People have asked me how you can possibly go infinite on MTGO only playing limited. I’ve talked about it in the limited and scheduled rooms online before and discussed it with a few people, but since I’ve been asked so many times I figured I should finally just write up something that I (and others) can point to whenever the question comes up.

The title of this article may be a little confusing. Would a casual player care or be capable of going infinite? Well of course they’d care because it means they don’t have to pay any more money; that’s always appealing. As for being capable? Depends on the player. You see, in this context casual is referring to a mindset, not a skill level. I play a lot of Magic Online for sure, but I am never grinding qualifier points. If your goal is to triple or quadruple queue to grind out QPs as fast as you possibly can, or to only play against the best of the best because anything else is meaningless, than this is probably not the article for you. Oh sure, it’ll all still work, you just won’t be happy because you aren’t getting what you want out of the game.

Am I Capable of Going Infinite?

I have no idea. I can tell you how, but I can’t play your games for you. Qualifier points are the easiest way I have of measuring your skill, however. Since I have gone infinite, I will use myself as a baseline here. I play one or two events most nights. Sometimes none, sometimes more, but 1-2 a night is pretty standard. If you play that many events, you should have earned enough or just shy of enough to qualify for every MOCS season championship with two byes, which is 35 QPs. Figure out how much you play relative to how much I do, then just multiply that percentage times 35 QPs. If that number is close to or less than the QPs you earned in a season, then you should be fine. If that number is higher than you earned, particularly if it’s like double or something, then you’re probably not there yet.

If your numbers are way off, that does NOT mean you should stop reading. Maybe you could be there but are playing the wrong events. Otherwise, this will help you at least minimize your losses until your game improves to the point where you can go infinite. Just want to make sure your expectations of whether or not this is likely to work right away.

The Key to Drafting – I Don’t Care What You Win

There are three different types of draft: Swiss, 4-3-2-2, and 8-4. I’ll assume you understand the prize payout for each of these. Magic players love talking about EV, or expected value. This is why most players don’t play in the correct event. In Swiss, there is a total of 12 prize packs. In 4-3-2-2, there is a total of 11 prize packs. In 8-4, there is a total of 12 prize packs. In terms of strict math, the EV of Swiss and 8-4 is 1.5 packs while the EV of 4-3-2-2 is slightly less. In terms of the real world, this is total bullshit and not even a correct application of EV.

The EV of a booster pack is the average value a booster pack will contain. Sometimes you will open a bulk rare, and sometimes you will open a $50 mythic. However, draft queues don’t work that way. Yeah, sometimes you will win 0 packs, but you will never win all 12 packs. Also, something like a booster pack is “completely random” over a large sample size. Drafting, however, is not because there is a skill factor involved as well. Yes, the average player in Swiss events will likely average 1.5 packs over a significant sample size. In an 8-4 queue, however? Not a chance. The average player in a single 8-4 queue can expect 0 packs. Extend that to a significant sample size and add variance (You’re going to get lucky eventually), and for an average player the number will be higher than 0, but not sure it will be higher than 1. Granted you should be an above average player if you’re interested in this, but that’s still a pretty big gamble.

Now let’s look at 4-3-2-2. These are the drafts that I play. There’s 1 less prize pack, but who cares? I can’t win all 11 or 12 packs, so all I care about is what I win, not what anyone else gets. An average player should expect roughly 2 packs per event over a significant sample size and with variance included. That is to say, given an infinite number of drafts it’s reasonable that an average player will average a 1-1 record. Sometime’s they’ll lose round 1, sometimes they’ll win. Two packs isn’t enough to break even unless you open money, however we should all be above average players attempting to do this so hopefully that number will be a little higher.

