I have been having a bit of confusion lately on what I should keep in my collection. I have quite a collection built up over 6 years of Magic and thanks to Pucatrade, I can get cards I want with what I own. Although I have not touched my "personal" not-for-trade collection for Pucatrade. I looked over my personal collection recently and discovered it's made up of multiple ideas of what I wanted to collect over the years, from my favourite cards and cards used in decks I hope to obtain in the future, to extra cards for changing metas and many manabases.
Sadly I don't think I will be making many more powerful Legacy and Modern decks as they are too expensive to make multiples of. I have also discovered Pauper recently in the past month and my LGS supports it heavily, with which I have been finding it more fun then Modern and Legacy anyway because it is cheap to build many decks and the power level is right next to Legacy. I am also just looking at my favourite cards and I realise I just would not use them unless I was committed on completely changing my Legacy and Modern decks' strategies to compensate which would require more funds and change the decks to a style I would not like.
So I am thinking of having my personal collection changed to keeping cards specific for meta changes for my current decks in Legacy/Modern/Pauper while also hanging onto my manabases as they are worth to have in the long run. This would mean I would be trading away cards such as Griselbrands, Wurmcoil Engines, Goblin Lackeys, etc. What do you think of my situation? What are your views on the topic and how do you control your private collection?
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
I keep cards in my personal collection and will never trade them away. Foil rares/mythics I opened because the chances of opening one are slim, artifacts, enchantments, lands, creatures, planeswalkers(planeswalkers in general) that have to deal with Urza and cards that were given to me or have been altered. Pretty much sentimental to me in some shape or form and can't ever get back even if I were to receive another copy.
Edit
I actually got around to finishing your post. I would recommend keeping cards for your decks that require specific answers. I do something similar. Example would be my Burn deck. I keep Monastery Swiftspear, Flame Rift, Shattering Spree, Smash to Smithereens, Surgical Extraction and more just in case something happens that requires this type of response. I am still willing to trade some of these cards away to acquire cards that I am specifically looking for, however, these are slim as I will have probably bought them, or too expensive to acquire with such cheap cards.
I collect Zendikar full art lands, any of them I'm not picky. I especially go out of my way for any done by veronique meignaud. I still need a foil Mountain and Forest
for my decks.
I only keep things that I use for decks. For example, I keep any and all cards that rotate in and out of my fish in modern,and when I was playing standard I would keep whatever cards I was rotating in my deck at the time. This applies to lands too, I am working towards getting 4x of each shock and fetch so I can have a manabase for whatever modern deck I decide to build next. Beyond that, I try to keep cards moving through my collection and just have Pucapoints built up for when I do need new stuff.
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Standard- RG Monsters
Modern- Bogles
Legacy- I wish
EDH- Anafenza and Raging Omnath
I had to vote for all but one of the choices. I'd simply say you want to keep everything that is "playable". However, "playable" is largely defined by your personal tastes, formats you play, along with the meta you play in. It can also include the meta (or formats) you "might someday be required (or want) to play in".
Generally, I tell people to never get rid of cards. You'll invariably find yourself going out and re-buying cards because you've sold them off at some point. But there are limits. There are obviously cards that NO ONE will ever find a need to play. There is also the issue of how much of your life's storage space you want to dedicate to MTG. All of this factors into what and how many cards you keep in your collection. There is also the monetary value to consider. Watching cards' costs rise and fall is nerve-wracking. I generally don't sell cards out of my "playing" collection. Once it's deemed that I want a certain card in the collection, it stays. Most cards are just kept in playsets of 4, and I get rid of the rest, whether being sold, put into trade stock, or given away. The exceptions are cards that get played a lot and find themselves in multiple decks, or maybe a card that I keep a vintage version of plus a newer version of, or different art I like.
But the point is, I keep a playset of any card that I believe is a card that will see some kind of play at some point. Old favorites that get pulled out for fun, or maybe cards that inspired a deck idea that I haven't put together yet, even a few cards that are just kept for value. It's all up to you, there is no "right" way. Personally, I'd never get rid of a card like Griselbrand or Goblin Lackey. It's a good bet you'll want to play them again at some point, and kick yourself that you got rid of them.
I have a few different "collections". My play collection is made up of playsets of playable modern & Legacy cards, for use across multiple modern decks (I have the cards for about 10 assorted competitive modern decks and 4 or so legacy decks.) I have commander staples for my Ghave Deck that get traded off as I track down nicer versions of them. Everything else is trades or bulk, except for a small number of sentimental cards that I find aesthetically pleasing such as foil Ensouled Scimitar, foil Thunderstaff, foil Beacon of Creation, Duel Deck Abyssal Gatekeeper, foil Death Cloud, foil 9th ed Hypnotic Specter basically anything that I find is the perfect mix of flavor, design and visual.
My collection (the cards that I don't plan on trading off) is made up of primarily Reserve List cards that are staples, Judge Promos, Guru Lands, and other assorted and rare oddities (WOTC Christmas Promos). I generally like to have a playset of each card in my collection except P9, Guru Lands, and the Christmas stuff.
Playsets of cards for legacy and modern, sometimes multiple playsets in case I need to lend stuff out. None of my tournament staples are foils, to both save money and to avoid accidental cheating. My staples are pimped through other means, like textless promos, foreign languages or artist signatures.
I have a pimped out cube where I put my foils, but minimal amounts of foreign or textless cards to avoid confusion during drafting and playing.
My Maga EDH deck is an assorted mix of promos, foils, autographed cards, etc.
