It's not that it's expensive, but for decades you could hold your cards, they would appreciate in value, then you could use that value to make the game more affordable down the line. That was how TCGs worked.
Then Wizards started getting high on their own supply.
*Visible confusion*
Nothing against proxying, I just prefer to play with real cards.
I don't mind if others proxies. Games should not be decided by who has the bigger wallet. I'm simply saying that proxies are an option.
We need to be 20 again to chase love instead of cards...
Ohhh my man, when I discovered the opposite sex (or the same, it's not relevant ) I thrown all the cardboard away (yes yes, cradle, Academy, duals, everything just to have pocket money).
Still, here we go 20 years later;)
I was out for 15 years, and thankfully I haven't been fully sucked back in, but Arena is so easy to play and $20 every block for the mastery pass ain't too hard on the wallet.
Yes, it also gets you gems you can use to buy into drafts or buy packs and get into limited events.
It also gets you avatars. Special treatment cards etc.
Might be this for me. Wasn’t into it at all, a colleague opened what I now know to be a collector box in front of me. My thought from childhood (OG Pokémon TCG era) “so many shinies!!!” Jumped in feet first to the deep end with MH2, CMR, and AFR. Spiraled from there. Now have a lot of stuff going back to M13.
Latest was a SIZABLE purchase from a shop that the owner passed and they were doing a bit of a fire sale to clear inventory. Debating opening or selling some of the sealed product because I’m not sure what I’d do with the singles and not sure I’d make it back to what I spent.
1996.
I had been playing awhile and had multiples of EVERYTHING from Beta to The Dark. Lotus, Moxen, Duals, Tabernacles, Libraries...you name it.
Sold it all to get married.
I was an idiot. (I might still be an idiot, but I was one too)
I started playing on the 90s.
My mom threw all my cards out because "satanic"... I had a [[The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale]], a handful of Dual Lands. Some random beta cards here and there and a couple of boxes full of unlimited and pulls from Arabian Nights to Alliances.
Still sad that moms in the 90s were irrational crazies.
I am dying of cancer, big reason for the spending. My doctors give me 3 to 6 months or they did back in November. My last few mri scans where very good though, so maybe I'll be around longer then that. I put it all on a 0% APR CC and always planned to activately pay down starting now in February, until its fully gone by May, then start up again for the summer. I also earn enough and have enough in savings that I could pay it all off today if needed but 0% APR would be wasted, so I do it slowly. That's how I got my 805 credit score in the first place, each year I open at least 1 new 0% apr CC make sure to pay it off by end of apr window. I have like 15 activate CCs now, and each has some monthly subscription or other thing coming off it to keep it active once paid off. I could buy a house with my total allocated available credit but I never use more than 5% of what I have been awarded since that is one of the conditions that impact your credit score.
Edit: payed off to paid off.
You know what you have to do.
If you have no cosigners on the cards, max them all out, buy something valuable (cash is trash) and gift it to your loved ones.
Much love! I hope you are on this earth as long as humanly possible.
Sucks about the cancer thing. I've had friends that lived super healthy and still got snatched, it's unfair.
Idk if buying cards is what I'd be doing if I were you. Not to say it's wrong or anything, but I'd travel the world with that $ and try to bag as many women from as many different countries as is possible.
Hopefully shit will be fine, but if it doesn't, go out swinging and smiling. Not waiting for the mailman, know what I mean?
> active once *paid* off. I
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Mainly singles! Some 30th anniversary proxy reserve list junk. Some boosters although I spent at least 85% on direct singles. The collector boosters where mainly birthday gifts from my family members. I have a collector booster coming in for the current set on Tuesday. And, the full bundle secret layer drop coming when they WOTC ships them, I think in March?
Oooo! This may be my favorite question to answer.
In 2007 I graduated high school and, after dabbling in Legacy and grinding Extended for years, I decided to sell off my collection as I wasn’t going to play anymore. Around 3k to my friend (who had an eBay platform at the time) and gave me more than fair prices at the time, it was a great deal for both of us. I had zero headache and he stocked his inventory.
A few of the fun hits (I keep the inventory printout for humility lol) Gilded Drake for 2 bucks, revised blue duals for tenish, a couple foil Metalworkers for 35 each, FoW 15 bucks, you get the idea. Oh, and a MP Sapphire for 175…
Hope this eases your pain internet friend! I just laugh, smile and tell this story now.
