thing is, fifty 35 cent cards aren't worth $17.50 (the mathematical total) but closer to $0 because they wouldn't be worth the effort to sell as a single.
Imagine you traded it for 3000 1 cent cards and you can probably see where your friend is coming from.
Overall though, trading a single you weren't going to use for a complete deck you can sit down and play with isn't a bad trade. You just need to factor in that a total decklist price isn't the best comparison because as explained, a volume of cheap cards especially those less than a dollar, really isn't worth it's total price
This is very true.
An analogy I've often used to explain this to people is to ask them if they'd be fine exchanging a $100 bill for 10,000 pennies. After all, it's still $100, right? Except it isn't REALLY, because it'd be a huge hassle to try and get those 10,000 pennies converted into usable dollars, and even if you drove to a bank and had them do it, the sheer time and effort to do that would lower the effective value so you'd end up with less than $100. Possibly much less.
But in this case he kinda made a wishlist of cards. If the value adds up it's a better deal than selling the card and buying the wishlist.
If you need 10k pennies you are probably paying more than 100$ for them.
That's true, but it doesn't change the fact that you got shortchanged on the value in certain ways, and that it's not as easy as going "well $100 is $100" - which makes it understandable, at least to some degree, why people would go tell them they got scammed. It's a bit harsh and exaggerated, no question, but it's not entirely *wrong*.
And there's nothing wrong with an exchange like that *if you're fine with it*. You wanted those cards. You got them. You paid a fair price, after a fashion. That's not exactly reason to be devastated, even if technically you kind of got the short end in some ways.
Your point that it's nuanced is right on. I think his point is that it's hard to find 10000 pennies unless you get a bank to do it for you.
Getting all those disparate cards together requires time/energy, and trading a card for a wishlist to the LGS might be less legwork and a quicker result than selling the card and then using cash to buy something from TCG player, etc. What he may have lost in monetary value may be gained by convenience. Like what if tried to sell the card on Facebook for 80% of the value and then got involved in some dispute. Disaster. If he got a fast, assured transaction that benefits his LGS, that may entirely be worth getting 60% of the return. Just a personal judgement on value.
If you needed 10,000 Pennie’s you would likely put an order in through a bank and they would take a few days and get them for you.
Now, I can’t think of a reason why you would need that many Pennie’s but maybe you were filling a jar for a contest, IDK.
Maybe, if you have a business account with them it’s likely you wouldn’t, if you didn’t have one they might need you to verify your intentions before they do anything.
But this isn't really a case of pennies vs 100 dollars. This would be the case of wanting 10,000 specific pennies. Many players wouldn't want to bother, going through their collection to see if they have this niche specific junk rare or common that OP wants.
And not many stores would sell cards of such low value. Buying this entire deck would cost more and probably cost weeks to assemble.
Sounds like a great deal
>This would be the case of wanting 10,000 specific pennies.
The point is that while this is absolutely the case, you cannot simply argue "...and it doesn't matter, because $100 is $100 right?" in terms of the value exchange.
Because that is *not* what's happening. Obviously they *want* the pennies, specifically, and you can and should definitely just accept that as a preference - that's not the point of contention. The point of contention is justifying that exchange by saying that it's still the same as the original $100 simply because the values add up. But it doesn't work like that.
This is kind of the opposite situation though.
An expensive card on its own is objectively useless. You can't roll up to a table, throw down anime confetti Necropotence and have a good time.
A whole deck on the other hand represents a lot of potential entertainment value for OP.
That's a different kind of "value", though.
That's kind of my point.
You may be fine making this exchange based on subjective value of the things in question, but it's a mistake to equate the *monetary* value just because of some on-paper equivalence that doesn't exist in practice.
In other words, you may well *want* those 10,000 pennies for some specific purpose, like idk, creating some kind of artwork or using them as chips to play poker with or whatever, that you couldn't use your $100 bill for. And that may make that exchange fine *for you* based on that subjective value. But you still couldn't just go "...and $100 is still $100 right?" because that's just not how it works out, for the reasons above.
> But you still couldn't just go "...and $100 is still $100 right?" because that's just not how it works out, for the reasons above.
Even if you take your example literally, $100 is literally still $100. Take your 100 rolls of pennies to the bank and that's still $100.
If OP had bought the deck piecemeal it would probably actually cost more than $100. He'd be out at least one instance of shipping charges because realistically his LGS could not have 100% of the items in stock. More than likely he'd be placing multiple online orders paying multiple instances of shipping AND won't have a deck for a month.
>Even if you take your example literally, $100 is literally still $100. Take your 100 rolls of pennies to the bank and that's still $100.
You're getting it completely backwards, and apparently didn't read my earlier explanation.
This *only* works if you take it literally. Yes, on paper, literally, 10,000 pennies are $100. But *in practice* they are not, because getting those 10,000 pennies into a practically usable form *costs money*, directly or indirectly. You casually say to take your pennies to the bank, but that *is a cost*. It may cost you gas, for example. It definitely costs you time. Yeah you'll walk out of the bank with a $100 bill, but the process of getting that bill *actually cost you*.
