I've been thinking about getting back into competitive Magic after a hiatus for the past year. I wanted to discuss about building up my collection from scratch. While I'm certainly not rich, I believe I am able to invest what money is needed to get started. I'm certainly willing to do whatever it takes, but of course, I don't just want to throw money around, inefficiently. However, I'm not sure how to proceed. In the past, I had gathered cards in many different ways, over the years.
A) Booster Boxes. The idea being to buy several booster boxes whenever a new set is released. This would give me extra commons for multiple decks, as well as uncommons to sweeten deals in trades. The big problem nowadays are the mythic rares. In order to get all the cards I would want from a particular set, I would have to buy so many booster boxes, that it would be cheaper for me to buy sets or singles. Either that, or I would have to buy so many singles, that I might as well have not bought the boxes at all.
B) Complete sets. The idea here would be to buy full sets, so that I don't have to worry about acquiring cards before a tournament. This is especially useful irl, when dealers may not have all the cards I want and/or I cannot wait for someone to mail a card to me online. Of course, the major problem is the cost. Plus, I would end up with a lot of dead cards. It may just be easier to buy singles.
Another variation of this option could be to buy full sets without mythics or just 4x playsets of commons/uncommons. However, mythics are generally very good, so I'd have to buy them eventually anyway. Common/uncommon playsets are pretty cheap, certainly a lot less than booster boxes. I could just fill out my collection with singles. However, that would cost nearly as much as full sets.
C) Focus only on singles. This may be the cheapest option, if I know what I want to build. I could just buy the cards I need and make adjustments as I go. However, there are several problems with this. First, let's say that I want to make an adjustment to my deck the day before a PTQ. If my local dealer or the ones at the PTQ don't have it, I'm screwed. Or worse, the PTQ dealer might have the card, but charge more than I might otherwise have to pay, if I could afford the time.
Second, what if I start testing my deck and it's no good? Maybe the metagame changes or a new set makes the deck less optimal? Plus, I wouldn't have the benefit of a test gauntlet, as my local players aren't that serious. I could buy full sets for the cost of building a full test gauntlet.
D) Booster draft. This may be more efficient; albeit, time-consuming. The idea being to draft pricy rares/mythics that are perhaps not as useful in booster draft. It would certainly be a lot cheapter to spend $15 on a booster draft than $15 on singles. Of course, the obvious problem is that I would have no control over what I can get. Anything of real value would probably be snatched before it got to me, even if it weren't that good in booster draft, like dual lands.
E) MTGO I've played extensively on MTGO and irl, so I know how it works. Obviously, it would be foolish to build up two collections at once. In general, MTGO seems to be a far stronger option for competition. The players are much higher quality, I can play more frequently, and save money otherwise spent on gas. The problem is that the PTQs are just so much larger than irl, so my odds of winning one are slim. Ideally, I could mostly test online, then play in local PTQs, but there aren't many around here.
F) Trading. Trading is nice for specific cards. That way, I can get what I need without have to spend more money. However, it sounds impossible to really build a collection that way. Obviously, dealers are going to want to make a profit. At best I would break even on a trader with another player, unless I severely take advantage of them, which I would consider unethical. Even if I could do that, I can't imagine that I could consistently do that to really build up a collection.
I vote for C. It is the most cost effective way to go.
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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)
A. is a great way to build your collection while enjoying cracking packs. I would only recommend it right when a new set comes out however since within the first couple weeks the average value of a box is close to the purchasing price.
F. Is the primary way I fill in the gaps of my collection. I would recommend getting into online trading as it greatly increases your network and chance of finding someone who has what you need and wants what you have.
C. Is my last resort for high priced staples that are often difficult to trade for such as cards in eternal formats or expensive in demand staples.
For each set I buy two boxes and then rely on online trading and in-store trading to fill in the gaps, then buy singles to fill in the remaining gaps that only trading couldn't fill in.
A) <- Don't do it. Horrendous waste of money.
B) I vote for B. It is the most cost effective way to go, even over C. (I am a C->B person myself). If you have some money to invest and want to play the game while at least maintaining the price of your cards, this is the best option IMHO. The con's are that it 'may' marginally be more expensive than buying the singles. If you play any Legacy + any EDH, not to mention cube, I think you will find the cost to be about the same to buy full (play)sets. The pro's are that you are guaranteed to not have to pay extra the day before the tourney because you find some last minute ideas and you're missing <$1 cards that you'll end up paying real, inflated >$1 dollars for at some dealer booth. In addition, you are guaranteed to not miss out on any 'new hotness' from any new archetype decks that people come up with and you won't have to pay peak prices to play 'THE' deck at any point in time.
D) <- Might not be worth your time/effort.
