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Author
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Topic: To Build a Collection...
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WapsNext
Banned
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posted March 07, 2012 12:36 PM
      
Hey fellow MOTL-ers. I've been a long time Magic player (very off an on) since Tempest. I'm back in the game now and looking to stay, since I finally am all grown up (sort of) and have a steady set of income. In the past I've always sold out my collections every time I "quit" to make some quick cash to keep me going through college and high school.So I come to an interesting conundrum. While I do have some "fun" money, I'm obviously not rolling in dough, so I need to be considerate of how I spend. The question is, which is a better investment? Buying singles, or buying boxes? So far I've purchased 2 boxes of Innistrad, 2 boxes of Dark Ascension. I have relatively nothing from the previous block, and there are still things I need/want from the current block. Am I better off continuing down the path of buying boxes? Should I buy boxes for the previous block, or is it not worth it as they will be rotating out by the end of the year? (I think?) Or should I move into just buying the higher dollar singles on their own from users/online stores? Any advice would be great, I look forward to the wisdom of those who have been at this much longer than I have!
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Bagbokk
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 12:51 PM
I would:a) focus on which deck(s) you want to build and buy singles to complete them
b) buy collections/lots
c) NOT buy boxes unless you can get them for $70 or lower.
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Bagbokk on March 07, 2012]
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Samite Healer
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 12:54 PM
Where are you buying boxes for $70 or lower?
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WapsNext
Banned
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posted March 07, 2012 12:56 PM
The lowest price I've been able to find on a box these days has been $90. I miss the old days when they were $70 lol.
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I3Iood
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 12:58 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Bagbokk:
c) NOT buy boxes unless you can get them for $70 or lower.
I can't even get them from my distributor for that......got to love wishful thinking or star city order quantity....
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WapsNext
Banned
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posted March 07, 2012 01:01 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Bagbokk:
a) focus on which deck(s) you want to build and buy singles to complete them
[/B]
The problem here is I don't have any particular decks I'm trying to build. I have...9? Proxie'd right now for playing with friends. To buy all of those by singles would be astronomically expensive lol.
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fluffycow
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 01:09 PM
 
quote:
Originally posted by WapsNext:
Hey fellow MOTL-ers. I've been a long time Magic player (very off an on) since Tempest. I'm back in the game now and looking to stay, since I finally am all grown up (sort of) and have a steady set of income. In the past I've always sold out my collections every time I "quit" to make some quick cash to keep me going through college and high school.So I come to an interesting conundrum. While I do have some "fun" money, I'm obviously not rolling in dough, so I need to be considerate of how I spend. The question is, which is a better investment? Buying singles, or buying boxes? So far I've purchased 2 boxes of Innistrad, 2 boxes of Dark Ascension. I have relatively nothing from the previous block, and there are still things I need/want from the current block. Am I better off continuing down the path of buying boxes? Should I buy boxes for the previous block, or is it not worth it as they will be rotating out by the end of the year? (I think?) Or should I move into just buying the higher dollar singles on their own from users/online stores? Any advice would be great, I look forward to the wisdom of those who have been at this much longer than I have!
Get good at drafting or stealing, whichever is easier
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WapsNext
Banned
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posted March 07, 2012 01:15 PM
quote:
Originally posted by fluffycow:
Get good at drafting or stealing, whichever is easier
Think I'm going to pass on the stealing, and sadly I'm not so hot at drafting lol.
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Bagbokk
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 01:31 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Samite Healer:
Where are you buying boxes for $70 or lower?
Where'd I say that I was getting them for $70 or lower? Sometimes cheap boxes pop up for various reasons. Maybe you find one or two boxes that a local hobby shop (that isn't really a gaming store but still had some Magic cards--we used to have one of these here) is trying to get rid of, or maybe a store happens to be closing and is trying to get rid of stock, or something else. I actually did pick some up recently, but that's beside the point. The point was that if you CAN'T get them for under $70, it's not worth buying boxes to open because you're almost guaranteed to lose value (New Phyrexia boxes are okay at $85-90 to open, but you'll still likely lose value). But just broadly saying "don't buy boxes" would be bad advice because there IS a point at which boxes are okay to buy.
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Bagbokk on March 07, 2012]
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WapsNext
Banned
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posted March 07, 2012 02:00 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Bagbokk:
Where'd I say that I was getting them for $70 or lower? Sometimes cheap boxes pop up for various reasons. Maybe you find one or two boxes that a local hobby shop (that isn't really a gaming store but still had some Magic cards--we used to have one of these here) is trying to get rid of, or maybe a store happens to be closing and is trying to get rid of stock, or something else. I actually did pick some up recently, but that's beside the point. The point was that if you CAN'T get them for under $70, it's not worth buying boxes to open because you're almost guaranteed to lose value (New Phyrexia boxes are okay at $85-90 to open, but you'll still likely lose value). But just broadly saying "don't buy boxes" would be bad advice because there IS a point at which boxes are okay to buy.
Right now boxes of New Phyrexia seem nuts with so many $18+ Mythics. I'm just worried their value will drop significantly when they rotate out of standard, but I'm not very familiar with how values are affected by rotation now that we have Modern and Legacy.
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fluffycow
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 02:04 PM
quote:
Originally posted by WapsNext:
Think I'm going to pass on the stealing, and sadly I'm not so hot at drafting lol.
I figured, because if you were hot at drafting, getting a good collection under your belt would not be a problem. The same can be said about stealing, but I guess you dropped the ball on that one
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Bagbokk
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 02:16 PM
quote:
Originally posted by WapsNext:
Right now boxes of New Phyrexia seem nuts with so many $18+ Mythics. I'm just worried their value will drop significantly when they rotate out of standard, but I'm not very familiar with how values are affected by rotation now that we have Modern and Legacy.
Rotation is always going to be an issue dealing with Standard, unfortunately. New Phyrexia is indeed nuts though with Sword, Elesh Norn, and now Phyrexian Obliterator, several more Mythics at about ~$10, and a decent amount of rares at $3-5. I don't think I've opened a box worth less than $75, and I've opened I think two boxes worth around $100. There's also like 6 uncommons that are worth $1-2 a piece in the set, compared to maybe 1-2 in the other ones (DKA being an exception, there's the 3 Captains and Lingering Souls there).
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choco man
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 02:22 PM
You should probably consider what your purpose/goals are before building a large collection.That will heavily influence which type of cards you want and the methods you will go through to get them.
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broiler1977
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 06:26 PM
I just buy singles/playsets. It seems everytime I buy boosters, I get a huge stack of cards that I would never use.
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simbayu
Member
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posted March 07, 2012 10:53 PM
When you're more comfortable with prices I would recommend buying collections. That is really the best way to build collections in my opinion.Keep $100-200 cash on you. Inevitably someone at the card store will be looking to sell cards. You can usually get good deals this way. I would avoid boxes/packs. They are fun to open but you rarely get your money back. Singles are fine. - Henry
[Edited 1 times, lastly by simbayu on March 07, 2012]
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