Over the past couple of months, I’ve started using Pucatrade.com to attempt to get rid of some cards that I no longer want and turn them into a playset of Force of Will. This post is a description of my experience using Pucatrade, and is intended to inform others that have not used the service before how it really works.
It all started the day I signed up, August 26th, 2014. I had seen posts about Pucatrade and thought it sounded like a cool idea. I checked out the website and signed myself up. After going through this process and adding some cards to my ‘Wants’ list, Pucatrade credited me a free 400 Puca Points (essentially US$4.00). Still not sure of exactly how the whole process worked, I added some cards that I was somewhat interested in to my 'Wants' list. In the middle of this process, though, I realized that my Puca Point total had dropped from 400 down to 263. What had happened?
Well, it turned out that someone had already decided to send me one of the Detention Spheres that I had added to my list. Just like that, the value that Detention Sphere currently had on Pucatrade, 137 points or $1.37, had been deducted from my point total, and would be released to the person sending me the card once I had confirmed that I received it. Now I was able to grasp how the system worked, and just how quickly cards you wanted could be on their way to you. I also realized that you have to be careful with the cards you put on your Wants list, because if you don’t really want them, you may still end up paying for them with your points.
I then resolved to turn some of my casual and EDH-friendly cards into something Legacy playable, as that is my favorite format, so I rounded up all the cards that I was willing to let go of and entered them into my ‘Haves’ list. Having done this, I could now click on Pucatrades ‘Send Cards’ button to see all the cards that other users were looking for. From there I could turn on ‘Auto-Matching’, and the site would only show me cards that people were looking for that I actually had. After identifying some of the higher dollar items, I set about committing to send people cards and mailing them out to locations all over the world.
I have sent cards from my home in Hong Kong to the US, Italy, Ireland, Germany, the Philippines, Denmark, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Norway and Sweden. Most of the Pucatrade skeptics in r/magictcg voiced concerns over sending out cards without tracking, as they didn’t want to get ripped off if people simply said that they did not receive the cards. This is a valid concern since Pucatrade does guarantee that recipients that don’t get their cards will be credited their Puca Points back, however in this event senders may only be given the points for the cards they ship if they have documentation proving that the cards were, indeed, sent. Thus, there is risk in not providing tracking, or at the very least registration, for cards (especially high value ones). This becomes problematic for senders because they are always the ones that must foot the bill for shipping cards. That means that they can end up paying substantial amounts of money per trade if they are afraid of being swindled.
I chose not to pay for tracking on any cards that I sent out, and only registered a couple of pieces of mail that had cards valued at over US$15. I was essentially making myself a guinea pig to test the honesty of Pucatrade users, knowing full well that I could be essentially giving my cards away. By not using tracking, I was able to send cards to most countries worldwide for only 48 cents plus the cost of envelopes and top loaders.
I’m very happy to report that I have yet to have a single card not arrive at its intended destination, and that most recipients have marked them received in a timely manner. I have only had one instance so far in which I have had to open a case with Pucatrade after a recipient had not accepted my cards for over 4 weeks after I sent them and would not answer my messages to him. After I contacted Pucatrade and let them know the situation, I was credited with the value of the cards shortly after. Whether Pucatrade did this themselves or the recipient finally got around to marking the cards received, I do not know. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. From my personal experience, Pucatrade users are serious traders and honorable people.
One note I would make on shipping times is that the Italian postal service seems to be rather slow. Cards I have sent there consistently take over 2 weeks to arrive. On the flip side, cards sent to the US and Germany seem to arrive relatively quite quickly (7-10 days), which is impressive for cards sent from Hong Kong.
