Packs for Jaces

Trades 18-20, CMU, and the Future!

2010-08-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

So let me start off today's blog post by letting readers (of whom there are still disappointingly few) know that there is going to be a temporary break from Packs for Jaces. I'll still be active on twitter if you have any questions, but I'm going on vacation for a week to Maine. I'll be relaxing, enjoying myself, and far away from card stores. Following that, I'll be moving to my new home in Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University. Previously home to Magic greats such as Aaron Forsythe, Erik Lauer, and Mike Turian, CMU has a fairly active Magic community, including it's own TO (meaning there are school only tournaments). I don't know how many other PTQ grinders like me there are for playtesting, but I'm sure I will at the very least have plenty of trade partners. However, I will certainly have lots of things to do during my first few weeks at Carnegie Mellon, so don't be surprised if the next Packs For Jaces trades aren't until the beginning of September.

So with that whole windup out of the way...I present tonight's Packs for Jaces trades:

Tonight, I went down to Great Escape Games in Sacramento, CA to bask in the Thursday Night EDH glory (and to give back an Elspeth I had borrowed for a PTQ) I also managed to make some minor trades. There was a guy there with a cube who was dumping a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, but I am nowhere near enough value to begin picking those up.

Trade 18:
Mine:
1 Blood Moon (9th Ed, russian, blackbordered) (4.99)

His:
1 Sunpetal Grove (2.99)
1 Honor of the Pure (1.99)
1 Mana Leak (.75)
1 Autumn's Veil (.49)
1 Flashfreeze (.29)
+$1.5

While I had hoped the blood moon would command a premium with EDH players, I decided to go ahead a move it now in order to maximize the Standard playables in my binder. With the move to Pittsburgh comes some strategy, as I am not sure EDH is as big there as it is in Sacramento. I found even value and then pulled a couple throw-ins to gain a bit for the binder.

Trade 19:
Mine:
1 Goblin Guide (5.50)
1 Haunting Echoes (1.50)
1 Kor Firewalker (foil) (2.99)
1 Emeria Angel (1.0)

His:
1 Oracle of Mul Daya (3.50)
1 Sword of Vengeance (3.75)
1 Stirring Wildwood (2.50)
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria (7.00)

+$5.75
This trade was done out of the kindness of my trading partner's heart. He need the Goblin Guide for his standard deck, and was willing to take some of my harder to trade cards for some extra staples he had in his binder. Zach is actually the friend of mine who I was there to give the Elspeth back to, and he and I have played a good amount of Magic together over the past year or so. After this trade, we sat down and played some EDH. My Kangee, Aerie Keeper birds deck against his Raksha Golden Cub Equipment/Cats Tribal (bet you needed to click those links to see what they did). I got my ass handed to me by a Stonehewer Giant that gained flying from a Kitesail to jump over my Magus of the Moat.

Trade 20:
Mine:
1 Iona, Shield Of Emeria (7.00)

His:
1 Lim Dul's Vault (6.99)
3 Kitchen Finks (2.50 each)

+$7.50
This trade was with Nick, a player I had never seen before in the shop. He was off at a table apart from the EDH players, sorting through several massive boxes of cards. When I got closer, I saw he was sorting a cube drafter's wet dream, filled with Forces, Duals, and Goyfs aplenty. This guy was a serious old-format player, and wanted my Iona for his cube. I pulled out three Lim-Dul's vault and three Kitchen Finks and said that he could make any combination of any number of cards for my Iona. That was the one he chose, and I accepted. I told him that I was gaining a good bit of value and he told me that he knew what the Vault was worth, he just didn't care. Apparently he bought a couple playsets when Lim Dul's Vault was 25 cents a pop. Good for him and good for me.

That concludes today's (and possibly this month's) Packs for Jaces trading. As an extra side note, if you trade a lot, please go read Brian Grewe's article on Channelfireball. It is one of the best-written articles on trading ethics I've read (though to be honest that's a fairly short list). In it he makes a radical proposal: that it is your duty to inform a party in another person's trade if that trade is more that 50% biased in someone's favor (ie: a $10 card for a $20 card). I'm not sure that this is a hard and fast rule, and as someone who trades a lot, I think this would discourage the person who was getting the better end of the deal from trading with me. However, some of the comments in at the bottom are nearly as insightful as the article itself, and I encourage you to read through them.

