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My 2008 Nationals

The Official Tower Magic Facebook Page

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Originally posted by MAB_Rapper:
Granted, I do it for the business write-off

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I'm curious on this part.

Also you saying the free stuff is random's where as the Premium is not? or vice versa?

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Originally posted by Lord Crovax:
I'm curious on this part.

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I have a business involving buying and selling Magic cards. Between the financial articles and deck pre/reviews, it's all research towards what I should be doing.

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Originally posted by Lord Crovax:
Also you saying the free stuff is random's where as the Premium is not? or vice versa?

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I'm saying the Premium writers are bigger names with a proven track record and not some guy who just happens to win a SCG event. There are some excpetions on both sides (Sean McKeown does amazing work and is on select and Drew Levin is one premium when he should just disappear forever), but the majority of it follows my thoughts.

__________________
My 2008 Nationals

The Official Tower Magic Facebook Page

quote:

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Originally posted by MAB_Rapper:
I have a business involving buying and selling Magic cards. Between the financial articles and deck pre/reviews, it's all research towards what I should be doing.

I'm saying the Premium writers are bigger names with a proven track record and not some guy who just happens to win a SCG event. There are some excpetions on both sides (Sean McKeown does amazing work and is on select and Drew Levin is one premium when he should just disappear forever), but the majority of it follows my thoughts.

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Originally posted by MAB_Rapper:
I have a business involving buying and selling Magic cards. Between the financial articles and deck pre/reviews, it's all research towards what I should be doing.

I'm saying the Premium writers are bigger names with a proven track record and not some guy who just happens to win a SCG event. There are some excpetions on both sides (Sean McKeown does amazing work and is on select and Drew Levin is one premium when he should just disappear forever), but the majority of it follows my thoughts.

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I'll have to keep that in mind..*nods*

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Originally posted by paris:
I signed up today to read Chas Andres's very nice article series about promo cards, I think it was worth the $4.99 just for that.

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Originally posted by daner:
HA! You got ripped. I can't believe you have to pay to read his "content", if you want to call it that.

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Chas is the worst of the premium writers and his info has no basis on MOTL, since he has to use Starcity Prices for everything.

__________________
My 2008 Nationals

The Official Tower Magic Facebook Page

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Originally posted by MAB_Rapper:
Chas is the worst of the premium writers and his info has no basis on MOTL, since he has to use Starcity Prices for everything.

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Originally posted by paris:
I'm curious - what do you guys dislike about Chas's articles? I found the series on the promo cards to be very informative, and a lot easier to read (and better illustrated) than having to dig through the hundreds of random pages on magiclibrarities. He does use SCG prices, but that seems reasonable to me because SCG prices aren't that far off from the other sources you'd get these cards from.

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Basically the problem with him, with Kelly, with Jon, Grewe, any of the spec/business writers, is that there is not enough content to write a weekly (or sometimes even a monthly) column that is of a decent quality, so you end up with articles that are either brags, random guesses (vs strong feelings), that walk the line in terms of ethical behavior (and then result in 10 posts about why what they wrote is or was okay) and leave everyone feeling slimy, or just suck.

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Originally posted by walkerdog:
Basically the problem with him, with Kelly, with Jon, Grewe, any of the spec/business writers, is that there is not enough content to write a weekly (or sometimes even a monthly) column that is of a decent quality, so you end up with articles that are either brags, random guesses (vs strong feelings), that walk the line in terms of ethical behavior (and then result in 10 posts about why what they wrote is or was okay) and leave everyone feeling slimy, or just suck.

Then once every month or two these dudes write a good article. Basically, what BB does for SCG is about as frequent as once should be writing on financial matters.

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I think there's tons of interesting analysis and research to do and write about in the space of finances and collecting that I've yet to see anywhere and would pay to see done well.

For example:

History of various promo cards (as Chas did, but there's still even more content to explore in areas like Japanese promo cards, promo tokens, etc).

Price analysis on boosters for every set - e.g, what's the expected return when you open one of them.

Price analysis of drafting vs prereleases vs buying boxes from eBay vs buying foreign boxes from eBay, etc.

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.

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.

Interviews of the top hoarders and collectors - there are people with super impressive collections - what are their best cards, do they have tips for how to obtain rarities, what cards are they looking for, etc.

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.

Careful analysis of what effect reprinting has had on the secondary market prices of many cards.

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.

And I'm a guy who thinks it's a good idea to pay $150 for Fallen Empires cards because the picture came out wrong, or trade a Black Lotus for a particularly interesting version of Survival of the Fittest.

