Is there a good resource for finding the pricing of specific test print cards? Is the best bet just to find closed ebay sales (of which there isn’t a result for some of the test prints I’m looking for)?
Test print cards go for sale so infrequently that yes, searching for eBay completed listings is your best bet.
Anyone got a price idea for this? There's one in the recent sales on eBay for $999, but a best offer was accepted.
Unsigned ones are in the $400-$500 range. Chris Rush has passed away, but he wasn't terribly reclusive and Lightning Bolt was probably his most-signed card. That said, how many people would part with theirs? I'd probably ask closer to $750, but I can see a grand, especially if you're willing to wait a bit.
So I'm looking for bulk cards of some specific sets/blocks.
Specifically, I'm looking for bulk of the Kamigawa, OG Ravnica and shadowmoor blocks.
Hi there Spurn, and welcome to MTGS. I'm sure that you read all the forum rules and realize that solicitation is forbidden here in the Café, so you must be looking for us to recommend vendors who may have these.
I can't think off-hand of any who've got their bulk sorted by block - once it's sorted that much, you may as well finish sorting it and add it to general inventory. Try eBay maybe?
Hey. Does anyone know where I can find a printable price guide? I have someone who doesn't have access to the Internet and I'm trying to help him out. Thanks
Hi there ... Cldmldsjd? How do you pronounce that? Are you from the Aberstwyth Cldmldsjds?
Sadly, the concept of a printed price guide is fairly obsolete. If you're just looking for Standard prices, you can, as Lion suggests, print the list from someplace like Goldfish. If your friend is trading at a store, however, he's more than likely going to be able to ask the store staff or an event judge "Is this fair?" He could also ask his trading partner to look up prices and show him - I do this all the time at GPs. We'll agree on a source, then look up prices on the fly. Showing the other person your phone is not that difficult.
Personally I think that Lyra Dawnbringer would've been great if she cost 3RW instead of 3WW. Red-white angel tribal FTL (For The Legion)!
I'd also love to see "Master Warcraft on a stick" or "Legendary Boros Battleshaper". Stuff that's more about manipulating combat than "Okay, I turn all my creatures sideways and depending on which general I chose, they're now better somehow". I want to be able to make interesting choices when I sit down for a game of EDH, and being able to say "Oh, well, actually, I tap my general and THIS creature is now blocking THAT one" seems like a fun mess to make of things.
CardMarket is great if you can take advantage of it. However, do the math before you start buying a ton - shipping is typically cheap or free on eBay and TCGp, and it's very much not the case on MKM. The last time I did an MKM order (2014) I paid $40 in shipping costs and another $40 in PayPal fees. Now, that was for several hundred bucks' worth of judge foils, from about 7 or 8 different sellers. You want to make sure that you order from as few sellers as possible, you want to try to get sellers from your country as much as possible, and you really want to get high-feedback sellers. One of my cards came through with a bend in it, and bent foils tend to be worthless. It was like pulling teeth, but I ended up getting a partial refund from the seller, but basically had to re-buy the card (fortunately, I met a guy at a GP who didn't care about trading for a bent Sword of Fire and Ice). So that's the other prime consideration - if you run into problems, eBay and TCGp have your back. MKM really does not - if you have an issue it's between you and the seller, full stop.
With those caveats, it's definitely a good place to check out and you can score some real deals. Just don't go crazy thinking that the prices are way lower across the board than they are on other marketplaces.
And also any advice on the easiest/cheapest way to get back into it and get 3/4 playable decks, likely pre-made.
Hi Russinating, and welcome to MTGS! I'm going to jump right in and suggest that the recently released Guild Kits are a great way to get a fun, reasonable deck. Pick your favorite color pair and get a preconstructed deck for £16 or so. They aren't overpowered, but they aren't trash either. They've got a bunch of useful cards that you can repurpose once you're done with the deck. They're also fairly balanced against each other, so if you want to grab a few and bring them to work, you can put them on the table and tell your colleague "Pick one" and you can have it out without either of you being at a severe disadvantage.
If you're looking to figure out if any of your old stuff is worth anything, join me over at Market Street or DM me a list and I can help you out on that end of things as well.
Hey OP, are you looking for a service that tracks your collection in particular? Or one that has a database of all cards? Gatherer is a great resource for deckbuilding - I never build with physical cards anymore, I just start with Gatherer and make decklists in Excel until I know what I want. Then I go through my collection and find it.
If you're looking for a collection tracker, Deckbox and TCGPlayer are popular options. The rough part is entering in all your cards - there isn't a great easy way to do it. You also have to keep it updated.