Since I mentioned opening money cards, this is another reason you draft 4-3-2-2. These events are only slightly more difficulty than Swiss, but they’re much softer than 8-4 events (At least in theory. I’ve been in some 8-4’s that were so soft I had to ask my opponent if I had signed up for Swiss by accident). However, in Swiss you will never be passed a card worth anything because everyone rare drafts, and you can also get screwed by inexperienced players who don’t know how to signal properly. In an 8-4 you can get passed a couple 2-3 dollar cards, but even if you take 2 or 3 of those you will lose money when you win 0 packs. The 4-3-2-2 queues are the best of both worlds. You can get passed some mid value cards, but you can also afford to throw away a pick taking one of these. When Avacyn Restored was relatively new, I entered a 4-3-2-2 draft. I opened a Sigarda, Host of Herons pack 2, and after quickly checking the price on MTGO Traders decided to take it even though I would not be running it. yes, I threw away my first pick for a card I’d be able to sell for 4.5 tix. However, when you consider that you can expect to win 2 packs in these events and that a pack sells for about 3.5 tix, now all of the sudden we’re only 1 dollar away from breaking even. if you can sell the rest of your draft pool for a dollar or if you go better than 1-1 then you’re already even or better. And if you’re lucky enough to open an actual money rare you can sell for 20 tix, now you’re even on your next five consecutive 1-1 records, so anything you open or any record better than 1-1 is pure profit to negate those awful 0-1 events you have.

Sometimes Round 1 Gets the Best of You

Have you ever been drafting a really strong deck but knew that the guy who was alone in black at the table was going to crush your face in? Sometimes you make it to the finals, but sometimes you see that person round 1. That’s the worst, isn’t it? Or maybe you get paired against the jankiest pile of garbage you’ve ever seen, keep very strong hands, and then draw either all land or no land. This is why I actually do a relatively minimal amount of drafting compared to what I used to. The safest and, in my mind, most fun way to go infinite in sealed daily events.

The beauty of sealed events is that they are always four rounds of swiss no matter how big they are, and the payout is really good. You can get mana screwed or paired against the God pool round one, but if you win your other three rounds to end at 3-1 you still get 6 packs and a QP. Since you also have the contents of six booster packs, it is very unlikely (though possible) that you will not make up the 2 ticket entrance fee once you sell all the cards you opened. Even if you only go 2-2, which hopefully won’t happen to often, you still win 3 booster packs and have six packs worth of cards to sell to hopefully make up the other ~14 dollars. If you’re a good player, going 3-1 or better in sealed consistently should not be difficult. Sometimes the events are soft and sometimes they aren’t, it all depends who you get paired against really, but if you keep your play tight you should be able to win matches against better decks than yours. Also, because it’s always only four rounds, someone else can have a completely unbeatable sealed pool and you can still go 4-0 and win those 11 packs without even having to face that player and taking an auto-loss.

Quit Being So Proud

At this point I should interject that you may be thinking I’m informing you that the key to going infinite is to play against lesser opponents. This is not the case. These are the events with the payouts that will allow you to most consistently break even. The fact that they don’t always attract the highest level of player is merely coincidental. Also, if this is a concern of yours then I’ll emphasize that I mentioned this is for those with at least a somewhat casual mentality. I don’t play these events because I want to beat up little kids. I play these events because I love playing Magic. I want to play Magic often, but my bank account is finite so I need to maximize the funds that I have. My goal is not to prove that I am the best in the world. I mean yeah, I do honestly believe that I can play at the top levels successfully, but I also don’t care if you think so. My goal is simply to be able to play anytime I want without going broke. It’s just a game. The fun comes from playing. The fun does not come from winning at all costs, beating up little kids, or spending unnecessary amounts of money to try to prove to the world what I already know anyway. If that doesn’t resonate with you and you can’t get past the fact that I described these events as being softer than other another available option (It’s not like it’s dramatically so, either) then you should stop reading now and go polish your trophy collection ranging back to kindergarten.