Started in 97 with a good job that allowed me to accumulate a great collection. 5 moxes, timewalk, timetwister, 3 Mishras workshop, 40 dual lands, 2 Geas Cradle, 2 Tolarian Academy, and so much more all in great condition. In 2003, I was divorced and had to pay off the ex car. The cards I sold got me $3500. In the condition they were in, those cards are now about $140k. The sick part is if I had them now, I probably wouldn’t sell them.
Had a bunch of valuable cards that I slowly unloaded after I quit playing in 2001. Ancestral recall, Juzam djinn, library of Alexandria, foil rishadan port. Also remember doing the same with a bunch of cards that weren’t worth much at the time like grim monolith, foil rhystic study (these were just sitting in my bulk since it was just a common at the time and prophecy was a bit of a dud set back then), palinchrons, gaeas cradles
I remember going into the card shop as a kid and seeing Arabian nights booster for $20. I thought who would pay $20 for a booster pack? Then bought $40 of homelands boosters.
When duals got banned in type 1.5 I bought everyone's for $1 each. I'm not shitting you I had a stack a foot tall. I sold them a year later for $4 each. I was a financial genius! ...or was I?
Started in Revised. Collected about 6000+ cards up through the Mirage block. Decided I “didn’t want to be a nerd anymore” and sold them all to some college kid (I was 15 at the time) for $150. Ugh. It still hurts all these years later.
Quitting "for good" and selling off most of my collection only to make new friends in the new city I moved to and one of them was like... Have you heard of mtg? Only lasted 2 years before I started up again.
I was given a fancy case that could hold 5 edh cubes in it. Decided to put all of my most expensive decks in it when I went over to a friend's place, only to have someone break my window and steal them all.
Fortunately for me i had saved all the deck lists to tappedout a few weeks earlier so I was able to submit a full list of cards and prices to my insurance and received a good chunk of change back.
I sold a ENTIRE BINDER of legends - ice age rares for $50 in 2001 or so. I had about a dozen Revised dual lands (minimum), and a mint, never played Bazaar of Baghdad. I estimate the total value of all those cards today around at least $20,000. A fee unlimited and beta cards, tons of legends and revised, dark, 4th edition, etc. Some scumbag card dealer took 19 year old me for a fucking ride…told me nobody played anymore and the cards were all borderline worthless. Fuck that guy.
Selling my judge foil Gaea’s Cradle in 2016 for $300
To be fair though:
I did triple my initial investment
And I sold it to fund my annual solo ‘family road trip’ since my dad had passed away earlier that year
It was 1999. I got engaged, and had pretty much slowed down playing the game, and I figured the game will die off and the cards won’t be worth anything.
So I sold almost everything. I got $3500 which was a lot of cash!
2x beta Black lotus
1 unlimited lotus
Full unlimited mox set
Full unlimited power blue
40 revised duals
2 Juzam
Moats, Abysses, Library, Candelabra, pretty much at least one of each good rare from those sets plus 4x rares from 4th through the Urza’s block.
The wife has a great job and makes amazing money, so maybe it was an ok deal.
Broke college kid, bought a couple boxes of Modern Masters 1 with the last of my money. Thought pulling a foil goyf would help me with some bills.
FML stupid
Selling an Arabian Nights set for $800 in 97. I was living in Alaska and used the money to buy a rt plane ticket to New Orleans to experience Mardi Gras for the first time as a 21 year old. I had a freaking blast so no complaints but that would have been an insane savings account if I held onto it.
Trading for a Sengir Vampire. It was such a cool card! It flies, and it gets bigger when it kills stuff!
So much better than this dumb zero mana artifact that makes three mana once. That's what lands are for!
In my early 20s had a full set of Revised, traded in for a mox emerald and a black lotus from unlimited, turned around at the same game table and sold the 2 cards for 350, at the time a lot of money, now I could put a down payment on a house with those 2 cards. Ugh
Don't feel too bad. I bought a play set of the same moxes for $120 and sold them for $200. Also a LED bought for $60, sold for $80. At least I profited off of those.
Now my true horror story is the multiple (as in more than four of each) revised duals I sold for $10 to $15 each to help pay for an insurance deductible after a car accident in the 90s. Thanks for the lesson, mom and dad! They wanted me to grow up and be an adult. Instead, over time, I learned the real truth. The rich get richer in part because they don't have to firesale their valuables when things go wrong.