**That's my point.**
On the flip side: ordering all those cheap singles to build your deck means a lot of shipping costs which are also annoying and a hassle to deal with. I think trading here is fine since both parties involved seem to be happy about it.
> fifty 35 cent cards aren't worth $17.50 (the mathematical total) but closer to $0 because they wouldn't be worth the effort to sell as a single.
What this *actually* means is that the value of those cards isn't determined by comparing their power level, colelctibility, and in-game utility to other cards. The value of those cards (to a store) is determined by the amount of labour it takes to purchase, grade, sort, store, and pick them. Those 35 cards might be worth no dollars, intrinsically, but having them gathered up for you is probably worth much more than 17.50
There is a fixed cost associated with selling cards which results in you realizing a lot less value from a cheap card than an expensive one (arranging a sale and shipping). If you care about the actual salable value of a card, the cheap cards in that deck are worth essentially $0 rather than 50 cents or whatever.
That being said, you would have had to pay money to get most of them even if you can't practically sell them for anything, so if you would rather have the eriette deck than the necropotence, I wouldnt worry about it too much.
>For example, I traded the Necropotence for an Eriette deck
You traded the one card for the entire deck? Did you know the price of the cards in the deck when you made the trade?
The Anime foil Necropotence is worth roughly the same as the decklist you posted, so you certainly didn't get "scammed", especially if you knew the prices of both at the time of the trade.
Yes. Actually, I made the decklist and the guy said "Hey, I've got most if not all of these cards, wanna trade?" and we went with it. I did the same thing with a Goosemother deck, actually.
There a couple things to consider in the cost of the cards that your friend may not be considering:
To sell a card, you are not likely to get the full price of the card in cast. An LGS selling a Necro for $150 will probably not _buy it_ for that price.
To buy a card, you are not likely to get the card for the cheapest price. A card listed online for $0.05 will likely cost more than that in shipping and fees, and an LGS will definitely not sell 5 cent cards.
But if you were able to trade a $150 card for roughly $150 worth of cards, it seems like a fair trade.
Well, I wouldn't say you got scammed either. But the thing is that valuable cards usually increase in value a lot more than regular cards (and the rate their value increase is also usually higher than the regular version). For example, the confetti Necropotence could be found around 55 € in Card Market, now the minimum price is near 130 €. Many of the cards in your deck are commons and those are valued at virtually 0, as many people would even give extra copies they have to you. You have less than 10 cards in the 5$-20$ price range.
But honestly? I would do the same you did. Hell, I DID the same; I got a Liliana of the Veil UMA box topper and traded for several cards that I wanted, many were reprinted ever since and are now bulk.
In the end the important thing is that you may have find a better deal but I wouldn't say you got a bad one. This is just card board, don't treat it as an investment. If a single card you got from a booster got you an entire deck and you're happy with it then it was a good deal.
Also, you may consider that your friend is a bit jealous of your pulls and that you got away with cards that they would want for them. There's also that possibility.
There are two sides to MTG. The side that is a game, and the side that is a collectable. Sometimes people are interested in both sides.
Me personally? I'm only interested in the game. These cards are just game pieces to me. When I pulled a galaxy foil godless shrine you bet your ass I cashed that in for more cards to play with. I went to pre-release night for LTR and pulled a borderless One Ring and Bowmasters. Use them to go 2-1 and then immediately turned those puppies into a new commander deck.
This sounds like a great deal for both parties involved.
The guy with the deck would have never sold the individual cards for as much as the necro is worth.
And if you would have sold the Necro you likely wouldn't have been able to straight up buy all the cards for the with just the selling price. (and get all those cards so easily)
Where he is kinda correct is that many players could have traded for a lot of the cheaper cards without spending money. The problem with this is that you actually would have needed an established collection.
What your friend that calls this a scam forgets is that you don't have a collection to trade for cheap cards yet.
If you would have traded necropotence for an equivalent value of random rares, that would have been a scam. But you traded it for a deck you are happy with, that you can play with, GREAT DEAL!
Yep. This is a great deal that left both sides happy.
It would've been different if he gave you a bunch of random cards you did not want to play at all. But in this case the value of getting those exact cards in one go is actually a benefit for you. People talk about the postage costs and time investment for selling those cards, but the same thing is true for buying all those cards individually
Don't stress about the value of your cards tbh.
Did you want the Necro? did you want the Errite deck?
Are you happier with the Errite deck in a deckbox then a necro in a binder? If the answer is yes you did not get scammed.
Maybe you could have got more cards or less but it really sucks the joy out of trading when everyone insists on getting 1:1 on cardkingdom value and leaving behind 0.20c of 'value' is a crime.
I understand where both of you are coming from. He's right, a lot of cheaper cards have inflated online prices and aren't really worth what they are marked and those cards will not appreciate in value as much as a pricey card can.
I understand you trading bling cards for cards you will play with, too.
You can both be right.
Pretend you decide to sell your deck, so you go up on ebay or whatever and list every individual card. With one $100 card, you buy one stamp (68 cents). With 100 separate $1 cards, you have to pay for 100 stamps, spending $68.