Bots Are Your Friends

If your goal is to be infinite only playing limited, a big part of that is selling everything you open. You probably already know this, but don’t bother with the classified ads. Just find bots that you like and sell everything to them. It’s faster, you’ll get the same if not better prices (A human will only pay in round numbers, so you don’t get to carry your credit on a 9.3 ticket card over), and they’ll sometimes just grab 200 commons from you. I personally use the MTGOtradersbuybot. Unlike greedier bots, MTGO Traders pays at least a penny for every card. This may seem like a small thing, but when a bot wants a couple hundred bulk commons/uncommons from you, suddenly you have your two ticket entrance fee to go with the packs you were holding. Other bots will often offer you 4/10’s of a penny or less for commons; it adds up really fast.

The one caveat to this is foil mythics. Foil mythics are expensive, and bots underpay for them. Always check the classified ads for humans buying them, and if you see none post an ad. People like me need these stupid cards to finish our foil sets for redemption, so we’ll pay you 9 bucks for a foil Malignus even though it’s worth nothing on paper because all the other foil prices online are so much cheaper than on paper.

Utilize All Your Win Conditions

I wouldn’t be Dr. Jeebus if I didn’t say at least one thing in this article to make myself sound like a total dick, so here it is: utilize all your win conditions. MTGo has an extra win condition that paper Magic does not, and taking advantage of it can be hugely beneficial to winning matches that you otherwise couldn’t. That win condition is your opponent’s round clock. I’m not saying you should do scumbag things like pass priority and then try to open trade with your opponent, but the clock is a resource.

Many players will double or triple queue. Many of these players aren’t capable of doing so properly and run their clocks down way too far. Some people also play slowly in general. If you lose game 1 of your match but you have 20 minutes left on your clock and your opponent only has 9 minutes left, there’s nothing wrong with trying to win because of it. Playing to stall the board until they lose, while kind of a dick move, is a legitimate strategy online. Beware, however! If your opponent makes all of his moves slowly, this has a high probability of working. If your opponent will go long periods of time doing nothing and then take a turn or two very quickly, they are double queued and you are unlikely to win in this fashion. If you see that behaviour from your opponent, you can rest assured that as soon as their clock hits 3 minutes you will have their full attention, and win or lose, 3 minutes is more than enough time for them to complete the game.

Play What You Love

There is always a variety of formats available to you. Don’t worry about which booster packs have the highest EV, just play what you love. Our main goal here is to have fun; being infinite just enables you to have more fun without worrying about money. Not only will you have more fun playing formats that you love, but chances are if you love a format that much you’re probably good at it.

During the winter celebration last year, there was a week of Tempest 8 man sealed events and a week of Urza’s 8 man sealed events. Those are the only events I played for those two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, I was up $250 from where I had started which is when I bought and redeemed my first foil set online. I love all the pre-2000 sets and I will play them all the time. They are what I grew up with, and that gives me a lot more experience than most players on MTGO have with them which is a huge boon. If you hate Avacyn and M13 but loved Innistrad, keep playing Innistrad. Events still fire, and you’ll be happier than playing a format you hate just to play something.

Prerelease Bad, Release Good

This should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. Don’t play prereleases. Yes, I am currently ignoring this advice because I’m arrogant. However, prereleases cost more than a normal sealed event and the prizes are much smaller. The only saving grace is that single prices are much higher during this window than they will be when the release hits. Also, do play release events. These cost less than a normal sealed and have a higher payout. Again, should be a no brainer if you wanted to player the format.

Full Disclosure

I buy ticket sometimes. I know, I just spent this whole article claiming I don’t have to and trying to teach you my methods, but sometimes I do it. However, I don’t HAVE to buy tickets. I do it because I am impatient. I had enough inventory built up to sell all my AVR packs as soon as M13 release events started and buy the last four foils I needed to complete the set for redemption. Then I lost some money in M13 prerelease events. Then I made some money in M13 prerelease events and decided to buy 3 of the 4 I needed. I still had enough inventory for a few sealed events (Which is enough to go ad infinitum), but I saw a foil Bonfire of the Damned, the last card I needed, in the classifieds for a good price. Because I’m impatient and didn’t know if it would be there, I bought some tickets to buy that card. Occasionally I will do something like this, so in the interest of full disclosure if I ever mention spending money on MTGO I want people to understand that is solely a matter of my impatience in finishing foil sets, and not something that I need to do to keep playing. I may be profiting continuously over time, but I guess it’s just not as fast as I’d like.

