Swimming with the Sharks

Hello everyone! I realize I haven't posted anything up since the secondary market update 8 days ago, but I really haven't played much magic in the past week. I played 3 events this weekend though:

FNM (USA Allies): 3-2
Game Day (UW Mass Polymorph): 0-3 drop
Legacy (Bant Countertop): 3rd 2-1

I really feel like writing any tournament reports becuase I just barely won the games I did in the FNM, and just lost a ton on the Game Day. I will say this though: the Allies deck is in a really tough spot because the control decks are beatdown decks in Standard, and I really want to be the control deck right now, but Allies can't pull it off. I thought Tuktuk Scrapper would put the deck over the top, but it's not quite there yet. I may have a new Standard brew for you tomorrow though, and it will probably include Tumble Magnet as that card is awesome right now! It's good against Valakut because they can't attack with Titan (same with UB Control with Grave Titan), it's good against Caw-Blade because they can't attack with the equipped dude, and it's good against Boros because it simply buys you time. Tumble Magnet forces your opponent to overextend if they want to kill you fast, which makes mass removal so much sweeter. But I digress...

On Mass Polymorph: the deck is just bad. I was only winning when I had the board locked down, and could win via other methods anyways. I did run White Sun's Zenith, and that card is nuts! It single-handedly won me a game against Boros during practice when I White Sun for 4 and traded with all his guys. But the Mass Polymorph package just was never working and I often had 7 cards in hand with an effective mulligan because of that Emrakul sitting in hand....

On my legacy deck: I did some trades (which is what this post is really about) and got some sweet toys including Acadamy Ruins and Engineered Explosives. Those 2 cards synergize like crazy!!! In fact, Acadamy Ruins is the bee's knees in the Thopter Foundry combo. With that land in play you can slowly and inneficiently make 1/1s by sacrificing Thopter Foundry to itself, then put the card on top of your library with Acadamy Ruins, draw it, replay it, sac it, repeat. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and that slow combo has won me the game before. Also, 1-of Trinket Mage is very nice.

So that's my tournament reports for the weekend. The real excitement of my Magic weekend came from trading! I remember when I was getting into magic, a $10 trade was and epic trade with tons of money getting tossed around. I would grind all my $3 trades all day just to get that awesome M10 dual land.

My how things have changed!

I did probably 5 trades this weekends at values of: $12, $25, $40, $95, and $200

The $12 trade was with a kid who was playing the budgetest of budget decks: GB poison with his only rare being Phyrexian Hydra. I showed him the Putrefaxes and Gigantiforms in my binder and was able to trade trade those and some other cards up to a Green Sun's Zenith and something else.

I don't even remember the 25 and 40 trades, I just remember who they were with. The $200 trade included me shipping 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptors and 2 Wurmcoil Engines for 2 Underground Seas, a Badlands, and a Koth. The Underground Seas were in fair to excellent condition and the Badlands was in excellent condition. That trade wasn't even that complicated and there's not much I can say about it, but try to imagine having a pair of Wurmcoil Engines as a TOSS IN in an all-standard trade!

No, the real thing I want to talk about was the $95 trade I put down with Nick. I had only traded with him a couple times before and they were very quick and interesting experiences. One time I just wanted a $6 card from him and and he collected a bunch of Angels out of my binder for his girlfriend, and another time he wanted my Bayou, but we weren't able to put anything together. This time though, we both wanted a ton of cards from eachother, and cards were flying across the table at eachother. It started where he put aside an Engineered Explosives and 2 Lotus Petals I had pulled from his binder and said, "These for the 3 Mirran Crusaders?" (I had lent him 3 Mirran Crusaders the past weekend). That was fine with me, but it didn't stop there! $80 later it was determined that my Bayou still wasn't making it his way, but I was trading a TON of standard cards for mainly Legacy cards. I was trading for significantly fewer cards that I was moving t him. I think I only got 3 Flooded Strand (1 Chinese), a Jap Avenger of Zendikar, a Lotus Petal, and another 3, while he took a ton of cards, where the biggest was Watery Grave which we put at 7. The fact that I can't remember what I moved is a sign that it wasn't anything backbreaking, which is a very good sign.

You see, Nick doesn't actually need to trade for anything, he is a pure businessman. He needed the Mirran Crusaders, which was evident by the fact he needed to borrow them from me, but everything else was cards I knew he had, but he was trading for more of them cheap. In fact, he flat out told me all of this. He was trading for $1 Day of Judgements and other similar deals, simply becuase he knew he could trade them at 2 or 3. He was trading up in the most literal meaning of the phrase: the total value of the cards he was moving to me was less than the total value of cards he was acquiring, and his total value of his binder goes up. However, as I have mentioned before, trading standard cards into Legacy staples is also trading up because Legacy cards are harder to find, are no longer in print, aren't being drafted or opened in packs, and have less of a chance of dropping in price over time. So in trading with Nick, we were both trading up! Interesting...

I have learned a ton about trading with nick after just 2 real trades with him, the latter being this past weekend. One of the most important things though is that of who is in control of the trade. To make an analagy, for the sake of making an analagy, a trade is like a game of Magic; there's tempo, misplays, lucky topdecks, and an eventual victor. In your trade, one person can take charge by declaring the price for every card from the get-go (tempo). When Nick trades, he looked at my binder and would just pick out cards and name his price (always ever so slightly less than what it's at). I would usually say it's fine, and he would continue picking out cards until he has half your binder. Meanwhile on the other side of the table, if you don't take as controlling of an approach, you may find yourself in the crossheirs as he taps a couple cards he is moving up in value. I have since gained this style of trading to much success, but I add another element: giving the power back for a misplay for a moment. Sometimes people don't realize that a card has gone up recently, and they can value a card far less than what it is really at, and you can capitilize on it (misplay). Other times you may find a pure gem in the "bulk" pile (lucky topdeck). And if everything goes your way you can be the eventual winner in the trade. Just like when you win all the time in Magic you can win a cash prize, if you win all the time in your trades you can make actual money.

After trading with Nick, I found myself trading with another guy who Nick warned me about when he ducked away for a second. Looks like I'm stepping into the big time: trading with a shark who I have never met before, perfect for them to make cash. I wound up getting 3 Archive Traps at 50 cents each (normally 2) and a $20 Maze of Ith (normally 27) among other things. I'm not sure if he was an actual shark, but I was certainly pleased with my new trading skills.

I have heard it said that people evolve from a Timmy to a Johnny to a Spike, and I think the same thing can be said about trading cards. You start out like I did trading rares for rares, Mythics for Mythics, 2 rares for 1 mythic (insert said story of trading my Lotus Cobra and foil Bloodghast for Ajani Goldmane and foil Vein Drinker here), then you evolve to trading up to $5 in value with your binder full of commons and uncommons, then evolve to profiting on small trades that slowly expand bigger and bigger. Right now I would say that's where I am: trading for profit on various size trades. Whats the next step? Pure businessman. I don't NEED any cards, so everything is liquid. I trade for profit all day. I know people that need certain cards, so I trade for them low off other people, and then trade it to those people at value for value.

I feel like I may be becoming a shark, because I am making plans to go out to other stores and hit up their trading scene scouring for deals and trading up all day. The trick is to make sure no one hates you by the time it is all said and done. That's tough, but I didn't get into Magic becuase it was so easy.

Until next time, Stay classy!