I've thought about it before. Not because I don't want to play, but because I could save myself the hassle of trading. Instead I could just buy the cards I need when I need them. My biggest problem with doing this is that I would feel terrible asking friends to borrow cards knowing that I have nothing that I could loan them.
I sold my cards in 1997 that were worth about $6,000 then. I needed to "move on" with my life because my car's engine blew and I was a student at the time. I sold them for $2,000. Obviously I wish that I saved them as it's probably worth around $50,000 nowadays (no joke, it had power 9, beta duals, and a bunch of beta staples including multiples). Remember, Pimping back then was getting the Beta version and I was working on a full play set of Beta duals (Revised was nearly at 2 full playsets).
When I restarted during Tempest, I ended up selling during Nemesis. I gave the whole collection (worth around $400) for my brother to sell since I sold his Unlimited Black Lotus in my sale many years ago. He sold it for $230. I don't mind selling this collection, as I was busy with school and work again.
Since then, I've sold my collections before rotation and gotten about 80% on the average back from what I paid. But, I am a smart buyer. Not everyone can do this, especially if you prefer "so and so store" over Ebay.
If you quit, I would recommend saving Eternal staples. Their prices seem stable or will go up in time (for the most part/obviously not every card).
Ouch! Somehow I no longer feel so bad about the twenty someodd revised duals I gambled away back in '98!
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
So for several hours now I have been trying to figure out what deck to play for rotation. Everytime I come up with something I want to play I hit a giant brick wall cost wise. And at this point the game is making me horribly depressed. So right now I'm thinking of dumping my collection off at the card shop and moving on with my life. The other day I just blew $25 on a deck idea that didn't come together the way I wanted, and while I'm sure people here will spit on me for being poor, that was a lot of money to spend all at once for cards I now can't use and no one wants to trade for.
Normally I pool my cards with my friend who has a lot more money than I do, but for the past 2 months I maybe have had access 3-4 times to our combined cards. And just today he said I couldn't come over to work on my deck even though rotation is imminent.
So right now I just want to go to my card shop monday, talk to one of the guys that gladly buys and sells cards, then liquidate the rest to the owner. Has anyone else ever just been fed up with the game and dumped all their cards? I really don't want to give them to my friend because he's selfish, and even a few bucks wouldn't hurt. If I offered to sell them to my friend he would just demand I give them to him for free.
Tl;DR Have you ever gotten rid of your cards and what was your experience afterwards? I ask this knowing full well that the people who actually moved on with their lives wouldn't be on this message board.
When I first read your post I had the feeling that you were overreacting about $25. But then I remembered back when I started and $25 was a lot to me. Now I have a $1000+ Modern deck and about $1500 more in other cards so $25 isn't really a huge deal in terms of trade value (I refuse to spend more than $5/mo with actual cash though, but that's another story).
I've done what you've done on a larger scale several times (try $4-500 rather than $25) and without a job or any sort of budget. Each time I screwed up I wanted to quit the game. Eventually I just got drawn back in. I pretty much did this until I got to my current deck, which is a deck reminiscent of the most fun I had in Standard back in 2011-12, except it's a Modern deck so it doesn't rotate.
Which brings me to my point. You need to do two things. Find out what kind of decks you really like to play and figure out how competitive you want to be.
I love playing tempo decks. After a while though, they get boring and I want to try something new like Control or Aggro. It took me a while to realize that I couldn't do that as a budget player (yes, I am a budget player, despite the size of my collection- most of it is not for trade and I have no other money). So I manned up and just traded for one deck that I really liked and you know what? Sometimes I get bored. All that means is that I don't play Magic as often, which is fine because I don't have much time to play anyways. Anyways, my point is, find out what you love and don't deviate, no matter how boring it gets (I guess it's kinda like finding a job :P) until you get a bigger wallet.
You also shouldn't be trying to compete with the big boys with a small budget. I'm not saying that to be condescending. I'm saying that because you simply can't do it. No, your budget Aggro deck won't be able to finish off an optimized Control list, even if Aggro is supposed to beat Control (I think that's how the cycle works... right?). For RDW, you gotta dish out $16 for Ash Zealot, $60 for Boros Reckoner, and that's the tip of the iceberg of the cheapest deck. Don't even get me started with Midrange and Control lists. I don't know about your FNM, but mine is filled with a smattering of top tier lists and janky homebrews. Sure, you might end up 2-2 in the end with your homebrew, but the difference between 2-2 and 3-1 or 4-0 is vast, especially since you'll likely be fighting other homebrews once you lose 2 in a row so you'll have the illusion that you did well.