Questions, Concerns, Fears, Uncertainties, Doubts?

At the time of writing this, my mind is kind of all over the place so I probably forgot something as I always do. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section or hit me up on Twitter (@Dr_Jeebus). Also, if you start trying this out and find that it works for you either in eliminating all cost of MTGO or in greatly reducing your losses, you can thank me by nominating me for the Community Cup. Yes, the timing of the article is not a coincidence, but this is a topic I’ve discussed with people at great lengths before so it’s not like I’m just making stuff up.

Finally, if this works and you are able to go infinite playing only limited whereas you were not able to before, please let me know. I’d just like to know exactly how many people I’m able to help with this.

That’s right, I channeled old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons while naming this article. Deal with it. I’ve also managed to go off on a tangent before even starting the article. This may be a first even for me.

Back on topic: There is an ever increasing emphasis on finance in Magic. It is no secret that I consider this to be the worst thing to happen since The Dojo published their first Sligh decklist. I can and have explained at great length why this is such a bad thing, but if you want to know more research what happened with comics and baseball cards in the ’80s and ’90s, because it’s pretty much the same thing. I somehow got dragged into a ridiculous Twitter fight (Editor’s note: Redundant?) earlier this evening. The fight entailed one financial writer calling out an entire financial website on…I have no idea why, actually. No one gave me a straight answer, but I don’t actually care. These people are poisonous and they have a dangerous effect on the game. Of course, the people interested in the teachings of these so called “financial gurus” don’t care what I have to say. I should have known better than to try to reach those people, so instead I’m going to try the other angle.

Instead of reading their advice on how to rip people off blatantly or to at least nickle and dime them to death, you should know how to defend yourself against these people. If there’s no food for these sharks, no binders left for them to Prey Upon, then maybe they’ll finally stop. This article is for the people who never cared about reading about MTG finance before, but frequently wonder where cards in their binder went or why they always feel like they got a bad deal.

As a side note, there’s little to learn from these people anyway. If you would even consider robbing some little kid who was handed a nice collection, you should be more concerned with what a terrible human being you are and less considered with whether you’re making a 5048% or a 5049% return. That type of behaviour is really the only thing being taught. Afterall, you can’t teach speculation. You can try, but it’s not like most people are any good. Even Medina can speculate better than a six-sided die. Besides, by the time someone who speculates well tells you what to buy, because no one in this community can think for themselves it seems (Go go gadget netdeck!), it’s already too late. So yeah, reading these financial articles is a waste of time because they’re just teaching you to be an asshole. And know what? I can teach you to be an asshole much more effectively than they can, and at least I have the decency to be honest about it.

My final point before I begin: a lot of the things I will discuss in this article are the same things that appear in the articles I am vilifying. Yes, I’m aware of the irony, so don’t bother pointing it out. Again, though, the people I’m trying to reach would not have read those articles, and people respond very differently to the same points depending on context and what not (See also: propaganda). So now, 500 words, later, let’s get on to the actual things the novice trader needs to remember.

What makes you the expert, Jeebus?

When I was 13 or 14, about a year after I had been playing, a friend of mine ripped me off pretty hard. He immediately told me, smiling triumphantly, and I was PISSED. He then showed me a book he had read on trading which very wholeheartedly and honestly endorsed being a trade shark. I was furious about being taken advantage of, so I quickly committed the book to memory to claim vengeance on the world for having wronged me. Now that I’m 29 I’m in no way proud of the things I did. Some of them were beyond scummy (My Relentless Assault, his Beta Mox Sapphire. Granted the Assault was $20 at the time and the Sapphire was only about $90, but still). While I may not be happy about how I acted as a stupid teenager and no longer take part in such antics, I still remember how to do all of it.