Also not rich, I just win more tournaments than an average grinder
Understand, Dredge is not really a Magic: The Gathering deck. When a card is playable in it, it doesn't mean it's a tournament playable card. It means it's playable in whatever crazy fantasy world that Dredge operates in.
For Yu-Gi-Oh, I have Archlord Zerato and Harpie Girl, and every version of Dark Magician Girl. For Naruto, every Anko, Hinata, Guren, and Karin ever printed, plus my championship chibi Deidara. Means a lot to me.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Everything. I never sell or trade cards away. If I need something specific for a deck, I order what I need. I mostly draft and play Commander, and I enjoy throwing in stuff that none of my friends have seen in years, if ever.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
There are some cards I've bought or traded for solely because I like them - foil 7th ed ***, sdcc2013 chandra, etc. Like if I paid $15 for card X, I'm not just going to trade it away randomly to the first person what offers $15 for it. But, by and large, most cards I own are for trade, given the right circumstances.
I've been divesting myself of most of my loose collection, underused drafts sims, and underused (inexpensive) cubes. My last collecting hurrah right now is gathering materials for a crap foil cube. After I get that off the ground, I'm planning to further cut down my stuff to make room for different ccg cubes (L5R, FoW, Netrunner) and just a small number of maybe-cube singles.
I'm making peace with no longer really playing constructed magic, except for a smattering of pure causal and pauper decks. Cubing and drafting area really the only aspects of magic I enjoy, and I'm even losing a lot of steam playing; I just like the project planning and updating of cubes, frankly...
I collect Liliana cards, anything with her on it or that references her, but one of each will do. (My darling does the same for Jace.) I get whatever I want for decks, generally in foil. I play EDH exclusively. I will trade away anything I don't play with (recently traded my LEG Moat, for instance), but I won't trade foils. I used to, but I am too much of a magpie. My foils are my pets.
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Sadly I don't think I will be making many more powerful Legacy and Modern decks as they are too expensive to make multiples of. I have also discovered Pauper recently in the past month and my LGS supports it heavily, with which I have been finding it more fun then Modern and Legacy anyway because it is cheap to build many decks and the power level is right next to Legacy. I am also just looking at my favourite cards and I realise I just would not use them unless I was committed on completely changing my Legacy and Modern decks' strategies to compensate which would require more funds and change the decks to a style I would not like.
So I am thinking of having my personal collection changed to keeping cards specific for meta changes for my current decks in Legacy/Modern/Pauper while also hanging onto my manabases as they are worth to have in the long run. This would mean I would be trading away cards such as Griselbrands, Wurmcoil Engines, Goblin Lackeys, etc. What do you think of my situation? What are your views on the topic and how do you control your private collection?
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Edit
I actually got around to finishing your post. I would recommend keeping cards for your decks that require specific answers. I do something similar. Example would be my Burn deck. I keep Monastery Swiftspear, Flame Rift, Shattering Spree, Smash to Smithereens, Surgical Extraction and more just in case something happens that requires this type of response. I am still willing to trade some of these cards away to acquire cards that I am specifically looking for, however, these are slim as I will have probably bought them, or too expensive to acquire with such cheap cards.
for my decks.
Modern- Bogles
Legacy- I wish
EDH- Anafenza and Raging Omnath
Generally, I tell people to never get rid of cards. You'll invariably find yourself going out and re-buying cards because you've sold them off at some point. But there are limits. There are obviously cards that NO ONE will ever find a need to play. There is also the issue of how much of your life's storage space you want to dedicate to MTG. All of this factors into what and how many cards you keep in your collection. There is also the monetary value to consider. Watching cards' costs rise and fall is nerve-wracking. I generally don't sell cards out of my "playing" collection. Once it's deemed that I want a certain card in the collection, it stays. Most cards are just kept in playsets of 4, and I get rid of the rest, whether being sold, put into trade stock, or given away. The exceptions are cards that get played a lot and find themselves in multiple decks, or maybe a card that I keep a vintage version of plus a newer version of, or different art I like.
But the point is, I keep a playset of any card that I believe is a card that will see some kind of play at some point. Old favorites that get pulled out for fun, or maybe cards that inspired a deck idea that I haven't put together yet, even a few cards that are just kept for value. It's all up to you, there is no "right" way. Personally, I'd never get rid of a card like Griselbrand or Goblin Lackey. It's a good bet you'll want to play them again at some point, and kick yourself that you got rid of them.
"A Plague on All Your Houses!" - Thespian's Stage Pox
I have a pimped out cube where I put my foils, but minimal amounts of foreign or textless cards to avoid confusion during drafting and playing.
My Maga EDH deck is an assorted mix of promos, foils, autographed cards, etc.
Also not rich, I just win more tournaments than an average grinder
Modern:
Something new every week
Legacy:
Something new everyweek
Eye of the Storm, Heartbeat of the Spring, Beguiler of Wills, foil Act on Impulse, chibi Chandra, chibi Jace, Drana, Kalastria Highborn, The Unspeakable, and a foil Spectra Ward.
For Yu-Gi-Oh, I have Archlord Zerato and Harpie Girl, and every version of Dark Magician Girl. For Naruto, every Anko, Hinata, Guren, and Karin ever printed, plus my championship chibi Deidara. Means a lot to me.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
I'm making peace with no longer really playing constructed magic, except for a smattering of pure causal and pauper decks. Cubing and drafting area really the only aspects of magic I enjoy, and I'm even losing a lot of steam playing; I just like the project planning and updating of cubes, frankly...
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."