Pucatrade: Is it worth it?
The Trading Post forum
Posted on May 20, 2019, 8:09 p.m. by Lanzo493
So I’m trying to get Karn Liberated for building a Tron deck. The problem is people either don’t want to trade for what I have or don’t want to support a Tron deck. Hate trading is worse than hate drafting, btw.
I took a look at Pucatrade and can see that I can easily get all the points I’ll need for a play set of Karn. But my concern is that I’ll have points that never get used because nobody sends me the specific cards I want.
Has anyone had success trying to get specific cards through pucatrade? If so, how?
Cardsphere seems a better chance to get what you want. But it comes with "penalties". Some cards you will have trouble moving for what you'd want, but you can get some cards for less also.
May 20, 2019 11:15 p.m.
I did have good luck with PucaTrade a few years back, I was able to build Splinter Twin (pre ban), Storm, and UR Delver as they have many shared cards. I also built a few EDH decks. Then the system dried up for me even with me having a good amount of cards to move.
I have heard Cardsphere is a better system but I haven't just jumped on yet.
May 20, 2019 11:34 p.m.
JANKYARD_DOG says... #5
Same, a few years ago got a whole bunch of stuff as well as sent. Worked up to about 17000 points ($170) and then it sat there forever, and ever... and they take points for inactivity. So I tossed a bunch of stuff I didn't want/need that had value on my list to liquidate the points. Still have some points languishing on there. Can say I've given up on it.
May 20, 2019 11:40 p.m.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #6
I am an avid user of pucatrade, even today. I firmly believe you can get your Karns in Puca (there isn't demand for them right now). But if you want to be successful in pucatrade you have to join the discord server. I'm going to repeat that because it's really important. IF YOU WANT TO GET CARDS THROUGH PUCATRADE, JOIN THE DISCORD SERVER!!! Among other services, the discord offers a marketplace where people list the cards they have and how many points they want for them. Thus if there isn't a high promo on a card you want to move, you can post in the marketplace and see if anyone wants it. This could also help you find a Karn, although I don't think the marketplace has any at the moment.
The key to puca is to understand the economy. There are too many points in the system. They've been fixing this gradually over the last few years. What this means in practice is that you need to promote cards to a high point value before they'll get sent. Conversely, you should only send cards for a promotion. The current rate is about 80% for staples.
The other thing you should know about is the point destruction process. When you promote cards, puca takes a % and if you want insurance on your trade (I recommend doing this) puca will also take a %.
It might be a little bit of work, but I've had a lot of success in puca and feel pretty confident you'll be able to get your Karns through it. Duals move on it all the time. I've personally sent unlimited and revised tropical islands and received a revised tundra and force of wills, all within the last year. I don't know anything about cardsphere or how they compare.
May 21, 2019 12:11 a.m.
Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor says... #7
So I'll be upfront and say that I haven't used Pucatrade in a couple years now, but I would advise against using it unless you plan to be extremely active in the community.
When I left, the economy was in shambles due to point inflation, they had implemented some stupid promotion thing which made it so the only way to get cards was to vastly overpay (this made trading quite difficult for people with small collections), and most of the community was already leaving the site which made cards more scarce.
I was told that joining the Discord server would help, but that only works if you are highly active on the site. For someone like me who would use Pucatrade only once-and-a-while, it wasn't worth it and my points just sat there. I realized that I could just trade my cards into my LGS or an online store like Card Kingdom/Starcity Games and get more in return.
Now they could have fixed a bunch of these issues since my departure, but that was my experience with the site.
P.S.: You could just lie to those hate-traders (who the hell does that anyways? That is such BS) and say you are using Karn for EDH :p .
May 21, 2019 10:35 a.m.
Thanks for the input. I’ll take a look at cardsphere and the discord server for pucatrade. I gotta get my research in to see how they compare.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #2
I'll make a long post later. I just got url redirected trying to type on mobile.
May 20, 2019 9:23 p.m.