So I've just recently heard about doing a "Pack to Power" and I was intrigued. So I did a little research and I'm interested in doing one. I think that mine is going to be a little different though. I actually have no interest in a Mox or one of the Power Nine but I do have a lot of interest in Dual Lands. I'm just starting to get into Legacy but I have no Dual Lands. So I figure, why not do a Pack to Dual Lands. To you you're probably thinking, "Pack to Dual Land, that's not that tough." Do to my job, I do most of my trading online now and don't have a ton of time to grind FNMs and PTQs. So a Pack to Dual Lands will probably be tough enough for me.
So here is where I need your help. What pack should I start with on my journey? Let me know what you think or if you have any tips. I plan on documenting the process. Thank for your help in advance.
Get a pack of Worldwake that way if you bust Jace you can just trade him straight up for most dual lands.
If you only want to use the new current sets I would recommend Theros since it still has quite a bit of value in it.
Just to let you know honest to god pack to power is pretty much a myth, most of the times people have their friends help them or they get lopsided trades in their favor to get going early on. Getting up to any dual land is a lot more reasonable but it still requires either extreme luck or a very good knowledge of the market, assuming you are only making "fair" trades.
Its not a myth, I have done one myself. Once you get past the first couple of trades, it gradually becomes easier. Getting the first 20 so dollars is the hardest. And if you do open a bad rare then you might need some help from friends.
Modern masters would be my pick for the pack. The rare is likely to be at least playable, and there's a foil in every pack, which could also be worth a few bucks (or a lot if you're lucky enough to get the right one)
Yep. It was a passing fad that made for good articles, but the biggest crux of it is that you're basically asking people to lose value on each and every trade you make... and unless you've got a wide range of trade options you're going have a lot of people pretty sick of being on the downside of trades.
Unless your wants are pretty simple and you're looking at it as "pack to Revised Badlands", it's going to be a rough time.
Times are quite a bit different. Value-trading is far more an established thing, and you don't have the "Oops, emerging format just turned this handful of bulk into legit $5 rares."
Plus, the whole concept is no longer novel. The internet is covered with scattered coverage of aborted attempts at "Pack to "XYZ" in website articles, blogs, forum threads, facebook notes, etc.
It's the sort of things you have to be very, very careful with now- because done poorly or greedily, such an attempt could basically ruin your reputation in terms of trading in your local area. If you become "that guy", people won't make soft trades, will make you work for every single penny and will make sure all of their friends know that you're a "shark".
If you really want to do it, you need some sort of blog that's frequently updated, you need to make sure that you're selling your story to each of the people you trade with- so that they have some sort of emotional investment in your success- and it doesn't hurt if you're a good storyteller and have a pretty decent emotional investment to it yourself.
It's those people- the ones who can actually write something compelling about what they're up to, how they've done, etc... that can still succeed.
As the internet is strewn with the corpses of threads, blogs, tweets and facebook messages of people who halfassed because they thought "Oh, free value! So easy!"
Start with something with more value- like a pack of Modern Masters, and target something of lesser value, like a Revised Badlands.
So I've just recently heard about doing a "Pack to Power" and I was intrigued. So I did a little research and I'm interested in doing one. I think that mine is going to be a little different though. I actually have no interest in a Mox or one of the Power Nine but I do have a lot of interest in Dual Lands. I'm just starting to get into Legacy but I have no Dual Lands. So I figure, why not do a Pack to Dual Lands. To you you're probably thinking, "Pack to Dual Land, that's not that tough." Do to my job, I do most of my trading online now and don't have a ton of time to grind FNMs and PTQs. So a Pack to Dual Lands will probably be tough enough for me.
So here is where I need your help. What pack should I start with on my journey? Let me know what you think or if you have any tips. I plan on documenting the process. Thank for your help in advance.
If you are going to do it from a normal priced in-print pack, I would start with Theros. There are enough cards worth some money still in the set that it would be a good starting place, and its new enough to where everyone may not have what they need yet potentially to where it could at least make for an easier time in the early going.
As to the subject of pack to power in general, outside of sheer luck in opening something particularly good to start, and being able to speculate on the right things at the right time to be able to gain value, nearly all examples of pack to power occurred where the person advertised they were doing it, and either A: got significant help from others to get them there, or B: people gave them extra value just because it was for pack to power. Personally, I would love to see someone try to go pack to power (or dual in this case), in a less obvious way. Simply doing so, without telling another soul that you are trading with or involved with that you are doing it. Still keeping track of everything along the way, but doing so via fair trading, a bit of luck, and some good solid research/speculation of the right cards to gain you value to eventually get you there. To me that would be a true and proper example of a pack to power (or dual) and I would commend that person. Otherwise I more or less ignore pack to power talk, because, as others have pointed out, without people basically giving you value because "pack to power" its nearly impossible to do.