Take it from someone who does C
Its not as cheap as it may seeeeem
Ive spent a great deal on singles
So here I am, writing these jingles
But seriously, my friend did A but now all he has is 8 (literally) fat packs of basic lands and ****ty commons from innistrad.
Buy singles - and online. The downfall is that you are hurting if you need a card TODAY and cant find it anywhere. But that will be the case no matter what you try.
Almost no one will ever trade for uncommons. There are maybe 2/3 standard legal uncommons people are willing to trade for, and even then it's unlikely that they will be traded.
If you want to build a specific deck I'd buy the singles but if you want to grow your collection I'd recommend looking to buy a collection. You can usually get the cards for 40-50% off.
I suppose I have to figure out what I really want. I know that I want to get back into competitive MTG. The only real need I have for sets are for Standard. Obviously, older formats are too large to buy sets, and they won't help me in Limited. So I really only need sets for Standard. However, it seems inefficient to buy 6-8 sets for a format I'll only play for 3-4 months. Not to mention, by the end of the season, they'll only sell for 50-60% of what I bought them for at the beginning. Still, that's more cost efficient, since sets tend to retain value better than singles that are useless after the season, in my experience.
I suppose I have to figure out what I really want. I know that I want to get back into competitive MTG. The only real need I have for sets are for Standard. Obviously, older formats are too large to buy sets, and they won't help me in Limited. So I really only need sets for Standard. However, it seems inefficient to buy 6-8 sets for a format I'll only play for 3-4 months. Not to mention, by the end of the season, they'll only sell for 50-60% of what I bought them for at the beginning. Still, that's more cost efficient, since sets tend to retain value better than singles that are useless after the season, in my experience.
You don't need sets to play competitively. You need decks. Te cheapest ay to do it is to buy the deck you want. That's it. Do not buy boxes, boosters, sets, collections, repacks, do not pas go, do not collect $200.
Find the T1 netdeck you want to play, proxy it up and make sure you like it, then go buy the deck.
A) Booster Boxes. The idea being to buy several booster boxes whenever a new set is released. This would give me extra commons for multiple decks, as well as uncommons to sweeten deals in trades. The big problem nowadays are the mythic rares. In order to get all the cards I would want from a particular set, I would have to buy so many booster boxes, that it would be cheaper for me to buy sets or singles. Either that, or I would have to buy so many singles, that I might as well have not bought the boxes at all.
B) Complete sets. The idea here would be to buy full sets, so that I don't have to worry about acquiring cards before a tournament. This is especially useful irl, when dealers may not have all the cards I want and/or I cannot wait for someone to mail a card to me online. Of course, the major problem is the cost. Plus, I would end up with a lot of dead cards. It may just be easier to buy singles.
Another variation of this option could be to buy full sets without mythics or just 4x playsets of commons/uncommons. However, mythics are generally very good, so I'd have to buy them eventually anyway. Common/uncommon playsets are pretty cheap, certainly a lot less than booster boxes. I could just fill out my collection with singles. However, that would cost nearly as much as full sets.
There are a few guys I know that collect a playset of every new set so they can build literally whatever they want in standard.
The consensus among them is that the cheapest way for them is to buy a booster case of each new set, and then fill in the gaps with singles. They have told me it is cheaper than outright buying the complete set x4, which is usually about $1000 for a large set. For a large set like Theros, a case should net an average of roughly 2 of each mythic and 4 of each rare, meaning you're mostly just buying the mythics and a handful of rares.
I imagine you could further mitigate cost by selling foils. In an entire case you're bound to pull a couple high-dollar rare/mythic foils, and you can use the proceeds to fill in the gaps... especially if you pre-order and sell when costs of mythics are silly and then wait a few weeks for the hype to die down. A small amount of cash could also be obtained by selling extra common/uncommon sets. Alternatively, with a case worth of cards you should be able to easily trade into the mythics you need to build a Tier 1 deck or two, if you're ok with not having EVERY SINGLE CARD in standard.
I imagine with some work you could probably obtain a playset of a large set for ~$600-700, which isn't outrageous to do 4x a year if you like the game enough and have the disposable income. Smaller sets could be less.
Finally, if you're really a standard-only player, you could certainly sell the complete sets for a decent amount of money when they rotate out... You'd be taking a loss, but if you're not going to play with them anyway, who cares, right? Complete playsets of Dark Ascension are on ebay right now for $300 or so, and that goes a long way toward a case of Theros.
1. Buy singles to build the deck(s) you want. Ebay and tcgplayer are great ways to find singles at reasonable prices.
2. Keep an eye on playable mythics and consider buying them when they are low even if you don't need them immediately. Mythics that get hot are where you will "waste" the most of your money in trying to keep up with Standard. If you can get ahead of the curve on some of them (i.e. pick them up before they get popularized in a winning deck) you can save some cash.