Until next time,
John

PS: keep spreading the good word about this blog

Trades 9-17

2010-08-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back again and on a trading tear. I hit up the draft tables on Sunday and the Monday night EDH crowd at Adventures in Comics and Games in Carmichael, CA (They also run the online retail site AdventuresOn, which I HIGHLY recommend). Following that, I go back AGAIN to Adventures for their Tuesday night Standard. In this post, I'd like to go a little further into my explanations of how I make the trades and my reasoning/methodology of selecting cards to trade for. Here goes nothing:

Trade 9:
Mine:
1 Foil Juggernaut (.99)

Hers:
1 Wall of Omens (1.99)
1 Zendikar Plains (.29)

1 Zendikar Island (.29)

+$1.6
Athena is mostly an EDH player, and we'd met before (though not frequently) I explained my mission and asked her if there was anything in the binder that she was interested in. She lit onto the foil juggernaut quickly, and was willing to trade Wall of Omens + throw-ins to get it. I probably could have held out for some higher-value throw-ins, but since she was willing to throw a high-value uncommon like Wall my way, I was okay with it.

Trade 10:
Mine:
1 Maritime Guard (null)

His:
1 Khalni Gem (.3)
1 Adventuring Gear (.15)
1 Explorer's Scope (.15)
+worthless commons uncommons

+$0.6

He was packing up his commons and uncommons after a draft and I asked if there were any he didn't want. He pulled out a stack and told me that I could have them. I explained that I had to trade for them, as I wasn't allowed to accept gifts. He begrudgingly took my Maritime Guard, then ripped it up into tiny pieces in front of me. "At least you got the picture with the Maritime Guard whole." For reference, I'm exempting this from the "no free cards" rule because I want to show what an average player can do to enhance their collection. most average players will be able to get free commons and uncommons (or close to free ones) at some point.

Those were my only two trades at the draft, as I was fairly busy drafting (I won the whole thing), and I had to get to a family dinner afterward, so I could trade with the 3-4 players milling around after the conclusion of the draft. However, I was back the next day with a vengeance!

Trade 11:
Mine:1 Doom Blade (foil) 2.49

His:
1 Goblin Guide (5.50)

+$3
Another EDH player was looking to pimp out his EDH decks (the trade from my regular binders that followed this one had 5 textless/foil staples in it). He was happy to get an EDH unplayable off of his hands for a nice shiny doom blade. The key to making trades like this is knowing your audience. I had to choose a card that sees close to zero play in EDH, but is still high-value. I think choosing this goblin guide is going to pay off in the long run (though we'll see).

Trade 12:
Mine:
1 Wall of Omens (1.99)

His:
1 Luminarch Ascension (1.49)
1 Vampire Nighthawk (1.49)

+$1

I had actually attempted to trade with this guy (Neal I think) on the night before, but he was only interested in a set list of cards for his EDH deck. Now it seemed that he was branching out and he was glad to take the Wall of Omens. He knew all of the prices of his own cards, but valued the Wall at $3. I picked up another value uncommon (Nighthawk) and SB rare that I can probably move soon. This may not have been the greatest trade ever, but I think diversifying into two solid cards was the right move.

Trade 13:
Mine:
1 Combust (Foil) (1.99)
1 Zendikar Plains (.29)
1 Black Knight (.49)
1 Basilisk Collar (3.99)

His:
1 Malakir Bloodwitch (3.50)
1 Wall of Omens (1.99)
1 Mana Leak (.75)
1 Forked Bolt (.29)
1 Joraga Treespeaker (.75)
1 Overrun (M10) (.50)
1 Sea Gate Oracle (.10)

+$1.1
So this was a trade with Cody, who is a super-nice guy that was hanging out playing EDH with the previous two players I traded with. He was very interested in helping me out, but unfortunately, most of his cards were in heavily played condition (the Bloodwitch was originally an Isochron Scepter, but I had to replace it because it was too scuffed for me to trade away again). We did, however, come to a fairly satisfactory trade here and while I didn't gain that much value, I was able to get full price for the foil Combust, which was nice. That trade wrapped up my night, as I yet again had a dinner to get to. (It's my last week in Sacramento before the big move to CMU, so I have dinners with friends/family almost every night)

Trade 14:
Mine:1 Unsummon (foil) (.49)
1 Fog (foil) (.49)

His:
1 Kor Firewalker (.75)

-$0.25

I would much rather have a Kor Firewalker (which I can trade at around 1.25) than these two bulkier foils. Neither Unsummon nor Fog are seeing any play in standard, but Firewalker is a high-demand SB card for multiple decks. I was fine losing value, as I'm certain I'll be able to trade the firewalker off again.

Trade 15:
Mine:
1 Mana Leak (.75)

His:
1 Behemoth Sledge (.75)

+$0
This trade is even on the surface, but most people will trade higher (in the 1.25 range) for the swingy effect of a Sledge than the Mana Leak (which at most is 1). He needed just 1 Leak for the Standard event which was about to start, and I was happy to oblige. The "even" swap really represents a gain in tradability, not in value.