Anyhow, I wish you luck regardless, its nearly always an interesting experiment to mess around with if you have the free time and energy to commit to it.
Its not a myth, I have done one myself. Once you get past the first couple of trades, it gradually becomes easier. Getting the first 20 so dollars is the hardest. And if you do open a bad rare then you might need some help from friends.
I can also vouch for it.
The owner of a store that I used to go to liked to do all kinds of odd things. He documented his pack to power, going from a Primeval Titan (when it was worth $35) and a good uncommon to a MP Ancestral Recall. I think it was something like 300 trades, but I could be remembering that part incorrectly.
But I would say that it is not for the faint of heart. I personally would never do it.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
It's not impossible to do, but the novelty has worn off a bit. In theory, everyone should be trying to trade all of their cards up, but it's impracticle. Someone is always coming away at a slight loss, and that's how you get ahead. Someone might not care if the trade is 25 cents in your favor (I don't), but that's how you get ahead, but it can take several hundred trades eeking out a small % increase to get where you want to get, and it can take a long time.
Be careful of not to force trades or even use pack to power as the only means to trade. There are people at my store and a person or two on the forums that used to do this. I don't mind losing a little bit of value to help someone's P2P, but I've had blatantly greedy offers and fake sob stories where traders were almost begging for chase rare exchanges for worthless cards to fuel their P2P.
It's tough to do a Pack to Power online because who's willing to pay shipping for a few $.10 commons unless you're already doing a trade with them. Also, the idea of a Pack to Power basically revolves around leveraging different types of cards (staples, EDH stuff, casual favorites) against each other, and you just don't get that kind of audience online. Finally, it doesn't really matter what you go for - once you have a significant portfolio then it's much easier to trade anyways.
Doing pack to dual entirely trading online, is, financially, crazy. Each time you ship, you'll pay postage and lose time going to the post office. You'd be paying $4-10 for a pack ($10 being MM) and likely getting a badlands ($30-40 if you stalk eBay- I've found 2 at $30 and 1 at $35 in the last 6 months). Pack to dual would require at least 10 trades, which all require time finding the trade, working out the deal, packaging the letter, and mailing. To me, it makes much more sense to spend 4 hours working a minimum wage job and spending the cash to make up the difference between pack and dual. It's far less time (quantity) and far far less span of time (4 hours vs multiple months). Finally, you continually have to swindle deals in your favor, which are much harder to negotiate and take much more time. But, alas, do what you want.
I saw someone doing a pack to power where they would alter the less valuable cards (but still playable, like Lightning Bolt) to turn a ~0.25 card into a ~4 dollar "extended art" card. Of course you need to have some sort of artistic skill to do this, but it makes for a much more legitimate attempt (as long as you get enough extra from you pack to cover your initial investment of art supplies).
If you don't do it that way, ask for a throw in of some crap rare from each trade (everyone has a card that they don't need). I am sure that people will be more receptive to this than some lopsided trade.
duals aren't even that expensive. just trade for one or buy one. saves you the time and hassle.
This misses the point; the idea of a "Pack to Power" isn't to save money. It's the challenge that people like. If you are only interested in value you might as well just try to increase the value of your collection so you're not wasting time trading $.50 cards for other $.50 cards.
What is amusing about the more legitimate pack to power's is the # of trades required.
I mean earlier in the thread 300 trades to go from a good pack containing Primeval Titan+Chase Uncommon is pretty intense. Even if every trade only takes 10 minutes that 3000 minutes in trade time alone. Not to mention time spent finding people to trade or trades that fall through etc.. I know for a fact quite a few trades take way more then 10 minutes.
I mean obviously if the challenge of doing it is the biggest appeal then sure, go for it. The warnings in this thread are a good source of the downsides though.
I heavily caution you against it. As others have mentioned, magic trading nowadays are filled with smartphones, prediction apps, articles, and pricing sites. You need to be one hell of a speculator (and a lucky one at that) to be able to turn a really solid pack into whatever chase item for the challenge. Otherwise, you gain a reputation as a shark who tries to cover up the sharking with the P2P excuse
It took me 2 whole years to get a recall. Started off with a ratchet bomb. I did it by getting casual rares off spikes and trading them to casuals and vice versa. This way you can get value on both sides. Not many people would trade staples for a bunch of random stuff so they are willing to give up a bit of value for it. And the casuals dont care much for staples.