3. Trade for what you need if you can. Sell to a dealer and you might get ~%50 of what your card is worth depending on the card. Trade with another player and you can usually get ~100%. A lot of people get hung up on making sure they don't "lose" a trade...but will turn around and sell those same cards to the store...automatically "losing" by quite a bit. So remember that you can happily give up a couple of bucks in a trade and still be ahead of where you would be if you had to do the sell/buy routine with a dealer.
4. Don't be too quick to dump cards post-rotation. They will drop...but many will go back up again. Cards that see play in eternal formats will often only get higher over time, and the rise of EDH has really warped the secondary market for casual cards, causing many "bad" cards to hit the $5-10 range a few years after they rotate. Some stuff really is bulk and safe to cull, but often you are better off with that Asceticism than with the 10 cents a dealer will give you for it after rotation.
Okay, I think I have an idea of what I want to do with new cards and sets. How do you suggest building a collection from there?
While I do have the money, obviously it's not very efficient to continuously dump money every time I need a new card. Ideally, I would be growing a collection, so that I can either trade or sell cards to get what I want, especially for Modern. This would require me to have a collection ready in advance, which I just don't have right now. How would I go about building it?
Since I'm going to be booster drafting anyway, that sounds like a reasonable place to start. Of course, I can't entirely rely on it, but I could use it as a means of supplementing my collection while getting practice in the format, and possibly winning prizes.
Trading would be another way, though I don't know how that would help me increase the value of my collection. Of course, the only way to do that would be to gain more value from trades than I give up, which no one would willingly do, understandably so. Maybe if I traded relevant cards at PTQs, people may be willing to pay more than they would otherwise be worth, but that's still a very limited selection.
Someone earlier also mentioned buying collections. I could somewhat see how that would work. A player quits the game, just wants to get rid of their cards fast, and is willing to sell for less than they are worth, to entice buyers. However, I would think this would be a pretty random means of building my own collection, much like buying a booster box. Sure, they might list the cards they've got, but since I've been out of the game for so long, I have no idea what's really valuable or not. Plus, how far would I go with buying collections? I don't know how this method would work for me.
Okay, I think I have an idea of what I want to do with new cards and sets. How do you suggest building a collection from there?
The most cost effective way to get cards when a new set comes out is to buy one of the "playsets of all the common and uncommon" deals off eBay for like $30-$40. You instantly get a playset of the majority of the set, and if you want to build a variety of deck, you know you have any common/uncommon in the set already. Then spend $$ buying the specific rares/mythics you need.
Drafting is a waste of money, it's just buying sealed product and playing a game with it. You get some playtime out of the cards, but you are practically guaranteed to be throwing 43-45 cards out in the trash on your way out of the store because they are worthless. Do not buy sealed product, ever. If you really have a group that just loves to draft, proxy up a cube and draft that, it's cheap and way more fun than drafting any other sets. I literally cringe when I see people week after week flushing $15 down the toilet to draft M14 and open a Nightmare, Domestication, and Garruk's Horde in their packs. Spending $15 for 75-80 cents in rares.
To elaborate, the reason I would draft is primarily to practice for a PTQ season, not to actually get cards. I just figure that as long as I am drafting, I might as well see what I can pick up along the way.
Obviously never open bulk packs. You are paying a hell of a lot more per pack than the stores and Ebay dealers that dominate the marketplace, and unlike them, you can't make any money on the commons and uncommons.
Assuming paper MTG is your preference (otherwise MTGO is cheaper), by far the cheapest way is to set up an MTGO account, trade for and redeem 4x sets of every set that it is currently economical to do so for, then buy singles from the other sets.
At present, for post-rotation Standard you can get an MTGO redemption set for the following prices:
The most cost effective way to get cards when a new set comes out is to buy one of the "playsets of all the common and uncommon" deals off eBay for like $30-$40. You instantly get a playset of the majority of the set, and if you want to build a variety of deck, you know you have any common/uncommon in the set already. Then spend $$ buying the specific rares/mythics you need.
Drafting is a waste of money, it's just buying sealed product and playing a game with it. You get some playtime out of the cards, but you are practically guaranteed to be throwing 43-45 cards out in the trash on your way out of the store because they are worthless. Do not buy sealed product, ever. If you really have a group that just loves to draft, proxy up a cube and draft that, it's cheap and way more fun than drafting any other sets. I literally cringe when I see people week after week flushing $15 down the toilet to draft M14 and open a Nightmare, Domestication, and Garruk's Horde in their packs. Spending $15 for 75-80 cents in rares.
Drafting is a moderately priced form of entertainment, nothing else. Do it if you find it fun, do not see it as a way to acquire cards.