Just one last word of advice (I know you're sick of it :P), buy staples. The reason why no one wants to trade for your $25 worth of cards is probably because the cards people really want to trade for are mostly in the $10-25 range. If you built an entire deck for $25, then I'm guessing you don't have many of those cards in the deck. I suggest reading up on the metagame if you're determined to be competitive and finding out what the cheaper staples are (a few examples: Ash Zealot, Firedrinker Satyr, Hero's Downfall, Mizzium Mortars) and build your deck with those as much as possible so you can liquidate it.
You might think I'm an idiot who spent $2500 on cards, but what if I told you I actually paid $1200 for my cards and they've simply grown to $2500? What if I told you if I left the game for a few years my collection might even be $3000-4000? Having an eye for prices and buying staples might mean that your wallet takes a heavy hit now, but it might also mean that you can leave the game free and clear years later rather than treating your cards as a sunk cost. Who knows, maybe you might even have some extra money in your pocket?
before you spend money on a new deck idea, go and download magicworkstation or cockatrice. Play the decks online and see how they work out before you since money into them.
As for quitting, thats up to you. But most people end up regretting it because they come back and say I had those cards when they were $1 crap rares I couldn't even sell. Now they are worth $40 each.
Since I was fairly new, I sold my cards that rotated out of standard in order to have a budget for new cards. Now that I am getting into Modern and EDH, I am regretting it.
I never gave away my collection, But I lost them in a move once. It was prettymuch alot of the cards I had from Nemisis to Leigon's. And I was super mad about it because I remember It was after Mirroden had come out, and I was upset because I liked the old boarder better at the time and so I had just lost all my old boardered cards.
I'm thinking about getting rid of a majority of cards: ever since getting back into the game I've spent a **** ton of money on it (1000 bucks on Modern Masters alone) and I've acquired a lot of cards; too many even
I'm considering going into only Commander and Drafting
The Commander format is exactly why and how I got into Magic back in 1995: large multiplayer madness
Drafting is the cheapest way to experience skill-testing games
Standard, Legacy and all those other constructed formats cost way too much and having to keep up with the meta isn't something I find enjoyable
I'll probably give my commons/uncommons to some kind of organization for children and try to sell my rares. Sorting through this is going to be insane; I've been putting this off for a while to be honest
use a site like pucatrade to turn the 1$ cards into 20$ cards ... and use something like tappedout.net to try deck ideas before laying down money on the cards ...
when i sold out (around ice age) i sold about 4,000 cards for a little less then 150$ ... what i can remember of them now was well over 8k value wise .. and i am sure there was more as i had been buying since beta...
when i sold though it was because there was no others to play with in my town.
I sold my considerable collection earlier this spring. I had a couple of surgeries I had to pay for and I was really getting sick of the game in general. Mainly standard. Our FNM's were like going to a PTQ. Just wasn't any fun for me anymore. So I put all the rares on deckbox.org and put it out on this site actually and found a buyer. I got less than half it's worth but I honestly DO NOT miss it. I kept my EDH decks and the dual lands I had and have been a lot more happy with MtG now. I only buy 10-15 cards per new set and usually can trade the ones I swap out of my EDH decks for store credit and call it good. I would suggest like many have, to pick up a new format and try that first. If you still are unhappy, dump it. no use in wasting time and money doing something that doesnt make you happy.
A few years ago (end of Alara block) I sold a lot of my rare singles. I regret it now, but mostly for nostalgic reasons. I sold a lot of things like invasion Reya Dawnbringer that aren't worth much money, but they hold memories for me from childhood.
When I sold them I figured I'd never be back, but hey, here I am. Just something to think about.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
You can find me on MTGO. My username is gereffi.
Ouch! Somehow I no longer feel so bad about the twenty someodd revised duals I gambled away back in '98!
Life is magic!
