Random buy results

I got home, and the 20 pound box of cards was waiting for me- w00t. I pretty much spent most of my free evening time sorting and figuring out what was what. Note before I even get started:

• The entire thing stunk, like moldy basement.
• One of the boxes had dryer lint through-out it
• Many of the cards were damaged from something
• pretty sure someone bit one of the cards from the marks
• something was spilled on some cards
• some water damage is evident on some cards, hence the mildew smell
• Found part of an Uno deck
• All of the sports cards, as suspected, were crap
• Found a single Pokémon card worth some value
• Found a dude's drivers license, a complete first. And yes, it was expired by about 4 years.
• TCGplayer's App was in INVALUABLE time saver

That all said, I went in hoping to pay for the entire thing from one or two big money cards, making

the rest just trade fodder. I wasn't even sure if I could find things I needed/wanted. Trade stock is trade stock.


I nailed my hopes- the big money card was a FOIL Fifth Dawn Crucible of Worlds. Yup... Nailed it, can't be stopped. It was in VERY good condition, at worst slightly played. Easily $80. Next up, a FOIL Craterhoof Behemoth from Avacyn Restore, at least $25. Those two right there paid for everything. NAILED IT!
(edit: I already found someone to buy both of the cards at once for $100. Pretty good deal for both of us)




As for the rest of the cards? Oy, that took a while. I am still not 100% done going through them all. But my early TCG scanner card counter has the "value" at over $400. I doubt I will get that much in trade due to condition issues, but over all- completely worth the effort.


Odd note- many of the decent cards I was looking at were recently re-printed. I thought that was funny. I am not sure, but I might try to clean a couple of the cards with a q-tip and VERY light water on it, staying away from the edges. The storage conditions was not the best. I even found a large amount of mold in one sheet in a binder. Ick.

[Update: I am not very familiar with sets between 2002 - 2016. I just missed too much. I went through the boxes of cards with the TCG app and scanned as many as I could. I would up finding many other cards I had no clue had value. For example, Devoted Druid, or Ancient Den]
[Update #2: I went through the binder one final time- pulling out everything. Tucked behind another card was two Serra Avengers. Gesh.]


Couple note worthy cards:

• Zendikar Death's Shadow
• Foil Thragtusk
• Foil Memnite
• 2 Golgari Grave-Troll
• Rest in Peace
• non-foil Craterhoof Behemoth
• Master of the Pearl Trident
• Inkmoth Nexus
• Kor Spiritdancer
• Rings of Brighthearth, but at best played condition
• Life from the Loam

Reject photo! (those that did not make the cut for trading)

Random buy time

I found this Magic card auction via lastbidonline.com. I bid on it, pretty much on a whim the last day of the auction. I honestly didn't think I would get the items, because my wuss bid of $40 would easily be outbid. I did very little research on the cards, simply because the images were crap. It was hard to tell what some of the visible cards were.

I pretty much bid based on two cards I could identify- one in the photo on the right- there was an Inkmoth Nexus. Ok... about $15 in value. The other one I could identify was a Venser, the Sojourner from a Duel Deck. It was about a $10 value. So, $25 in visible value. Well, there are 4 'fat pack' boxes full of cards it seems. There are two different binders with gosh knows how many more cards. Oh, and a few random sports cards which will likely get tossed after discovering there is no value with them. (My opinion on them: over produced and nothing desirable)

I woke up Monday morning fully expecting to be outbid. Nope- my $40 bid held for all these cards.

Now for the shear panic mode- the auction side does not supply shipping. OH F*CK. Seriously.
I contacted a local UPS store, and they said they would have been super happy to go pick up the cards and ship them for me- $35 just for the privilege to ship them. I called the FedEx store- they would not pick them up.
OH NOES.
I called the auction house and they were SUPER nice about things. After I explained how the UPS store wanted $35, they offered to get things arranged for a fee of $10. After experiencing complete panic, I thought this was the best way to go. They even took it to USPS which is likely much cheaper than UPS or FedEx.
(side note- the auction house told me they were surprised at how low the auction went. They were told there was a bunch of value in the cards they put up)

Today I got the receipt for the tracking number, the cards should be here tomorrow. God I hope there is some good stuff in there. Oh, and by the way- the total weight for the shipment is 20lbs. Yup- that seems like a lot of cards and possibilities!

Ixalan pre-release

I am not sure how to sum up my experience with Ixalan so far. Its been, weird.

My promo for the pre-release

First off- I went to a 3 round only event at 7am. Woot.
Shout out to Dan L who usually goes to these early events. Thanks for shooting the crap with me.  :)

I went 2-1, 3 packs for my troubles.

The first iteration of the deck was 3 colors- Blue, Red, and Black. Black was in there for some removal and a couple critters. Red had some damage and triggers for damage. Blue was in there for card draw, flyers, and card draw. I think I didn't get the mana curve right after going back over the cards. 

The first round, the guy is a kitchen table player... he did not seem to know how to craft a decent deck from sealed. I felt bad for him. My deck played well. It had answers for everything he threw out there. 2-0

Second round, my deck completely left me high and dry. Land hosed both ways... it also got run over by dinosaurs. CRAZY. I lost 0-2. Crushed really. 

In between rounds I decided I needed to add some more dinos for the heck of it, so in goes a fourth color! My dinos were white this time. It made a difference. 

I had some color fixing, so ok.