I could spend my AU$15 on a draft and leave with a Domestication, a Rise of the Dark Realms and a foil Opportunity, or I could spend that same AU$15 on a cinema ticket and end up with nothing.
Drafting is a moderately priced form of entertainment, nothing else. Do it if you find it fun, do not see it as a way to acquire cards.
I could spend my AU$15 on a draft and leave with a Domestication, a Rise of the Dark Realms and a foil Opportunity, or I could spend that same AU$15 on a cinema ticket and end up with nothing.
Neither would be a waste of money.
You can cube draft for free. You can hang out, scoop up all the trash cards as they get thrown out, repack them in envelopes, and draft them with friends. $15 to draft a low value set like M14 is pretty much inexcusable
Also, to the OP, never buy collections or lots off eBay or Craigslist. It's a 100% garauntee anything good was picked out and sold individually. You are just buying whatever trash he couldn't get rid off.
I like where this is going. Let me try to get more specific.
I like the idea of buying the common/uncommon sets, then filling out what I need by buying singles of rares/mythics. Ignoring cost, commons/uncommons are just annoying to try to find on the go, because dealers won't have them stocked. At best, I could order them online, but that would take some time, which I may not have, if I'm making a last-minute tweak. Plus, as aforementioned, common/uncommon sets are relatively cheap.
However, the problem with that is that it still really limits what I can do. For example, let's say I've got my common/uncommon sets ready to go for an upcoming PTQ season. I take a look at the format, decide what deck I want to play, and buy the rares for a relatively cheap cost compared to buying full sets. Since I'm only playing one deck, I can really focus on learning it, inside and out. But what happens if and when things change?
Any number of things could make choosing that deck a bad move. Maybe the metagame changes, a new set is released mid-season, or I just don't like the deck? Of course, I know of free ways of checking out a deck before buying it, but once I've bought the cards, I'm kind of stuck with them. If I wanted to change my deck mid-season, I'd have to sell my rares/mythics, and buy the new ones for another deck, which would take awhile. Not to mention, I would be relatively unfamiliar with the new deck.
Ideally, I'd like to have full sets to remain flexible or at least a playset of everything useful in the format. However, that's not really cost-efficient. Money isn't so much the issue, as is spending it wisely. Thanks again.
Ideally, I'd like to have full sets to remain flexible or at least a playset of everything useful in the format. However, that's not really cost-efficient. Money isn't so much the issue, as is spending it wisely. Thanks again.
If money isn't the issue, than this is a problem you are going to face no matter what method you choose.
Inevitably no matter how much money you have spent you will run the risk of wanting (or needing) to change out cards from time to time, it's simply how magic and deck evolution work
There is a reason so many MTG players have fairly large collections and it is to overcome exactly the issue you are describing
The cheapest most money efficient methods of card selection have already been spelled out for you in this thread
What you are left with is than deciding how much money to spend on that style of card collection, which is a decision only you can make based on your own budget and how buffered (with card variety) you wish to be against future changes
The "ideal" of an MTG player will collect 4 sets (or more) of every set and in theory be ready for every tournament style, always. That ideal is simply not realistic for most people. Most will choose one format to focus on at a time and only expand to another format if and when their budget allows. (for those playing for years this happens naturally as they may choose to keep many older cards and find them useful outside of standard)
Instead you simply need to choose how invested you want to be and structure your collection around that budget and only buy into the formats you care about. How many people actually play vintage compared to the total community? etc. In my area there has been a total of one vintage and one legacy tournament in an entire year; out of more than 300 organized tournaments per year. Around here even modern accounts for less than 10% of games played while commander sits at around 40% and standard is easily 50% of organized games (talking about constructed formats, we have far more than this in draft but that's a separate beast that you buy into for practice/fun/socializing not for card collecting or deck building) ~ this will vary from LGS to LGS and regionally. Now obviously I could travel to legacy or vintage games, but I'm talking about within a 1 hour drive time for access to typical weekly events. Which means economically I really only need to focus on standard and I have access to half the games, and than a commander deck if I want to hit most of the other games.
I've only been back to playing for a year, I still haven't bothered to attempt a modern deck let alone vintage or legacy, it simply isn't worth my investment (yet).
Unless you take the time to actually buy 4 copies of every card in the formats you play, you are always going to have this question and quite frankly that is the meta-game of magic, that's the essence of what "collectable" means in the context of it being a collectable card game
If you are looking to save money, singles and trading are the way to go. If you want to be prepared for every possible deck building option than you have to decide just how much of any given set you are willing to invest in regardless of what method you choose for obtaining it. No one can answer that for you.
