Trading Up
Economics forum
Posted on Feb. 5, 2014, 6:22 p.m. by rache
Starting with a Sacred Foundry with the goal being to aquire a Liliana of the Veil . What's everyone think?
As long as everyone is a) informed and b) happy then there's no reason to call off a trade.
February 7, 2014 2:54 p.m.
Hallowed_Titan says... #3
I once traded a Conqueror's Pledge for an Overgrown Tomb when rtr released. He newthe difference but doesnt really care about lands much.
February 7, 2014 2:55 p.m.
actiontech says... #4
I'm the commissioner of a long-standing fantasy football league and the rule regarding trades is simple: what two consenting adults agree to trade shall not be infringed upon or impugned by non-involved parties. That means by being in the league you accept that some people may make bad trades but if the two people involved agree to the terms it's done. Shut up and play on.
I feel like that rule should apply here as well. Consider it a "value-added" trade since Epoch helped him with his deck. Some people need 1 on 1 deck help and can't or won't get it from a website.
February 7, 2014 2:57 p.m.
So after being pressed repeatedly for the information you finally deigned to bestow upon us from atop your pedestal, you are now acting like you were being -crucified- by -vigilantes- ? Good lord man.
All you had to do at the beginning was go "I made sure he knew the value difference, and offered to give him more stuff but he didn't care."
It's like you were going out of your way to keep leaving us with ambiguity as to whether you ripped this kid off, all the while railing at us for drawing the pretty obvious conclusion in the face of the no evidence.
February 7, 2014 2:57 p.m.
SharuumNyan says... #6
Totally agree with you Devonin. He did not make it clear before that he told the other person the value of the cards. In fact, it was implied that he didn't do this at all.
Epochalyptik - in this thread, your attitude absolutely stinks. I also want to point out that you've called other people in this forum out for less than what you've said here.
February 7, 2014 3 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #7
That bit probably should have been said up front.
February 7, 2014 3:03 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #8
February 7, 2014 3:10 p.m.
I think most people assume that when you trade both involved parties know the value of the cards involved.
This is a pretty safe assumption really.
I find it hard to belive that people doubted Epoch did thus at the start.
February 7, 2014 3:12 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #10
Post 3:1
"I asked him if he wanted anything else to make up the difference"
Post 3:4
"I asked the kid if he wanted to take anything else to make up the difference"
The words you expected me to say
"I made he sure knew the value difference"
Please show me the significant difference between those statements. It seems to me that any reasonable person would conclude that by asking whether he wants to make up the difference, I'm telling him outright that he has a difference to make up. It's his choice whether he wants to take more or not.
I'm not on a pedestal. I don't know how a reasonable person would have interpreted those statements as anything other than what they literally state. Furthermore, I felt crucified because you take it upon yourself to criticize me for having one metric and others for having another, and for the end result of a trade between those two metrics to be me having more monetary value. It's as if you refuse to acknowledge that people can consider trades in terms of anything but money, and I'm therefore some kind of criminal for taking a trade that leaves me with more value.
There's more to trading than that. I'm happy to make some extra money on a trade, but not at the expense of the other person's happiness with whatever he or she is getting out of it. I've explicitly said as much.
Again, from post 2:15
"I'm perfectly happy to do an even trade. It doesn't matter to me either way. But if I sit down to trade with someone, and the other party is fine with the offer, then I'll take the value. I don't force people to do uneven trades, nor do I coerce them into trades they don't want to do.
"Some will do either, or both, and I know several of them. That's not my MO, though. I realize there are users and players out there who have different opinions out there, but nobody's opinion is invalid. If you like to trade only if the deal is straight even, I can respect that. If you like to trade only for value, I can respect that (depending on how you do it, I may not agree with it, though)."
February 7, 2014 3:13 p.m.
chrishuffman95 says... #12
I for one did not doubt Epoch. All I'm going to add now is don't make this an attack thread, please. The matter of the fact stands is that he made a trade where both parties agreed and they got cards. Nothing to it
February 7, 2014 3:17 p.m.
People love to make downward comparisons to people that seem to be above them in hierarchies. It makes people feel good about themselves when they find out that theyre better than someone else who appears to have higher status.
It's a psychology thing.
February 7, 2014 3:22 p.m.
chrishuffman95 says... #15
No need to be sorry about it. You present a valid point.
February 7, 2014 3:26 p.m.
That was, in fact both scathing and I would suggest -more- presumptuous than Epochalyptik was accusing me of being for calling out what appeared to be a shitty trading practice. It's one thing to visit someone's actions, and quite another to visit their intentions as well.