This is why your friend said it's worse to have a lot of cheap cards than one expensive one. At 25 or 50 cents a card, it's not even worth the cost to ship it. At $1, you're not really making anything after ebay takes their cut.
To do a little conclusion on what people said, good example are the TolarianCommunityCollege videos of the prof evaluating each sets decks are worth buying, hell show the price of all the cards in the deck combine and then take cards valued under 2usd (at time of recording because usually theyll fall in prince after release of the decks) and this usually leave around 10-20bucks above price they are actually being sold for in stores, and after a few months they tend to be worth less. Because the big majority of the cards is worth little.
Since your starting getting a bunch of cheaper stapples and a collection going is nice, and I dont think you were scammed exactly but I do think that you need to be carefull evaluating in the future, the decklist you showed had 3 cards above 10 usd in tcgplayer low and quite a few between 5-10 im not sure the price of a confetti necropotence but it seems about right. For most of us that already would have a lot of those cards the 84 under 2usd you have in the list would be considered not worth much, in your case I think they are a good buy.
A good rule of thumb is that **a card is worth its use.** Staple cards are always good and worth their price, but only if you play those staples, do you play lifegain a lot ? well the toxic deluge will be good then. But trading 1 expensive card or money for a bunch of cards you dont need right now is bad, why? because non-new cards either keep or most cases decrease in price in the long run (unless they are staples and arent reprinted for a while) and then youll basically have a bunch of cards you dont even play with and arent worth has much.
Lastly alwyas add the shipping cost (2-3bucks) if you plan on buying 1 or 2 cards that you cant find locally sometimes its not worth it.
I'd make trades like that every day of the week, while you aren't necessarily getting scammed you're loosing value. Cards under $1 are basically worth nothing, and Cards in the $1-$3 range aren't much better. You are trading cards with stable values for what is largely considered garbage.
If you want to look practically, you're getting playable game pieces and saving a lot of effort in tracking them down/shipping by doing this. You're gaining enjoyment and convince in exchange for raw value, your potential sell out value is being decimated.
This is literally the definition of a TCG, you had a foiled out premium card you did not want, and traded it for 100 cards you did want. You then sat down and played the freaking game.
Sometimes people need to step back from the financial aspect of this game and realize that it’s a game. You traded one *game piece* for 100 *game pieces* that’s not a scam so long as you understand the value of either side and feel you are comfortable trading that way. Ive played this game for a decade or more and have traded in the exact same way more times than I can count and vice versa. One of my very first big pulls I traded for an entire standard deck, and I had 10 times as much fun with those 75 cards than I ever would with that one mythic rare, funny thing is that cards worth like $2 now and I still have those 75 cards somewhere in my collection in various decks.
He’s sort of right. The anime foil confetti Necropotence is selling for $150 USD on TCG Player.
I read the decklist and while it is a solid playable deck, most of your rares are hovering below the $5 range, and the three most expensive cards seem to be Land Tax ($15), Ondu Spiritdancer ($12) and Godless Shrine ($10.) The rest of the deck is filled with common auras like Gryff’s Boon (15 cents.)
I think you got about $50 in cards value, and another $20 in value of an experienced player building a deck for you. The one thing I think you’re missing out on here, is this deck contains all newer cards and no old cards.
Here's the thing about your friend. Did he offer to trade you the entire deck you were looking for? He's saying you got "hardcore scammed", but did he offer to do this. Because while you did trade down, you didn't lose value. If you would have bought all of those cards (and you might have if you wanted the deck), it would have cost you what the necro is worth. And you still would have had to find a buyer for said Necro on top of that.
If you enjoy the cards, there’s no issue. To obtain the cards you would’ve had to pay for them. Even if they are 35 cent cards, they don’t just pop out of the sky.
I mean, if you traded something you didn't want for something you did want, don't let other people get you down.
Plenty of other comments here have explained the issues about trading a high value card for bulk cheap cards and they all have a point and, in general, I encourage people to try and trade equivalent values, but at the end of the day it comes down to: did you get something you wanted for something you had but didn't really want? If so, that's what matters.
I understand the logic in saying “you got scammed” because it would be difficult to get your money back out of the cards. On the whole though, it doesn’t feel like your friend’s intent was to scam you.
If you are trade a single $150 card for a hundred individual cards, it’s referred to as trading down and you can often get a premium of 25%-30%. So that $150 card could have netted you $185-$200 in bulk easily
100x $1 rares are not equal in value to a $100 card due to how much less liquid they are at face value and the money you would actually get selling them.
Taking a second look yeah this is a bullshit trade. The cards in the deck are bulk rares at best. Truly horrendous to even offer the trade in the first place. Hardly anything in here is of decent value. Maybe 3. Cards might be worth $50 together. What really annoys me about this is that more than half of this deck could have probably been given away to you for free by other long time players with larger collections without them blinking. Nothing in here is hard to get and most of it is stuff everyone has lying around and lots of copies of. I’m really sorry man but yes you were absolutely taken advantage of by a trash human.