I've been thinking about getting back into competitive Magic after a hiatus for the past year. I wanted to discuss about building up my collection from scratch. While I'm certainly not rich, I believe I am able to invest what money is needed to get started. I'm certainly willing to do whatever it takes, but of course, I don't just want to throw money around, inefficiently. However, I'm not sure how to proceed. In the past, I had gathered cards in many different ways, over the years.
A) Booster Boxes. The idea being to buy several booster boxes whenever a new set is released. This would give me extra commons for multiple decks, as well as uncommons to sweeten deals in trades. The big problem nowadays are the mythic rares. In order to get all the cards I would want from a particular set, I would have to buy so many booster boxes, that it would be cheaper for me to buy sets or singles. Either that, or I would have to buy so many singles, that I might as well have not bought the boxes at all.
B) Complete sets. The idea here would be to buy full sets, so that I don't have to worry about acquiring cards before a tournament. This is especially useful irl, when dealers may not have all the cards I want and/or I cannot wait for someone to mail a card to me online. Of course, the major problem is the cost. Plus, I would end up with a lot of dead cards. It may just be easier to buy singles.
Another variation of this option could be to buy full sets without mythics or just 4x playsets of commons/uncommons. However, mythics are generally very good, so I'd have to buy them eventually anyway. Common/uncommon playsets are pretty cheap, certainly a lot less than booster boxes. I could just fill out my collection with singles. However, that would cost nearly as much as full sets.
C) Focus only on singles. This may be the cheapest option, if I know what I want to build. I could just buy the cards I need and make adjustments as I go. However, there are several problems with this. First, let's say that I want to make an adjustment to my deck the day before a PTQ. If my local dealer or the ones at the PTQ don't have it, I'm screwed. Or worse, the PTQ dealer might have the card, but charge more than I might otherwise have to pay, if I could afford the time.
Second, what if I start testing my deck and it's no good? Maybe the metagame changes or a new set makes the deck less optimal? Plus, I wouldn't have the benefit of a test gauntlet, as my local players aren't that serious. I could buy full sets for the cost of building a full test gauntlet.
D) Booster draft. This may be more efficient; albeit, time-consuming. The idea being to draft pricy rares/mythics that are perhaps not as useful in booster draft. It would certainly be a lot cheapter to spend $15 on a booster draft than $15 on singles. Of course, the obvious problem is that I would have no control over what I can get. Anything of real value would probably be snatched before it got to me, even if it weren't that good in booster draft, like dual lands.
E) MTGO I've played extensively on MTGO and irl, so I know how it works. Obviously, it would be foolish to build up two collections at once. In general, MTGO seems to be a far stronger option for competition. The players are much higher quality, I can play more frequently, and save money otherwise spent on gas. The problem is that the PTQs are just so much larger than irl, so my odds of winning one are slim. Ideally, I could mostly test online, then play in local PTQs, but there aren't many around here.
F) Trading. Trading is nice for specific cards. That way, I can get what I need without have to spend more money. However, it sounds impossible to really build a collection that way. Obviously, dealers are going to want to make a profit. At best I would break even on a trader with another player, unless I severely take advantage of them, which I would consider unethical. Even if I could do that, I can't imagine that I could consistently do that to really build up a collection.
What do you think? Thanks a lot.
Don't restrict yourself to only one. You should be doing all of them. Eventually you will find you like one better than the others.
But just beginning I would say make a budget and keep to it.
A) Booster Boxes. The idea being to buy several booster boxes whenever a new set is released. This would give me extra commons for multiple decks, as well as uncommons to sweeten deals in trades. The big problem nowadays are the mythic rares. In order to get all the cards I would want from a particular set, I would have to buy so many booster boxes, that it would be cheaper for me to buy sets or singles. Either that, or I would have to buy so many singles, that I might as well have not bought the boxes at all.
B) Complete sets. The idea here would be to buy full sets, so that I don't have to worry about acquiring cards before a tournament. This is especially useful irl, when dealers may not have all the cards I want and/or I cannot wait for someone to mail a card to me online. Of course, the major problem is the cost. Plus, I would end up with a lot of dead cards. It may just be easier to buy singles.
Another variation of this option could be to buy full sets without mythics or just 4x playsets of commons/uncommons. However, mythics are generally very good, so I'd have to buy them eventually anyway. Common/uncommon playsets are pretty cheap, certainly a lot less than booster boxes. I could just fill out my collection with singles. However, that would cost nearly as much as full sets.
C) Focus only on singles. This may be the cheapest option, if I know what I want to build. I could just buy the cards I need and make adjustments as I go. However, there are several problems with this. First, let's say that I want to make an adjustment to my deck the day before a PTQ. If my local dealer or the ones at the PTQ don't have it, I'm screwed. Or worse, the PTQ dealer might have the card, but charge more than I might otherwise have to pay, if I could afford the time.
