Octopus Overlords

So after dropping my collection off last week to be evaluated, I left with a pretty good vibe. As mentioned the young man I spoke with told me they used StarCity Games website for all of their pricing and when I checked the site it looked as if their offerings were very fair.
Using the website I spent some time pricing out the bulk of my collection and came up with a final value and after some thought decided on a number (below that value) I thought would be an acceptable trade off for the convenience of selling everything at once and locally.
The local shop called me on Tuesday and asked If I could come in that evening to discuss an offer, which I did. Turns out, even after having commented on the quality and state of the cards in my collection when I dropped them off, they decide to assign every card a grade of "played" which immediately reduced the price of every card by 25% across the board. The high value cards I brought them were kept in sleeved card sheets for collectibles and went from booster pack to binder. So while there were definitely cards I had played the sets and high value stuff is all near mint. So anyway the kid at the store shows me a pricing sheet with the 25% reduction and a final tally he says the collection is worth,about a grand below the number in my head, but I am giving it consideration. Then he tells me since they will have to have a lot of the cards professionally graded at $50 per card (this is also wrong information) they need to knock another $600 dollars off the already low ball offer. I thanked him for his time and took my cards back. I may still try and sell some of them online but will see.

I'm a little surprised you didn't try to just give them your assessed value at that point as a take it or leave it.

While I am not dead set against it I typically do not haggle. If there is something I want to purchase or sell there is a fair price I am willing to accept, if the other party isn't I will typically just move on. I did consider negotiating a bit as I was driving there that evening but the kid I was dealing with sort of annoyed me when he 1) reduced every card by 25% across the board when it was very obvious 99% of the collection was near mint 2)showed me the price from the website he represented and then decided to drop another $600 just because and then try and BS me about the cost for professional grading as the cherry on top.

My two bits on M:TG.

I played back in 1994/95 and built up a collection of Green that was almost complete. I was missing 12 extremely hard to find cards. Then Wizards of the Coast started hammering expansions and I saw ahead to an endless cash sink where I'd have to pour money down a drain if I wanted to "stay competitive" - and with fewer friends after graduation, there was little need. I sold my collection to an eager buyer for $200, or roughly what I had invested in the game.

Fast forward to a couple years ago and now I've got kids. I've got an itch to play, so I pick up a pile of cards and decks from a few current expansions. It's awesome again, and now I'm feeling quite okay with lagging behind the curve. I kept the sealed decks in their original configurations and built a couple of decks out of everything else. Now I've got a box of decks and a few binders filled with cards - and when the kids want to play, I pull out the box of decks and let them pick one to play with. It makes the game much more fun when you're not chasing collectables or a power curve and are just playing.

That's the only way I'll play it now.

I bought in early. I was in Union Station in Indy in... 1994? There was a guy with a folding table set up selling this new game I'd never heard of. I picked up a single deck, but I knew absolutely nobody who played, and there was nowhere in Terre Haute (where I lived at the time) that dealt with tabletop games, so I was never once able to play. I kept that deck for 25 years and finally gave it to a friend who plays last year. I've still never gotten to play, and these days I'm not really interested in a game that requires constant investment.

But, hey, this game saved Dungeons and Dragons, so no complaints.

I'm holding on to my Revised through Mirage cards in the hopes that someday I'll find someone to play the game with using the rules I know (Revised through the Ice Age/Homelands/Alliances sets). Once Mirage started introducing sideboards I pretty much stopped playing.

It’s not hard to get back into the game, especially if you use Magic Arena to learn the rules.

Thanks, Mortis.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Thu Feb 20, 2020 10:51 pm It’s not hard to get back into the game, especially if you use Magic Arena to learn the rules.

Thanks, Mortis.

Heh, I was playing too much and I got out. That is what happens to me and FTP games. I think I spent $15 on Arena and I don't feel bad about it. Oddly enough, the biggest reason to get out was that I love a 3rd UI for tracking my collection and decks and it was just borked for like two weeks (and counting). Without the tracking functions I liked, the game started to piss me off. Specifically when I was drafting and trying to figure out how to draft to boost my collection.

It was a good implementation. I don't like the match making but UI was good. I'm not going back to that time sync but it was solid.

good thread

Bad bot

Quick question for anyone playing MtG, as I am mostly a noob.

One of my D&D-loving kids bought a booster pack of the MtG D&D cards at the Ren Faire yesterday. While MtG has never really interested him before, the D&D theme has definitely piqued his interest.