My thinking is that it's probably meant to mask a price increase. Currently, WOTC sells to distributors, who sell to game stores and other end-retailers, who sell to us. Many stores use the "double-double" technique - the distributor sells to the store for double what they pay WOTC, and then the store sells to use double what they pay to the distributor. If WOTC raises prices to the distributors but no longer has an MSRP, then distributors raise prices to game stores, and game stores can either raise prices or watch their profit margins shrink even further. If players complain, the stores say "Our costs are going up!" and WOTC says "Stores are free to charge whatever they want - we aren't telling them what to charge." The distributor never says a word and most players ignore that they exist.
Is anybody drafting these? Is it a better draft than the first set?
I'm hosting a draft in about ten days. I'm hoping that it'll be a better experience than the last time. And this time I know that Ajani and Dack are just pure traps and I'll warn the table accordingly. Seriously, who decided to put the Azorius walker in the set with Selesnya and the Selesnya walker in the set with Azorius?
Since we have more mono-color walkers this go-round, I'm anticipating that people won't be as siloed as they were last time. Might lead to a more organic-feeling draft, if only two people are opening on-guild bombs. I don't think that it'll be amazing, but I certainly expect it to be better than the trainwreck that the last one was.
I would love to have Dack in my deck. I think Gruul and Simic draft really well together.
Ajani is a bit odd since Simic and Azorius don't mix as well, but it is still doable.
I drafted the first box, and opened up Teferi. I thought that I would go Bant, but the color-fixing just wasn't there and I never had both Teferi and Islands in a game. Dack's +1 is okay - target player loots 2 - but I don't think I'd consider it a bomb in the format. His -2 is almost completely irrelevant (although it's better than Tezz from the first set), and while you can build around his ult, it's also not a gamebreaker. What are you doing with Gruul and Simic? You're playing out your creatures and putting counters on them. That's great - but Dack doesn't really add to that game plan except by giving you the ability to loot away lands once you've got enough. If there's nothing amazing in the pack then sure, I'll take him, but the odds of having some other quality card that doesn't commit you to playing Temur are pretty deece.
Ajani is probably a better fit in a Bant deck, most likely Simic splashing some white. You can pick up Azorius fixing, and he puts counters on your creatures which is exactly what Simic wants to be doing. He also helps you draw into creatures. But the color requirements aren't going to be easy. As I mentioned in the Limited thread on this topic, my last draft was won by a Boros player who drafted Daretti and then just left him on the sidelines. I'm very wary of trying to warp my colors around a planeswalker that might not be a bomb.
Is anybody drafting these? Is it a better draft than the first set?
I'm hosting a draft in about ten days. I'm hoping that it'll be a better experience than the last time. And this time I know that Ajani and Dack are just pure traps and I'll warn the table accordingly. Seriously, who decided to put the Azorius walker in the set with Selesnya and the Selesnya walker in the set with Azorius?
Since we have more mono-color walkers this go-round, I'm anticipating that people won't be as siloed as they were last time. Might lead to a more organic-feeling draft, if only two people are opening on-guild bombs. I don't think that it'll be amazing, but I certainly expect it to be better than the trainwreck that the last one was.
the "chase" walkers here are $20, while Teferi and Lili are $50.
Not just that.
They look really bad (people mostly like tamiyo, but the rest is incredible bad artwork for the characters).
The walkers are either reprinted a bunch of times, not worth anything, not played in constructed formats and/or just mediocre like the new planeswalkers.
All of the points make this a terrifically bad product as it is.
Karn and Ajani should've been swapped with Teferi and Daretti. That would've evened out the value a bit, and made draft a little better.
I was surprised how unexcited I was about this product - obviously for a completionist like myself it's a necessary pickup, but none of the walkers make me excited to jam them in decks. The last one, Elspeth, Lili and Teferi went right into decks, and that was pretty cool. So yeah, they exist, but they aren't really lighting a fire under me. But honestly, this feels right to me. Most people who wanted them are getting them, and while they still exist, quantities are clearly limited. I'd still like to see a little more from this set - a couple packs of Ravnica sleeves and some spindowns, maybe a basic land pack, just enough so that it truly is a draft in a box - but they're pretty close.
I know that it's an absurdly bad card, but I think that my favorite card is still Gabriel Angelfire. I remember when I first got one for my GW deck, before it was reprinted in Chronicles. I had a choice - for $17 I could get either Gabriel or the Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I was advised by the store owner to get the Tabernacle, and I kind of wish I'd followed that advice now, but I bought Gabriel and shuffled him into my 65 (60 card deck? What's that?). I don't know that I drew him in more than a handful of games, but I really liked playing with a Legend.
Unsigned ones are in the $400-$500 range. Chris Rush has passed away, but he wasn't terribly reclusive and Lightning Bolt was probably his most-signed card. That said, how many people would part with theirs? I'd probably ask closer to $750, but I can see a grand, especially if you're willing to wait a bit.