To give you an idea of some of the kinds of cards people are looking for on Pucatrade, here is what I have shipped out:
Detention Sphere (The same one I was sent)
Wall of Omens
Lightning Bolt – M11
Basilisk Collar
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas x2
Dismember (Foil)
Koth of the Hammer x2
Sliver Hive x2
Flickerwisp
Mana Tithe (Full Art Promo)
Razorverge Thicket
Exploration – Conspiracy
Scourge of the Throne
Student of Warfare x4
Frost Titan
Gideon Jura x2
Scuttling Doom Engine (Foil)
Combust x3 – M11
Squadron Hawk (Promo Foil)
Birds of Paradise – M12
Thirst for Knowledge – Mirrodin
Urabrask the Hidden
Thieving Magpie (Foil) – Urza’s Destiny
Dryad Militant (Full Art Promo)
Galvanic Blast x4
Warren Instigator
Waste Not
Dakmor Salvage (Foil) - Future Sight
Mimic Vat x3
Blightning (Full Art Promo)
Treasure Hunt (Full Art Promo)
Brave the Elements (Full Art Promo)
Kargan Dragonlord
Invigorate - Mercadian Masques
Brainstorm x3 - Conspiracy
Khalni Hydran
Sheoldred, Whispering One x2 (Prerelease Foil)
Gitaxian Probe x3
Reclamation Sage
Into the Roil
Pyromancer Ascension x4
Goblin King - Tenth Edition
Luminarch Ascension
Smallpox - Conspiracy
Swords to Plowshares - Conspiracy
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
Crib Swap
Mortarpod
Phage the Untouchable - Conspiracy
Ash Zealot
Necropolis Regent
Beast Within
Mental Misstep x2
Caged Sun
Rune-Scarred Demon
Kheru Spellsnatcher (Foil)
Everflowing Chalice (Promo Foil)
Emeria, the Sky Run
As you can see, the types of cards that people are looking for on Pucatrade run the gamut, although I will say that promo cards seem to be especially in demand. People are even looking for innocuous commons, so you may want to register your whole collection so that you can get extra points out of some people by sending them low-value cards they want when you send them higher value items.
What I got for all of the above cards: Force of Will (MP Condition)
+23,519 Puca Points to be used towards Force of Wills 2-4
Another important note:
After getting enough points for a Force of Will, I sat around a couple days waiting for somebody to send me one. I received a message from a user stating that he didn’t have a NM condition FoW, but he did have an MP one that he would be willing to send me for less points. This is a problem, as Pucatrade currently only deals in M/NM cards (although they say they will include support for SP and MP cards in the near future). Fortunately, the sender had a premium membership which allowed him to send points to other Pucatrade members. Once I received the card he was able to immediately send me the difference between the Pucatrade listed price for the FoW and the price we agreed upon.
One final neat aspect of Pucatrade I'd like to mention is that people sometimes make special requests in their profile. Most of the time this is just specifying whether they're open to foreign cards, or if they're are willing to accept less than NM condition. However, you can also make other types of requests. For instance, one person I sent cards to mentioned that they really enjoyed John Avon lands, so I packed in some Japanese language Avon lands when I sent him some cards. He really seemed to enjoy them and I think we were both extra happy with that trade because of it. Similarly, I had asked for the inclusion of Innistrad Transform Checklists in my profile, because I can't find them anywhere in Hong Kong and they aren't an item that you can put in your 'Wants' list on Pucatrade.
Overall, I’m stoked that Pucatrade is in existence, and I will definitely be continuing to use on it on my quest to get 4 Force of Will and beyond. It’s a great way to get rid of cards you don’t want, help people get the cards they need, and get cards you want without spending a bunch of money to get them. If you decide to use it too, I hope this piece will help you hit the ground running. Happy trading!
P.S. – Just to be clear, I am in no way affiliated with Pucatrade or anyone that runs it. I just like the site and wanted to share my experience.
P.P.S. - If you liked this article, want to sign up, and care to help me out with some points for referring you, please PM me and I can send you the appropriate link. Thanks!
TL;DR - Pucatrade is a good site to trade Magic cards.
Can you actually redeem the points for cash though?
Nope. The points can only be used to get other cards. What you can do, however, is combine the value of a bunch of cards that nobody would be interested in buying and get a more valuable card that you could actually sell. Like turn a bunch of bulk rares into some Modern staples.
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Heh, thanks for reminding me of this service. I once opened an account when they were in their infancy and never used it. They really seem to have polished their website and system since then. I think I will give it a shot again.
@OMN|POTENT: they claim to have an algorythm that checks various sources and that updates the values regularly. It seems that the absolute bottom prices are at 10-15 points, which translates to roughly 1 cent.
You've listed about 70 cards that you sold here. My question is: How many different buyers got them?
It's VERY cool having your bulk cards rated at magiccardsinfo medium price, but what if you can just send 1-2 cards per different person? Shipping costs will probably be worth getting your points in cash anyway.
What is really cool about pucatrade is trading down. You send just one over-priced card, and get free-shipped cards from all over the world.
I sent those cards out to 40 different people.
With regards to shipping costs, I've spent about $20 for the postage of those 40 pieces of mail (it's 48 cents to mail a card in a toploader from where I live), plus another $12 for registering some of the higher cost cards. Then I'd add in the cost of envelopes, tape, sleeves and toploaders and estimate that I've spent around $45 on shipping so far.
What I've received for that is the equivalent of $311.19 in Puca Points. The best thing about this is that I've essentially turned a bunch of cards that I would never use, and never be able to trade locally, into 3 1/2 Force of Wills for $45. Pretty good deal.