You'll note that having finally made the explicit statement I wasn't alone in wanting to see, I and everyone else has stopped suggesting he was engaging in bad trading practices.
February 7, 2014 3:28 p.m.
And for reference, Epochalyptik, the issue with
Post 3:1 "I asked him if he wanted anything else to make up the difference"
Post 3:4 "I asked the kid if he wanted to take anything else to make up the difference"
Is that in both cases, it is very easy to make the assumption that you didn't necessarily make clear how BIG of a difference the value was. considering even a non-foil Daze is a trade up for an Elvish Archdruid, it seemed at least possible that he was operating under incorrect information whether he got that info from you or from looking up the card and assuming a 3 dollar rare would be a 5 dollar foil and not a 60 dollar one.
I know in that situation, I would have clearly spelled out the exact value difference before accepting his claim that he was okay with the trade, and the fact that you used terms that had a bit of equivocation room in them, in the face of someone saying it looked like you had cheated the guy just further implied that you had, in fact, cheated the guy. Mentioning later that he was someone who was a new player with old cards just cemented the idea that he'd not actually know what the cards were worth.
If you'd said, right off, "Don't worry, I made sure he knew exactly what the card was worth, and he didn't care." the whole thing would never have happened.
February 7, 2014 3:34 p.m.
It's a sub conscious thing so people tend to have very little control over it. It's not a mark of character. Stupid thing to say by me.
February 7, 2014 3:37 p.m.
SharuumNyan says... #19
"P2P is about gaining value with each trade, regardless of how many steps it takes."
That right there was all I needed to see. Epochalyptik is basically admitting that his primary goal of trading is to make sure he gets a better deal than the other person. Whatever method you take to get there - whether you're trying to get lucky, pull the wool over someone's eye, or just blatantly rip someone off - the end result is the same. You are actively trying to squeeze value out of someone else. I don't see how people who trade up can do it with good intentions.
Trading, at least to me, should have the goal of making even transactions with another Magic player. If I knew a trader was only looking to trade up, I would refuse to trade with that person, because I find that dishonest and not in the spirit of card trading to begin with. And then brag about it online? Please!
February 7, 2014 3:38 p.m.
@SharuumNyan BUT, you do still need to account, in some form, for the value attached to utility.
I don't excuse personally, trading a 1 dollar card someone really wants for a 60 dollar card, but I've taken losses on trades plenty of times to get cards I particularly want or need at the time.
My issue was one of scale, not of concept. I've traded one 10 dollar card for 8 or 9 dollars of dollar-or-less-jank which is both a financial loss and a marginal value loss because one 10 dollar card is actually more valuable than 10 one dollar cards. But it's when you're into the hundreds and thousands of percent profit that I start to get antsy.
February 7, 2014 3:44 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #21
I'll admit that in my first post or two, it was ambiguous as to whether or not the traders at each stage knew the value differences. But after post 2:15, I expected to be given the benefit of the doubt considering I explicitly stated I value mutual agreement on the trade. It seems to me that a reasonable conclusion from posts 3:1 and 3:4 (and even 3:7) is that I told the kid the difference. Now, if you want to pick apart the exact word choice and criticize me for not saying exactly this or that, I suppose that's your prerogative. However, I don't have a civil way to describe your choice to continue attack me beyond the clarification I gave in those posts. I'm typically a pretty understanding, if direct, guy, but I have limits.
I'll apologize for the ambiguity leading into this mess. It's perfectly reasonable to believe people should get something back in a trade. That said, remember that it's ultimately the trader's right - and nobody else's - to determine what it is he or she really values in a trade involving his or her own property.
@SharuumNyan: Since you seem interested in further continuing this inanity, I'll simply point out that the specific quote you used is about P2P, not me, and that in post 2:15 I explicitly stated my primary goal is mutual agreement.
If you aren't interested in considering that people can be happy with a trade regardless of monetary value, then I have no way to explain to you why your argument is wrong. I can only say that your "money is everything" attitude is the exact reason pay-to-win tough guys laugh at laid-back FNM players. It's the exact reason some people stop playing this game. Those people are usually the ones that get driven off because they - apparently mistakenly - believed Magic was a game and not a banking contract.
February 7, 2014 3:51 p.m.
I always do trades with tcgplayer up to avoid all these issues. I view cards much the same way that I view real estate. The value is in the quality of life they bring and not their potential monetary value to me. I do recognize the potential of both to make money but there are inherent risks in this approach that make me uneasy so I skip it for the most part - except that I mean to hold on to both with very white knuckles.
