Oh Amazon

 Found a deal on Amazon Saturday morning-

All 5 Commander 2020 decks for $99.99, free shipping. Cool beans... Lets get it, and my kids can give it to me for Christmas. I can add it to the stack of sealed things I have for later sale/trade. (That pile currently consists of 2019 Commander decks in a box)

About 4 hours after placing my order, the package was delivered from Amazon. Seriously quick delivery! However, there was a small problem- the box containing all five decks was opened. The shipment was simply put in a mailer poly-bag and shipped. Alrighty then... I couldn't see anything wrong with the individual decks, but my wife complained to Amazon just to see what they would do.

Turns out- they offered to replace the decks with a new one. Keep the old one. (I guess ordering a bunch of stuff provides some leeway) Welp, ok then. Two sets of 2020 Commander decks. 

Instead of keeping both, I sold one on eBay for profit, thus making the extra one completely free. No clue what I am going to do with it for now, but free set of Commander pre-cons is decent. Currently clocking in at $140 plus on eBay. I am sure they will at least hold, and likely increase over the next year or two because of the cycle of free casting cards in each deck. Not likely to be reprinted in the next year. 

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I bit the bullet on my Soul-Guided Lantern "investments." I am shipping 48 of them off to Card Kingdom for about $1.04 a piece in trade value. I paid about $0.30 a piece for each. (minus about $3.50 in shipping) Not huge profits, but I will take it. I can get a few pieces for edges of decks I am slowly compiling... like never to be played burn or mono-red stompy. Or some SB pieces for D&T like Armageddon. I have a list, I know what I want.  

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I'm not super in love with Arena currently. I do like the Historic aspect, but it is really starting to feel like Pioneer lite. I am REALLY not a fan of Standard sooooooooooo... kinda back to the reason I wanted to do Arena in the first place- practice drafting. Which at this rate, I won't do in paper until April 2021 at this rate.

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Comment on prices of cards. In June 2020, I acquired a Good condition Volcanic Island from Card Kingdom for a bunch of extra cards in a trade-in. At the time I "paid" $342.99 which was slightly up-ticked over a month or so that I was watching. And it was the only one I saw in stock for almost two weeks. As of today, 11/17/20, a Good condition Volcanic Island from CK is listed for $489.99. Five months, and I 'made' or saved myself $147 in that time. Crazy.