You never NEED a card

Maybe you’re just overly excited about finding a card you’ve been looking for for weeks, but when you say the words “I need this card!” to a trader, all they hear is “MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS!” You never, ever, EVER say you need a card. Other financial writers have talked about the “need tax,” and it’s a very real thing. In fact, you don’t even want cards. On the inside you may be doing cartwheels at finally finding someone who has the last card for your foil Urza’s Legacy set or your deck for the standard PTQ tomorrow, but on the outside you remain calm and say “I’m interested in this.” I cannot ever stress this enough. You do not need cards, you do not want cards, but cards interest you. When it comes time to work out a deal, you may differentiate cards by saying “I’m more interested in this/these,” or, if there’s a card that’s a total deal breaker for you, “this is the main thing I’m interested in.” This terminology will help guide the trade so you can get the cards you actually do need instead of trading away all your hot cards for a bunch of cards you pulled out thinking “Hmm..I MIGHT use this in EDH.”

Also, never give unnecessary information about the availability of a card. At states a few years ago my friends and I sat down to fill out our deck registration sheets. One of my friends asked if I still had my Kargan Dragonlords, because someone had asked him about him when he walked in the door and he mentioned to the guy I might have some. Oh yeah, don’t camp by the door asking everyone who walks in if they have something; no need to chum the waters for the sharks. Anyway, a few seconds later the guy spotted my friend and frantically ran over to our table. This is the exact conversation that took place:
“Hey,” panting from running over and looking panicked, “do you have any Kargan Dragonlords?”
“Yeah, I have three of them.”
“Oh my God, I need exactly three for my deck today. You’re the only person in the room that has any. Not even the dealers have them.”
“Sure, I can trade them,” smiling like a douchebag. “They’re $30.”
“Total, right?”
“EACH.”
“Very funny,” laughing and handing me his binder.
Deadpan serious, “I wasn’t joking.”
I mean, what can he do here? I know he needs these cards for the tournament starting in 20 minutes, I know he has absolutely zero other options to acquire them, and I’m holding his binder. I didn’t actually trade them at $30, but I could have and I wanted to make sure he knew I could. In a perfect world, he would have learned a valuable lesson that day.

Know what your cards are worth

See, you would probably think this would be listed first, because you probably think it’s the most important thing. However, if you’re running around telling people how much you need cards then it won’t matter what your cards were worth; they’re all gone now. Assuming you can keep from spazzing out long enough to complete a trade, you’ll need to know what the cards in your binder are worth. Equally important is to know what the cards you want are worth, but including that would’ve made the header too long. There’s no need to go into any great detail here. If you don’t know what cards are worth, you have no way of knowing whether of not you’re getting screwed.

Everything in your binder is for trade

I wrote an article about this before on Quiet Speculation. The short version? No one cares how awesome your collection is. If it’s in your trade binder, it should be for trade. The only exception to this rule is cards that you just acquired that day and have nowhere else to put. Keep a blank page in the back of your binder for those cards so that, if this happens, you can tell people everything is for trade except the last page. Filling your binder with cards you just want to show off not only slows things down and will make the next topic nearly impossible. Now this being said, you don’t have to be willing to trade your cards for anything. My trade binder has three Temporal Mastery in it, however two of them are there to trade for a foil Temporal Mastery (Unless someone makes a ridiculous offer that I can’t refuse). Even though I’m looking for something specific for them, they are still for trade so they go in the trade binder. Limit how many cards are qualified in such a way though. You want to give as few restrictions to your binder as possible so that you can hand it to your trade partner and they can just go. This brings us to my next point…

Make them pull cards out

Ask your trade partner if it’s okay to pull cards out of their binder (They’ll almost always say yes, but it’s polite to ask instead of assume), and then inform them that everything in your binder is for trade so to just pull out whatever the want. A trick that people will use is to have you pull cards out while flipping through your binder. Once you pull cards out, they’ll go over prices (disingenuously, of course), and then use that total to go shopping through your binder, asking you the value of every card and waiting for you to slip up and say the wrong number. Their tricks related to this can be much more complex, but that’s not important. Tell them to pull out whatever they want, and start doing the same.