That's a good point you make about trading down. Getting cards sent to you shipping free is quite nice.
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The more people that sign up and use Pucatrade, the better the system gets. At the start there were very few users so wants/haves moved slowly, but now it seems to have it that tipping point and things are smooth.
It seems that the absolute bottom prices are at 10-15 points, which translates to roughly 1 cent.
Actually, from what I can tell, the pricing on the site is run on a 1-to-1 point-to-cent ratio. If you want to add 100 points to your account, you have to pay them $1. Likewise, a 2000 point card should have a market value of about $20.
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I wasn't as ambitious or focused, but I've been able to turn cards I don't want/need and can't find people who want them here into some good stuff. I dumped a few Goblin Guides and swapped those into a couple pauper decks and a Sneak Attack. A lot of my old $.50-$2.00 rares get shipped out and turned into the new stuff from Conspiracy and Khans. Sure, it's the not the most efficient way to do things (Sending 10 envelopes for $50 in credit) but it's a great way to trade up when you want and a good way to get niche junk too.
Right now I am in the middle of converting old Fetches into new Fetches - something I haven't been able to do elsewhere.
Disappointed to see they charge extra for features but I guess it's better than a charge per transaction: https://pucatrade.com/pricing
How stripped down are the "Common" features?
Does not being able to receive foils affect how easily they move?
Can you offer cards up as Playsets only? Or greater quantities? That would greatly impact the amount of cards I could move without shipping cutting a huge hole in my pocket.
I haven't used the pay portion or felt the need to at all. "Common" should be fine to get you started but if you want to move more product you will want the notifications.
Not receiving foils? That's never been a thing I even looked into since I hate foils and just glazed over that part... someone else can answer that.
I've posted quantities from 1 to 8 cards and people only request individual cards, so it's all up to other. But the auto match system lets you see who wants your stuff. There's a guy in Germany who wanted about $7 worth of my cards and I'd been watching him for a while. He wanted $10 off my list finally and I went with it. As the receiver, you never agree to receive cards.... the sender agrees to send cards. If that makes sense.
I've got some old fetches i want to convert too, but i checked the wantlist section and saw a guy or two buying massive quantities of the new ones, some more that want a few copies (also of the new ones) and not a single person that wants the old ones. Are you doing something differently?
Moreover, when i have a card to trade, can i send it whenever i want, to whoever i want, or is there a "buy now from this guy" button for buyers? First (and only) time i got something, i just had it in my list and whoooosh! somebody sent it. Does this go both ways?
I sit and wait. In 3 weeks I've sent out 4 of the 5 I want to get rid of. So, I check a couple times a day and when I see someone who wants one, click, send. The want and have lists change so often that unless you get email notifications I don't know how you'd reliably find them.
There is no buying. You send cards to a guy, he marks that he received them, and your account is credited the value of the cards received. You choose who to send to but anyone can send to you. I post something on my wants and usually within 24 hours someone is sending it and if you check the "Send Cards" section you can be the guy who magically sends stuff too if there is anything there.
EDIT:
The problem is there are points entering the system but none going out. Eventually we will reach a point where no one wants to sell cards for points, because they can't get get anything they need.
I don't get this at all. I get points by entering my Haves into the system and send those away. Then I get cards in the mail that do not go into my tradeable Haves. So, I added $X worth of cards to the system to get $X worth of cards and the net gain for the whole system is $0. As new people enter the game, as new strategies emerge, and new sets come out people will always want stuff. The casual crowd has been dumping a lot of stuff on me and I've sent off a ton of cards I never thought I would see play.
The problem is there are points entering the system but none going out. Eventually we will reach a point where no one wants to sell cards for points, because they can't get get anything they need.
I don't get this at all. I get points by entering my Haves into the system and send those away. Then I get cards in the mail that do not go into my tradeable Haves. So, I added $X worth of cards to the system to get $X worth of cards and the net gain for the whole system is $0. As new people enter the game, as new strategies emerge, and new sets come out people will always want stuff. The casual crowd has been dumping a lot of stuff on me and I've sent off a ton of cards I never thought I would see play.
New people usually bring in at least 400 points into the circulation, and a few of them might upgrade to uncommon or rare which brings in more points (the one time upgrade gift). When you trade a card, the point simply goes from one person to another. There's no "tax" or other mechanism that consumes points, so overtime, the value of point decreases.
Think of it as a country that keeps printing money into the circulation. Right now it seems like new users bringing in points out of nowhere into the circulation.
New people usually bring in at least 400 points into the circulation, and a few of them might upgrade to uncommon or rare which brings in more points (the one time upgrade gift). When you trade a card, the point simply goes from one person to another. There's no "tax" or other mechanism that consumes points, so overtime, the value of point decreases.