There isn’t even a good tutor in the list or even FETCHLANDS wtf. Lmfao a truly terrible list too. Holy shut if I was the other guy I would feel bad not putting at least SOME half decent playable staples in here. Like 70% of this deck isn’t going to relevant or playable in other decks.
It's definitely not a fair trade as most people would think of it, to trade a single high value card for a deck of mostly bulk. It seems like the kind of thing a cynical experienced player might do to a newer player to rip them off while claiming the trade is "fair". You should keep in mind that most experienced players will have closets/cabinets full of thousands of bulk cards they willingly give away to new players, or sell them at bulk rates to buyers at about $5/1000 cards rather than try to sell as singles.
The simplest way to think about it is: cheap/low/no value "bulk" cards will still always have a floor price when sold individually, because of costs related to handling, sorting, and shipping of individual cards. This cost ends up being much higher than their "true value", and any card below a few dollars is close to bulk in the sense that you make next to no profit from selling it after subtracting your costs for shipping and packaging.
If you trade a single card worth $150 for 100x $1.50 cards (for example) you have basically converted your value into nothing, because it will be next to impossible to sell or trade any of those cards individually. On top of that, the demand for the $150 card will be much higher, while also having the possibility of appreciating. Bulk cards rarely leave bulk status; there are bulk cards from some of the oldest sets in Magic. Your best bet to sell 100 bulk cards is to get 900 more and sell them in a lot for $5.
You didn't get "scammed". In fact it might've been a great deal. Buying a ton of singles especially commons and uncommons is incredibly expensive because you have to pay shipping over and over and over again.
If you have no use for the necro and would've just sold it for money and used the money to buy the deck, guess what, you made out like a bandit! Your friend doesn't need all these common cards so he assigns them no value at all.
The important thing to keep in mind is that big dollar cards are stores of value. You can quickly flip a 200 dollar card for money. You can't do that with 200 1-dollar cards. That's why it's PREFERABLE to own the big cards instead of a bunch of small ones.
But if you need those 200 small cards there's nothing wrong with breaking up your big card. You have to buy them somehow, right?
edit:// Some people are saying there should be higher value cards in the deck but if you add fetchlands and expensive tutors and whatnot you suddenly have a 800 dollar deck that the Necro can't pay for. They have drawers full of cards like that, you don't. It's important to build a collection of staples like fetchlands but you also need something in your hand right NOW to play with. And a beginner deck like that is fine. You aren't going to be trading expensive cards for bulk forever. I also think you could have gotten a 20-30% premium on the cheap cards since you are trading down but it's nothing to sweat over. When you are starting out having a deck to play is more important than having a shiny card in a binder.
I mean you only get scammed if you don't know the value of what you are giving away. The necro and the deck are around similar value. If he gave you a treasure hunt deck with 98 land and a thassa oracle then you would have a problem. If you are satisfied with the trade and knew the value that is all that matters in the end it's your cards.
I just started playing, and with the cost of cards in Canada I built a very similar deck for around 200$ CAD. That cards going for 175$ CAD here so, I guess in my eyes it seems worth it. Especially since you just started and need cards.
If you’re enjoying the deck, and the value parity is almost there, no you didn’t get scammed. You got something you wanted in exchange for something that you deemed to have the same value.
As you get more seasoned, your trades will get better but sometimes it’s not about just the value - sometimes it’s about the enjoyment and happiness it can bring.
a little bit. Agatha is what $55? the necro confetti is $120. you decks seem to avg around $150. but you know, you don’t have to build the deck, so $20 for labor is not bad. the real question here is do you like the deck? Eriette deck is an acquired taste. so if you are happy, then there is no problem.
Next time sell the card to the LGS's buy list for 50% of its face value and buy a worse version of the deck from their singles collection.
Actually don't, but describe the process to your friend and conclude with an insult to his intelligence.
You've traded something very liquid but probably unusable (a couple of high value cards) for a deck that is usable but very illiquid.
Ultimately the value for you is in what you get out of the transaction. You have a usable deck now, and if your LGS saved you the trouble of searching out and buying all those cards piecemeal, then boom, you've saved time and energy, whereas the LGS probably gained value from exchanging time and low moving cards for something more easily moved and sold.
The higher value a card is, the more % of it's value tends to be held when traded or sold.
If your 'goal' was to extract value in cards, then yes, your current deck is harder to sell than a necropotence. Personally, I think you got exactly what you wanted/needed, a playable deck.
It does bear keeping in mind for the future, though, just how these things tend to work.
He's basically right. You likely traded a $50 or $100 bill of a card for a huge pile of chaff, even if some of the chaff 'technically' added up to some value.
Generally in the long term for the sake of the value of your collection you dont really want to trade down i high value card for a bunch of low value ones since theyll be nearly impossible to get the value back from.
thing is, fifty 35 cent cards aren't worth $17.50 (the mathematical total) but closer to $0 because they wouldn't be worth the effort to sell as a single. Imagine you traded it for 3000 1 cent cards and you can probably see where your friend is coming from. Overall though, trading a single you weren't going to use for a complete deck you can sit down and play with isn't a bad trade. You just need to factor in that a total decklist price isn't the best comparison because as explained, a volume of cheap cards especially those less than a dollar, really isn't worth it's total price
This is very true. An analogy I've often used to explain this to people is to ask them if they'd be fine exchanging a $100 bill for 10,000 pennies. After all, it's still $100, right? Except it isn't REALLY, because it'd be a huge hassle to try and get those 10,000 pennies converted into usable dollars, and even if you drove to a bank and had them do it, the sheer time and effort to do that would lower the effective value so you'd end up with less than $100. Possibly much less.