Third and final round, the guy gets me good the first game. He played Fleet Swallower, and caused half my deck to disappear. Thank god he stopped attacking after that first, I would have not survived another round or two of him kicking my butt. I was able to stabilize and came roaring back.

Second game, I got the Sky Terror down, and it just crushed. I even threw on a Pirate’s Cutlass on him to seal the game.

Search for Azcanta was pretty darn sweet. It was a GREAT filtering engine to find the cards I needed. I even had to point out the may ability to get flipped to another player. He was very excited after that. 

Treasure Map was DARN good. I can see that being used in Standard and maybe Modern. Scry via an artifact, then get 3 artifact mana tokens?! Yes please!

My true mvp was Angrath’s Marauders. Sure it was a 7 drop, but at 4/4 it was vastly over costed. HOWEVER, when any source deals damage, it deals double it is a huge thing. It usually sealed the deal when it dropped either by killing off their biggest creatures or causing havoc in the blocking world. 

Pre-release, time to unleash the Betas!

Ixalan pre-release is THIS weekend! I do enjoy pre-release weekends. I am doing something new this time- playing at 7am for only 3 rounds. Due to family obligations, I cannot do the normal 5 rounds and free lunch. Oh boo! It happens, life happens.
I am not entirely sure I care for the flavors of this set. Dinosaurs? Really? Melfork, ok. Pirates, alright. Vampires... ummm ok. But then Dinosaurs? Ouch. Meh.

The mettle of this set will be in how well it drafts in my opinion. Thats all I really care about these days with new sets- how does it draft?
Next week my LGS is having an Ixalan kick off party next friday! Free packs, playmats, lots of goodies, and homemade chili for anyone who wants it. I am looking forward to it- my LGS has been very good to its players. Its a small place, but devoted group. Thats what it takes... a group to grind it out. I've been going for 5 months, and I am impressed with the steady group that shows up week after week.


Now for the big news- I am going to unlease my Beta basics for draft. I had been using BFZ full art basics for flair, but this is gonna be awesome. I've been slowly acquiring them since I rejoined the Magic world. I am still a couple short of the full 50, 10 each of each basic, but it is close enough that I am ok with sleeving them all up and putting them out there as my personal flare. I got a bunch signed, and I will not get a full set of Forest versions signed. I have a 'set' (all three versions) signed, which is "good enough."

Here they are, a class photo if you will. I am extremely happy with them.

Notes about the set-

• All the islands are signed
• All of the mountains are signed
• 7 of the swamps are signed
• 3 of the plains are signed
• 3 of the forest are signed
• 3 of the forest are alpha
• 2 of the islands are alpha

I am working on getting the last 2 mountains I need and 2 forest. I am in no hurry yet... keeping an eye out for a decent deal. If you have any laying about and want to work out a trade, let me know!

I am using UltraPro Matte Eclipse sleeves. They are a joy to shuffle with. 

Note- when you double sleeve, things seem to "puff up." I would say 1.25-1.5x the size of a single sleeved card. Very frustrating.

The Rudy effect

Rudy from Alpha Investments has put out a lot of videos regarding the financial side of Magic. He is a character, he does a lot of showmanship. Good on him. He is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to investing in Magic, or any other CCG for that matter.


He has a background in high finance, and applies a lot of that insight in to investing in Magic cards. He shows off what it takes to open a brick and mortar store. He shows off what it takes to keep lines of credit open if you want to take advantage of deals that someone else will. He gives insight to what he believes is the world of Magic investing is like. He created cute characters like the Greed Monster. Fans of his have made him art, and mailed it in to him. Not to mention thousands of proxies/fakes for him to "check out."


From all accounts, Rudy is a very nice guy in person. There is YouTube Rudy, and there is the guy who deal with Rudy. I've never met the guy, and I doubt I ever will. However, he has MASSIVE influence in the Magic investment world. He has the long term view on things. One prime example- it is his personal goal to buy every single graded 10 alpha Magic card out there. He wants to control the entire market for that area. He believes there are so few out there, that any time he can find one, he is willing to pay a premium for that card. Why? Because in the long run- he will win out on investing in it. It is more secure than any bond, mutual fund, or otherwise.
[Update on the Alpha cards, there were only 1700 Alpha rares printed of each card. Rudy estimates there are 7-800 still in existence, and MAYBE 100 unplayed. That's why he is buying whatever he can find]


Side note- I've heard that investing in a Black Lotus gets better returns than investing in the stock market. Now, that's all hear say, and I am sure you can back it up with some fancy graphs... but that could be truth, or it could be just rumors. There is a lot of dollar figures that would have to be applied to get to the truth on that.


Back to Rudy. On September 15th, Rudy posted a view entitled: Analyzing a Unique Magic Collection. At the 7:41 mark, he comments on a Mox Diamond in the collection that it would not be put up for re-sale. He believed that Mox Diamonds are currently undervalued.


On September 14th, the value of a Mox Diamond was about $93.50. (thanks MTGgoldfish)
Today, September 19th, the value of a Mox Diamond went up to $125.


See the snipped chart from MTGgoldfish below:



Thanks to Rudy, just mentioning the possible investment potential in this card caused a $25+ increase. I am sure it is going to increase more as people sort out what it should be valued at.


Good on you Rudy... you are able to sway entire markets with a comment now. I just ask you to be careful out there!


Next up- a massive buyout on Mox Diamond. I predict by end of year, it will be over $200.


[Update: as of September 21st, the Mox Diamond is up to $140... trending upwards.]
[Update: as of September 22nd, the Mox is up to $167, still going up]