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Originally posted by stu55:
Why pay for that info when you can go to Librarities and get that info for free?

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>>>>Price analysis on boosters for every set - e.g, what's the expected return when you open one of them.
>
>Cracking boosters rarely makes sense from a financial point of view, so doing these calculations doesn't seem that relevant. Even still, doing an article covering this might be a good idea.

It's just something I'm curious about because as someone who stopped playing in 1994 and started against recently, it feels like there are dozens of sets that I've missed. Some of them seem like it'd be fun to buy and open a booster from, but I really have no idea what my expected return is on any of that. For example, if I pick up a random booster of "Mirage" or "Eventide" or "Rise of the Eldrazi", what's the chance that I'd get a card worth more than what I paid for the pack?

>>>>Price analysis of drafting vs prereleases vs buying boxes from eBay vs buying foreign boxes from eBay, etc.
>
>Again, not quite sure what you want here. People play at the prerelease and draft for fun, not profit. Ditto boxes - if you have a retail store or outlet, crack packs for that. If you don't, it's not worth your time.

It seems like if you're any good, then playing drafts or prereleases should be a more cost-efficient way to acquire cards than just opening the packs, or maybe even more cost efficient than buying the singles. On Magic Online the top drafters used to be able to just draft forever based off their prize winnings. As for buying boxes, I've noticed in the collectors forums that some collectors buy up boxes of korean, japanese, etc, boosters, and open them, and I've been wondering how cost-effective that is. For example if you buy a pack of Japanese boosters and open a foil JTMS, maybe that pays for the box and then some.

>>>>Data-driven prediction of future card prices based on past card prices. If SCG has kept historical archives of all their prices over time, there's a ton of interesting data analysis to be done there.
>
>This is something I really want to explore. A PECOTA-style predictive database. I may take this on at some point if I can find someone with the math/programming skills to help. I just don't have the skillset to get it done by myself.

Ah, okay.

>>>>Survey of collectors, players, customers, etc - sample a large number of people, find out why they play, their demographics, what their monthly budget is, what kind of cards they want, etc, and discuss implications of this on the secondary market, etc.
>
>This sort of datamining would be very useful, but would be expensive and time consuming to pull off. I'd be happy to do it if someone wanted to bankroll a study.

Yeah, doing this kind of survey in an accurate manner would probably take some time, and not be something that could be done every week.

>>>>A well-researched study on exactly how many of each card (including foils, mythics, promos, etc) is in circulation, estimates of how many are in each condition, how these numbers are likely to change over time, etc.
>
>WOTC does not make these numbers public and is very tight-lipped about this. Otherwise I'd be all over it.

WoTC is tight-lipped about it, but there are plenty of ways to estimate it. For example, estimating based on Hasbro's reported earnings. Or, estimating how many stores WoTC ships to, how many packs of each kind each store sells, and extrapolating. Or observing how many of the average common card SCG has in stock for each set, and extrapolating that against the early sets where WoTC did release the print runs, and trying to account for various factors which could affect the extrapolation. Even if your figures weren't accurate, hopefully this could spark interesting feedback and discussion in the comments.

Another interesting point here would be - how scarce does a card need to be before scarcity alone can drive value? Alpha rares are valuable because you can buy them all up. Same with Test Prints or Summer Magic. But what about the 3,000 Helvault foil tokens? Or the ~5,000 Foil Mythic Rares from the less popular expansions?

>>>>Financial analysis of altered cards, artist proofs, signed cards, etc on eBay and other secondary markets - when are they successful, when are they not, what attributes of alters causes the greatest increase in initial price or value over time.
>
>I answered this one in a mailbag because there's not enough data out there to do it in depth.

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Originally posted by paris:
[B]Thanks for the reply Chas!

>>>>Price analysis on boosters for every set - e.g, what's the expected return when you open one of them.
>
>Cracking boosters rarely makes sense from a financial point of view, so doing these calculations doesn't seem that relevant. Even still, doing an article covering this might be a good idea.

It's just something I'm curious about because as someone who stopped playing in 1994 and started against recently, it feels like there are dozens of sets that I've missed. Some of them seem like it'd be fun to buy and open a booster from, but I really have no idea what my expected return is on any of that. For example, if I pick up a random booster of "Mirage" or "Eventide" or "Rise of the Eldrazi", what's the chance that I'd get a card worth more than what I paid for the pack?

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On the WOTC numbers, that all sounds like it might work until you actually stop and think about what you're attempting to do. Honestly, the calculations would take weeks and the numbers you'd get in the end would be too imprecise to matter.