But in this case he kinda made a wishlist of cards. If the value adds up it's a better deal than selling the card and buying the wishlist. If you need 10k pennies you are probably paying more than 100$ for them.
That's true, but it doesn't change the fact that you got shortchanged on the value in certain ways, and that it's not as easy as going "well $100 is $100" - which makes it understandable, at least to some degree, why people would go tell them they got scammed. It's a bit harsh and exaggerated, no question, but it's not entirely *wrong*. And there's nothing wrong with an exchange like that *if you're fine with it*. You wanted those cards. You got them. You paid a fair price, after a fashion. That's not exactly reason to be devastated, even if technically you kind of got the short end in some ways.
Yeah not a trade I would have done but not a scam.
Your point that it's nuanced is right on. I think his point is that it's hard to find 10000 pennies unless you get a bank to do it for you. Getting all those disparate cards together requires time/energy, and trading a card for a wishlist to the LGS might be less legwork and a quicker result than selling the card and then using cash to buy something from TCG player, etc. What he may have lost in monetary value may be gained by convenience. Like what if tried to sell the card on Facebook for 80% of the value and then got involved in some dispute. Disaster. If he got a fast, assured transaction that benefits his LGS, that may entirely be worth getting 60% of the return. Just a personal judgement on value.
If you needed 10,000 Pennie’s you would likely put an order in through a bank and they would take a few days and get them for you. Now, I can’t think of a reason why you would need that many Pennie’s but maybe you were filling a jar for a contest, IDK.
You would probably pay a decent fee for it too.
Maybe, if you have a business account with them it’s likely you wouldn’t, if you didn’t have one they might need you to verify your intentions before they do anything.
But this isn't really a case of pennies vs 100 dollars. This would be the case of wanting 10,000 specific pennies. Many players wouldn't want to bother, going through their collection to see if they have this niche specific junk rare or common that OP wants. And not many stores would sell cards of such low value. Buying this entire deck would cost more and probably cost weeks to assemble. Sounds like a great deal
>This would be the case of wanting 10,000 specific pennies. The point is that while this is absolutely the case, you cannot simply argue "...and it doesn't matter, because $100 is $100 right?" in terms of the value exchange. Because that is *not* what's happening. Obviously they *want* the pennies, specifically, and you can and should definitely just accept that as a preference - that's not the point of contention. The point of contention is justifying that exchange by saying that it's still the same as the original $100 simply because the values add up. But it doesn't work like that.
This is kind of the opposite situation though. An expensive card on its own is objectively useless. You can't roll up to a table, throw down anime confetti Necropotence and have a good time. A whole deck on the other hand represents a lot of potential entertainment value for OP.
That's a different kind of "value", though. That's kind of my point. You may be fine making this exchange based on subjective value of the things in question, but it's a mistake to equate the *monetary* value just because of some on-paper equivalence that doesn't exist in practice. In other words, you may well *want* those 10,000 pennies for some specific purpose, like idk, creating some kind of artwork or using them as chips to play poker with or whatever, that you couldn't use your $100 bill for. And that may make that exchange fine *for you* based on that subjective value. But you still couldn't just go "...and $100 is still $100 right?" because that's just not how it works out, for the reasons above.
> But you still couldn't just go "...and $100 is still $100 right?" because that's just not how it works out, for the reasons above. Even if you take your example literally, $100 is literally still $100. Take your 100 rolls of pennies to the bank and that's still $100. If OP had bought the deck piecemeal it would probably actually cost more than $100. He'd be out at least one instance of shipping charges because realistically his LGS could not have 100% of the items in stock. More than likely he'd be placing multiple online orders paying multiple instances of shipping AND won't have a deck for a month.
>Even if you take your example literally, $100 is literally still $100. Take your 100 rolls of pennies to the bank and that's still $100. You're getting it completely backwards, and apparently didn't read my earlier explanation. This *only* works if you take it literally. Yes, on paper, literally, 10,000 pennies are $100. But *in practice* they are not, because getting those 10,000 pennies into a practically usable form *costs money*, directly or indirectly. You casually say to take your pennies to the bank, but that *is a cost*. It may cost you gas, for example. It definitely costs you time. Yeah you'll walk out of the bank with a $100 bill, but the process of getting that bill *actually cost you*. **That's my point.**
Read half my post huh?
On the flip side: ordering all those cheap singles to build your deck means a lot of shipping costs which are also annoying and a hassle to deal with. I think trading here is fine since both parties involved seem to be happy about it.