Second, what if I start testing my deck and it's no good? Maybe the metagame changes or a new set makes the deck less optimal? Plus, I wouldn't have the benefit of a test gauntlet, as my local players aren't that serious. I could buy full sets for the cost of building a full test gauntlet.
D) Booster draft. This may be more efficient; albeit, time-consuming. The idea being to draft pricy rares/mythics that are perhaps not as useful in booster draft. It would certainly be a lot cheapter to spend $15 on a booster draft than $15 on singles. Of course, the obvious problem is that I would have no control over what I can get. Anything of real value would probably be snatched before it got to me, even if it weren't that good in booster draft, like dual lands.
E) MTGO I've played extensively on MTGO and irl, so I know how it works. Obviously, it would be foolish to build up two collections at once. In general, MTGO seems to be a far stronger option for competition. The players are much higher quality, I can play more frequently, and save money otherwise spent on gas. The problem is that the PTQs are just so much larger than irl, so my odds of winning one are slim. Ideally, I could mostly test online, then play in local PTQs, but there aren't many around here.
F) Trading. Trading is nice for specific cards. That way, I can get what I need without have to spend more money. However, it sounds impossible to really build a collection that way. Obviously, dealers are going to want to make a profit. At best I would break even on a trader with another player, unless I severely take advantage of them, which I would consider unethical. Even if I could do that, I can't imagine that I could consistently do that to really build up a collection.
What do you think? Thanks a lot.
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)A. is a great way to build your collection while enjoying cracking packs. I would only recommend it right when a new set comes out however since within the first couple weeks the average value of a box is close to the purchasing price.
F. Is the primary way I fill in the gaps of my collection. I would recommend getting into online trading as it greatly increases your network and chance of finding someone who has what you need and wants what you have.
C. Is my last resort for high priced staples that are often difficult to trade for such as cards in eternal formats or expensive in demand staples.
For each set I buy two boxes and then rely on online trading and in-store trading to fill in the gaps, then buy singles to fill in the remaining gaps that only trading couldn't fill in.
My Collection & Tradelist
My EDH Cube: 960 Cards, Fully Foiled and Pimped
CUBE TUTOR
B) I vote for B. It is the most cost effective way to go, even over C. (I am a C->B person myself). If you have some money to invest and want to play the game while at least maintaining the price of your cards, this is the best option IMHO. The con's are that it 'may' marginally be more expensive than buying the singles. If you play any Legacy + any EDH, not to mention cube, I think you will find the cost to be about the same to buy full (play)sets. The pro's are that you are guaranteed to not have to pay extra the day before the tourney because you find some last minute ideas and you're missing <$1 cards that you'll end up paying real, inflated >$1 dollars for at some dealer booth. In addition, you are guaranteed to not miss out on any 'new hotness' from any new archetype decks that people come up with and you won't have to pay peak prices to play 'THE' deck at any point in time.
D) <- Might not be worth your time/effort.
Its not as cheap as it may seeeeem
Ive spent a great deal on singles
So here I am, writing these jingles
But seriously, my friend did A but now all he has is 8 (literally) fat packs of basic lands and ****ty commons from innistrad.
Buy singles - and online. The downfall is that you are hurting if you need a card TODAY and cant find it anywhere. But that will be the case no matter what you try.
Signature courtesy of Rivenor and Miraculous Recovery
EDH Altered Cards by Galspanic (Seriously, this guy's awesome.)
My Pauper Cube
Tapped-Out Simulator
My Trade Thread
-Decks-
Commander:
GWR Rith, the Awakener RWG
U Kami of the Crescent Moon U (Flagship Deck)
BW Teysa, Orzhov Scion WB
Under Construction:
UBR Crosis, the Purger RBU
Cube:
WUBRGX Pauper XGRBUW
XXXX
Modern
URTwinRU R.I.P.
EDH
WUGRoon of the Hidden RealmWUG
Buy singles. If you want to go with packs, draft. At least you might win some store credit or free packs to lower the cost.
How To Keep Your FOIL Cards From Curling: http://youtu.be/QTmubrS8VnI
The Best Deck Boxes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEwgLph_Pjk
The Best Binders: http://youtu.be/H5IauASYWjk
You don't need sets to play competitively. You need decks. Te cheapest ay to do it is to buy the deck you want. That's it. Do not buy boxes, boosters, sets, collections, repacks, do not pas go, do not collect $200.
Find the T1 netdeck you want to play, proxy it up and make sure you like it, then go buy the deck.
There are a few guys I know that collect a playset of every new set so they can build literally whatever they want in standard.