Think of it as a country that keeps printing money into the circulation. Right now it seems like new users bringing in points out of nowhere into the circulation.
I would imagine that those extra points also go towards the owners of the site as well as compensation for bad trade cases since they guarantee the trades. I won't pretend to know how they manage it from the inside but the site takes cash from people and doesn't give any cash out. It is weird when compared to micro-economies, but I send $x and get $x so it's all good to me.
Well, this sounds pretty interesting. I'll have to watch the tutorial videos.
Would you say this would be a good trading site for someone like me who has a lot of $1-$4, mostly older casual cards for trade but doesn't have a lot of high-end staples? I've noticed that trading on this site has become near-impossible in this past year because a lot of the traders were driven off by the site change and most traders these days only have want lists consisting of the most expensive Standard, Modern and Legacy staples. Most don't want to do any trade under $10, so it's been very difficult for me to get most of my wants via online trading like I used to.
One thing I am curious about, is how often the higher end staples ($50+) cards show up on pucatrade for those looking to get things like forces, or wastelands, or other such higher end things. I imagine its a bit better than it used to be, but still curious as to how long one might expect to wait for something higher end to become available after sending out a bunch of lower end stuff to get the more valuable stuff.
I don't play new formats and buy 3 packs per set. So, I don't have a lot of stuff to trade except the boxes of old garbage that never seemed worth sending to a shop to bulk out. I listed anything that I have worth $.25 or more and just send stuff out if it seems like it's worth it. The reason the attached list is so big is NOT because nobody wants my trash - it's because I have Europe listed there, I don't want to send them stuff when it costs $1.15, and I don't really know if a $.45 stamp to send stateside is worth $1.50 in credit right now... if I drink tonight I'm sure it will be.
I won't put any of the blame on this site or anyone working here, but things moved on and I don't think I kept up. I'm seeing the same trends you are - people here have some stuff I want but are only looking to trade up into format staples. I've found better luck getting those staples with stuff like the list below. Over the last 4-5 months I have been building my own pauper metagame too. When you are looking to trade for 45 cards all worth $.15 each there is no way I can fathom even starting that here. On Pucatrade I put my common bulk into my Wants and within a day the whole deck is on its way. No haggling, no pressing for value, no arguing about what something is worth. I'm too old for the virtual trade binder approach of Pojo, MTGS, and MOTL now.
One thing I am curious about, is how often the higher end staples ($50+) cards show up on pucatrade for those looking to get things like forces, or wastelands, or other such higher end things. I imagine its a bit better than it used to be, but still curious as to how long one might expect to wait for something higher end to become available after sending out a bunch of lower end stuff to get the more valuable stuff.
I don't know really, but I see people receiving those cards more often than I would have guessed - since when you mark your order as received it's public. I have sent a couple $50ish cards, received 1, but like I said, the bulk of my deals have been for pauper and EDH Cube.
I think that everything there has improved since they first showed up. I mean, when then had server issues they started posting here to coordinate trades and got banned. And people talked about how there wasn't anything to trade up into. But, in my experience and stalking of the site since June it seems like they have their ***** together now. I could be wrong, but...
Well, it definitely sounds like a good way for me to lighten my casual binder and get rid of some of the old rares I have that don't even make the journey to my LGS with me because I'm sure no one will want them. I just fear the shipping costs will add up very quickly. So for any users of the site out there I have some questions:
Do I get any say in what cards I get from my want list or should I just be careful and only list the cards I /really/ want to avoid having all of my points burned up on cards that I only kinda-sorta want?
So is my understanding correct that you actually have to buy a paid subscription to be able to receive foil cards? That's pretty lame since I'm trying to foil out some EDH decks and EDH foils are damn-near impossible to find via trades. Does that mean I can't trade foils either?
Is my personal info only available when someone agrees to trade me a card or can everyone see it? Does the site require you to use your real name by default or do people on there have usernames?
Well, it definitely sounds like a good way for me to lighten my casual binder and get rid of some of the old rares I have that don't even make the journey to my LGS with me because I'm sure no one will want them. I just fear the shipping costs will add up very quickly. So for any users of the site out there I have some questions:
Do I get any say in what cards I get from my want list or should I just be careful and only list the cards I /really/ want to avoid having all of my points burned up on cards that I only kinda-sorta want?
So is my understanding correct that you actually have to buy a paid subscription to be able to receive foil cards? That's pretty lame since I'm trying to foil out some EDH decks and EDH foils are damn-near impossible to find via trades. Does that mean I can't trade foils either?
