I've found the speculation game to be pretty hard to play. When I was more heavily into PLAYING the game, I was a bit better at it, but even then, it's risky and the payback is pretty small. I still speculation-buy on eBay when a set first comes out, but most of the time that means buying playsets of something for $5.99 plus $2.99 shipping and then being unable to sell it even at $1 per card (shipped). The "wins" keep you going, but if you analyze the numbers carefully you'll probably find you're losing more than winning. Simple fact is, most cards plummet to 25c bin rares, while only 1 or 2 per set go up and become stars. If you ALWAYS pick the winner and NEVER the losers, then congratulations. But I won't believe you unless you can prove it
I feel like the real place to win the speculation game is right before the second/third set in a block comes out.
For example, say they print some awesome Infect dude that costs 3 or something. I'd look for Hand of the Praetors to jump a bit.
Ratchet Bomb would jump if tokens become more viable.
Or in the case of a base set, Sun Titan could jump if there was a good enough target.
I've seen a few members doing this thing called pack to power, which I have never seen before. From what I can tell, you buy a booster and put it up, then something happens, but I'm not sure what. Can someone please explain?
Basically all of the above, but it doesn't really work at all without like a foil Jace
i had a similar experience with selling to them... send them probably $60 worth of cards with delivery confirmation and a few days after confirmation, i tried calling and emailing but got no responses... i ended up Googleing the phone number, getting the store address, somehow finding a personal number for the owner and calling him multiple times.
His super young (had to be less than 2) daughter answered the phone probably accidentally so i called back like 3 straight times and basically *****ed at the guy for quite some time about the lack of responses.
Apparently it takes them "according to their policy", which isnt visible anywhere, up to like 6 weeks to pay you. So basically enough time to take your cards, sell them and see a return before they feel the need to pay you.
so, if Wizards prints a second run and distributors don't sell them right away the cards don't exist?
unless they destroy them, there are more cards out there that will eventually end up somewhere...
and if there isn't demand now, then that shows something about the set... nobody wants it that badly.
The only way that the moment the second printing effects cards' prices actually occurs is if there's basically a selllout of the first print run, which isnt happening.
The act of a second print run isnt going to be a catalyst of price drops. It technically could of happened already seeing as they don't announce that kind of stuff unless there's a shortage. If they printed enough cards for the distributors not to sell out immediately and there has been a constant influx of cards into the market, then there's no obvious point at which prices go down.
Im not saying more cards in the secondary market won't drag prices down, I'm just saying that the moment prices start to come down does NOT coincide with a second print run.
Also the lack of an extra run on worldwake is one thing i believe is keeping our boy jace from dropping
Yes, but the reason there wasnt a second print run of Worldwake is because Rise was a "standalone" set meant to be drafted as Rise/Rise/Rise and Worldwake was the second set of the block.
If Jace had been in Zendikar he would cost less than Worldwake and even more so if he had been in Rise (maybe).
There were a few months of just triple Zen draft and then a few more of Zen/Zen/WWK so we'll say an average of 2.66 Zen packs per person per draft is huge compared to .5 WWK packs, especially when it switched over to triple Rise draft.
I'm assuming he meant the second print run of SoM... increases supply
Well since there's no reported shortage of Scars, a second printing actually won't do anything to the market.
It only increases supply if theres actually a demand for the cards.
Magic cards arent like food with an expiration date when the supply must be sold to avoid spoiling and so the price drops.
The supply for cards isnt the amount that Wizards prints, its the amount stores order from their distributors, and only if they actually need to do so.
TBut i still expect all of the. Prices to take a blow from the ssecondd printimg coming up soon.
not really how that works... especially if they print cards in the second set that make the walkers better. i.e. a solid midrange red dude, a great blink target for Venser, a good token generator for Elspeth etc
I mean, if you're drafting the packs anyway, why do you need to map the box? Not like the cards are going to run away, and it skews drafting if you pull out all the really good mythics or whatever.
Better to practice drafting without the $ Mythics because of the 1/8 packs thing.
If you can make good draft decks without them its pretty obvious you can with them.
I can't believe the Masticore is going that high; IMO it's really not that good. I only want to pull it so I can trade it away for things I really want. Glad to see the Vat going so high though.
