A tale of Five Dollars and what it will become (part one)

Economics forum

Posted on July 13, 2014, 9:57 p.m. by kungfuturtle

I was thinking last night at the prerelease, what could I do with the money in my pocket? After paying for two flights, a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and a pack of silver dragon shields, I was rather "tapped out"! All I had was five dollars, so I purchased a single card, a Foil Daxos of Meletis . I am going to see how far i can trade five dollars and I am going to document it on here. I will only trade what i have gotten from previous trades.

The trading started with a Garruk Wildspeaker

that became 2x Path to Exile

one of the Path to Exile s became an Engineered Explosives and the other became a Chain Veil

The Chain Veil I traded for a Vorinclex, the voice of hunger.

the vorinclex traded into, ironically a Garruk Wildspeaker and a Path to Exile

so at the end of the day I stood with

2x Path to Exile

1x Garruk Wildspeaker

and

1x Engineered Explosives

for starting with 5.00 dollars I ended the night with 29.96 worth of value according to starcitygames.com

Let's see where I can take it next week!

Epochalyptik says... #2

Moved.

July 13, 2014 9:58 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #3

okay

July 13, 2014 10:02 p.m.

Unforgivn_II says... #4

By my math you only have one PtE. Am I missing something?

1 PtE -> Engineered Explosives

The other PtE -> Chain veil -> Vorinclex -> Garruk and one PtE.

Regardless, that's still nice

July 13, 2014 10:21 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #5

Your right I think something did get lost in translation but i still have two of them... oops!

July 13, 2014 11:52 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #6

July 15, 2014 12:20 p.m.

TheGamer says... #7

This is a brilliant idea! I think im going to try this!

Also, I cant wait for your post on this topic next week! Im surely going to look out for it, and maybe you can link the forum on my page when the time comes?

July 15, 2014 12:31 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #8

If I knew how I surely would

what would you like me to discuss?

July 15, 2014 12:33 p.m.

Epochalyptik says... #9

You guys might want to look up Pack to Power.

July 15, 2014 12:37 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #10

whats that?

July 15, 2014 12:39 p.m.

It's basically the hardcore version of what you're doing. Take a single pack and trade its contents into one of the Power 9.

I can offer some advice if you'd like. I haven't done P2P, but I've done the monetary equivalent.

July 15, 2014 12:42 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #12

Holy CRAP! I do not think I am close to that level of trading yet! give me a year or two

July 15, 2014 12:51 p.m.

Emarean says... #13

How do you get such good trades in your favor? especially considering everyone has a cell phone and can look up the value of their cards?

July 15, 2014 7:31 p.m.

@Emarean, though I haven't done P2P, I know it's mainly about the less literal value of cards. For example, many cards are actually "more valuable" because they're easily movable.

One such example is Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker . He he has a lot of casual appeal, is a well know character, and is a planeswalker (all of these things are valuable to different players.) Casual players want to play him, some people just want to own him as a character, and some people are just looking to have 'walkers in their binder. The card sharks know he's movable, so they want him to trade him away at more than he's worth. It appeases many crowds. For this reason, it's better to have a Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker (about $5 TCG) than five $1 rares, despite having "equal value".

July 16, 2014 1:45 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #15

My personal secret is to find the right trade partners. Some people will want to do exact value some will want to trade cards they do not want for cards they do. A big tip would be to avoid people who want to take advantage. I never pressure someone i let them pick what they want and if they do not find what they want ill walk away. I do not trade for value i trade for what i want and i am willing to trade pretty much anything I do not want.

be a human, do not be a terminator, trade with friends, be a friend

July 16, 2014 2:29 p.m.

kungfuturtle says... #16

I am going to restart this with the pack concept

July 16, 2014 2:31 p.m.

Actually, kungfuturtle, sometimes, people who are looking to "take advantage" of you can be manipulated. These are the types of people who value most non-staple cards as "dollar-rares". Ask them for their "dollar rares", and they won't see the value in them. The difference is, those cards will be more valuable to someone more casual.

For example, if you ask to trade Courser of Kruphix at $20 value for ~20 "dollar rares", a shark will jump at that opportunity. If you get rares that trade well to the EDH and casual crowds, the "dollar rares" will probably trade better and to a larger crowd. This covers much more grounf than one Courser of Kruphix could. You trade your "dollar rares" to the casual crowd for more staples (gaining a little value each time), and trade those staples to a card-shark again for more "dollar rares". Wash, rinse, and repeat.

July 16, 2014 3:01 p.m.

A lot of it is also trading up in format value. I'll trade into Daze s almost any day of the week.

July 16, 2014 9:14 p.m.

I advise against turning high-value staples into dollar rares. The principle (turning single cards into multiple smaller cards) has some legitimacy, but you still need to be careful not to squander your resources.

Turn $20 into $5, $12, and $3 (or more) rather than twenty $1s.

July 16, 2014 9:46 p.m.

Yeah, what Fluffy and Epoch said apply. I didn't mean to suggest that you only get dollar rares, just that you trade with a mindset of both moving cards and getting more value in the long run. It was meant as an extreme example.

July 16, 2014 11:20 p.m.

cr14mson says... #21

Great! I'll buy a booster box and turn it into 36x Power 9's!! MUHAHAHAHA

July 17, 2014 1:26 a.m.

KrosanTusker says... #22

That works out nicely as a playset of each... but what would you do with 20 Moxen?

July 17, 2014 3:41 p.m.

Femme_Fatale says... #23

Sell them for money. There is your university funded for.

July 18, 2014 3:51 a.m.

KrosanTusker says... #24

Fair enough! I was thinking, "why would you need four Vintage decks," but I suppose that works too...

July 18, 2014 4:03 a.m.

This discussion has been closed