Now there’s a few things that can happen here: they might start pulling cards. This is ideal. They might start asking you prices. This is not. If this happens, just say something like “Just pull out whatever you want and we’ll figure that out after.” If they protest this, end the trade. No, serious. Just hand them back their binder and any cards you pulled out and tell them you’re all set. This may seem rude, but who cares? They were trying to fuck you anyway, so whatever. The other option here is you start pulling stuff and they flip through your binder not pulling anything or asking prices. Maybe they’re chatting you up, trying to glean information from you or put you at ease for the rectal probing about to take place, but they aren’t showing any real interest in your binder. Let it go on for a little bit, but once they get through a bit of it, ask if they haven’t seen anything they wanted. It’s possible they haven’t, so no need to be suspicious yet. If they say they have not, that’s fine, though probably disappointing. If they say they saw a couple things but wanted to wait, remind them to just pull them out. If they refuse to until you’re done, end the trade.

Don’t talk about card prices

You know what your cards are worth, right? Good, because you’ll need it here. You’ve now each pulled out the cards you want. Now is when you simply tell them “Make me an offer.” If push comes to shove you can make an offer first, but you really want to force them to make the first move. The reason you don’t want to talk about card prices is because this is how value trades screw you. If you know my card and your card are both worth $3-4, you’re comfortable trading them. However, if you say “$3-4” on each of them, suddenly yours is worth $3 and mine is worth $4. If it’s a decent size trade, suddenly that can be an extra $5 they say you owe them on a trade you genuinely considered to be fair.

If they’re reasonable, they’ll offer you a fair trade. You may want another card more or not be thrilled about parting with a specific card, so you may offer substitutions. This is best case scenario, and these are people you want to trade with. This process in which card values were never mentioned once is how everyone used to trade in the before time, in the long, long ago. How i miss those days.

Worst case scenario is they offer you an extremely lopsided trade. If this happens, end the trade immediately. Offer no explanation, because they know why. Only an amateur shark will just throw a lopsided trade on the table. The more skilled sharks will feed you a continuously line of bullshit while lining up the trade, explaining how their cards are all gold and yours are shit. If someone is verbalizing their every alleged thought while lining up a trade, pay close attention. Don’t listen to what they’re saying, because that doesn’t matter; you know what the cards are worth and they can’t change that. Listen to how they speak and watch their body language. There’s a clear difference between someone who is trying to persuade you and someone who is genuinely doing math or thinking aloud, and you should be able to identify this. Ideally, you’ll be able to identify this long before they get to this point.

Average case scenario is that you’ll be dealing with a value trader, not a shark. This is a pain in the ass to deal with. In reality, value traders are more sophisticated versions of sharks in that they employ the same tactics, just on a smaller scale. Getting someone to give up a dollar or two at a time over and over again is a lot easier than getting someone to give up $15-20 when you’re each trading a single card. It’s also a lot harder to spot as their trades are normally much larger so a passerby can’t just quickly do all the math in their head. Once again, what they’re saying isn’t really important. Let them work out a trade on the table, and do your best to do it without discussing prices. If the trade doesn’t seem to add up to you, offer substitutions on either or both sides. If they counter, continue to counteroffer with trades that are fair until they finally accept one or you get sick of it and cancel the trade. If you’re trading for something you genuinely need, it’s obviously okay to give up a dollar or two for your own convenience, but don’t let them get your whole binder at 50% off. Oh yeah, and no thrown ins. EVER. I mean, if it’s literally an unplayable garbage common that they happen to collect like Dementia Bats or something then okay, they can have it. But if they tell you some story about how their brother wanted them to pick up a specific card for them and can they throw in this random $1-2 card then not a fucking chance. If everyone does that, this guy’s brother, who doesn’t even exist, by the way, is going to be up $200 by the end of the night.