Trade 16:
Mine:
1 Behemoth Sledge (.75)
1 Vapor Snare (.29)
1 Jace's Ingenuity (.49)
1 Staggershock (.25)

His:
1 Wall of Omens (1.99)
1 Vampire Hexmage (1.00)
2 Kor Firewalker (.75 each)

+$1.70

The small gain in value here is accompanied by a big boost in tradability (my watchword for the day). Wall of Omens and Firewalkers are both great cards to fill out the binder, and I am glad to have them. Hexmage is a card that a good number of people seem to need these days, even though it isn't seeing any play.

Trade 17:
Mine:
1 Autumn's Veil (.49)
1 Crystal Ball (.99)

His:
1 Wall of Omens (1.99)
1 Zendikar Forest (.29)
2 Zendikar Mountain (.60)

+$1.4

Never be afraid to ask for throw-ins on trades like this. He was fine trading the Wall straight across for the uncommons, but I asked gently if he would pick out some Zendikar land "whichever ones he liked the least" to throw in as well. The three throw-ins represent most of the value here, as I could move those two uncommons close to as easily as a Wall of Omens. Also, this puts me up to three Wall of Omens in my binder, so expect to see those move soon.

Summary:
The binder is looking good (+10.15) during these trades, and my strategy is fleshing itself out nicely. While I am still on the low end of the value range, the utility of my uncommons has only continued to grow. Once I move the Russian Blood Moon (I'm stopping by Thursday night EDH at Great Escape Games tomorrow), I think I can really start swinging around standard rares pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I will be taking a short break from the project, as I am starting college at Carnegie Mellon University on August 15th. I will be continuing the project in Pittsburgh, but it could take a few weeks for me to land on my magic feet again. I'll expand on future plans in my next post, which will be very short (just a brief update from EDH night)

Please share this article with your friends and Magic community using any means you wish: twitter, facebook, word-of-mouth, smoke signals, etc. I only have 21 followers on twitter (PyraustaTyralis) at time of writing and even though one of them is Tomoharu Saito, I still feel a little lonely. Also, if you are a new-gathering site (a la StarkingtonPost or MTGBattlefield) consider yourself permitted to link here. I would LOVE the traffic.

Trades 1-8

2010-07-31T16:22:00.000-07:00

So I embarked on my quest at the FNM over at Great Escape Games in Sacramento, CA. My very first trade was with a casual player named Aaron. He wanted my Rise from the Grave and Glacial Fortress. I took a look through his stack of M11 cards he had pulled from his fat pack and pulled out what I wanted. We shook hands and I was on my way.

Trade 1:
Mine:
1 Rise from the Grave (.49)
1 Glacial Fortress (4.99)

His:
1 Sword of Vengeance (3.99)
1 Cyclops Gladiator (Foil) (2.99)
1 Juggernaut (Foil) (.99)
1 Joraga Treespeaker (.49)
1 Condemn (Dissension) (.99)

+ $4
I will probably regret trading for the foil Cyclops Gladiator, but I needed some extra value and he put it at $1. I moved on to another table and continued trading.

Trade 2:
Mine:
1 Sword of Vengeance (3.99)
1 Joraga Treespeaker (.49)

His:
1 Temple Bell (1.99)
1 Leyline of Punishment (1.99)
1 Oracle of Mul Daya (3.49)
1 Foil Crystal Ball (5.99)

+ $9
He put the sword at $5 and the Treespeaker at .75. I grabbed out the Leyline at $2 and the Oracle and the Temple Bell at $1 each. I said I needed a little more value, and he said "Well I have this foil Crystal Ball". I contained my excitement and made the trade.

Trade 3:
Mine:
1 Temple Bell (1.99)

His:
1 Fog (foil) (.49)
1 Cultivate (.49)
1 Merfolk Sovereign (.99)
1 Flashfreeze (.75)
1 Elixir of Immortality (.49)
1 Jace's Ingenuity (.49)
1 Black Knight (.49)

+$2.25
Diversify, Diversify, Diversify! I can trade all these uncommons highly, and that temple bell isn't doing too much just sitting there.

Trade 4:

Mine:
1 Condemn (M11) (.99)
1 Condemn (Dissension) (.99)

His:
3 Lightning Bolt (.99)
2 Steppe Lynx (.25)
1 Staggershock (.25)
+$1.50

He needed Condemns for the FNM standard, so I took the opportunity to get some M11 bolts, which I know I can trade at $1.

