I really wasn't sure how to title this. I just want to ask a very basic question. I have been playing MTG for about 4 months now and it didn't take long for the cards to start piling up. But I don't play tournaments and only play at FNM or pre-release events. Anyhow, I have learned that my decks (Commander, Standard and Modern) are created mostly by buying singles or 4 of something at a LGS and taking my time playing that deck, then starting to switch it out or build another one for a change of pace. I end up not using about 95% of my actual collection found in Booster Packs or Bundles. So today I finally decided to start going through them and selling off, quite slowly, batches of commons, uncommon and rares I don't see myself as using in the future, so I can keep my collection under control. I am feeling rather overwhelmed too soon and want to get it under control!
Is this typical of some people here or do you all keep every single card? At our LGS I've heard people mention they have sold off their entire collection and then stopped playing for a while and then started up again, but rarely want to get over their head with cards again. So, do you keep all of your cards, sell what you don't use so you don't drown in them, and keep it simple or what criteria do you use? Even though I basically play just casual, people bring pretty strong decks to FNM and so I have to keep up with that to win once in a while and be competitive in that nature. Getting store credit for cards I am not using was helpful today when I picked up the expensive Tarmogoyf for my Commander deck!
I keep most cards I get, but I do occasionally get rid of stuff. Usually I go through my basic lands and get rid of all the lands whose art I don't like or think that I'll use in decks. As far as actual cards go, for commons and uncommons, I keep a deckset (or sometimes more if it's a card that I like or think will have value later on) of that card and the rest go into a box to be given away or kept in the car for trading purposes. I keep most if not all rares, but the real junk goes into my trade binder.
I keep most of my stuff. There's no reason to give them away, if you sell off as bulk that is what your doing. Over time even commons can gain value, like Devoted Druid a 10 dollar common. I trade most of my standard stuff before it rotates for modern and EdH staples.
My situation is somewhat different than yours, but I too have found myself with too many cards a number of different times over the past couple years.
When I really started to take stock of what I had, I realized I had over 20,000 cards. I also catalog every card I own so I went through all the cards on my computer and started finding the ones that I owned too many copies of or cards I just wasn't using, or whatever. I ended up finding about 10,000 cards to take out of my collection. I updated my collection software to remove these cards and then I had them sitting in their own box. I then tried to find what to do with them and I started looking on Craigslist to see what interest there might be in the cards. Note that most of these were bulk with a few that might have been $1 - $5 in value. Nothing major so it would not be that attractive for someone to buy.
I actually happened to come across a post from someone asking about bulk Magic cards they could buy for cheap. They were a teacher and they wanted them to start a Magic club at the school they taught at. I realized this was perfect so I worked with that person and ultimately ended up just donating the cards to them. I liked the idea that they would be used to get new players into Magic and I didn't really need any money for them (and they were probably only worth $200 - $300 at most).
Since then, I have gone through and slimmed down my collection a couple more times. Once I slimmed down a few more valuable cards and sold them in a lot on eBay. I also set up a TCGPlayer seller account to potentially sell cards through there. The last time I slimmed down my collection, I just used the cards to fill up my trade binder.
I also have a bunch (around 5,000 - 6,000) of cards that I either never even bothered to catalog or were lower value cards from previous "purges". These come from packs and bundles and are nearly all commons and uncommons. I plan on using them to get my nephew into Magic when he is older (he is 2 right now).
So, there are plenty of things to do with extra cards. Donate them (or sell them cheaply) to a small group trying to get started in Magic. Use them to help someone you know get into Magic. Fill up your trade binder. Sell them on TCGPlayer/eBay or trade them into your store. One thing to help stop the growth of these bulk cards is not to buy packs, Bundles or boxes just to open. Obviously if you Draft or play Sealed you will get them, but buying packs, bundles, and boxes are terrible value and you are better served just buying the cards you want. This saves money in the long run and keeps your collection growth lower.
I've been trying to get kids interested in playing magic so I've been putting together a variety of "duel deck" style er... decks. All with budget constraints so the kids can just buy them off of me if they want. None of them are Tier 1, Tier 2 or even Tier 3 decks, but the kids have blast playing against each other and I tuck in a small folded sheet with card suggestions and estimated card prices for improving the deck and what kind of cards to look for. What to do if they want to get into the game... even more... that sort of thing.