Most importantly, do not accept ANY trade unless you are happy with it. Genuinely happy, not “some scumbag convinced me to be happy.” Value traders will frequently try to reach your breaking point, the point at which you are giving up the absolute most value and are unhappy but will still do the deal. You know when you’re there. You know when you’re well before that point. If there is any doubt in your mind about the deal, any uneasiness, or if your reaction to the trade is “yeah, I guess I can do that” then you shouldn’t be doing it. I’m not saying you should be busting out into song and waving middle fingers at your trade partner at the end of every deal, but there should be absolutely no hesitation. You should be trading cards that you don’t mind parting with for an equal value of cards that you want. The other person will be doing the same, and you’ll both be happy. Drinks all around!

If you have to talk about card prices…

Ugh, did we really get to this point? I suppose it’s hard to avoid in this day and age. Alright, well you know your prices, right? You better. Seriously, if you don’t know what your cards (and the ones you want) are worth, you’re going to get fucked. Even if you just pick a website to use for pricing and get all the prices from there, you can very easily game the system because of wacky things that websites do with their prices. So remember: you know what the cards are worth. Don’t let him tell you otherwise. People have a lot of ridiculous excuses they will use to make you price their cards higher. Here are a few of them:

• “This was worth $X when I got it, so I can’t let it go at $Y.” In this scenario, Y is the current price of the card and X is the price at its peak in standard. Guess what, buddy? I don’t care what you paid for the card. Sorry if you overpaid or if you think card prices should never go down when they leave standard, but I’m not going to overvalue your cards for you.
• “I know this is only gong for $X right now, but I think it’s going to go up so I need to get $Y for it.” What on Earth gives you the right to decide a card is worth more than it is? Do you have an honest to God crystal fucking ball? Are you famous for routinely breaking formats and this is the card you’ve been brewing with? No? Okay, then your opinion doesn’t matter to me. If you’re so sure this card your speculating on is going to go up in price, then take it out of your binder until it does. Otherwise, you’re going to have to value this card at the same price as everyone else, future man.
• “The box of [set name] I got was really bad, so I have to ask more for this to make my money back.” Someone really said this to me. I want a foil bulk rare from Planar Chaos to finish my foil set, and he wanted about $8 for it, which was at least eight times what the card was worth. You are not entitled to make money on a box you open. I don’t know what the fuck would ever give you that idea or what makes you think I’m the one that has to pay the cost for your bad luck, but find some other idiot to swindle.

Remember: you know what the cards are worth. Seriously, you did your research. You’ve got this. Don’t let your trade partner try to wiggle his prices up and take some of yours down while begrudgingly accept others. If anyone ever tries to make you feel like they’re doing you a favour for accepting the price you say on a card, they are trying to screw you. If you don’t know what I mean by them making you feel that way, you will when it happens. And when it happens, you had better walk away immediately. But pick your cards up.

You don’t have to trade with anyone

I may be forgetting something, and if that’s the case I will edit this later to include it. Hopefully this has been helpful for all of you, and you will be better equipped to trade with people without giving cards away for free. Just remember that you can always walk away. I gave many examples of reasons to walk away, but there are plenty more. You don’t even have to attempt to trade with someone. If you don’t like someone’s reputation, their attitude, something you saw them do once that was probably totally out of character, or any other reason, logical or otherwise, then don’t trade with them. No one is entitled to trade with you, and you are not obligated to trade with anyone. Magic is a hobby. For the vast majority of you, buying and selling cards is not how you pay your rent. Quit trying to screw each other over, quit letting yourself get screwed over, and go have some fun already!

Oh yeah, and stop netdecking. But that’s a discussion for another day.

As I assume you all know, every year Wizards of the Coast puts out a From the Vault product. It contains 15 foil cards and is extremely limited. It has been known for some time that this year’s FTV release is From the Vault: Lands, but little about the contents of the magical boxes is known. All that is about to change, however! Well, alright, it’s not going to change until GenCon. Sorry. But what about next year’s From the Vault release? Or the year after? Or the year after? These products normally aren’t designed years in advance like a normal set would be, however the next three From the Vault products were designed as a cycle so my super secret and absolutely not imaginary contact on the inside was able to hook me up with the “deets,” as you crazy kids say.