The consensus among them is that the cheapest way for them is to buy a booster case of each new set, and then fill in the gaps with singles. They have told me it is cheaper than outright buying the complete set x4, which is usually about $1000 for a large set. For a large set like Theros, a case should net an average of roughly 2 of each mythic and 4 of each rare, meaning you're mostly just buying the mythics and a handful of rares.
I imagine you could further mitigate cost by selling foils. In an entire case you're bound to pull a couple high-dollar rare/mythic foils, and you can use the proceeds to fill in the gaps... especially if you pre-order and sell when costs of mythics are silly and then wait a few weeks for the hype to die down. A small amount of cash could also be obtained by selling extra common/uncommon sets. Alternatively, with a case worth of cards you should be able to easily trade into the mythics you need to build a Tier 1 deck or two, if you're ok with not having EVERY SINGLE CARD in standard.
I imagine with some work you could probably obtain a playset of a large set for ~$600-700, which isn't outrageous to do 4x a year if you like the game enough and have the disposable income. Smaller sets could be less.
Finally, if you're really a standard-only player, you could certainly sell the complete sets for a decent amount of money when they rotate out... You'd be taking a loss, but if you're not going to play with them anyway, who cares, right? Complete playsets of Dark Ascension are on ebay right now for $300 or so, and that goes a long way toward a case of Theros.
1. Buy singles to build the deck(s) you want. Ebay and tcgplayer are great ways to find singles at reasonable prices.
2. Keep an eye on playable mythics and consider buying them when they are low even if you don't need them immediately. Mythics that get hot are where you will "waste" the most of your money in trying to keep up with Standard. If you can get ahead of the curve on some of them (i.e. pick them up before they get popularized in a winning deck) you can save some cash.
3. Trade for what you need if you can. Sell to a dealer and you might get ~%50 of what your card is worth depending on the card. Trade with another player and you can usually get ~100%. A lot of people get hung up on making sure they don't "lose" a trade...but will turn around and sell those same cards to the store...automatically "losing" by quite a bit. So remember that you can happily give up a couple of bucks in a trade and still be ahead of where you would be if you had to do the sell/buy routine with a dealer.
4. Don't be too quick to dump cards post-rotation. They will drop...but many will go back up again. Cards that see play in eternal formats will often only get higher over time, and the rise of EDH has really warped the secondary market for casual cards, causing many "bad" cards to hit the $5-10 range a few years after they rotate. Some stuff really is bulk and safe to cull, but often you are better off with that Asceticism than with the 10 cents a dealer will give you for it after rotation.
While I do have the money, obviously it's not very efficient to continuously dump money every time I need a new card. Ideally, I would be growing a collection, so that I can either trade or sell cards to get what I want, especially for Modern. This would require me to have a collection ready in advance, which I just don't have right now. How would I go about building it?
Since I'm going to be booster drafting anyway, that sounds like a reasonable place to start. Of course, I can't entirely rely on it, but I could use it as a means of supplementing my collection while getting practice in the format, and possibly winning prizes.
Trading would be another way, though I don't know how that would help me increase the value of my collection. Of course, the only way to do that would be to gain more value from trades than I give up, which no one would willingly do, understandably so. Maybe if I traded relevant cards at PTQs, people may be willing to pay more than they would otherwise be worth, but that's still a very limited selection.
Someone earlier also mentioned buying collections. I could somewhat see how that would work. A player quits the game, just wants to get rid of their cards fast, and is willing to sell for less than they are worth, to entice buyers. However, I would think this would be a pretty random means of building my own collection, much like buying a booster box. Sure, they might list the cards they've got, but since I've been out of the game for so long, I have no idea what's really valuable or not. Plus, how far would I go with buying collections? I don't know how this method would work for me.
Thanks again.
The most cost effective way to get cards when a new set comes out is to buy one of the "playsets of all the common and uncommon" deals off eBay for like $30-$40. You instantly get a playset of the majority of the set, and if you want to build a variety of deck, you know you have any common/uncommon in the set already. Then spend $$ buying the specific rares/mythics you need.
Drafting is a waste of money, it's just buying sealed product and playing a game with it. You get some playtime out of the cards, but you are practically guaranteed to be throwing 43-45 cards out in the trash on your way out of the store because they are worthless. Do not buy sealed product, ever. If you really have a group that just loves to draft, proxy up a cube and draft that, it's cheap and way more fun than drafting any other sets. I literally cringe when I see people week after week flushing $15 down the toilet to draft M14 and open a Nightmare, Domestication, and Garruk's Horde in their packs. Spending $15 for 75-80 cents in rares.
EDH: Xenagos, God of Revels.
Assuming paper MTG is your preference (otherwise MTGO is cheaper), by far the cheapest way is to set up an MTGO account, trade for and redeem 4x sets of every set that it is currently economical to do so for, then buy singles from the other sets.