If I do get my hands on something I really want / value, there is very little chance of letting it go, even if it were for a "trade up".
I do think that value is not just monetary - but I do still like to keep the tcgplayer values of both sides balanced within a buck or so. I remember one trade where I got picky about it beyond the refinement of $1 and I think I was too persnickety.
February 7, 2014 11:52 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #23
SharuumNyan and Devonin: Not everyone trades based on the monetary value of a card. Some people will trade a $50 card that they have no use for for a $1 card that they need to finish a deck. I traded my dad a Sunpetal Grove for a Misty Rainforest and made sure he understood it was in my favor, but he needed that Grove so he accepted.
February 8, 2014 10:07 a.m.
scottemery says... #24
I'm not seeing the logic behind trading down purely because you want a certain card, yes the other card may be useless to you and you may be in need of another card but if your card holds a higher monetary value then surely you would just sell the card and then buy the other card, leaving you with a fuller pocket..? Enlighten me...
February 8, 2014 1:25 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #25
scottemery: Some people don;t take the game as seriously as some of us do. They rather just trade instead of having to go somewhere and trade something. Sometimes people are also nice and they'll accept the trade because maybe you've done something nice for them before, or maybe they want to help out a fellow player or something. Not everything is always about money/monetary value.
February 8, 2014 1:48 p.m.
Last night I opened kiora in my box. A friend who collects planeswalkers and is currently running a riku deck offered me his lp beta Sinkhole for it. He knew the price difference, he knew I wanted the sinkhole and he wanted the kiora that bad and i didnt care about kiora. Is it wrong of me to make that trade?
February 8, 2014 2:43 p.m.
Not at all. I agree with Epoch that if both parties know of the values of the cards and are okay with the trade then there's nothing wrong with it. For me, I only care about value if the other party does. About half of my friends don't care about value while the other half do, so I switch trade tactics between the two groups so I can trade for what I want.
February 8, 2014 2:48 p.m.
scottemery says... #28
Completely understand people losing out on value due to helping other players out of as a token of appreciation but whether you take Magic seriously or not money is always an issue. I'm not saying it is wrong, just that I don't understand it.
February 8, 2014 3:17 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #29
scottemery: Money is not always an "issue", it is a factor in the trade but not necessarily an "issue". Whatever you refer to the money as, some people don't care about it as much. Maybe you care about the value of a card but other people may care about the use of the card, and that's what MTG is all about. It makes me sad to see people that think a Magic card is just a Dollar Bill, it's not. In the end MTG is all about the use of the card and whether it preforms well for you/your deck.
February 8, 2014 3:43 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #30
You say that, but it is so expensive to get in to anything. The money thing starts there.
February 8, 2014 4:04 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #31
Didgeridooda: Not MTG necessarily. Some people don't get into MTG to be competitive. You can get by with spending only $25 on a Beckbuilder's Toolkit and get 1-2 decks out of it and some expensive rares to trade up with. Some people play casually and don't need to spend a lot of money.
February 8, 2014 4:18 p.m.
scottemery says... #32
The monetary value of a card is an essential point in a trade and therefore an issue, whether a cards value dictates your trade or not it will always be something that is taken into account. Yes there are people who care not for the value of a card but why make yourself worse off when you can effectively have the same end result and retain some value. Of course I care about the value of a card, I am a budget player and I like to build the most competitive decks I can without spending obscene amounts of cash for the cards I need. Ultimately Magic is a game which requires both Money and Skill to win games so I'd make the most of what I have.
February 8, 2014 4:19 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #33
scottemery: You fail to understand my point. No money is "required" to play MTG. Friends can lend you a deck or you pay a little bit for a Deckbuilder's Toolkit. Not everyone plays competitively.
February 8, 2014 4:23 p.m.
chrishuffman95 says... #34
ITT: Only rich privileged people can play Magic, and you have to spend the most money possible to even be relatively good at the game
February 8, 2014 4:47 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #35
I am just saying to many just starting out, $25 dollars can be alot of money. I am not talking about the super cards. I know there are different things that can hold different value, and it is not all about the cards. I am just saying that it takes money to get going, so many people want to ensure they do not lose that money if they can. I personally do not squeeze every penny out of every trade, but some do, and that is ok. I like trades to be at least close, and will always make sure that I am not ripping the other person off. Friendships, time spent helping, advice, and many other things can be valuable too. This game is it's own mini economy of sorts, and there are many variables.
February 8, 2014 4:53 p.m.
scottemery says... #36
To an extent you are right, but it is highly unlikely you will find a player who has not payed money to play Magic the gathering. We are speaking in the context of acquiring a card at your own disadvantage, yes not everybody plays 'competitively' but whatever your circumstance why trade down, there is no need.