Trade 5:

Mine:
1 Crystal Ball (Foil) (5.99)
His:
2 Lightning Bolt (.99)
1 Combust (foil) (1.99)
1 Burst Lightning (foil) (1.99)
1 Doom Blade (foil) (2.49)
1 Loam Lion (.99)
1 Autumn's Veil (.49)
1 Dreamstone Hedron (.49)
1 Kor Duelist (.25)
1 Elixir of Immortality (.49)
+$5.25
Please note that these are market prices, not necessarily what I think they are worth (for example, I think Kor Duelist is currently more valuable than Loam Lions) I get prices off of starcitygames.com and Blackborder (Though they don't have M11 prices in yet) In this trade, I continue to diversify my binder as I picked up some foiled out removal spells and some uncommons I can get value for.

Trade 6:
Oracle of Mul Daya (3.49)

His:
1 Rootbound Crag (2.99)

-.50
I lost a bit on this trade, but I needed the Rootbound Crag in order to complete trade #7 which was already in the works.

Trade 7:

Mine:
1 Rootbound Crag (2.99)
1 Sword of Vengeance (3.99)
1 Dreamstone Hedron (.49)

His:
1 Blood Moon (9th Edition Russian and Black Bordered) (4.99)
1 Emeria Angel (.99)
1 Kor Firewalker (Foil) (2.99)
1 Basilisk Collar (3.99)

+5.50
This trade was nice, and definitely evened out that fifty cent loss I had to take to get the Rootbound Crag.

Trade 8:
Mine:
1 Diabolic Tutor (.99)
1 Lightning Bolt (.99)
1 Fog (.25)

His:1 Kazandu Blademaster (.49)
1 Kabira Crossroads (.25)
1 Condescend (.25)
1 Vapor Snare (.29)
1 Kor Duelist (.29)

-.65
I felt that I needed to take a loss here as I can trade the uncommons at far higher than listed price. He was also the only person who would trade for a Diabolic Tutor. I was not particularly happy when he pulled out the bolt as well, but it did give me an opportunity to snag another Kor Duelist, which are so good with Scars of Mirrodin coming out

Summary:
All in all, I think I did pretty well for my first Packs for Jaces excursion. I total increased the value of my binder by $26, putting my total value to about $45. I picked up some hot foils and uncommons and a sweet foreign blood moon that EDH players can drool over. I think I am well on my way. You can continue to follow my progress here and on Twitter at PyraustaTyralis or by #packsforjaces.

The Packs

2010-07-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

I went to Great Escape Games in Sacramento, CA to purchase some packs and start my project. After trading some extra bulk rares that I had on me and paying a little bit of cash, I got my four packs, cracked em (no mythics) and recorded the pool:Rares:
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Sword of Vengeance
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Traumatize

Uncommons:
1 Rise from the Grave
1 Condemn
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Black Knight
1 Crystal Ball
1 Gargoyle Sentinel
1 Prized Unicorn
1 Back to Nature
1 Flashfreeze
1 Elite Vanguard
1 Ember Hauler
1 Kraken's Eye

Commons (White)
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Squadron Hawk
1 Silvercoat Lion
1 Palace Guard
1 Excommunicate
1 Safe Passage

Commons (Blue)
1 Unsummon (Foil)
1 Unsummon
1 Merfolk Spy
1 Diminish
1 Maritime Guard
1 Negate
1 Aether Adept
1 Cancel

Commons (Black)
1 Disentomb
1 Unholy Strength
1 Child of Night
1 Mind Rot
1 Quag Sickness
1 Bog Raiders
1 Assassinate
1 Barony Vampire
1 Blood Tithe
1 Grave Digger

Commons (Red)
1 Incite
1 Goblin Piker
1 Manic Vandal
1 Fiery Hellhound
1 Canyon Minotaur
1 Chandra's Outrage

Commons (Green)
1 Giant Growth
1 Primal Cocoon
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Sacred Wolf
1 Brindle Boar
1 Hunters' Feast
1 Spined Wurm
1 Yavimaya Wurm

Lands and Tokens
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Ooze Token (1/1)
1 Zombie Token (2/2)

Total Retail Value: $19.41
(I calculated that using the handy deck search tool on AdventuresOn)

So initial thoughts: Pretty good rares and a few value uncommons + some tradeable commons (though no bolts or mana leaks). I think I am in pretty good shape. I'm going to have to maximize the value of my uncommons and the lesser rares (Traumatize and Haunting Echoes) in order to get started quickly. Next post will have my first trades from FNM.

Packs for Jaces: Introduction and Rules

2010-07-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is John Brieger, and I'm the latest in a long line to try to follow in the footsteps of Jonathan Medina's Pack to Power quest. As a standard only player, I have only really traded in the past as sets were rotating out of standard, trying to trade my older cards for newer ones. However, last weekend at a PTQ in Santa Clara, I did so well at the trading tables, I was able to increase the value of my collection by more than $300, while walking out with $410 in cash from cards I had traded for, then sold to the vendor (who buys things for way less then ebay). That inspired me to start this project.

The Rules (adapted from Jonathan Medina's):