Scarcity alone never drives value. I can draw a clown face on a basic land and it'd be the only one like it in the world, but who would actually care? What drives value is demand, which is very complex. Scarcity is a part of that - see my article on Alpha from a few months ago, where I get into it over 'cornered markets' on Alpha crap rares.

eBay data on alters is sparse and erratic. SCG prices only show up rarely. Doing a real study would take a ton of datamining over the course of a long period of time, and I just don't have the time for that. This isn't my full-time job: I work a 50-hour week in the entertainment industry as well!

Glad I could be of help. Feel free to tweet me any questions @chasandres and I'm always happy to hear critiques or suggestions candres@gmail

A. Reputation was getting dragged into the mud?
B. Shameful plug?

Thanks for the info I guess....its not like we all didn't learn the priciples of economics by the11th grade.

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Originally posted by daner:
You signed up to this site because?

A. Reputation was getting dragged into the mud?
B. Shameful plug?

Thanks for the info I guess....its not like we all didn't learn the priciples of economics by the11th grade.

Now what? If we disagree with Brad Nelson's deck tech choices will SCG send their merry band of Gestapo to MOTL?

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I'm not a fan of SCG premium either, but... lighten up. Have the brains to understand that some magic players don't yet have a good perspective in terms of trading for value, trading for staples, and speculative trading. I consider myself relatively smart when it comes to trading, but I've gotten some benefit here and there from some financial articles. If nothing else, it's a perspective in which you can judge your own trading practices.

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Originally posted by Zeckk:
I'm not a fan of SCG premium either, but... lighten up. Have the brains to understand that some magic players don't yet have a good perspective in terms of trading for value, trading for staples, and speculative trading. I consider myself relatively smart when it comes to trading, but I've gotten some benefit here and there from some financial articles. If nothing else, it's a perspective in which you can judge your own trading practices.

Personally, some of the articles showing the price potentials for standard cards with eternal playability finally broke me into legacy (I got back into the game during ZEN). All I'm saying is that not all MTG articles are written for you specifically.

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I never said they were for me...all I really want to know is if you need the advice why not ask around? There are plenty of places were people will share knowledge with you. Some have given examples...I mean we here atMOTL have our own section dedicated to trade advice. I'm sure someone would be willing to help without having to pay for said knowledge that is easily obtained.

I'm also just not buying into why a new member plugs SCG, well opinioned members of MOTL bash them, then another new member shows up in person to defend his credit. Before you say lighten up I'd ask the person who came to defend himself the same. It's criticism. Is your insecurity that bad?

A lot of people, myself included, think your paid information you peddle is not worth the price. I feel like you could easily get the same from a little research. Or by simply asking around. Like I said, I'm sure there are people out there that would help a new member. I'm one of them....I'm not a paid writer so I guess you'll just devalue my comments.

Edit: and yes...I can see when the person joined. Just funny they show up now when they are under criticism. Like...who cares? Obviously you do enough.

And some of those questions paris asked...talk about getting a fastball down the middle. Anyone can tell you it's never profitable to crack packs.

I dunno man, I always have and always will be in the group that thinks you shouldn't have to pay for advice on a kid's card game. It's for fun, and it's not like many people make a living off of it like poker.

If you want advice people should be there to help, not hold out their hand an expect money for such petty advice.

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Originally posted by daner:
I'm also just not buying into why a new member plugs SCG, well opinioned members of MOTL bash them, then another new member shows up in person to defend his credit.

And some of those questions paris asked...talk about getting a fastball down the middle. Anyone can tell you it's never profitable to crack packs.

I dunno man, I always have and always will be in the group that thinks you shouldn't have to pay for advice on a kid's card game. It's for fun, and it's not like many people make a living off of it like poker. If you want advice people should be there to help, not hold out their hand an expect money for such petty advice.

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I am not affiliated with SCG or any of their employees or contractors in any way. All I wrote here is that I signed up recently and thought it was nice, because that's exactly what this topic is asking about.

My post with a bunch of questions was just to illustrate that I think there are tons of #finance topics that could be written about, I wasn't expecting anyone to address the points individually. About cracking packs, I specifically mentioned eBay, and also foreign boxes. I know that cracking normal packs won't be profitable, but in some cases I've seen foreign language booster boxes listed for attractive prices (less than their English equivalents), and I know that foreign foils command a premium. On some other forums I looked at recently, people have opened these and posted pictures of what they get, so I was just wondering if this was a special case where it might be more worth it.