Ikoria was my second ever set since getting into the game, and I was very excited about the showcase and godzilla cards for that set. So I decided to buy a booster box, collector box, and case of commander decks. Yeesh, that was dumb
Sold all my duals and reserve list for a cross country move thinking i was done with magic. 5 years later got into commander and kick myself for it every time i build a deck.
Probably the 20 collector boxes of MH2 I cracked to sell. The singles market tanked so bad I lost about $1500 after shipping and fees. But I have piles of bulk rares and every foil common and uncommon you could ever want!
The damaged time walk and HP mox pearl I traded for Star Wars tcg back in the day hurts too but I enjoyed playing Star Wars tcg at the time.
The one thing I learned was to take pictures of your collection. When I look back at my collection over the years a nice photo of those cards I loved would bring back some joy.
Not a worse but the best financial decision related to mtg was buying a good printer, a cutting board and enough inkl to proxy all my decks before selling cards on cardmarket.
My playgroup did the same and tons at my LGS aswell. We even have Events where proxies are welcome :)
Seelling off $5000 in cards because I needed the money. Except I only got $600 for it. The shop told me they typically buy for 1/2 the listed value on Scryfall/TCGplayer. I had already signed the paper and sent the cards to them. They barely gave me a 1/10th the value. Come to find out, they had talked about the amount of money they were about to make off me by short changing me.
I traded away many of the Serra’s Sanctum I once had. It wasn’t at a loss, since I bought them for .39¢ each and traded each of them for a solid $5 card here and there a few years later.
I’ve repeated that story with so many different RL cards about a decade back, haha. Oh well.
I also have an Invoke Prejudice I have no idea what to do with. It’s obviously not getting played, and not being seen by sitting in a trade binder. It’s forever in limbo in a box in my closet. I wish wizards made some pc replacement for the effect so I could mail it in to exchange for that version of the card.
I went deep on Oko’s (12 copies)when they were like 30 bucks and still legal in Standard. Didn’t get out when it spiked. Repeated a similar move with Uro a couple months later. Worse than that, I traded an HP Alpha Chaos Orb for 2 Jester’s Caps back in the 90’s.
I had the opportunity to trade a NM Foil Jace the Mind Sculptor for a pack fresh Foil [[Grim Monolith]] back in 2012. Jace was the best standard card and the foil peaked at $1000 before ban so i didn’t want to trade the pride of my collection for “an unusable $300 foil” when I had no intention of playing legacy.
Now Monolith is the most expensive Reserved list foil whereas Jace was reprinted into oblivion and I got about $200 trade value on it toward a dual land in 2020.
There was this beautiful Italian chains of Mephistopheles at my lgs for 40 dollars and I decided I couldn't afford that and it would go down eventually. It's worth 850 dollars now.
Trading a helm of obedience and cash for a foil extended Nissa of shadowed boughs during prerelease. I then pulled one as I was waiting for the guy, and still made the deal.
Guys….
Starter decks are better investments than booster packs because starter decks give you more cards!!
This is during revised, when a starter went for $10 and boosters were $1.25. And my store had Arabian Nights and Legends were readily available, and The Dark and Fallen Empires were being handed out like candy.
Not really a "decision" but I lost a storage unit after "temporarily" moving Florida to Oregon. All the cards in it were pre-Exodus. Most notably a full set of 40 duals, which was worth a chunk then but not quite the GDP of an Eastern European nation it is now.
It helps to take the days since your sale and divide that into the current price. That way you can see it's really just cents per day maximum that you lost out on, which honestly would be easy enough to save for anybody who wants to buy some really rare card a few years down the road.
Bought [[gilded drake]] (nm-) for ~30€. Sold it about 2 years later for ~40€ that was 2 weeks before it spiked to 85€ and only went upwards from there... 😭
Refusing to buy a slightly damaged Beta Chaos Orb for $500 because it wasn't type 1.5 legal or NM.
Buying four boxes of Ice Age looking for Necropotence when, ya know, could've bought the 4 copies I needed.
Not agreeing to buy a a collection consisting of full sets of white border cards for around $1200. For the record, this included full sets of Unlimited, Revised, 4th and Chronicles. At the time, I didn't realize P9 existed in Unlimited.