I'm loving this discussion so far. Like I said the the start of the thread, the idea of 'Pack to Power' is completely new to me. I have a ton for trade now. If trading for Duals was easy I probably have a few. I could definitely go buy some but I don't think my wife would appreciate that too much and where is the challenge in that. I'd love to continue hearing thoughts/tips though. I have no intentions of ripping people off so maybe the 'Pack to ...' isn't for me. I do like the idea of altering cards though. I'll have to look into this.
I'm loving this discussion so far. Like I said the the start of the thread, the idea of 'Pack to Power' is completely new to me. I have a ton for trade now. If trading for Duals was easy I probably have a few. I could definitely go buy some but I don't think my wife would appreciate that too much and where is the challenge in that. I'd love to continue hearing thoughts/tips though. I have no intentions of ripping people off so maybe the 'Pack to ...' isn't for me. I do like the idea of altering cards though. I'll have to look into this.
Trading for Duals is easy. So long as you're willing to realize that you're the one who's going to have to give up value. Even in the Pack to Power articles they point this out pretty heavily and realize that since
As long as you have stuff and are willing to give some amount of value, getting stuff is almost trivial. The big problem is that most people actually look at their cards like they are actual money, refuse to budge off retail, and expect that their $50 hot standard mythic should trade heads up against $50 of dual land.
There is no easy money, and there are no shortcuts. If you're getting something for less money, you're likely leaning more on knowledge and time.
It's actually one of the few upsides that there are to dealing with people that are actually good value traders- they'll be willing to move staples to you for a pile of marginal stuff, so long as you're giving them a good enough margin and enough value on them.
At the end of the journey, I gave up a lot of value to trade for a piece of power but for a dual land not as much unless you are trading just standard. It really depends on what you have to trade for a dual land.
I'm loving this discussion so far. Like I said the the start of the thread, the idea of 'Pack to Power' is completely new to me. I have a ton for trade now. If trading for Duals was easy I probably have a few. I could definitely go buy some but I don't think my wife would appreciate that too much and where is the challenge in that. I'd love to continue hearing thoughts/tips though. I have no intentions of ripping people off so maybe the 'Pack to ...' isn't for me. I do like the idea of altering cards though. I'll have to look into this.
Trading for duals is easy. I have sat down with a guy and said, "Hey, you've got a Savannah and a a Taiga in your trade binder. Are they fair game?" and he said "Sure, why not," and proceeded to pull 3 or 4 cards out of my binder. We haggled a little, added some card to both sides, and both of us walked away winners.
I think that instead of trying to go "pack to ...", you should go "awesome trade binder to ..." I try to put stuff in my trade binder for everyone. Planeswalkers and legendary creatures, special lands, legacy and vintage stuff, angels and dragons. The hardest part is finding someone willing to give up what you want, so you want to be sure that you have what they're looking for.
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So here is where I need your help. What pack should I start with on my journey? Let me know what you think or if you have any tips. I plan on documenting the process. Thank for your help in advance.
My Haves/Wants Thread
If you only want to use the new current sets I would recommend Theros since it still has quite a bit of value in it.
Just to let you know honest to god pack to power is pretty much a myth, most of the times people have their friends help them or they get lopsided trades in their favor to get going early on. Getting up to any dual land is a lot more reasonable but it still requires either extreme luck or a very good knowledge of the market, assuming you are only making "fair" trades.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
MM could get there as the cards are obscure enough that peple will overtrade for them. Com and unc can trade too. No one wants theros non rares.
As an aside, I have gone drafts to staples. From 20ish RTR drafts I went to playsets of drs and each shockland decays, ltrolls, verdicts.
As macrie69 said, this concept has been reused so many times now and people do not find it original anymore and do not want to be part of it.
Unless your wants are pretty simple and you're looking at it as "pack to Revised Badlands", it's going to be a rough time.
Times are quite a bit different. Value-trading is far more an established thing, and you don't have the "Oops, emerging format just turned this handful of bulk into legit $5 rares."
Plus, the whole concept is no longer novel. The internet is covered with scattered coverage of aborted attempts at "Pack to "XYZ" in website articles, blogs, forum threads, facebook notes, etc.
It's the sort of things you have to be very, very careful with now- because done poorly or greedily, such an attempt could basically ruin your reputation in terms of trading in your local area. If you become "that guy", people won't make soft trades, will make you work for every single penny and will make sure all of their friends know that you're a "shark".
