Little bits

I only realized this past week that I have been back into Magic for about 4.5 years. I mark my return with the attendance of my first Pre-release: Battle for Zendikar.  (September 26th, 2015)
Since then, I have slowly, oh so slowly, built my Legacy collection up. I attended many drafts to play cost effectively. I bought some auction collections hoping to find some hidden gems. I have gotten some money and bought stuff. Mostly though, it has been via trading up, lots of material for the bigger cards I really needed. Its a hard road to slog, let me tell you.

Over this past holiday, I sold a couple household things (for those playing at home, it was stuff I could never use again) and found myself with about $75-$80 to use. And for the first time in a long while, I had to stop and think of what I wanted to get.

I know I want a complete play set of duals, and likely fetches. Those go without saying, but my 'cheaper' want list was pretty much empty for a minute. I was flabbergasted.

I considered various things:

• Getting 3 Italian Karakas with the original art
• Several beta Plains to up my count there
• A Scalding Tarn, to help my SnS deck get one step closer to being paper legal

I also had to weigh where to buy the cards. I could go to the FB group of "Sick Deals" which is supposed to be 10% lower than TCG. (players selling directly with no fees and overhead) Not always, but you really need to stay on top of it. TCG where the buys are a bit more protected than a FB group. Local card shop, where the "card in hand" satisfaction is nice. Though taxes has to be considered, and the travel.

I wound up asking a couple mtg player friends about deals and where to aim the money towards. Both of them said the Scalding Tarn. Fetch prices are suppressed due to holiday season, and people selling cards to help pay down debt. Makes sense. Oh, and Modern players have been selling off since the announcement of Pioneer as a format that bans fetches. Prices are at a good place for me!

The idea of pimping a little with old art Karakas was very interesting, but totally unnecessary right now. That idea was pitched out the window. 

The Scalding Tarn was taking the race by storm when I looked up the prices and found that I could get an original printing, light play, for about $62 via TCG. That sealed the deal. (see pricing history, which has been favoring me for now)

Then I thought- "self, get some more of that Beta bling. Get two beta Plains!" Which I did for $7 a pop. Sweet.

After all was said and done, I paid about $5 in cash for taxes and got a LP Zendikar Scalding Tarn and two LP Beta Plains. Welcome to the collection kids.