So how exactly does a cycle of products like this work? It can’t be a colour cycle if there’s only three, and with mythic rares now existing it can’t be a vertical cycle either. A vertical cycle would also be fairly terrible because, aside from Maze of Ith, there aren’t a ton of commons anyone would be to happy about seeing in a From the Vault. Although it’d at least keep people from bitching about how expensive they are for a year, which would be something. Back on point: the next three From the Vaults (Released 2013-2015) were designed as a cycle based on their target audience: the three main player psychographical profiles. I know, it’s a pretty bitchin’ idea. So cool, in fact, that I wish I had completely fabricated it for entertainment purposes only.

Now bear in mind that the card images that follow were created for internal use within Wizards of the Coast R&D and are not 100% complete. Most noticeably, while there will be cards with new artwork, most of the art has yet to be commissioned and none of it is completed yet. You should all thank your lucky stars that I never had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, because I now present to you the complete contents of the next three From the Vaults!

From the Vault: Timmy (2013)

From the Vault – Timmy will feature 15 creature cards from Magic’s history with power, 8 or greater. But none of the “good” ones. If you’re looking for Blightsteels, then you’re just not Timmy enough to handle these monstrous beasts (Note: FTV – Timmy only contains two Beast creature cards). These are the type of giant, drawback riddled creatures that both strike fear into your opponent and make you feel like a bad ass for actually killing someone with them. I hope you’ve been ramping your mana, because here come the hordes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, you know you want these, Timmy. Look how fucking big they are!

From the Vault: Johnny (2014)

Do you theoretically know how to kill a man five times before he hits the ground but find that in reality it works less than 5% of the time? Then this is the product for you! Others may have to read most of these cards because they can’t remember what they do, but Johnny recites their Oracle text in his sleep while dreaming up new “degenerate” seven card combos. This From the Vault product is dedicated to some of Johnny’s favourite cards that, while some may have come close, never really made the big time. And while Johnny’s decks may not win major tournaments, with Wizards’ special FTV foiling process you can be sure he’ll look damn good losing. Now start brewing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With combos so convoluted even most judges don’t know what you’re trying to do, you can rest assured your opponent hasn’t tested a single game against your deck. Now ride that confusion to glorious victory!

From the Vault: Fuck You (2015, Tentative name)

While the logical name for this product would be From the Vault: Spike, it just didn’t feel natural. The final installation of this From the Vault cycle is designed to make the most powerful and expensive competitive cards that aren’t on the reserved list more readily available for all those people to whom winning is the only thing. So why the name? Well did you hope to make it through your next local event without running into the top deck in the format? Fuck you. Have you been hoarding Vintage and Legacy cards because nothing will ever hurt their value? Fuck you. Do you feel Wizards of the Coast should never reprint cards that they openly admit were a mistake to print the first time? Fuck you. MSRP: $35. Actual retail value: Your first born child. Because fuck you. Are you unable to find someone willing to breed with you? Fuck you, you can’t have one. Spike is the player who will do ANYTHING to win. If that means poking a hole in the condom before calling up an “escort” for the evening, who are we to judge? It’ll all be worth it when you walk out of that Grand Prix $2000 richer. You’ll also notice that everyone’s favourite splashable creature appears in the frame in which it was originally printed. We know you’ve all been hoping for a reprint in the modern card frame. Wizards thought long and hard about this decision, they really did. But after much debate, it was decided that fuck you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now that you’ve seen the list, care to reconsider about that firstborn child? You can always make another one, and Gleemax gets very cranky when we don’t give him breakfast. Oh, did we not mention Gleemax eats babies?

There you have it: three equally exciting products to look forward to in the coming years. Be sure to share your excitement!