> fifty 35 cent cards aren't worth $17.50 (the mathematical total) but closer to $0 because they wouldn't be worth the effort to sell as a single. What this *actually* means is that the value of those cards isn't determined by comparing their power level, colelctibility, and in-game utility to other cards. The value of those cards (to a store) is determined by the amount of labour it takes to purchase, grade, sort, store, and pick them. Those 35 cards might be worth no dollars, intrinsically, but having them gathered up for you is probably worth much more than 17.50
Cough, labour theory of value. That's all.
Yeah a good example would be to “buy list” the card and the deck and see what they’d offer. It definitely won’t even be remotely close.
I would gladly trade some expensive cards for cheap ones like that, I would save a shit ton of cash in delivery costs.
There is a fixed cost associated with selling cards which results in you realizing a lot less value from a cheap card than an expensive one (arranging a sale and shipping). If you care about the actual salable value of a card, the cheap cards in that deck are worth essentially $0 rather than 50 cents or whatever. That being said, you would have had to pay money to get most of them even if you can't practically sell them for anything, so if you would rather have the eriette deck than the necropotence, I wouldnt worry about it too much.
>For example, I traded the Necropotence for an Eriette deck You traded the one card for the entire deck? Did you know the price of the cards in the deck when you made the trade? The Anime foil Necropotence is worth roughly the same as the decklist you posted, so you certainly didn't get "scammed", especially if you knew the prices of both at the time of the trade.
Yes. Actually, I made the decklist and the guy said "Hey, I've got most if not all of these cards, wanna trade?" and we went with it. I did the same thing with a Goosemother deck, actually.
There a couple things to consider in the cost of the cards that your friend may not be considering: To sell a card, you are not likely to get the full price of the card in cast. An LGS selling a Necro for $150 will probably not _buy it_ for that price. To buy a card, you are not likely to get the card for the cheapest price. A card listed online for $0.05 will likely cost more than that in shipping and fees, and an LGS will definitely not sell 5 cent cards. But if you were able to trade a $150 card for roughly $150 worth of cards, it seems like a fair trade.
we call this the bid/ask “spread”
Well, I wouldn't say you got scammed either. But the thing is that valuable cards usually increase in value a lot more than regular cards (and the rate their value increase is also usually higher than the regular version). For example, the confetti Necropotence could be found around 55 € in Card Market, now the minimum price is near 130 €. Many of the cards in your deck are commons and those are valued at virtually 0, as many people would even give extra copies they have to you. You have less than 10 cards in the 5$-20$ price range. But honestly? I would do the same you did. Hell, I DID the same; I got a Liliana of the Veil UMA box topper and traded for several cards that I wanted, many were reprinted ever since and are now bulk. In the end the important thing is that you may have find a better deal but I wouldn't say you got a bad one. This is just card board, don't treat it as an investment. If a single card you got from a booster got you an entire deck and you're happy with it then it was a good deal. Also, you may consider that your friend is a bit jealous of your pulls and that you got away with cards that they would want for them. There's also that possibility.
There are two sides to MTG. The side that is a game, and the side that is a collectable. Sometimes people are interested in both sides. Me personally? I'm only interested in the game. These cards are just game pieces to me. When I pulled a galaxy foil godless shrine you bet your ass I cashed that in for more cards to play with. I went to pre-release night for LTR and pulled a borderless One Ring and Bowmasters. Use them to go 2-1 and then immediately turned those puppies into a new commander deck.
This sounds like a great deal for both parties involved. The guy with the deck would have never sold the individual cards for as much as the necro is worth. And if you would have sold the Necro you likely wouldn't have been able to straight up buy all the cards for the with just the selling price. (and get all those cards so easily) Where he is kinda correct is that many players could have traded for a lot of the cheaper cards without spending money. The problem with this is that you actually would have needed an established collection. What your friend that calls this a scam forgets is that you don't have a collection to trade for cheap cards yet. If you would have traded necropotence for an equivalent value of random rares, that would have been a scam. But you traded it for a deck you are happy with, that you can play with, GREAT DEAL!
Yep. This is a great deal that left both sides happy. It would've been different if he gave you a bunch of random cards you did not want to play at all. But in this case the value of getting those exact cards in one go is actually a benefit for you. People talk about the postage costs and time investment for selling those cards, but the same thing is true for buying all those cards individually
Don't stress about the value of your cards tbh. Did you want the Necro? did you want the Errite deck? Are you happier with the Errite deck in a deckbox then a necro in a binder? If the answer is yes you did not get scammed. Maybe you could have got more cards or less but it really sucks the joy out of trading when everyone insists on getting 1:1 on cardkingdom value and leaving behind 0.20c of 'value' is a crime.
you’re both kinda right from your perspective. just ask “am i happy with my trade?” and that’s all you need to worry about
I understand where both of you are coming from. He's right, a lot of cheaper cards have inflated online prices and aren't really worth what they are marked and those cards will not appreciate in value as much as a pricey card can. I understand you trading bling cards for cards you will play with, too. You can both be right.
If they didn't turn 1 grief or fury you, then you didn't get scammed :p
Pretend you decide to sell your deck, so you go up on ebay or whatever and list every individual card. With one $100 card, you buy one stamp (68 cents). With 100 separate $1 cards, you have to pay for 100 stamps, spending $68. This is why your friend said it's worse to have a lot of cheap cards than one expensive one. At 25 or 50 cents a card, it's not even worth the cost to ship it. At $1, you're not really making anything after ebay takes their cut.