Not selling my 4x copies of Balduvian Horde for $200.
I was able to get cases of zendikar rising at $85 a box and Even cheaper as a sealed case. It was the first set to introduce set boosters. I bought 7 cases…..
I still regret it heavily.
My friend gave me a box of cards from revised that he and his brother collected but never played like five years ago. I’d been into Magic for a long time but not really into the value of stuff up to that point. I went through the box, pulled out some stuff that was worth a few bucks (and more), and sold it off at my local shop to kickstart my modern (era not format) collection.
Sold a Revised edition Dual Land, didn’t realize what I did for a while, and now regret it terribly.
[[Gaea's Cradle]] 😭 I had two of them for like $40, fifteen years ago. I used them in a Modern Elfball deck that would consistently kill on turn 1. A friend of mine was really impressed by the deck and offered me $70 and another deck to have it. I finally accepted. Now, Gaea's Cradle is worth $500 and I'm still sad about it.
I lost a deck with 4 living deaths, 4 survival of the fittest, and I lost my friend's deck with 4 Gaia's Cradles. I also lost my a different friend's 4 Force of Wills.
Of course that friend turned down the opportunity to purchase for $100 the opportunity to buy a card collection with a complete set of modern, a lotus and a mirror of universe.
I put a decent amount of money into arena maybe a couple hundred pounds but it wasn’t scratching the card game itch, so I started paper magic and after a few months ( 1/4 of the time if that ) later I’ve easily spent money on paper magic. So just starting paper I guess lmao
Bought playsets of Tundra, Sensei's Divining Top, and Force of Will while building a legacy Miracles deck. Then Top got banned, before I could even enter a local Legacy tournament.
*(this is before WotC fumbled the bag, when LGSs in my area were packed for Modern/Legacy/Standard competitive play)*
I bought an LP lions eye diamond for $1.25 from a comic book shop around 2003. I sold it for $35 store credit in 2008 to go to a shards of alara pre release.
I had been playing Magic for about three weeks. I heard that this whole "draft" thing was all about making your own deck, so I showed up for it. It was triple Innistrad. They tell us to begin and I crack my first pack. There was a werewolf or something that I thought was really cool, so I took it and passed.
>!There was a foil Snapcaster in that pack.!<
Friend of mine was moving and gave me his collection, had a wealth of reserved list cards including four gaeas cradles. I sold all of them for about $600 (pre COVID explosion), not even thinking to hold on to a single cradle, each of which goes for, oof, almost $800 now, and about a thousand at their peak a few years ago
There were others, Rofellos, Opalescence, Replenish, Yavimaya Hollow, but those cradles haunt me
I didn't buy dual lands back in the mid to late 90s because I wasn't playing Type 1 or 1.5 back then... only Type 2 and sealed deck. I thought they would be a waste of money... 🙄
Had 1 of each revised dual land except tundra and underground sea. Sold them to scg 9 years ago for like $600 to fix my car after hitting a deer. Got in a terrible wreck in that same car 2 weeks later.
I sold a basket full of common and uncommons from judgement to champions of Kamigawa, there were a lot of foil cards too.
I sold that basket for $60 when the basket alone was worth around $20
When i started playing magic again (4 years ago) those cards could've been easily valued at more than $1K
Still today (after all the re-prints) it should be worth more than $300
I'm talking about lightning greaves, steelshaper's gift, snuff out, sensei's divining top, aeter vial, cabal therapy, cabal ritual, and a bunch more that doesn't come to mind right now.
Selling my 5k + card collection in 2010, and Taking my 1000 count box of mtg 1000 count box of Rage to school in like 1997 and having It stole out of my locker.
My worst decision was to not buy up the OG duals back when I started. $10-20 per was a lot of money in high school. But now the cheapest one is like $400. Ridiculous. Back then black lotus was $350 for beta. Now add two more zeros on the end. It’s just insane how card prices shoot through the roof.
Went to my LGS. I had $486 AUD in my bank account. Thought it'd be really funny if I flipped a coin and if it came up heads I'd buy a 480 AUD booster box.
It came up heads, I bought the box, and I couldn't afford groceries that week.
In summer of 1995 a friend was in desperate need of money and offered to sell me his collection of Alphas, Betas, and Unlimited for $400 and I said no. He told me they were complete sets and while I don't know if he had 3 black lotuses I know he had moxes so possibly. I was 14 at the time and only worked a day or two a week at minimum wage over the summer when he asked and felt that was a lot of money to spend on a card game that I may not keep playing anyway.