This is not a board for your moral rants this thread is for people who know how and want to learn to box map, please take that discussion elsewhere, i would expect a mod to step in sometime before this just becomes another thread for a ridiculous moral debate
Yea... since the Type A+ map's already been figured out (more or less) and attached in this thread, its basically a lockable one. Maybe even Sticky worthy
And even if someone is going to use this map for profit and resell the other boosters, they arent going to listen to anyones rant in here telling them they suck for doing it... they're already aware, and they dont care
Definitely a cool technique, although there's a lot of room for moral debate (I'm assuming the people who do this sell off the 'bad' packs?). Also, I'm kind of wondering how the guy who makes these books avoids legal trouble from WOTC. This does seem like something that would be illegal to profit on. Furthermore, I thought booster boxes were supposed to be completely randomized (according to WOTC)?
The problem with actual randomness is that it can really screw up boxes. You could open a box with duplicate Koths in it, or you could open a box with only 2 mythics and both being Quicksilver Gargantuan.
It also would cost them more $ to make random print run sheets to pack into the boxes. As it stands now, there are 2 tracks that the rares come from and the interval from track A to B is "random", so if you don't have a map for the runs, it basically is random.
And as far as legality goes, technically this is something that anyone could figure out with about 2 cases.
so AGAIN... more of a question this time, are there any upcoming standard events that are decently sized that could give more insight into the format?
I'm not the topic of this thread, which is why I'm purging posts that make me such. Spam Infraction.
I feel like the real place to win the speculation game is right before the second/third set in a block comes out.
For example, say they print some awesome Infect dude that costs 3 or something. I'd look for Hand of the Praetors to jump a bit.
Ratchet Bomb would jump if tokens become more viable.
Or in the case of a base set, Sun Titan could jump if there was a good enough target.
Basically all of the above, but it doesn't really work at all without like a foil Jace
His super young (had to be less than 2) daughter answered the phone probably accidentally so i called back like 3 straight times and basically *****ed at the guy for quite some time about the lack of responses.
Apparently it takes them "according to their policy", which isnt visible anywhere, up to like 6 weeks to pay you. So basically enough time to take your cards, sell them and see a return before they feel the need to pay you.
Good times
The only way that the moment the second printing effects cards' prices actually occurs is if there's basically a selllout of the first print run, which isnt happening.
The act of a second print run isnt going to be a catalyst of price drops. It technically could of happened already seeing as they don't announce that kind of stuff unless there's a shortage. If they printed enough cards for the distributors not to sell out immediately and there has been a constant influx of cards into the market, then there's no obvious point at which prices go down.
Im not saying more cards in the secondary market won't drag prices down, I'm just saying that the moment prices start to come down does NOT coincide with a second print run.
Yes, but the reason there wasnt a second print run of Worldwake is because Rise was a "standalone" set meant to be drafted as Rise/Rise/Rise and Worldwake was the second set of the block.
If Jace had been in Zendikar he would cost less than Worldwake and even more so if he had been in Rise (maybe).
There were a few months of just triple Zen draft and then a few more of Zen/Zen/WWK so we'll say an average of 2.66 Zen packs per person per draft is huge compared to .5 WWK packs, especially when it switched over to triple Rise draft.
not how that works... unless you got a raise at your job to keep up with inflation, which most people don't get
Well since there's no reported shortage of Scars, a second printing actually won't do anything to the market.
It only increases supply if theres actually a demand for the cards.
Magic cards arent like food with an expiration date when the supply must be sold to avoid spoiling and so the price drops.
The supply for cards isnt the amount that Wizards prints, its the amount stores order from their distributors, and only if they actually need to do so.
not really how that works... especially if they print cards in the second set that make the walkers better. i.e. a solid midrange red dude, a great blink target for Venser, a good token generator for Elspeth etc
Better to practice drafting without the $ Mythics because of the 1/8 packs thing.
If you can make good draft decks without them its pretty obvious you can with them.
what about it's really not good?
Yea... since the Type A+ map's already been figured out (more or less) and attached in this thread, its basically a lockable one. Maybe even Sticky worthy
And even if someone is going to use this map for profit and resell the other boosters, they arent going to listen to anyones rant in here telling them they suck for doing it... they're already aware, and they dont care
The problem with actual randomness is that it can really screw up boxes. You could open a box with duplicate Koths in it, or you could open a box with only 2 mythics and both being Quicksilver Gargantuan.
It also would cost them more $ to make random print run sheets to pack into the boxes. As it stands now, there are 2 tracks that the rares come from and the interval from track A to B is "random", so if you don't have a map for the runs, it basically is random.
And as far as legality goes, technically this is something that anyone could figure out with about 2 cases.