Is my personal info only available when someone agrees to trade me a card or can everyone see it? Does the site require you to use your real name by default or do people on there have usernames?
Risking to sound like a thread hog (but I am bored and the rain has us pinned at home):
1 - You need to manage your list to make it work for you. I had all my wants in there and my credit vanished on little junk that I didn't really want. Now, I tend to keep the one or two things I want in the Wants and let those fill before adding chaff for pauper. I personally recommend only listing the stuff you want the most and then checking those off the top of the list as they come in.
2 - That is what it looks like but I never noticed before because of my general hatred of foils. But the non-free accounts aren't that expensive and they do give you $5 in credit for signing up for the $5 subscription. You can give it a shot for a month, break even, and then see how it treated you. It seems like about 50/50 for people paying and not paying. You CAN send foils to people who pay though.
3 - Your username is visible to anyone signed in I think and a lot of people have their names as their usernames. But the address only shows up when you engage with a trade.
thanks, Galspanic. Have you had any issue with people not leaving feedback (or whatever the site calls it)? If I'm understanding the system correctly, one major flaw I see that could be extremely frustrating is dealing with people who never bother to update when they have received your card, thereby depriving you of your points. God knows I've completed a ton of trades on here where the other person never bothered to tell me when they got my cards and never left feedback. I would assume there is a sort of "time limit" where after a certain amount of time you automatically get the points anyway but seems like you could be left waiting a long time for points.
There really isn't feedback and that is something I don't like. I had a guy wait 10 days to ship a card, I got it, and it was marked as received. The end. So, you never know if the guy on the other end sending will send quickly, but most are within 3-4 days. Another issue I have is that a trader can agree to send you something, not, and just have it cancelled without anything happening. It's not really a problem since when they bail you get your credits back, but it wastes time and sometimes the opportunity to get a card (in my case a few cards that went up in the time I waited for them to cancel. They agreed, waited 4-5 days, the card went up, and when I was refunded I couldn't afford the card anymore).
The thing you are talking about has happened ~maybe~ 3 times in the 40-50 trades I've made. But I bug them and it's easier to just give me my credit than field annoying emails from yours truly.
So I signed up today and put in my list of haves which is about 500 cards, anything over 25 cents. One thing I noticed when I went to look for people who listed their wants as something that I have is that most people have very small amounts of points to spend so it isn't worth while for me to send 70 cents of stuff to Europe (it seems most of my matches are located in Italy. I'll start stalking the site and hopefully more info emerges.
Does pucatrade provide values for foreign cards? I have an italian polluted delta onslaught that I'm pessimistic about trading to my LGS.
OP, thanks for the testimonial!
The value of foreign cards would be the same as their English counterparts. You'll just want to okay every trade with the recipient before sending it out. Most people even put in their profiles whether or not they're open to foreign cards, so you can tell before even clicking 'send'. If there is an issue with the language and you haven't sent the card out, the trade can easily be canceled.
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1) Is there an option to ship to only North America (Canada, the U.S., and Mexico) only? As mentioned earlier, I wouldn't want to ship $1.00 in singles to somewhere in Europe for $1.50 in shipping.
2) And is your hand forced to send if you have something someone wants? Or can one just decline? (for instance, someone in the Netherlands wants $2.00 in cards, but I do not want to ship cards that far)?
3) How exactly does it work for foils? Does the premium membership mean you can now post foils? Or does it mean you can get foils? Is it worth posting foil commons/uncommons?
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It all started the day I signed up, August 26th, 2014. I had seen posts about Pucatrade and thought it sounded like a cool idea. I checked out the website and signed myself up. After going through this process and adding some cards to my ‘Wants’ list, Pucatrade credited me a free 400 Puca Points (essentially US$4.00). Still not sure of exactly how the whole process worked, I added some cards that I was somewhat interested in to my 'Wants' list. In the middle of this process, though, I realized that my Puca Point total had dropped from 400 down to 263. What had happened?
Well, it turned out that someone had already decided to send me one of the Detention Spheres that I had added to my list. Just like that, the value that Detention Sphere currently had on Pucatrade, 137 points or $1.37, had been deducted from my point total, and would be released to the person sending me the card once I had confirmed that I received it. Now I was able to grasp how the system worked, and just how quickly cards you wanted could be on their way to you. I also realized that you have to be careful with the cards you put on your Wants list, because if you don’t really want them, you may still end up paying for them with your points.
I then resolved to turn some of my casual and EDH-friendly cards into something Legacy playable, as that is my favorite format, so I rounded up all the cards that I was willing to let go of and entered them into my ‘Haves’ list. Having done this, I could now click on Pucatrades ‘Send Cards’ button to see all the cards that other users were looking for. From there I could turn on ‘Auto-Matching’, and the site would only show me cards that people were looking for that I actually had. After identifying some of the higher dollar items, I set about committing to send people cards and mailing them out to locations all over the world.