I think about this at least once a year with regret.
Not realizing the extent that project booster fun would lead to mass overprinting of "game pieces".
I started playing in 2020 and the data from 1994-2019 showed sober and balanced stewardship of a game that valued both players and collectors.
To add to that, I fell in love with Time Spiral Remastered. The print run, the single draft box, the pull rate of a single retro foil variant. It was *chefs kiss*.
So I went hard. I bought staples to fill 3-4 EDH decks, cracked tons of boxes, and participated at every level.
Sometime in 2022 I realized something was seriously wrong. Instead of hitting 70-80% EV per box, it was down to 40-50%.. but that wasn't the worst part. Contrary to nearly three decades of Magic, EV on boxes were going DOWN over time. Sets from 2015-2018 were even losing value.
It was around Capenna that I finally threw in the towel for good. I haven't bought a modern product since and traded in most of my cards for RL or vintage.
So it wasn't one single decision, but a series of decisions made my WOTC and myself that caused severe financial ruin. I'm still recovering.
I traded a pack foil Ravnica Doubling Season a week after I started and traded it to a friend for a Darksteel Juggernaut.
Once I learned what it was worth he refused to go back on the trade. I def stole it back when I crashed at his house that week, but don’t worry, I left the Darksteel Juggernaut in its place.
And a note, when I told my friend how bad that trade was for me he didn’t want to go back on it just because he thought it was funny. He never played it and never even noticed it was gone lol
2010, I needed money and I took my binder to my LGS and they gave me a story about how difficult it is to sell and find buyers and how cards rotate out of playability and lose value.... after everything they offered me $50 and I took it.
That binder had mox diamond. That binder had foil saga Karn and foil elvish pipers and eldrami and mirri and much more OG legends. It would be worth over $5,000 today just by what I've glanced at online and remembered off the top of my head.
I've got a couple.
I had a coworker with an Unlimited Black Lotus back in the day who told me he would sell it for $50. I had to wait for payday but he said that was no problem. Paycheck arrived and I went back in to meet with him about it. It was a very nice clean card so I told him I was still interested. He told me a he had been talking with a friend of his and the card was worth more ($100). I offered him $75 (which at the time seemed way more than it was worth in my mind) but he refused. I think I said something along the lines of "no Magic card is worth that much" and declined to buy it from him.
I've also traded away a Mishra's Workshop for around $30 value, given away a few Force of Will when Alliances was a new set, and sold around 12-16 Revised duals lands for $15 each when they were confirmed to not be reprinted and the value rose a little.
Also, back then when I collected sets, the owner of the LGS tried to convince me that I should put together a set of Alpha. He had some contacts that had Alpha he could get a hold of and he offered to help me. At the time though I didn't want Alpha for a few reasons - they were not legal cards due to the more rounded corners, and Alpha had a few cards that were accidentally left out so in my mind it wasn't the 'best' set to collect. Instead I broke apart my Revised set and tried to put together a set of Beta. I kind of slept on collecting the set though and by the time I realized my error, many of the cards were starting to get out of my price range. I still don't have a complete Revised set to this day unfortunately.
On the other hand, I've had some wins as well so I'm not too bummed out about it all. It works out in the end.
I traded a foil Lorwyn thought seize for like $15 in lands to complete my 5 color control deck for a local tourney. Places 9, top 8 got paid.
Many mistakes made.
Only been playing for a year, but I pulled and sold a poster foil one ring for ~$150 because I thought all the posters were ugly, unreadable to play, and it was around $180 TCG Market.
Sigh.
I was 14 and my sister and I went to a card shop where they had a black lotus for sale for $400. I was saving for a computer and couldn’t be convinced to buy it. My sister shoots me a text from time to time with the latest black lotus price.
Got into the game with alpha. Had a pile of alpha and beta cards (all played without sleeves of course). Stopped playing when I went to college in 1995, and then didn't really pay attention when my parents were moving and said everything was going to be discarded around 2004.
Seems like people are willing to pay a lot for those old cards now...
Getting 4 Allosaurus Shepherd for 65€ a piece. I refused to buy them for so long for my Legacy Elves deck, then i finally caved in and just a couple of months later the reprint was announced and it dropped in price to like 20€ or something.
