Based on a City of Brass

 I won an auction last night. Couple notes about this particular auction:

• It was run by a collectables store
• The description was a bit dubious- "A mixture of all that's left over."
• No clue what that meant, though there were some other lots in the auction that held way better stuff. So, maybe? [After re-reading the auction; yup. I missed A CRAP ton. Lesson learned]
• Who ever was taking photos for this- please get better lighting. They were creating shadows in their own photos.

Group lots are a gamble, even when you can see bits of them. I've been bitten before with a stack of NOTHING... and I've had the most amazing set ever because the lack of information. So, you roll the dice, hope you didn't pay to much, and see if you break even or not. As a player/trader, thats my goal- not to make HUGE money, but to at least break even.

My entire gamble was based on this sliver of information:

There is a shadow of the photographer half way through, just barely a bit of the card showing, white bordered but not a dual land. What on earth was I thinking of when I saw that?

I was thinking- City of Brass. Likely the 5th or 6th edition due to just the very edge of the picture shown. I am gambling on an entire auction because of a sliver of a photo. 

Yup.

But why?

I am guessing the guy running the auction knew some of the good cards to pull out. There is no way they know price changes, or hot cards, or things like that. Their goal is to take a purchased collection- and flip it as quickly as possible to get some profit into the store. They are not there to amass a collection. (Well, I don't think thats how stores operate)
From the other information I've seen, the store bought someone's collection to flip. Thats it. If they had the staff and time, they could sort through the collection- but I doubt they did or could. The store had cards broken up into sets, and thats what they displayed for the most part. Thats why I am hoping I got the "leftovers" of the collection. Somewhat playable cards, not good enough for deck boxes, but decks waiting to happen. Decent enough. 

[As a complete side note- I went back to the store's auction and they were inconsistent in the labeling of their auctions. Some had Magic cards, some had MTG. Sigh. Someone made off like a bandit with the MTG listings. I never saw them. It was my fault for not looking and I missed out on some really good deals. Damn. Lesson learned.]

As for when I get this in, I might make a video to see how I did. If I broke even, or what. Who knows. Or I will just post the highlights and if I made out like a bandit, or what. 

Spending some money

 Tis the time of year to pick up singles. Why? Cause I got some cash! Yeah, thats why.

I tried something this year I haven't done in a while- spend locally. Turns out, the store I went to didn't have all the stuff I wanted. While I did drop some money with them, I turned to my favorite bargain hunting spot- Sick Deals on FB. Its the only reason I even log into FB these days. 

First let me explain what I look for when buying cards- 

#1 Specific cards for a very specific deck. In my case, the last couple cards I needed to run out Rainbow Depths. I have migrated over to this build because dual lands are nearly impossible for me to acquire. Just too damn expensive. However, this build required just a few lands to finish off for me.

#2 I try my best to buy lands and artifacts. Thats my philosophy if at all possible, invest in land and artifacts. They will always be needed for decks I am running, and be the easiest to move later if I decide to cash them in.

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I have been looking at Reserve List cards for a bit, and have come to a silly conclusion- the Visions set cards are vastly overlooked for who knows why. That set also gives me more of a nostalgia feel than others. So I am going to attempt to pick up some of the cheaper RL cards from that set in 2021. I've already started by getting 3 Sands of Time and an Undiscovered Paradise. Its sad, but its a start. 

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I  started trying out the Arena cube WAY too late in the cycle. Only got a handful of drafts in before it went away. That is my loss. Next time I will try to prioritize playing it before other stuff. 

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Is it me or does Arena just find a way to screw with how much you are going to win in a single draft? This is how it almost always shakes out:

- Win a couple matches, maybe lose one, but go into match 3-5 with one/none loss
- Lose one REALLY close match
- Get completely screwed in mana and promptly wash out

This has happened to me several times. To the point that I think the client just has it out for me. *sigh*

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I've played zero legacy in the past couple months. Nadda, nothing, zilch. 

Went I ventured into MTG First to pick up some singles, it was painful to see the play area look like the aftermath of a flood. Looking forward to getting back to a weekly legacy scene. Hopefully.