At present, for post-rotation Standard you can get an MTGO redemption set for the following prices:
RTR - USD 140ish
GTC - USD 120ish
DGM - not economically redeemable
M14 - USD 115ish
Buying singles, OTOH, will cost you a lot more than that even if you just buy the premier ones from each set.
Your other option is to not really maintain a collection at all, but just to buy specific cards for decks.
Drafting is a moderately priced form of entertainment, nothing else. Do it if you find it fun, do not see it as a way to acquire cards.
I could spend my AU$15 on a draft and leave with a Domestication, a Rise of the Dark Realms and a foil Opportunity, or I could spend that same AU$15 on a cinema ticket and end up with nothing.
Neither would be a waste of money.
You can cube draft for free. You can hang out, scoop up all the trash cards as they get thrown out, repack them in envelopes, and draft them with friends. $15 to draft a low value set like M14 is pretty much inexcusable
Also, to the OP, never buy collections or lots off eBay or Craigslist. It's a 100% garauntee anything good was picked out and sold individually. You are just buying whatever trash he couldn't get rid off.
I like the idea of buying the common/uncommon sets, then filling out what I need by buying singles of rares/mythics. Ignoring cost, commons/uncommons are just annoying to try to find on the go, because dealers won't have them stocked. At best, I could order them online, but that would take some time, which I may not have, if I'm making a last-minute tweak. Plus, as aforementioned, common/uncommon sets are relatively cheap.
However, the problem with that is that it still really limits what I can do. For example, let's say I've got my common/uncommon sets ready to go for an upcoming PTQ season. I take a look at the format, decide what deck I want to play, and buy the rares for a relatively cheap cost compared to buying full sets. Since I'm only playing one deck, I can really focus on learning it, inside and out. But what happens if and when things change?
Any number of things could make choosing that deck a bad move. Maybe the metagame changes, a new set is released mid-season, or I just don't like the deck? Of course, I know of free ways of checking out a deck before buying it, but once I've bought the cards, I'm kind of stuck with them. If I wanted to change my deck mid-season, I'd have to sell my rares/mythics, and buy the new ones for another deck, which would take awhile. Not to mention, I would be relatively unfamiliar with the new deck.
Ideally, I'd like to have full sets to remain flexible or at least a playset of everything useful in the format. However, that's not really cost-efficient. Money isn't so much the issue, as is spending it wisely. Thanks again.
If money isn't the issue, than this is a problem you are going to face no matter what method you choose.
Inevitably no matter how much money you have spent you will run the risk of wanting (or needing) to change out cards from time to time, it's simply how magic and deck evolution work
There is a reason so many MTG players have fairly large collections and it is to overcome exactly the issue you are describing
The cheapest most money efficient methods of card selection have already been spelled out for you in this thread
What you are left with is than deciding how much money to spend on that style of card collection, which is a decision only you can make based on your own budget and how buffered (with card variety) you wish to be against future changes
The "ideal" of an MTG player will collect 4 sets (or more) of every set and in theory be ready for every tournament style, always. That ideal is simply not realistic for most people. Most will choose one format to focus on at a time and only expand to another format if and when their budget allows. (for those playing for years this happens naturally as they may choose to keep many older cards and find them useful outside of standard)
Instead you simply need to choose how invested you want to be and structure your collection around that budget and only buy into the formats you care about. How many people actually play vintage compared to the total community? etc. In my area there has been a total of one vintage and one legacy tournament in an entire year; out of more than 300 organized tournaments per year. Around here even modern accounts for less than 10% of games played while commander sits at around 40% and standard is easily 50% of organized games (talking about constructed formats, we have far more than this in draft but that's a separate beast that you buy into for practice/fun/socializing not for card collecting or deck building) ~ this will vary from LGS to LGS and regionally. Now obviously I could travel to legacy or vintage games, but I'm talking about within a 1 hour drive time for access to typical weekly events. Which means economically I really only need to focus on standard and I have access to half the games, and than a commander deck if I want to hit most of the other games.
I've only been back to playing for a year, I still haven't bothered to attempt a modern deck let alone vintage or legacy, it simply isn't worth my investment (yet).
Unless you take the time to actually buy 4 copies of every card in the formats you play, you are always going to have this question and quite frankly that is the meta-game of magic, that's the essence of what "collectable" means in the context of it being a collectable card game
If you are looking to save money, singles and trading are the way to go. If you want to be prepared for every possible deck building option than you have to decide just how much of any given set you are willing to invest in regardless of what method you choose for obtaining it. No one can answer that for you.
Don't restrict yourself to only one. You should be doing all of them. Eventually you will find you like one better than the others.
But just beginning I would say make a budget and keep to it.
Good luck.
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