Also, if you play modo and want to actually make money on it, you sink a ton of $$ into modern stuff outside of the modern season, and sell it in-season. That's a tried-and-true method for the last few years.

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Originally posted by paris:
I think there's tons of interesting analysis and research to do and write about in the space of finances and collecting that I've yet to see anywhere and would pay to see done well.

For example:

History of various promo cards (as Chas did, but there's still even more content to explore in areas like Japanese promo cards, promo tokens, etc).

Price analysis on boosters for every set - e.g, what's the expected return when you open one of them.

Price analysis of drafting vs prereleases vs buying boxes from eBay vs buying foreign boxes from eBay, etc.

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.

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.

Interviews of the top hoarders and collectors - there are people with super impressive collections - what are their best cards, do they have tips for how to obtain rarities, what cards are they looking for, etc.

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.

Careful analysis of what effect reprinting has had on the secondary market prices of many cards.

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 could go on and on about ideas like this, but my point is that I certainly think there's a lot to write about on these topics.

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Originally posted by Vladevlade:
I just feel like they are subliminally telling me to buy crap I don't need somehow and Flores kills me and Ben and Chas's financial efforts are comedic at best. I wouldn't tell anybody not to buy in but don't expect too much.

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I thought that's what the content was for... That and the deck list results of one of their guys doing well with something not so good.

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Originally posted by paris:
I'm curious - what do you guys dislike about Chas's articles? I found the series on the promo cards to be very informative, and a lot easier to read (and better illustrated) than having to dig through the hundreds of random pages on magiclibrarities. He does use SCG prices, but that seems reasonable to me because SCG prices aren't that far off from the other sources you'd get these cards from.

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As most of you know, MTG finance moves at the speed of light. Data goes from hot to useless in the span of about twenty minutes. In addition, my brand of speculation is fairly conservative - I recommend that people only pick up cards when they're just starting to heat up. Because of that, I rarely recommend that people buy cards weeks before they 'hit' because the risk is generally too great for it to make sense. Because of all that, and because my article deadline is three days before my column goes up, I tend to focus more on big picture stuff - collection management, philosophy, rarities, and intro to finance stuff. There are dozens of others out there who will give you 'buy this, sell that' bottom line stuff, and they'll do it for free. Heck, I do it for free myself - most of that stuff goes up on my Twitter account @ChasAndres which you can follow regardless of whether or not you have premium. If you only want hot finance tips, I recommend doing that.

I am a writer first and a finance guy second. I try to make sure my columns are as interesting as they can be, and they're often more offbeat than most of the other stuff out there. If you are a major trader who wants bottom line data, you can probably get it from the same places I do. My goal is to parse that data and distribute it in an entertaining way, mostly to people who only trade occasionally. In other words, if you are the type of person who thinks they could write my column better than I do, you aren't my target audience.

I use Star City Games prices because I work for Star City Games, and they are in the business of selling cards. These prices are also used by 95% of traders on the floor when completing deals. I use MOTL prices myself when selling cards, but I find that there is usually a strong correlation between retail and auction pricing. It's very easy to make the calculations yourself if you need to.

Before I wrote for SCG, I subscribed to premium for one major reason: Pat Chapin's articles. His decks tend to set the early metagame more than anyone else, and his picks for breakout cards early on tend to hit more than miss. Even if he's not right, enough people will buy in on those cards that you can make money if you are in early enough. Those picks alone during spoiler season are worth the price of admission alone.

In terms of my own column, I am always happy to take suggestions from readers.

>>>History of various promo cards (as Chas did, but there's still even more content to explore in areas like Japanese promo cards, promo tokens, etc).

I will cover Japanese promos at some point. I did a large token article for Channel Fireball that covered all that ground.

>>>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.

>>>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.

>>>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.

>>>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.

>>>Interviews of the top hoarders and collectors - there are people with super impressive collections - what are their best cards, do they have tips for how to obtain rarities, what cards are they looking for, etc.

Would love to do this, and I've been thinking about doing it for a while. Great idea.

>>>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.

>>>Careful analysis of what effect reprinting has had on the secondary market prices of many cards.

I've covered this several times before, and I'll be doing it again in depth this spring.

>>>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.

There is a lot left out there to write about, and I think I do a decent job finding it. The problem with writing a column like this, of course, is that different people want very different things out of a finance column, and when I stray from what I'm good at to try and please everyone, the result is usually a bad article. As always, I am open to critiques and suggestions!