So I just unearthed my Magic the Gathering (MTG) card collection.

I visited the father's house earlier today and I went on the hunt for a box of SNES manuals I thought I had hidden somewhere 15 years ago.
Well, I did not find it. Thinking back on it I have a dark feeling it might not have survived that basement flooding that struck soon after the turn of the millennium.

BUT!!!

Hidden in a drawer I found my old MTG collection. A shoe box full of em, most in very good condition, all in protective plastic sleeves ( The little MaxWar was a careful and protective kid )

It had come to my attention that MTG is a bit like SNES in that the prices got all crazy lately.
It gets better when I found in that box, 4 double lands from the 3rd edition. All worth about 150$ each. So yeah basically holding 600$ in my hand right now.

I think that these are worth more than all the other cards combined. But I have some rare things in there none the less. I have looked a few cards on ebay and found some in the 10-15$ range.

Now I am on the line about selling the rare cards or keeping them longer in a bid that the prices will keep going up.
If I sell, there is the problem that it will be quite a job figuring out the valuable cards out of that box.

Anyone has any tip/idea/anecdote about MTG or selling them?

On a side note, browsing through my old MTG stash brought a nostalgic wave of me almost wanting to find me some pals to play some MTG again.

Discuss MTG.

My friend at home lives and breathes MTG. He tries to push it on me, but I'm just not interested. It bores me and I can't compete with him anyway. He's one of those people who spends god knows how much to build a deck. He gives me his scraps, not that I ask for them. Sometimes he drags me to the shop where they all gather to play it. It's like a nightmare. I don't know what the people who frequent those places find so hard about having good hygiene. My friend is the only clean, groomed, thin person there. I guess it takes time and money away from being king of the neckbeards.

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Originally Posted by zetastrike

My friend at home lives and breathes MTG. He tries to push it on me, but I'm just not interested. It bores me and I can't compete with him anyway. He's one of those people who spends god knows how much to build a deck. He gives me his scraps, not that I ask for them. Sometimes he drags me to the shop where they all gather to play it. It's like a nightmare. I don't know what the people who frequent those places find so hard about having good hygiene. My friend is the only clean, groomed, thin person there. I guess it takes time and money away from being king of the neckbeards.

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ROFL, well, last I played it we were all kids in High school and who cared about neckbeards then? It was all about fun and trades.
The game is actually fun to play. If only a bit time and money heavy to get into....

I actually sucked at this game when I tried to use good cards and thought out decks...
Then one day I made a deck with only lands, curses and direct attack cards like fireballs and lightning bolts and I never won so many games as then.
It was made better by the pissed off reaction I was getting from my opponent getting his ass beaten by such a cheesy build.

How to properly play magic:

1. Play a super burn deck (MaxWars amazing winning strategy)
2. Play a super tempo deck (play one of the few ridiculously cheap but strong creature on the first turn, protect it with counters till the other player is dead)
3. Play a super aggro deck (relentlessly play aggressive, hard to kill creatures till the other player can't endure anymore)
4. Play a 2card combo deck (play the two cards, do a ridiculous effect, win, make sure it can handle the average turn win of the format)
5. Play ridiculously overpowered (and expensive) cards that should never have been printed, and build a deck around them. (decks with bobs and goyfs are a good example)
6. Play a "broken" tribe/synergy (affinity, fairies, old elfs/goblins, infect)
7. Play a control deck (control the game until you get an insurmountable advantage over the other player and slowly beat him to death)

That last one isn't really viable anymore.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

7. Play a control deck (control the game until you get an insurmountable advantage over the other player and slowly beat him to death)

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Never played MtG, but I sure as hell wanted to do the latter to many of the smug twerps who blocked the tables in the local gaming store, hardly ever buying anything but talking about that game for hours.

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Originally Posted by Phantar

Never played MtG, but I sure as hell wanted to do the latter to many of the smug twerps who blocked the tables in the local gaming store, hardly ever buying anything but talking about that game for hours.

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Hahaha, yeah, I've seen that happen.

