So I have about 450 tickets wrapped up on MTGO. What I often find myself doing is creating a couple decks, playing with them for 1, 2, maybe 3 weeks (the most I've ever lasted with a deck was probably 4 weeks) and then I will sell the contents of a deck or two and buy a new deck.
Ultimately it is not discouragement or frustrating that gets me. I usually just end up getting bored.
This would be extraordinarily unsustainable in paper MTG. Stores tend to buy back your cards for 50% of their selling value, maybe more if they're hot standard/modern/legacy cards. MTGO bots are very kind though - buying cards for less than what they'll sell them for, but not by too much. One time, I built RG Tron and when I sold the cards back to a bot, I actually gained tickets because some cards had gone up. But that of course is the exception. In the long run I am losing tickets.
I am a pretty competitive MTG player but ultimately I play because its fun. If I'm honest, this musical chairs game with decks makes MTGO way, way, way more fun for me. On the other hand, I'm not made of money like that guy in the Geico commercial. For that reason, I should probably stop doing this.
I created this post to (1) gauge whether other players do this, with what frequency if so, and (2) your thoughts on this practice.
You should track how much you spend on cards and how much you get from selling them. If you make enough profit winning events or by the cards going up in value, it's fine to switch decks if you enjoy the diversity. At 450 tix I'd be more careful.
However keeping track of buying/selling/spending tix on events/winning packs is extremely time consuming. I eventually stopped doing that since I made enough tickets speculating/winning events that i don't care if i lose tix anymore.
I do, to some extent, what you outlined. However I have a handful of standby decks that I keep in place most of the time. There are fun, fast, or both. And most of my commander decks stay roughly together.
I think you would be likely to find players at both ends of the spectrum. There are undoubtedly many like you, and similarly there are people who can be tracked as playing the exact same deck for months on end.
I'm like you with the 2 or 3 decks a week. Except I only buy and almost never sell. Unfortunately it means I take the long approach to high dollar play sets and tend to buy them 1 card at a time.
Seems like the bot owners love people like the OP! Perhaps the key is to try to buy and play decks while they're on the rise and not quite as widespread and popular? If you could manage to catch the wave like that, you'd probably lose a lot less equity, and even gain in some cases.
Seems like the bot owners love people like the OP! Perhaps the key is to try to buy and play decks while they're on the rise and not quite as widespread and popular? If you could manage to catch the wave like that, you'd probably lose a lot less equity, and even gain in some cases.
It's difficult to predict things like that, especially in Standard where one week a deck may be on the rise and then a couple weeks later it's dead and forgotten. I think you're often better off waiting a couple weeks until it's clear what decks will be mainstays in the metagame before making huge investments.
I will say that buying in on cards when they're at their lowest goes a long way in saving money though. For cards in Theros block this should be in the summer, right around rotation - if you don't yet own playsets of staples (scrylands, Thoughtseize, Elspeth, etc) then that's a good time to buy them. I rounded out my playsets of shocklands about that time last year too which was far cheaper than if I were to buy them today.
Another good thing to do is look at the cards that are seeing a lot of play in block constructed and buy them up before rotation, as those will often be cards that can break out in the next Standard format. I saved some money (not a ton, but maybe 10 tickets or so) buying in on Desecration Demon and Nightveil Specter in this way. With mythics you can really save a lot in the long run. Some cards to maybe look out for in Theros block (that aren't already huge in Standard) could be Hero of Iroas, Eidolon of Countless Battles, Agent of Fates, Nighthowler, Herald of Torment, Whip of Erebos, Prognostic Sphinx, Ashiok, and Ashen Rider to name a few. You can buy a lot of those dirt cheap right now (Herald is kinda expensive for some reason though, maybe just small set syndrome) and they could very well be 3-4 tickets per copy once the set is being drafted less frequently (and the packs are no longer awarded as Daily Event prizes).
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Ultimately it is not discouragement or frustrating that gets me. I usually just end up getting bored.
This would be extraordinarily unsustainable in paper MTG. Stores tend to buy back your cards for 50% of their selling value, maybe more if they're hot standard/modern/legacy cards. MTGO bots are very kind though - buying cards for less than what they'll sell them for, but not by too much. One time, I built RG Tron and when I sold the cards back to a bot, I actually gained tickets because some cards had gone up. But that of course is the exception. In the long run I am losing tickets.
I am a pretty competitive MTG player but ultimately I play because its fun. If I'm honest, this musical chairs game with decks makes MTGO way, way, way more fun for me. On the other hand, I'm not made of money like that guy in the Geico commercial. For that reason, I should probably stop doing this.
I created this post to (1) gauge whether other players do this, with what frequency if so, and (2) your thoughts on this practice.
However keeping track of buying/selling/spending tix on events/winning packs is extremely time consuming. I eventually stopped doing that since I made enough tickets speculating/winning events that i don't care if i lose tix anymore.
I think you would be likely to find players at both ends of the spectrum. There are undoubtedly many like you, and similarly there are people who can be tracked as playing the exact same deck for months on end.
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It's difficult to predict things like that, especially in Standard where one week a deck may be on the rise and then a couple weeks later it's dead and forgotten. I think you're often better off waiting a couple weeks until it's clear what decks will be mainstays in the metagame before making huge investments.
I will say that buying in on cards when they're at their lowest goes a long way in saving money though. For cards in Theros block this should be in the summer, right around rotation - if you don't yet own playsets of staples (scrylands, Thoughtseize, Elspeth, etc) then that's a good time to buy them. I rounded out my playsets of shocklands about that time last year too which was far cheaper than if I were to buy them today.
Another good thing to do is look at the cards that are seeing a lot of play in block constructed and buy them up before rotation, as those will often be cards that can break out in the next Standard format. I saved some money (not a ton, but maybe 10 tickets or so) buying in on Desecration Demon and Nightveil Specter in this way. With mythics you can really save a lot in the long run. Some cards to maybe look out for in Theros block (that aren't already huge in Standard) could be Hero of Iroas, Eidolon of Countless Battles, Agent of Fates, Nighthowler, Herald of Torment, Whip of Erebos, Prognostic Sphinx, Ashiok, and Ashen Rider to name a few. You can buy a lot of those dirt cheap right now (Herald is kinda expensive for some reason though, maybe just small set syndrome) and they could very well be 3-4 tickets per copy once the set is being drafted less frequently (and the packs are no longer awarded as Daily Event prizes).