I have sent cards from my home in Hong Kong to the US, Italy, Ireland, Germany, the Philippines, Denmark, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Norway and Sweden. Most of the Pucatrade skeptics in r/magictcg voiced concerns over sending out cards without tracking, as they didn’t want to get ripped off if people simply said that they did not receive the cards. This is a valid concern since Pucatrade does guarantee that recipients that don’t get their cards will be credited their Puca Points back, however in this event senders may only be given the points for the cards they ship if they have documentation proving that the cards were, indeed, sent. Thus, there is risk in not providing tracking, or at the very least registration, for cards (especially high value ones). This becomes problematic for senders because they are always the ones that must foot the bill for shipping cards. That means that they can end up paying substantial amounts of money per trade if they are afraid of being swindled.
I chose not to pay for tracking on any cards that I sent out, and only registered a couple of pieces of mail that had cards valued at over US$15. I was essentially making myself a guinea pig to test the honesty of Pucatrade users, knowing full well that I could be essentially giving my cards away. By not using tracking, I was able to send cards to most countries worldwide for only 48 cents plus the cost of envelopes and top loaders.
I’m very happy to report that I have yet to have a single card not arrive at its intended destination, and that most recipients have marked them received in a timely manner. I have only had one instance so far in which I have had to open a case with Pucatrade after a recipient had not accepted my cards for over 4 weeks after I sent them and would not answer my messages to him. After I contacted Pucatrade and let them know the situation, I was credited with the value of the cards shortly after. Whether Pucatrade did this themselves or the recipient finally got around to marking the cards received, I do not know. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. From my personal experience, Pucatrade users are serious traders and honorable people.
One note I would make on shipping times is that the Italian postal service seems to be rather slow. Cards I have sent there consistently take over 2 weeks to arrive. On the flip side, cards sent to the US and Germany seem to arrive relatively quite quickly (7-10 days), which is impressive for cards sent from Hong Kong.
To give you an idea of some of the kinds of cards people are looking for on Pucatrade, here is what I have shipped out:
Detention Sphere (The same one I was sent)
Wall of Omens
Lightning Bolt – M11
Basilisk Collar
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas x2
Dismember (Foil)
Koth of the Hammer x2
Sliver Hive x2
Flickerwisp
Mana Tithe (Full Art Promo)
Razorverge Thicket
Exploration – Conspiracy
Scourge of the Throne
Student of Warfare x4
Frost Titan
Gideon Jura x2
Scuttling Doom Engine (Foil)
Combust x3 – M11
Squadron Hawk (Promo Foil)
Birds of Paradise – M12
Thirst for Knowledge – Mirrodin
Urabrask the Hidden
Thieving Magpie (Foil) – Urza’s Destiny
Dryad Militant (Full Art Promo)
Galvanic Blast x4
Warren Instigator
Waste Not
Dakmor Salvage (Foil) - Future Sight
Mimic Vat x3
Blightning (Full Art Promo)
Treasure Hunt (Full Art Promo)
Brave the Elements (Full Art Promo)
Kargan Dragonlord
Invigorate - Mercadian Masques
Brainstorm x3 - Conspiracy
Khalni Hydran
Sheoldred, Whispering One x2 (Prerelease Foil)
Gitaxian Probe x3
Reclamation Sage
Into the Roil
Pyromancer Ascension x4
Goblin King - Tenth Edition
Luminarch Ascension
Smallpox - Conspiracy
Swords to Plowshares - Conspiracy
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
Crib Swap
Mortarpod
Phage the Untouchable - Conspiracy
Ash Zealot
Necropolis Regent
Beast Within
Mental Misstep x2
Caged Sun
Rune-Scarred Demon
Kheru Spellsnatcher (Foil)
Everflowing Chalice (Promo Foil)
Emeria, the Sky Run
As you can see, the types of cards that people are looking for on Pucatrade run the gamut, although I will say that promo cards seem to be especially in demand. People are even looking for innocuous commons, so you may want to register your whole collection so that you can get extra points out of some people by sending them low-value cards they want when you send them higher value items.
What I got for all of the above cards:
Force of Will (MP Condition)
+23,519 Puca Points to be used towards Force of Wills 2-4
Another important note:
After getting enough points for a Force of Will, I sat around a couple days waiting for somebody to send me one. I received a message from a user stating that he didn’t have a NM condition FoW, but he did have an MP one that he would be willing to send me for less points. This is a problem, as Pucatrade currently only deals in M/NM cards (although they say they will include support for SP and MP cards in the near future). Fortunately, the sender had a premium membership which allowed him to send points to other Pucatrade members. Once I received the card he was able to immediately send me the difference between the Pucatrade listed price for the FoW and the price we agreed upon.