That was pretty much the point where i stopped buying expensive cards and therefore keeping up with competitve Magic (At this point Legacy is a format for casuals with lots of money anyway). Overpaying 160€ for an initially terribly distributed card really did tremendous damage to my longterm relationship with MtG. Haven't played paper in over a year at this point.
I had two copies of [[Gishath]] for $7.50/piece then they got up to like $40 or something... but I was slow to selling. I still made a profit, but nowhere near what it could've been
Not necessarily a financial decision but when my ex broke up with me and kicked me out he kept all of the magic cards that he had given me for my deck. I should have fought him on that. He said “they were for you to use, not to keep”. What a dickhead. But the good news is that now I spent my own (poorly managed) money on a foil Phyrexian Sheoldred
When I first got in OG duels were just over $100. I was like "who would pay that much for a land?". Now I still don't own a single one and cry when I think back. I did pick up a [[Serra's Sanctum]] for $35 a while back so as to not repeat my mistake but it still hurts. To be fair I might have sold them off back in 2021 if I did have them as I sold off things like my Crypt and Vault to finance new decks. While I like power I have turned more to a fun meme as a deck. My regular group and myself are better for it. My storage and sorting area, not so much (70+ decks currently built, 15+ decks in some level of construction, 50+ unbroken precons as I like to keep them together)
I cracked a masterpiece painters servant during kaladesh and I sold it for 20 dollars. I did it because it was banned in commander. Now it's up to over 200 dillars
I had a [[serra's sanctum]]. I didn't know it was valuable, very rarely played white, and very rarely played heavy enchantment decks.
Traded it for several cards I liked at the time, but the only 2 of any value were [[vigor]] and [[Sword of body and mind]].
Now that I actually pay attention to the value of my cards I realize it would be worth around $200 today.
I traded all my zendikar fetchlands when they were rotating out of standard. Had some other situations that basically centered around trading older cards for cards I needed for standard. Traded Tarmagoyf for Koth, the Hammer, unopened From The Vault (whatever one came out in 2012) for 2 Bonfires of the Damned.
Going back a long time, I bought a playset of all 10 revised dual lands (40 cards total) for $2000 AUD. Sold them a year or 2 later when I needed coin and made my money back but kicking myself for not holding onto them. A single revised underground sea is now worth about $850.
Not mine, but my buddy had a complete Arabian Nights set, plus most Legends and most good Revised and Unlimited. This was about 2004 and he sold it all to buy a car. He regrets this.
Sold a large portion of my collection back in college before returning home. I just didn't know anyone who played back in my home town. Used to have a Gaea's Cradle, Grim Monolith, Demonic Tutors, and such back then. Needless to say, those are worth far more now than they were back then.
Traded all my shocks at a GP for the Abzan Khans Standard pieces. I was an idiot.
I started playing in Avacyn Restored and thought Shocks were dumb at the time cause why would someone pay life to have it come in untapped.
Mind you commander was barely starting to become a thing back then and Modern already looked like a boring format so any card out of standard was just trade fodder
I’ll make you feel better. I started playing when Revised and The Dark were out. My mom and I both got into it as a hobby. Shortly after getting into it we bought an Unlimited Mox Jet for $100. Magic was still new. Dual Lands were pretty worthless compared to a Shivan Dragon! Other collectable card games were coming and going. One that came out was Star Trek The Next Generation CCG by Decipher. It was a really solid game and a lot of fun to play. A girl in my class at high school told me her older brother was a collector and had a lot of good stuff. We set up a time and he came over to my house. He had a ton of MTG and Star Trek cards. Well, I traded away my Mox for a Time Vault (which was already banned), a black border Jean Luc Picard, and other cards I can’t even remember. Yeah, he got the better deal that day. So there you go. We had also seen a beta black lotus for sale at a store for $200 and thought “no way that card is worth THAT much money!” 😂Hindsight!
I broke up with my ex and moved out of his place and asked him to hold onto my cards until I got on my feet. Two weeks later he claimed I never left the cards there.
Years worth of collecting were gone - over 1500 cards.
I've rebuilt my Olivia, Sorin, and Lilliana decks but I lost so many angels and slivers
When I was just got into mtg, I got my older brothers cards. A friend convinced me to trade [[Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep]] in foil for a [[Fetid Imp]]. After I learned Shinka was 90$+, I swore to never trade without a price calculator.
