided and clueless (as they are still not sure if they want to make it legal to trade digital objects on their side) it has the advantage that you reach much more people then on classified. Go there if
- you have opened a top foil from a new released set
- you are selling a huge collection that most people cannot afford to buy with tix
- you are looking to buy singles, small collections or top cards with a chance for a good deal
If you have top foils from current sets or very rare and played foils from older sets you should definitively try Classicquarter.com. This site is as the name implies filled with players that are interested in eternal formats such as Classic, Singleton and Prismatic. They have an auction system that is completely free and works very much like Ebay but without any fees for buyers or sellers! Have a look if
- You have a top foil that needs a new home
- You are looking for hard to find cards or foils
- You are playing eternal formats and need price checks etc.
There are many, many more resources such as Cardshark.com or Magictraders.com that can give you the opportunity to reach out to a lot of people. Of course you can also use our forum to do so. If you do a little bit search you will find more.
Don’t miss the opportunities and happy dealing!