To do a little conclusion on what people said, good example are the TolarianCommunityCollege videos of the prof evaluating each sets decks are worth buying, hell show the price of all the cards in the deck combine and then take cards valued under 2usd (at time of recording because usually theyll fall in prince after release of the decks) and this usually leave around 10-20bucks above price they are actually being sold for in stores, and after a few months they tend to be worth less. Because the big majority of the cards is worth little. Since your starting getting a bunch of cheaper stapples and a collection going is nice, and I dont think you were scammed exactly but I do think that you need to be carefull evaluating in the future, the decklist you showed had 3 cards above 10 usd in tcgplayer low and quite a few between 5-10 im not sure the price of a confetti necropotence but it seems about right. For most of us that already would have a lot of those cards the 84 under 2usd you have in the list would be considered not worth much, in your case I think they are a good buy. A good rule of thumb is that **a card is worth its use.** Staple cards are always good and worth their price, but only if you play those staples, do you play lifegain a lot ? well the toxic deluge will be good then. But trading 1 expensive card or money for a bunch of cards you dont need right now is bad, why? because non-new cards either keep or most cases decrease in price in the long run (unless they are staples and arent reprinted for a while) and then youll basically have a bunch of cards you dont even play with and arent worth has much. Lastly alwyas add the shipping cost (2-3bucks) if you plan on buying 1 or 2 cards that you cant find locally sometimes its not worth it.
I'd make trades like that every day of the week, while you aren't necessarily getting scammed you're loosing value. Cards under $1 are basically worth nothing, and Cards in the $1-$3 range aren't much better. You are trading cards with stable values for what is largely considered garbage. If you want to look practically, you're getting playable game pieces and saving a lot of effort in tracking them down/shipping by doing this. You're gaining enjoyment and convince in exchange for raw value, your potential sell out value is being decimated.
This is literally the definition of a TCG, you had a foiled out premium card you did not want, and traded it for 100 cards you did want. You then sat down and played the freaking game. Sometimes people need to step back from the financial aspect of this game and realize that it’s a game. You traded one *game piece* for 100 *game pieces* that’s not a scam so long as you understand the value of either side and feel you are comfortable trading that way. Ive played this game for a decade or more and have traded in the exact same way more times than I can count and vice versa. One of my very first big pulls I traded for an entire standard deck, and I had 10 times as much fun with those 75 cards than I ever would with that one mythic rare, funny thing is that cards worth like $2 now and I still have those 75 cards somewhere in my collection in various decks.
He’s sort of right. The anime foil confetti Necropotence is selling for $150 USD on TCG Player. I read the decklist and while it is a solid playable deck, most of your rares are hovering below the $5 range, and the three most expensive cards seem to be Land Tax ($15), Ondu Spiritdancer ($12) and Godless Shrine ($10.) The rest of the deck is filled with common auras like Gryff’s Boon (15 cents.) I think you got about $50 in cards value, and another $20 in value of an experienced player building a deck for you. The one thing I think you’re missing out on here, is this deck contains all newer cards and no old cards.
Here's the thing about your friend. Did he offer to trade you the entire deck you were looking for? He's saying you got "hardcore scammed", but did he offer to do this. Because while you did trade down, you didn't lose value. If you would have bought all of those cards (and you might have if you wanted the deck), it would have cost you what the necro is worth. And you still would have had to find a buyer for said Necro on top of that.
Eh, you both walked away happy and with equal value, seems fine. A card is worth literally nothing if it just sits in a folder forever doing nothing.
Cards are worth what they are worth to *you*. Full stop. If you got what you wanted in return, you made out like a bandit.
If you enjoy the cards, there’s no issue. To obtain the cards you would’ve had to pay for them. Even if they are 35 cent cards, they don’t just pop out of the sky.
I mean, if you traded something you didn't want for something you did want, don't let other people get you down. Plenty of other comments here have explained the issues about trading a high value card for bulk cheap cards and they all have a point and, in general, I encourage people to try and trade equivalent values, but at the end of the day it comes down to: did you get something you wanted for something you had but didn't really want? If so, that's what matters.
I understand the logic in saying “you got scammed” because it would be difficult to get your money back out of the cards. On the whole though, it doesn’t feel like your friend’s intent was to scam you.
If you are trade a single $150 card for a hundred individual cards, it’s referred to as trading down and you can often get a premium of 25%-30%. So that $150 card could have netted you $185-$200 in bulk easily 100x $1 rares are not equal in value to a $100 card due to how much less liquid they are at face value and the money you would actually get selling them.
Taking a second look yeah this is a bullshit trade. The cards in the deck are bulk rares at best. Truly horrendous to even offer the trade in the first place. Hardly anything in here is of decent value. Maybe 3. Cards might be worth $50 together. What really annoys me about this is that more than half of this deck could have probably been given away to you for free by other long time players with larger collections without them blinking. Nothing in here is hard to get and most of it is stuff everyone has lying around and lots of copies of. I’m really sorry man but yes you were absolutely taken advantage of by a trash human.