I don't really play anymore, I started playing exclusively online after awhile, it's a far too expensive hobby. The most fun part for me was the deck creation which meant having a big card pool.

Ha. When I stopped collecting video games two years ago, I immediately found a haven in Magic. I had originally played it as a kid (from '95-'02), but quit when I left to college. Now I'm back in it more than ever, and I spend more money on it than I ever did on video games. At least I play Magic. I go to my local card shop every Friday and play, though standard is crap right now, so I mostly play EDH which makes the store $0. On the other hand, I never could pick up a controller and play video games. Too boring. Hell, these days I even hang out at the MtG Salvation forums more than here and SegaAge combined.

I never played Magic, but I used to play and collect Yugioh pretty competitively about 7-8 years back, and was one of those guys who would sit in the card store all day where Yugioh players would congregate do nothing and buy either packs or nothing at all and waste days and most of my hard earned money then on playing cards. And then we would go to the big tournaments and sneak peeks for the new packs. It was fun as a kid then with no job and nothing better to do, but I went back to the card store a year ago and found that not much had really changed, and that the same people were still there, doing the exact same things with their life. I don't know how people continued to do it into college, it feels like such a waste, sitting there collecting and playing and collecting more and buying and selling day in and day out. zetastrike summed the general populous of these stores pretty well, although where I used to hang out they at least had decent hygiene. TCGs are really just so obscenely expensive in both money and time that I just don't have the interest anymore.

I would like to play some MTG again just for the sake of it but I do not really have the time to invest in it, nor the money that I would rather channel on my VG collecting.
I am not even sure my old cards would work in a modern game. Pretty much all my cards are of the 3rd ( revised ) edition.

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Originally Posted by MaxWar

I am not even sure my old cards would work in a modern game. Pretty much all my cards are of the 3rd ( revised ) edition.

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You can make a toooon of money with those.

I had 3 favorite decks... I still have them.

1. is a token and mana generator. It would just make crap loads of token creatures and then kill them. Need large playing area and jar of coins to play it.
2. was a "deck" deck that was all about drawing cards, recycling cards, stealing and donating cards. For example (I forget some names) I would make the other player remove their discard pile from the game, then donate them Necropotence. >:D
3. My favorite (which rarely lost) was an all white deck that made everything untargettable, all my creatures didn't tap, had first strike an flying, were colorless... and gain bunch of life. Then pop out Serra Avatar and 1 hit kill the opponent.

I lost most of my cards when my basement flooded. Even so, my remaining decks exist but they are damaged even tho they were in the plastic sleeves. They also smell funny. I haven't played in over 10 years, but I got out because it was too expensive. I was in DCI league back then and it certainly was fun. We used to play all the time in college in the cafeteria. Even used the Unglued cards lol.

I really liked the first MTG computer game, but I only played the demo. I tried the demo of the 2013 and 2014 games on Steam but there is too much bling in that game. I would want one just to be simple.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

You can make a toooon of money with those.

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I do have two volcanic islands, one tropical island, one savannah and at least one Demonic tutor. I know these are worth money and I consider listing them on ebay.
Seems all the other cards are worth under 10$. Some of the cards I remember were good ones are worth nothing now, such as royal assassin.

I am still on the line, maybe I should keep my double lands on a bid that the prices will keep going up.

The dual lands are worth holding. They are on the reserved list and thus will never be reprinted. And, as the game continues to increase in popularity (particularly in Asian countries), they will only increase in price. Hell, they doubled in price just six months ago. That was partly due to the fact that a group of guys showed up at a major tournament early this year or late last with all the money in the world and purchased every single dual there (hundreds of them). They bought out every store and even some players then high-tailed it back to China effectively removing them from the market forever.

Bootlegs will soon ensue, or already have.

My buddy helps run a magic store out where I live and I am amazed at how popular the game still is. He complains all the time about people who buy cards from them on ebay though. Despite super detailed pictures and secure packaging he has people complain about like 1/3 of all the purchases. I'm not discounting some issues on his end, but there appears to be a ton of super picky people who will do anything they can to get a discount on a card after they buy it from ebay.