Hi there Spurn, and welcome to MTGS. I'm sure that you read all the forum rules and realize that solicitation is forbidden here in the Café, so you must be looking for us to recommend vendors who may have these.
I can't think off-hand of any who've got their bulk sorted by block - once it's sorted that much, you may as well finish sorting it and add it to general inventory. Try eBay maybe?
Hi there ... Cldmldsjd? How do you pronounce that? Are you from the Aberstwyth Cldmldsjds?
Sadly, the concept of a printed price guide is fairly obsolete. If you're just looking for Standard prices, you can, as Lion suggests, print the list from someplace like Goldfish. If your friend is trading at a store, however, he's more than likely going to be able to ask the store staff or an event judge "Is this fair?" He could also ask his trading partner to look up prices and show him - I do this all the time at GPs. We'll agree on a source, then look up prices on the fly. Showing the other person your phone is not that difficult.
I'd also love to see "Master Warcraft on a stick" or "Legendary Boros Battleshaper". Stuff that's more about manipulating combat than "Okay, I turn all my creatures sideways and depending on which general I chose, they're now better somehow". I want to be able to make interesting choices when I sit down for a game of EDH, and being able to say "Oh, well, actually, I tap my general and THIS creature is now blocking THAT one" seems like a fun mess to make of things.
With those caveats, it's definitely a good place to check out and you can score some real deals. Just don't go crazy thinking that the prices are way lower across the board than they are on other marketplaces.
Hi Russinating, and welcome to MTGS! I'm going to jump right in and suggest that the recently released Guild Kits are a great way to get a fun, reasonable deck. Pick your favorite color pair and get a preconstructed deck for £16 or so. They aren't overpowered, but they aren't trash either. They've got a bunch of useful cards that you can repurpose once you're done with the deck. They're also fairly balanced against each other, so if you want to grab a few and bring them to work, you can put them on the table and tell your colleague "Pick one" and you can have it out without either of you being at a severe disadvantage.
If you're looking to figure out if any of your old stuff is worth anything, join me over at Market Street or DM me a list and I can help you out on that end of things as well.
If you're looking for a collection tracker, Deckbox and TCGPlayer are popular options. The rough part is entering in all your cards - there isn't a great easy way to do it. You also have to keep it updated.
BTW, welcome to MTGS!
I drafted the first box, and opened up Teferi. I thought that I would go Bant, but the color-fixing just wasn't there and I never had both Teferi and Islands in a game. Dack's +1 is okay - target player loots 2 - but I don't think I'd consider it a bomb in the format. His -2 is almost completely irrelevant (although it's better than Tezz from the first set), and while you can build around his ult, it's also not a gamebreaker. What are you doing with Gruul and Simic? You're playing out your creatures and putting counters on them. That's great - but Dack doesn't really add to that game plan except by giving you the ability to loot away lands once you've got enough. If there's nothing amazing in the pack then sure, I'll take him, but the odds of having some other quality card that doesn't commit you to playing Temur are pretty deece.
Ajani is probably a better fit in a Bant deck, most likely Simic splashing some white. You can pick up Azorius fixing, and he puts counters on your creatures which is exactly what Simic wants to be doing. He also helps you draw into creatures. But the color requirements aren't going to be easy. As I mentioned in the Limited thread on this topic, my last draft was won by a Boros player who drafted Daretti and then just left him on the sidelines. I'm very wary of trying to warp my colors around a planeswalker that might not be a bomb.
I'm hosting a draft in about ten days. I'm hoping that it'll be a better experience than the last time. And this time I know that Ajani and Dack are just pure traps and I'll warn the table accordingly. Seriously, who decided to put the Azorius walker in the set with Selesnya and the Selesnya walker in the set with Azorius?
Since we have more mono-color walkers this go-round, I'm anticipating that people won't be as siloed as they were last time. Might lead to a more organic-feeling draft, if only two people are opening on-guild bombs. I don't think that it'll be amazing, but I certainly expect it to be better than the trainwreck that the last one was.
At a guess, I'd say that Rakdos, the Showstopper, aka Mr Demon Tribal, is responsible.
Karn and Ajani should've been swapped with Teferi and Daretti. That would've evened out the value a bit, and made draft a little better.
I was surprised how unexcited I was about this product - obviously for a completionist like myself it's a necessary pickup, but none of the walkers make me excited to jam them in decks. The last one, Elspeth, Lili and Teferi went right into decks, and that was pretty cool. So yeah, they exist, but they aren't really lighting a fire under me. But honestly, this feels right to me. Most people who wanted them are getting them, and while they still exist, quantities are clearly limited. I'd still like to see a little more from this set - a couple packs of Ravnica sleeves and some spindowns, maybe a basic land pack, just enough so that it truly is a draft in a box - but they're pretty close.