One final neat aspect of Pucatrade I'd like to mention is that people sometimes make special requests in their profile. Most of the time this is just specifying whether they're open to foreign cards, or if they're are willing to accept less than NM condition. However, you can also make other types of requests. For instance, one person I sent cards to mentioned that they really enjoyed John Avon lands, so I packed in some Japanese language Avon lands when I sent him some cards. He really seemed to enjoy them and I think we were both extra happy with that trade because of it. Similarly, I had asked for the inclusion of Innistrad Transform Checklists in my profile, because I can't find them anywhere in Hong Kong and they aren't an item that you can put in your 'Wants' list on Pucatrade.
Overall, I’m stoked that Pucatrade is in existence, and I will definitely be continuing to use on it on my quest to get 4 Force of Will and beyond. It’s a great way to get rid of cards you don’t want, help people get the cards they need, and get cards you want without spending a bunch of money to get them. If you decide to use it too, I hope this piece will help you hit the ground running. Happy trading!
P.S. – Just to be clear, I am in no way affiliated with Pucatrade or anyone that runs it. I just like the site and wanted to share my experience.
P.P.S. - If you liked this article, want to sign up, and care to help me out with some points for referring you, please PM me and I can send you the appropriate link. Thanks!
TL;DR - Pucatrade is a good site to trade Magic cards.
Nope. The points can only be used to get other cards. What you can do, however, is combine the value of a bunch of cards that nobody would be interested in buying and get a more valuable card that you could actually sell. Like turn a bunch of bulk rares into some Modern staples.
@OMN|POTENT: they claim to have an algorythm that checks various sources and that updates the values regularly. It seems that the absolute bottom prices are at 10-15 points, which translates to roughly 1 cent.
I sent those cards out to 40 different people.
With regards to shipping costs, I've spent about $20 for the postage of those 40 pieces of mail (it's 48 cents to mail a card in a toploader from where I live), plus another $12 for registering some of the higher cost cards. Then I'd add in the cost of envelopes, tape, sleeves and toploaders and estimate that I've spent around $45 on shipping so far.
What I've received for that is the equivalent of $311.19 in Puca Points. The best thing about this is that I've essentially turned a bunch of cards that I would never use, and never be able to trade locally, into 3 1/2 Force of Wills for $45. Pretty good deal.
That's a good point you make about trading down. Getting cards sent to you shipping free is quite nice.
Give it a try!
Actually, from what I can tell, the pricing on the site is run on a 1-to-1 point-to-cent ratio. If you want to add 100 points to your account, you have to pay them $1. Likewise, a 2000 point card should have a market value of about $20.
Right now I am in the middle of converting old Fetches into new Fetches - something I haven't been able to do elsewhere.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
How stripped down are the "Common" features?
Does not being able to receive foils affect how easily they move?
Can you offer cards up as Playsets only? Or greater quantities? That would greatly impact the amount of cards I could move without shipping cutting a huge hole in my pocket.
Edit: Using the same images for Condition seems like a good way to get themselves in some trouble And a bit sloppy really :\
https://pucatrade.com/condition
http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/cardconditions
Not receiving foils? That's never been a thing I even looked into since I hate foils and just glazed over that part... someone else can answer that.
I've posted quantities from 1 to 8 cards and people only request individual cards, so it's all up to other. But the auto match system lets you see who wants your stuff. There's a guy in Germany who wanted about $7 worth of my cards and I'd been watching him for a while. He wanted $10 off my list finally and I went with it. As the receiver, you never agree to receive cards.... the sender agrees to send cards. If that makes sense.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
OP, thanks for the testimonial!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
From PucaTrade Knowledge Base: "At this time, PucaTrade is only supporting English cards. We'll keep you posted as things progress."
I think you can contact buyers who are looking for a polluted delta and ask them before you send it.
I sit and wait. In 3 weeks I've sent out 4 of the 5 I want to get rid of. So, I check a couple times a day and when I see someone who wants one, click, send. The want and have lists change so often that unless you get email notifications I don't know how you'd reliably find them.
There is no buying. You send cards to a guy, he marks that he received them, and your account is credited the value of the cards received. You choose who to send to but anyone can send to you. I post something on my wants and usually within 24 hours someone is sending it and if you check the "Send Cards" section you can be the guy who magically sends stuff too if there is anything there.