The last bunch of cards, I sold to my school's speech therapist with cards like Carnivorous Death-Parrot and Creature Guy as part of their program. I loaned them to her for the school year and she offered to buy them from me for a bill so... I threw the double sleeving in for free.
I feel it's better than selling my extras to a bunch of hoarders and speculators just to be taken out of circulation.
Edit: I should mention that I'm not selling these things to kids I think will go to an LGS or reach competitive play in a month or two. These kids (and sometimes adults) are the equivalent of Monopoly or Clue players looking to play once a week with family and friends. I'm also not making crazy profit either. I'm just happy to at least break even.
I've started giving some of my cards that I won't use to my LGS guy because he is giving a pile of commons/uncommons and land to a summer camp so that they can have a big party where they learn how to play across the week.
Thank you for all the replies! I will be going through more cards this week to see what will stay and what will go. I don't have tons to get rid of. I did a pretty nice 1st round cleanup yesterday which ended up in maybe 600 cards less than what I have now. I will be donating some Basic Land cards to my LGS which will make things a lot more manageable. Those really piled up from buying Bundle Packs and I actually prefer to use full art Basic Lands, so will keep all of those. Because I only play once a week for a few hours and everything is sleeved, they don't get a lot of wear and tear. It looks like everyone does things differently, depending on how wonderfully consumed we are by MTG! But also a lot of nice ideas of where to donate to, which I highly appreciate!
I only keep the stuff I play with. Now I only have one deck because I don`t have that much time to play anymore and I like to specialise as much as I can with my favorite deck.
The only cards I have in my collecttion are cards that can be used in that deck or in the decks sideboard. I always find it a waste that a lot of cards are just in a binder doing nothing. I understand why people do that but I just get a very nervous feeling for some reason when I see it lying around for to long.
Also I never buy boosters I just buy the singles that I want.
About three years back I had about 2,000 bulk cards from original Ravnica through Lorwyn and gave them all to my co-worker friend who was getting back into the game (and his roommate who was in the same situation). They sure appreciated the influx of cards! They got about five fat pack boxes' worth.
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EDH/Commander
UBR Sedris RG Omnath, Locus of Rage UB The Scarab God RUG Maelstrom Wanderer WU Dragonlord Ojutai
I basically just buy singles that I'm interested in when the price is good. I've thought about cleaning house and selling all my cards except for what I play, but the issue with that is how random wizards is at keeping cards in print sometimes, so even those oddball cards that don't seem to be worth a lot now can become very hard to obtain a few years later. This happened a lot with Lorwyn - Shadowmoor as well as Time Spiral, so now I just buy things while they are in print, double sleeve them, and stash them in my wooden collector case I put together from Hobby lobby. I also got plenty of bulk white boxes to store cards in as well, though I'm trying to be selective enough that I don't end up with bulk that is worth that sort of fate.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Such as how I saved a lot of Mass of Ghouls from my many drafts involving Future Sight. As there were quite a few with miscolored artwork, like I have one where the sky in the background is a dull green, in another the sky is a bright pink and finally in a third its a very saturated blue.
I will typically keep a playset of everything, sometimes two if it is a staple in multiple builds. After that, I will donate cards to noobs or bring a big box of bulk stuff to the LGS and they give me store credit for it.
I will keep cards that have a possibility of spiking in value. All those vanilla cards that do nothing (cancel, wind drake, 2/2 for 2 bears) and the like I bulk out. You just never know if a common/uncommon is going to spike to $3-5.
I kept all my cards from Rise of Eldrazi, and in the last couple years cards have spiked...namely Ancient Stirrings. Its nice to cash out 20+ commons for $50 and get yourself something like Dark Confidant from an LGS. (what I did at the time I traded in my commons)
You can also put playset(s) of the pricey C/UC into a binder to trade. Sometimes people don't want to spend $15-20 for a playset of a silly C/UC because they have huge trade binders and only want to obtain cards via trading.