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=517520
When I first read your post I had the feeling that you were overreacting about $25. But then I remembered back when I started and $25 was a lot to me. Now I have a $1000+ Modern deck and about $1500 more in other cards so $25 isn't really a huge deal in terms of trade value (I refuse to spend more than $5/mo with actual cash though, but that's another story).
I've done what you've done on a larger scale several times (try $4-500 rather than $25) and without a job or any sort of budget. Each time I screwed up I wanted to quit the game. Eventually I just got drawn back in. I pretty much did this until I got to my current deck, which is a deck reminiscent of the most fun I had in Standard back in 2011-12, except it's a Modern deck so it doesn't rotate.
Which brings me to my point. You need to do two things. Find out what kind of decks you really like to play and figure out how competitive you want to be.
I love playing tempo decks. After a while though, they get boring and I want to try something new like Control or Aggro. It took me a while to realize that I couldn't do that as a budget player (yes, I am a budget player, despite the size of my collection- most of it is not for trade and I have no other money). So I manned up and just traded for one deck that I really liked and you know what? Sometimes I get bored. All that means is that I don't play Magic as often, which is fine because I don't have much time to play anyways. Anyways, my point is, find out what you love and don't deviate, no matter how boring it gets (I guess it's kinda like finding a job :P) until you get a bigger wallet.
You also shouldn't be trying to compete with the big boys with a small budget. I'm not saying that to be condescending. I'm saying that because you simply can't do it. No, your budget Aggro deck won't be able to finish off an optimized Control list, even if Aggro is supposed to beat Control (I think that's how the cycle works... right?). For RDW, you gotta dish out $16 for Ash Zealot, $60 for Boros Reckoner, and that's the tip of the iceberg of the cheapest deck. Don't even get me started with Midrange and Control lists. I don't know about your FNM, but mine is filled with a smattering of top tier lists and janky homebrews. Sure, you might end up 2-2 in the end with your homebrew, but the difference between 2-2 and 3-1 or 4-0 is vast, especially since you'll likely be fighting other homebrews once you lose 2 in a row so you'll have the illusion that you did well.
Just one last word of advice (I know you're sick of it :P), buy staples. The reason why no one wants to trade for your $25 worth of cards is probably because the cards people really want to trade for are mostly in the $10-25 range. If you built an entire deck for $25, then I'm guessing you don't have many of those cards in the deck. I suggest reading up on the metagame if you're determined to be competitive and finding out what the cheaper staples are (a few examples: Ash Zealot, Firedrinker Satyr, Hero's Downfall, Mizzium Mortars) and build your deck with those as much as possible so you can liquidate it.
You might think I'm an idiot who spent $2500 on cards, but what if I told you I actually paid $1200 for my cards and they've simply grown to $2500? What if I told you if I left the game for a few years my collection might even be $3000-4000? Having an eye for prices and buying staples might mean that your wallet takes a heavy hit now, but it might also mean that you can leave the game free and clear years later rather than treating your cards as a sunk cost. Who knows, maybe you might even have some extra money in your pocket?
As for quitting, thats up to you. But most people end up regretting it because they come back and say I had those cards when they were $1 crap rares I couldn't even sell. Now they are worth $40 each.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
I'm stupid for selling my Arid Mesa D:
Standard
UR Control
Modern
Merfolk
Burn
Avacyn did nothing wrong!
Purify Innistrad!
#Purge
It's Hip to be a Square
I'm considering going into only Commander and Drafting
The Commander format is exactly why and how I got into Magic back in 1995: large multiplayer madness
Drafting is the cheapest way to experience skill-testing games
Standard, Legacy and all those other constructed formats cost way too much and having to keep up with the meta isn't something I find enjoyable
I'll probably give my commons/uncommons to some kind of organization for children and try to sell my rares. Sorting through this is going to be insane; I've been putting this off for a while to be honest
CardboardCreationism
ETSY COUNTERS
when i sold out (around ice age) i sold about 4,000 cards for a little less then 150$ ... what i can remember of them now was well over 8k value wise .. and i am sure there was more as i had been buying since beta...
when i sold though it was because there was no others to play with in my town.
When I sold them I figured I'd never be back, but hey, here I am. Just something to think about.