EDIT:
I don't get this at all. I get points by entering my Haves into the system and send those away. Then I get cards in the mail that do not go into my tradeable Haves. So, I added $X worth of cards to the system to get $X worth of cards and the net gain for the whole system is $0. As new people enter the game, as new strategies emerge, and new sets come out people will always want stuff. The casual crowd has been dumping a lot of stuff on me and I've sent off a ton of cards I never thought I would see play.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
New people usually bring in at least 400 points into the circulation, and a few of them might upgrade to uncommon or rare which brings in more points (the one time upgrade gift). When you trade a card, the point simply goes from one person to another. There's no "tax" or other mechanism that consumes points, so overtime, the value of point decreases.
Think of it as a country that keeps printing money into the circulation. Right now it seems like new users bringing in points out of nowhere into the circulation.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Would you say this would be a good trading site for someone like me who has a lot of $1-$4, mostly older casual cards for trade but doesn't have a lot of high-end staples? I've noticed that trading on this site has become near-impossible in this past year because a lot of the traders were driven off by the site change and most traders these days only have want lists consisting of the most expensive Standard, Modern and Legacy staples. Most don't want to do any trade under $10, so it's been very difficult for me to get most of my wants via online trading like I used to.
Trades
Pucatrade with me!
(Signature courtesy of Argetlam of Hakai Studios
I won't put any of the blame on this site or anyone working here, but things moved on and I don't think I kept up. I'm seeing the same trends you are - people here have some stuff I want but are only looking to trade up into format staples. I've found better luck getting those staples with stuff like the list below. Over the last 4-5 months I have been building my own pauper metagame too. When you are looking to trade for 45 cards all worth $.15 each there is no way I can fathom even starting that here. On Pucatrade I put my common bulk into my Wants and within a day the whole deck is on its way. No haggling, no pressing for value, no arguing about what something is worth. I'm too old for the virtual trade binder approach of Pojo, MTGS, and MOTL now.
I don't know really, but I see people receiving those cards more often than I would have guessed - since when you mark your order as received it's public. I have sent a couple $50ish cards, received 1, but like I said, the bulk of my deals have been for pauper and EDH Cube.
I think that everything there has improved since they first showed up. I mean, when then had server issues they started posting here to coordinate trades and got banned. And people talked about how there wasn't anything to trade up into. But, in my experience and stalking of the site since June it seems like they have their ***** together now. I could be wrong, but...
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Do I get any say in what cards I get from my want list or should I just be careful and only list the cards I /really/ want to avoid having all of my points burned up on cards that I only kinda-sorta want?
So is my understanding correct that you actually have to buy a paid subscription to be able to receive foil cards? That's pretty lame since I'm trying to foil out some EDH decks and EDH foils are damn-near impossible to find via trades. Does that mean I can't trade foils either?
Is my personal info only available when someone agrees to trade me a card or can everyone see it? Does the site require you to use your real name by default or do people on there have usernames?
Trades
Pucatrade with me!
(Signature courtesy of Argetlam of Hakai Studios
Risking to sound like a thread hog (but I am bored and the rain has us pinned at home):
1 - You need to manage your list to make it work for you. I had all my wants in there and my credit vanished on little junk that I didn't really want. Now, I tend to keep the one or two things I want in the Wants and let those fill before adding chaff for pauper. I personally recommend only listing the stuff you want the most and then checking those off the top of the list as they come in.
2 - That is what it looks like but I never noticed before because of my general hatred of foils. But the non-free accounts aren't that expensive and they do give you $5 in credit for signing up for the $5 subscription. You can give it a shot for a month, break even, and then see how it treated you. It seems like about 50/50 for people paying and not paying. You CAN send foils to people who pay though.
3 - Your username is visible to anyone signed in I think and a lot of people have their names as their usernames. But the address only shows up when you engage with a trade.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Trades
Pucatrade with me!
(Signature courtesy of Argetlam of Hakai Studios
The thing you are talking about has happened ~maybe~ 3 times in the 40-50 trades I've made. But I bug them and it's easier to just give me my credit than field annoying emails from yours truly.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
The value of foreign cards would be the same as their English counterparts. You'll just want to okay every trade with the recipient before sending it out. Most people even put in their profiles whether or not they're open to foreign cards, so you can tell before even clicking 'send'. If there is an issue with the language and you haven't sent the card out, the trade can easily be canceled.
2) And is your hand forced to send if you have something someone wants? Or can one just decline? (for instance, someone in the Netherlands wants $2.00 in cards, but I do not want to ship cards that far)?
3) How exactly does it work for foils? Does the premium membership mean you can now post foils? Or does it mean you can get foils? Is it worth posting foil commons/uncommons?