If you really want to do it, you need some sort of blog that's frequently updated, you need to make sure that you're selling your story to each of the people you trade with- so that they have some sort of emotional investment in your success- and it doesn't hurt if you're a good storyteller and have a pretty decent emotional investment to it yourself.
It's those people- the ones who can actually write something compelling about what they're up to, how they've done, etc... that can still succeed.
As the internet is strewn with the corpses of threads, blogs, tweets and facebook messages of people who halfassed because they thought "Oh, free value! So easy!"
Start with something with more value- like a pack of Modern Masters, and target something of lesser value, like a Revised Badlands.
Document the whole process, tell stories.
If you are going to do it from a normal priced in-print pack, I would start with Theros. There are enough cards worth some money still in the set that it would be a good starting place, and its new enough to where everyone may not have what they need yet potentially to where it could at least make for an easier time in the early going.
As to the subject of pack to power in general, outside of sheer luck in opening something particularly good to start, and being able to speculate on the right things at the right time to be able to gain value, nearly all examples of pack to power occurred where the person advertised they were doing it, and either A: got significant help from others to get them there, or B: people gave them extra value just because it was for pack to power. Personally, I would love to see someone try to go pack to power (or dual in this case), in a less obvious way. Simply doing so, without telling another soul that you are trading with or involved with that you are doing it. Still keeping track of everything along the way, but doing so via fair trading, a bit of luck, and some good solid research/speculation of the right cards to gain you value to eventually get you there. To me that would be a true and proper example of a pack to power (or dual) and I would commend that person. Otherwise I more or less ignore pack to power talk, because, as others have pointed out, without people basically giving you value because "pack to power" its nearly impossible to do.
Anyhow, I wish you luck regardless, its nearly always an interesting experiment to mess around with if you have the free time and energy to commit to it.
I can also vouch for it.
The owner of a store that I used to go to liked to do all kinds of odd things. He documented his pack to power, going from a Primeval Titan (when it was worth $35) and a good uncommon to a MP Ancestral Recall. I think it was something like 300 trades, but I could be remembering that part incorrectly.
But I would say that it is not for the faint of heart. I personally would never do it.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Credit to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the Avatar & Miraculous Recovery for the Banner.
My 540 Card Cube (WIP)
Legacy
RUG DelverRUG
BUG DelverBUG
Modern
Good ol' fashioned JundBGR)[/I]
Standard
Too Boring
Commander
Azusa, Lost But SeekingG [I](foiling out)[/I]
If you don't do it that way, ask for a throw in of some crap rare from each trade (everyone has a card that they don't need). I am sure that people will be more receptive to this than some lopsided trade.
Good luck.
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This misses the point; the idea of a "Pack to Power" isn't to save money. It's the challenge that people like. If you are only interested in value you might as well just try to increase the value of your collection so you're not wasting time trading $.50 cards for other $.50 cards.
I mean earlier in the thread 300 trades to go from a good pack containing Primeval Titan+Chase Uncommon is pretty intense. Even if every trade only takes 10 minutes that 3000 minutes in trade time alone. Not to mention time spent finding people to trade or trades that fall through etc.. I know for a fact quite a few trades take way more then 10 minutes.
I mean obviously if the challenge of doing it is the biggest appeal then sure, go for it. The warnings in this thread are a good source of the downsides though.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
My Haves/Wants Thread
Trading for Duals is easy. So long as you're willing to realize that you're the one who's going to have to give up value. Even in the Pack to Power articles they point this out pretty heavily and realize that since
As long as you have stuff and are willing to give some amount of value, getting stuff is almost trivial. The big problem is that most people actually look at their cards like they are actual money, refuse to budge off retail, and expect that their $50 hot standard mythic should trade heads up against $50 of dual land.
There is no easy money, and there are no shortcuts. If you're getting something for less money, you're likely leaning more on knowledge and time.
It's actually one of the few upsides that there are to dealing with people that are actually good value traders- they'll be willing to move staples to you for a pile of marginal stuff, so long as you're giving them a good enough margin and enough value on them.
Trading for duals is easy. I have sat down with a guy and said, "Hey, you've got a Savannah and a a Taiga in your trade binder. Are they fair game?" and he said "Sure, why not," and proceeded to pull 3 or 4 cards out of my binder. We haggled a little, added some card to both sides, and both of us walked away winners.
I think that instead of trying to go "pack to ...", you should go "awesome trade binder to ..." I try to put stuff in my trade binder for everyone. Planeswalkers and legendary creatures, special lands, legacy and vintage stuff, angels and dragons. The hardest part is finding someone willing to give up what you want, so you want to be sure that you have what they're looking for.