Never paying for advice for this "kids game" just means that we would not be able to consistently support people going out and researching and writing interesting articles. There was a MMORPG I played a while ago where one guy dedicated tons of his own time to research and write very detailed articles about many aspects of the game. He tried briefly to do this as a full time job by soliciting small donations for "premium" access to a subset of his work, but too many people share your attitude that advice about kids game is not worth paying for, so in the end he couldn't come close to supporting himself or his family from it, and had to stop and find something else to do instead. If there are sites out there (SCG or otherwise) that charge a few dollars a month so that they can pay writers to write interesting content, I don't mind paying that.

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Originally posted by paris:
Never paying for advice for this "kids game" just means that we would not be able to consistently support people going out and researching and writing interesting articles.

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I'm going to stop you right there. SCG wasn't always a pay for premium content website. MOTL has NEVER been a pay for information webite. Magiclibrarities has never been a paid website. There are PLENTY of places to gather information without having to pay money. Magic has been consistanly supported for many years without people paying for information. Why? Because it's a game and people do it for the sheer enjoyment.

This website alone is prue proof that your argument is flawed.

Truthfully, I use articles to basically look at decklists. I can do that for free on DailtyMTG.

I'd like to see MOTL get some people that know what they're talking about to write articles, if for no other reason than to get some real Magic discussion going on. That is exactly where MOTL is lacking.

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Originally posted by Mr.C:
Just wanted to chime in to say that Chas is the only financial writer I actually enjoy reading, but I'm not a big fan of how SCG does business. I like the content over on CFB, where everything is free, and they use the articles to drive traffic to the site.

Likewise, I'd *never* pay the $9 per month to read QS. Again, interesting info, but nothing that you can't get already out there.

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I think being spoonfed information also slows down your own progress. You need to do things on your own, make mistakes and learn that way.

Here is what I see in most financial articles:
Retread of Information
Tons of guesses on cards and limited accountabiliy for being wrong
Blatant brags
Acquring numbers that make no sense to the common trader
And some times, completely wrong information

If you want to continue to pay for that kind of trading information go for it.

I do subscribe to SCG, mostly for ppl's like Levin and Gerry who I kinda know and like their writing. I mostly read stuff like Chas or Grewe for the laughs honestly at this point.

Paying for content is a convenience, if i wasn't employed i wouldn't pay for SCG content because its not that important but I enjoy hearing what some of their writers (Kibler!) have to say.

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Originally posted by stu55:

I think being spoonfed information also slows down your own progress. You need to do things on your own, make mistakes and learn that way.

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Yeah I totally learned how to install security systems through trial and error... Are you also going to make the argument that netdecking is for losers? Give me a break. Name a single financial writer that has said "everything you need to know about trading is in this article".

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Originally posted by stu55:

I think being spoonfed information also slows down your own progress. You need to do things on your own, make mistakes and learn that way.

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A million times this. Not only with Magic, but with every game, and a lot of other things. I like to read some of the articles by Maro on design, but strategy stuff just seems like blah to me.

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Originally posted by Zeckk:
Yeah I totally learned how to install security systems through trial and error... Are you also going to make the argument that netdecking is for losers? Give me a break. Name a single financial writer that has said "everything you need to know about trading is in this article".

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Netdecking is inherently different because you take a good deck (in theory at least), and you go PLAY it. You make the mistakes and learn something.

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Originally posted by Zeckk:
Yeah I totally learned how to install security systems through trial and error... Are you also going to make the argument that netdecking is for losers? Give me a break. Name a single financial writer that has said "everything you need to know about trading is in this article".

You don't like paying for SCG premium? Cool. I don't either, so I don't. But don't argue that researching information on effective trading somehow "slows down your own progress". That's asinine.

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I figured some of my post would go over ppl's heads, but geez, didn't think it would clear this guy by a mile.

Where did I said I didn't like paying for SCG premium?

So you are saying that you installed your first security system or 2nd or 3rd perfectly just from reading the manual? You must be some kind of savant savior for us all!

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Originally posted by JayC:

The cost is so insignificant I don't even understand why this is a discussion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by stu55:

I figured some of my post would go over ppl's heads, but geez, didn't think it would clear this guy by a mile.

Where did I said I didn't like paying for SCG premium?

So you are saying that you installed your first security system or 2nd or 3rd perfectly just from reading the manual? You must be some kind of savant savior for us all!

Also, where did I say that "researching information on effective trading somehow 'slows down your own progress'"? I would think with your expert ability to read installation manuals that you could have at least read my post correctly.

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You are the one that seems to not understand english. My point was that you have to have a starting point in terms of information if you want to be successful... at anything. You were advocating trial and error for trading, which is a fantastic way to get ripped off and scammed. Learning about the habits of scammers, thieves, value *****s, and other bad trading practices is just as essential as learning hazard safety in the workplace. Trial and error just doesn't cut it.