Reasonable budget
Economics forum
Posted on Nov. 7, 2013, 9:52 p.m. by Quadsimotto
What do you think is a reasonable amount to spend on cards per week/ month?? I know in the two months since I've come back to playing I have spent an unreasonable amount but I was just building some stock. Now I'm trying to settle in on a decent number to TRY to limit myself to.
i usually spilt a case with my brother for the set, and once and awhile buy a pack, while also paying tournament entry fees, and usually a draft a month
singles i limit to under $100 for set, or 1 big legacy card a month
November 7, 2013 10:09 p.m.
gnarlicide says... #4
Okay, I am almost compelled to write an article about this: Budget Magic.
It is absolutely true that you should spend your resources on one deck at a time to gain prizes at fnm. I have done it several times. I got kids, so I have to do it that way.
Recently, I have built a modern dredgevine deck with fetches and only spent a total of $3.50 on the whole deck. The key to this is trading. So you will need some stock.
With standard decks it is much easier, but you need to be careful, because the meta changes very frequently. I put all my resources into a standard deck last year that took first at fnm 3 weeks in a row, then took first at scg open trials.
With standard cards, you need to watch the market on them and do some research. Buy low and trade high. If you took any kind of basic level economics class in high school, you should be fine.
Best of luck to you. Just don't ever consider selling your body for cards. Trust me, you will live a life of regret.
November 7, 2013 10:17 p.m.
When I first got started I allowed a little more money as an initial investment cost but I am cutting back more and more now. But that's for EDH.
It completely depends on what format you are playing. If it is standard then you should decide how much you are willing to spend as a long-term monthly cost and depend heavily on trading and selling cards back.
If you are considering the budget first, then look at either pauper or EDH. EDH has a larger initial investment with a tiny and shrinking-over-time recurring cost (more like once or twice a year rather than once a month or more even). Pauper is just dirt cheap always (but it's harder to find a playgroup).
If budget is an issue at all I wouldn't even consider legacy or vintage or modern - unless you want to use the same predictable cheapest netdeck there is all the time. At least that's my impression of those formats.
Another thing to think about is time. Trading takes a ton of time - especially considering that effective trading usually involves consistent investment in a social group or network.
November 7, 2013 10:58 p.m.
gnarlicide says... #8
Hence, this very site. Trading is a lot easier here. I prefer it over the local gamers where I'm at.
November 7, 2013 11:02 p.m.
Quadsimotto says... #9
I have been buying online rather then trading to complete a couple of decks and now that are almost finished I have slowed in my purchasing. I buy boosters every now and again but theros has left a nasty taste in my mouth with pulls so I've slowed there as well. Either the shop I play at is tough, or I'm not as good as I like to think I once was at the game because I keep getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter. Then again that probably has something to do with strategy choices and having taking such a long break. Ill just keep plugging away until I get a win there and hopefully it'll be soon.
November 7, 2013 11:49 p.m.
MonsterFinder221 says... #10
I currently limit myself to around $40 a month because I'm saving up for an Assassin's Creed Hidden Blade replica (Ezio's), and I also want to save up for lessons on how to parkour. (Not the Mirror's Edge kind) Imagine just running up to random strangers in your Assassin's gear and falsely stabbing them with the toy.
November 8, 2013 1:13 a.m.
Lately for me I will buy a fat pack when a new set comes out and then only spend on mtg for tournament entry fees and the casual products (duel decks, commander stuff, planechase). Then again a lot of the tournaments I attend are limited (so I'm essentially paying extra on packs to be able to play for more packs/prizes) and I win a lot so I still open a ton of each set (theros for example I've opened almost 3, 36 pack boxes already and only 9 packs from a fat pack were not acquired from a tournament).
In short if you play mtg for tournaments it'll probably be best to get all the cards for a good deck that you enjoy playing (a format warping deck hasn't been found yet for theros) and then limit yourself to tournament entry fees. If you play mtg casually then a fat pack every 5 weeks or so should be good enough (mtg collecting is usually only satisfying if it's acquired in chunks anyway)
November 8, 2013 3:37 a.m.
I like to try to support my LGS because they do such a good job at hosting events and are generally cool people. But they tend to not have what I am looking for! One option I have is to limit what I play to what they provide (or to wait and hope it comes in). But that is hard to settle for when the other option I have is to pick out exactly what I want for less than half the cost. So I end up buying my sleeves and other accessories like playmats and dice from them. I would honestly buy more from them if they had the stuff I wanted.
November 8, 2013 7:18 a.m.
notamardybum says... #13
gnarlicide speaketh the trutheth. just focus on what deck you want to build, if you want to take it to your LGS and win at FNM, make sure it can be competitive. Test the shit out of it, if you like it, then go build it. When it comes to building a deck, I look on this site first to see what i can trade for, buying usually comes 2nd.
November 8, 2013 7:48 a.m.
Well, I have decklists for modern, legacy and standard. I have completed my standard and modern decks, legacy still has about 15 cards, all lands, 1000$ of that is in 10 cards, the last 5 will also be about 500$. But these haven't been my focus, I spend a lot on acquiring edh cards. Unlike others, trading for certain cards is impossible (especially legacy/modern staples), because I live in a small town with the only available stuff mostly being standard. It's not that we don't have them, people don't want to trade them. or don't want to trade what's available for them.
So I'm forced to buy a lot of cards, what I do is set a number based on my income, a percentage of my income and spend that. Though, I do go overboard a lot, because I'm a glutton for edh.
Though in an effort to save money and refocus my purchasing priorities, I just bought 1600 sleeves (kmc super black, cost about 110$) and started to sleeve up my decks in these. Now, for edh, I'm sleeveing up one of and my playing decks with all the cards I do have, then putting them into a box and calling it my 'Commander cube'. This allows me to maximize the use of the cards I do have. I can now own one Sensei's Divining Top and use it in every deck I play for edh, for example. I can take cards from my legacy deck and use them in EDH when I'm not using that deck, much easier than before. Where there was worry of changing sleeves and damaging the cards in the process, multiple times. So I only need playsets of some cards and singletons of others, instead of multitudes for different decks.
November 8, 2013 9:45 a.m.
Also, this gives me the edge in terms of my opponents won't know what to expect when I pull out a deck for EDH, the interchangeability with the same sleeves, even if I use the same commander, the deck could be different.
thataddkid says... #2
Instead of putting yourself on a weekly or monthly budget, why not just decide on a decklist and acquire the cards for that? If your deck is good enough, you can win prizes at FNM to trade for better cards. I've been trying to make a tier one red deck wins using winnings from a cheaper Simic Evolve deck, and so far I've dumped about 200$ dollars into both decks combined. I'm almost done with the RDW deck though, and my meta is very suspectible to balls-to-the-wall aggro. Just build something good that can win you more cards, and not put yourself on an allowance.
November 7, 2013 9:59 p.m.