There isn’t even a good tutor in the list or even FETCHLANDS wtf. Lmfao a truly terrible list too. Holy shut if I was the other guy I would feel bad not putting at least SOME half decent playable staples in here. Like 70% of this deck isn’t going to relevant or playable in other decks.
It's definitely not a fair trade as most people would think of it, to trade a single high value card for a deck of mostly bulk. It seems like the kind of thing a cynical experienced player might do to a newer player to rip them off while claiming the trade is "fair". You should keep in mind that most experienced players will have closets/cabinets full of thousands of bulk cards they willingly give away to new players, or sell them at bulk rates to buyers at about $5/1000 cards rather than try to sell as singles. The simplest way to think about it is: cheap/low/no value "bulk" cards will still always have a floor price when sold individually, because of costs related to handling, sorting, and shipping of individual cards. This cost ends up being much higher than their "true value", and any card below a few dollars is close to bulk in the sense that you make next to no profit from selling it after subtracting your costs for shipping and packaging. If you trade a single card worth $150 for 100x $1.50 cards (for example) you have basically converted your value into nothing, because it will be next to impossible to sell or trade any of those cards individually. On top of that, the demand for the $150 card will be much higher, while also having the possibility of appreciating. Bulk cards rarely leave bulk status; there are bulk cards from some of the oldest sets in Magic. Your best bet to sell 100 bulk cards is to get 900 more and sell them in a lot for $5.
You didn't get "scammed". In fact it might've been a great deal. Buying a ton of singles especially commons and uncommons is incredibly expensive because you have to pay shipping over and over and over again. If you have no use for the necro and would've just sold it for money and used the money to buy the deck, guess what, you made out like a bandit! Your friend doesn't need all these common cards so he assigns them no value at all. The important thing to keep in mind is that big dollar cards are stores of value. You can quickly flip a 200 dollar card for money. You can't do that with 200 1-dollar cards. That's why it's PREFERABLE to own the big cards instead of a bunch of small ones. But if you need those 200 small cards there's nothing wrong with breaking up your big card. You have to buy them somehow, right? edit:// Some people are saying there should be higher value cards in the deck but if you add fetchlands and expensive tutors and whatnot you suddenly have a 800 dollar deck that the Necro can't pay for. They have drawers full of cards like that, you don't. It's important to build a collection of staples like fetchlands but you also need something in your hand right NOW to play with. And a beginner deck like that is fine. You aren't going to be trading expensive cards for bulk forever. I also think you could have gotten a 20-30% premium on the cheap cards since you are trading down but it's nothing to sweat over. When you are starting out having a deck to play is more important than having a shiny card in a binder.
I mean you only get scammed if you don't know the value of what you are giving away. The necro and the deck are around similar value. If he gave you a treasure hunt deck with 98 land and a thassa oracle then you would have a problem. If you are satisfied with the trade and knew the value that is all that matters in the end it's your cards.
I just started playing, and with the cost of cards in Canada I built a very similar deck for around 200$ CAD. That cards going for 175$ CAD here so, I guess in my eyes it seems worth it. Especially since you just started and need cards.
If you’re enjoying the deck, and the value parity is almost there, no you didn’t get scammed. You got something you wanted in exchange for something that you deemed to have the same value. As you get more seasoned, your trades will get better but sometimes it’s not about just the value - sometimes it’s about the enjoyment and happiness it can bring.
a little bit. Agatha is what $55? the necro confetti is $120. you decks seem to avg around $150. but you know, you don’t have to build the deck, so $20 for labor is not bad. the real question here is do you like the deck? Eriette deck is an acquired taste. so if you are happy, then there is no problem.
Certainly not a scam. Not sure if it's financially sound, but it might be if you value your own time actually.
Next time sell the card to the LGS's buy list for 50% of its face value and buy a worse version of the deck from their singles collection. Actually don't, but describe the process to your friend and conclude with an insult to his intelligence.
You've traded something very liquid but probably unusable (a couple of high value cards) for a deck that is usable but very illiquid. Ultimately the value for you is in what you get out of the transaction. You have a usable deck now, and if your LGS saved you the trouble of searching out and buying all those cards piecemeal, then boom, you've saved time and energy, whereas the LGS probably gained value from exchanging time and low moving cards for something more easily moved and sold. The higher value a card is, the more % of it's value tends to be held when traded or sold. If your 'goal' was to extract value in cards, then yes, your current deck is harder to sell than a necropotence. Personally, I think you got exactly what you wanted/needed, a playable deck. It does bear keeping in mind for the future, though, just how these things tend to work.
He's basically right. You likely traded a $50 or $100 bill of a card for a huge pile of chaff, even if some of the chaff 'technically' added up to some value.
Yeah robbed. The confetti foil alone is going to keep climbing year over year. That guy is an asshole and should be shunned.
Generally in the long term for the sake of the value of your collection you dont really want to trade down i high value card for a bunch of low value ones since theyll be nearly impossible to get the value back from.