Is this typical of some people here or do you all keep every single card? At our LGS I've heard people mention they have sold off their entire collection and then stopped playing for a while and then started up again, but rarely want to get over their head with cards again. So, do you keep all of your cards, sell what you don't use so you don't drown in them, and keep it simple or what criteria do you use? Even though I basically play just casual, people bring pretty strong decks to FNM and so I have to keep up with that to win once in a while and be competitive in that nature. Getting store credit for cards I am not using was helpful today when I picked up the expensive Tarmogoyf for my Commander deck!
When I really started to take stock of what I had, I realized I had over 20,000 cards. I also catalog every card I own so I went through all the cards on my computer and started finding the ones that I owned too many copies of or cards I just wasn't using, or whatever. I ended up finding about 10,000 cards to take out of my collection. I updated my collection software to remove these cards and then I had them sitting in their own box. I then tried to find what to do with them and I started looking on Craigslist to see what interest there might be in the cards. Note that most of these were bulk with a few that might have been $1 - $5 in value. Nothing major so it would not be that attractive for someone to buy.
I actually happened to come across a post from someone asking about bulk Magic cards they could buy for cheap. They were a teacher and they wanted them to start a Magic club at the school they taught at. I realized this was perfect so I worked with that person and ultimately ended up just donating the cards to them. I liked the idea that they would be used to get new players into Magic and I didn't really need any money for them (and they were probably only worth $200 - $300 at most).
Since then, I have gone through and slimmed down my collection a couple more times. Once I slimmed down a few more valuable cards and sold them in a lot on eBay. I also set up a TCGPlayer seller account to potentially sell cards through there. The last time I slimmed down my collection, I just used the cards to fill up my trade binder.
I also have a bunch (around 5,000 - 6,000) of cards that I either never even bothered to catalog or were lower value cards from previous "purges". These come from packs and bundles and are nearly all commons and uncommons. I plan on using them to get my nephew into Magic when he is older (he is 2 right now).
So, there are plenty of things to do with extra cards. Donate them (or sell them cheaply) to a small group trying to get started in Magic. Use them to help someone you know get into Magic. Fill up your trade binder. Sell them on TCGPlayer/eBay or trade them into your store. One thing to help stop the growth of these bulk cards is not to buy packs, Bundles or boxes just to open. Obviously if you Draft or play Sealed you will get them, but buying packs, bundles, and boxes are terrible value and you are better served just buying the cards you want. This saves money in the long run and keeps your collection growth lower.
The last bunch of cards, I sold to my school's speech therapist with cards like Carnivorous Death-Parrot and Creature Guy as part of their program. I loaned them to her for the school year and she offered to buy them from me for a bill so... I threw the double sleeving in for free.
I feel it's better than selling my extras to a bunch of hoarders and speculators just to be taken out of circulation.
Edit: I should mention that I'm not selling these things to kids I think will go to an LGS or reach competitive play in a month or two. These kids (and sometimes adults) are the equivalent of Monopoly or Clue players looking to play once a week with family and friends. I'm also not making crazy profit either. I'm just happy to at least break even.
The only cards I have in my collecttion are cards that can be used in that deck or in the decks sideboard. I always find it a waste that a lot of cards are just in a binder doing nothing. I understand why people do that but I just get a very nervous feeling for some reason when I see it lying around for to long.
Also I never buy boosters I just buy the singles that I want.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
UBR Sedris
RG Omnath, Locus of Rage
UB The Scarab God
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer
WU Dragonlord Ojutai
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Such as how I saved a lot of Mass of Ghouls from my many drafts involving Future Sight. As there were quite a few with miscolored artwork, like I have one where the sky in the background is a dull green, in another the sky is a bright pink and finally in a third its a very saturated blue.
I kept all my cards from Rise of Eldrazi, and in the last couple years cards have spiked...namely Ancient Stirrings. Its nice to cash out 20+ commons for $50 and get yourself something like Dark Confidant from an LGS. (what I did at the time I traded in my commons)
You can also put playset(s) of the pricey C/UC into a binder to trade. Sometimes people don't want to spend $15-20 for a playset of a silly C/UC because they have huge trade binders and only want to obtain cards via trading.
WBG Karador GBW
R Daretti R
RG Omnath GR
WRG Modern Burn GRW
WB Modern Tokens BW
DCI Rules Advisor as of 5/18/2015