Is there the equivalent of a “starter deck” you can buy for the D&D series? The booster pack he got also had dungeon cards and some other things I wasn’t familiar with in my (admittedly very little) MtG experience. I tried to find a summary today of the rule changes for this D&D version, but I only found a mish-mash of various marketing pieces.

TL:DR, if someone wanted to play the D&D version of MtG, is there an easy way to get started?

What kind of a Ren Faire sells Magic cards? Isn’t that a bit modern for them?

hepcat wrote:What kind of a Ren Faire sells Magic cards? Isn’t that a bit modern for them?

Bristol has a game shop on property. Seems like it does a booming business.

That’s it then. I’m opening a Honda Dealership at one.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 7:52 pm TL:DR, if someone wanted to play the D&D version of MtG, is there an easy way to get started?

I'd thought the D&D stuff was add-on / optional content for existing MTG content. I didn't think there was a "stand alone" D&D product that was MTG themed, but maybe I'm wrong. I do know that I wouldn't buy anything MTG related online unless it's a standardized (i.e. non-randomized) set as people open and repackage them, looting for valuable cards and refilling them with trash.

Is it possible to just get a starter M:TG starter set (like this) to see if there's interest in the game and then figure out how to integrate the D&D content?

Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is a Dungeons & Dragons crossover Magic: The Gathering set which replaced the core set of the 2021-2022 standard rotation.

There are four preconstructed decks available.

There's also Arena available for free-to-play sampling.

hepcat wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 8:04 pm What kind of a Ren Faire sells Magic cards? Isn’t that a bit modern for them?

There was a booth that was selling a little bit of everything. Dragon sculptures (the other Wonder Twin got a really cool one of a gold dragon sitting in the Iron Throne), pewter mugs, Larry Elmore knock-off prints, wooden swords and shield, leather bound journals, etc. They had a box of the D&D MtG booster packs up by the register, and he had a few bucks left so he grabbed one.

Thanks Isgrimmnur, I’ll see if I can track down the pre-made decks.

Release Calendar

Looks like the D&D preconstructed ones are super nice and priced accordingly.

Picked up the four D&D Commander decks and played our first couple games this morning. Man, this game can be incredibly obtuse when you’re just starting out. Spent as much time googling keywords and unfamiliar symbols as we did playing, which definitely impacted everyone’s enjoyment of it all.

I also kinda felt like the D&D theming was really weak overall. There are about 10-12 cards in each deck that are direct D&D characters, spells, items, etc (I.e. Wulfgar, Sefris, Bag of Holding, some cards roll dice, etc ) but the other 90 cards felt like just basic MtG stuff. Why not make the lands different areas of the Sword Coast? Make the lower level mobs goblins or kobolds? Make the spells actual D&D spells?

Not nearly as “D&D’ish” as I was hoping, and definitely not a strong enough tie to draw in my D&D-obsessed kids.

Because I know you're looking for more ( ) if you really want to lean into the D&D theme, I would recommend the Dice Masters versions of D&D. I like them because you mix card play and dice drafting. There were fan-created solo modes, but I haven't been back to try them.

I looked online for a reasonable overview, but only found one from the Dice Tower and for an older version.



Fair warning - because it's Wizkids the component quality is below average. At one point they made starter kits (that's what I have) for the D&D stuff and you didn't need to buy a giant campaign box, but I guess they're out of print now and priced the same as this campaign box (above).

Anyway, I think it has the same (general) feel as a M:TG game but it's 100% themed for D&D. They have superhero versions as well, which I also like, but the D&D Stuff surprisingly well done (imho).

That looks neat…damn you.

Always happy to be the enabler.

I got hooked on the DC dice masters, then grabbed a couple of starters for the D&D version. I really liked what they did with the latter. It even has level ups. I think I still have some of those.

Back in '92 or '93, I went to a local hobby shop with a friend. As I was paying for my comics, the guy behind the counter mentioned that there was a new card game out called "Magic the Gathering". He explained that he had taken the shrink-wrap off the boxes in the display so that curious customers could flip through the cards to see if they were interested in the game. Steve and I looked through a deck, were totally unimpressed, and left.

The next year I got into the game and started buying cards like crazy. One night a couple I knew that played came over and brought a friend with them. Turns out their friend was the guy from the hobby shop the year before. He explained (without a hint of shame) that he had taken the packs out of the shrink wrap so that he could collect rares, and switch out his duplicates( ). Thanks to this, he had a massive collection: He had every single card that had been released at that point, and duplicates of all of them, sometimes several duplicates.

I never saw or spoke to the guy again, but I've often wondered if he held on to his collection and how much it might be worth today.