February 8, 2014 4:54 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #37
chrishuffman95: Wow, that's amazingly false. You can be really good at the game with a $20 homebrew, most of the tier 1 decks are expensive, but amount of money is in no way tied to your skill.
February 8, 2014 4:57 p.m.
scottemery says... #38
Not 'false' just not entirely accurate and exaggerated. Define 'good' lookoutimscary. Correct amount of money is not tied to your skill but to your success it undoubtedly is. That or have generous friends.
February 8, 2014 5:01 p.m.
lookoutimscary says... #39
scottemery: Good as in: You have a level head, you understand rules thoroughly, you make good decisions and know when to cast this or that, you know when to keep mana open and such. The things that generally define a 'good' Magic player.
February 8, 2014 5:07 p.m.
TheAnnihilator says... #40
Haha Epochalyptik:
Step 1: Get Elvish Archdruid
Step 2: ?????
Step 3: PROFIT.
February 8, 2014 8:44 p.m.
CrazyLittleGuy says... #41
Since this thread has kind of become a shitstorm, I WANT IN.
Joking, but seriously I think that the big issue here is just a misunderstanding. I don't think anyone feels 'high and mighty' for avoiding trades that are heavily in the favor of one trader over the other. They just feel uncomfortable with that idea.
And on the other side, I don't think those that trade P2P are in any way the villains. If a trade is mutually agreed upon, and both parties are sensibly and completely informed as to EVERY detail regarding that trade, then do whatever you want. There's no shame in gaining (or losing) value from a trade.
I just think that in a thread about such a touchy subject, it might do to be a little careful with our phrasing. People in general are confusing, and implications are easily missed (even more so over the internet). It's important to understand that no one is being crucified, and no one is trying to be a white knight.
After all, we're pretty much all just random strangers hiding behind an anonymous username discussing a tabletop cardgame. None of us are really in the position to judge each other anyway :P
February 9, 2014 1:37 a.m.
I was new to the trading scene when I got ripped off for my Archangel of Thune . I don't have a smart phone (or way to look up values) so I was trusting the other dude to be honest. But I was taken for probably 20-25 in value (at the time) for being new to that location. Needless to say I don't trade with him anymore. Some people just don't give a shit about honesty. They figure "I didn't force him to take the trade." That's life though. You get taken advantage of. Then you learn. Maybe you become the kind of person that will give someone a heads up when they are about to make a stupid trade. Maybe you end up ripping off the next guy.
February 11, 2014 5:35 p.m.
chrishuffman95 says... #45
That's not quite what the discussion is about. What we're discussing is if it's morally right to make an uneven trade, with both sides being aware of the fact. Though I understand your reasoning, I got jipped once, and it kind of ticked me off. Dishonest people ruin the casual trading market.
February 11, 2014 8:33 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #46
Maxon, that sucks. Sorry you dealt with people like that. Make sure to ask someone else to look it up for you next time. Or ask the store, they will tell you.
February 11, 2014 8:52 p.m.
@chrishuffman95 Racist terms are really not cool to use.
February 11, 2014 8:54 p.m.
CastleSiege says... #48
This is very doable. Whenever I make trades I usually try to slightly bend them in my favor (not so much that I'm completely ripping the other person off though). Be sure to be polite when trading and you can score yourself some sweet deals. Anyone who likes to profit does this and it isn't uncommon at all.
You'll get to her eventually. Good luck :)
February 11, 2014 9:11 p.m.
CastleSiege says... #49
Just make sure that both you and whoever you're trading with know the monetary value of the cards you are trading. Many times they'll make trades in your favor if they aren't too worried about the actual price. Lots of players will make a trade as long as the price is relatively similar and they deem it to be in their favor as well because they need what you're trading for their deck.
February 11, 2014 9:14 p.m.
chrishuffman95 says... #50
I was not previously aware it was a racial slur, it was merely a term used in my family that means getting ripped off. I apologize.
chrishuffman95 says... #1
ITT; The only way to trade ever is to trade by value, and if you don't, quit Magic.
But seriously, I see a myriad more casual traders and people who don't care about value then I do equal traders. What you have to realize is that, despite card values, this is a game, and if both parties are okay with a trade, regardless of value gap, then it is a fair trade. They are not considered stupid, they are doing what they believe is in their benefit, and helping somebody else benefit in return. The benefits may not be equal, but that does not make it unfair, by any means.
February 7, 2014 2:53 p.m.