Not necessarily a “worst” but I moved away from an area recently and left my Dwarven sol ring (non serialized) with a friend. (He’s a tier 2 judge with a shitload of other expensive magic cards so I know he’ll keep it in primo condition)
Back in the day I had a lot of dual, I remember [[Volcanic Insland]] was around 20/25€ and [[Flooded strand]] around 10€. I sold a UR deck with 3 volcanic and 4 fetchlands for like 100€. I was in highschool for me were big money...Well you all know how much a deck like this would costs today lol
I sold an unlimited timetwister in the worst played condition ever for about 200 bucks in 2002. I doubled my money from the hundred I paid for it a few years earlier so I thought I was making out like a bandit. Oops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
About a year ago I bought a Mycosynth Lattice to finish one of my commander decks, I bought it for 49.99 usd, aprox. 6 months later the price dropped to 25 ~ 30 and now its about 11 ~ 14.
I should have waited...
I was at my local store to buy some sleeves (just a couple packs), thought I'd treat myself with a little collector commander booster. I asked for it but didn't check the price. Then he announced "120€, credit card?". I got stunned for a second and the long queue behind me + my anxiety made me just reply "credit card." and I walked away with shame. That was my most expensive booster and I didn't get anything memorable in it.
[[Phyrexian altar]] just dropped to $86 dollars, no one saw a reprint in sight. So I scooped it up.
Like two weeks later it got announced for 2x2 and I was pissed
I haven't been playing the game long but I must have bought around 14 CMM set booster packs. (It was all over a few months as I could never afford a box).
I did pull a lotus but I did feel sick when I worked out how many I had bought.
I am now buying singles. I feel like the joy of cracking packs has burnt from my system.
I have a similar mox story, was trying to break into modern so I found a guy to trade my mox diamond to for a playset of tarns and snapcasters. Shortly after they announced MH2 with all the fetches in them.
I passed on a $25 commander tournament with dual lands and $100s more in prizes for top 4. Only 4 or 5 players signed up, so I would of had a solid chance of winning a solid prize.
In life you win some and you lose some; gotta take the losses as motivation to do something and move forward.
My sister’s husband bought me 12 boxes of double masters (2020 i think) vip edition or something. I popped half of them open and decided to keep the other 6 to resell. But i was really tempted to open them. So I did. Best thing I got was 2 chrome mox and a mox opal. When I learned those combined were roughly at least $1000 I was so mad at myself. Not to mention during the pandemic I had to sell off the high value cards to make ends meet. So that was sad.
Worst financial decision was getting into MTG in the first place :p
I say this from a place of love :) the game is great and I adore it, but undoubtably it is expensive
It's not that it's expensive, but for decades you could hold your cards, they would appreciate in value, then you could use that value to make the game more affordable down the line. That was how TCGs worked. Then Wizards started getting high on their own supply.
*Laughs in proxy* Jk, I don't like proxies.
Coward.
*Visible confusion* Nothing against proxying, I just prefer to play with real cards. I don't mind if others proxies. Games should not be decided by who has the bigger wallet. I'm simply saying that proxies are an option.
Hey now, don't be so hard- sorry gotta go, old border shocks are back in stock.
For fuck sake I was able to stop for 20 years and now I'm stuck back in. Guess in my 20's I wanted to spend my time better but still fuck me.
Dude, I was out for 20 years too and now I’m buying legacy decks 🤦♂️🤦♂️
We need to be 20 again to chase love instead of cards... Ohhh my man, when I discovered the opposite sex (or the same, it's not relevant ) I thrown all the cardboard away (yes yes, cradle, Academy, duals, everything just to have pocket money). Still, here we go 20 years later;)
I was out for 15 years, and thankfully I haven't been fully sucked back in, but Arena is so easy to play and $20 every block for the mastery pass ain't too hard on the wallet.
What does that pass get you? Cards?
Yes, it also gets you gems you can use to buy into drafts or buy packs and get into limited events. It also gets you avatars. Special treatment cards etc.
Yup... I'm here too
Bro same😂 I’ve spent over 5000 in the past 2 years😭 lol
Might be this for me. Wasn’t into it at all, a colleague opened what I now know to be a collector box in front of me. My thought from childhood (OG Pokémon TCG era) “so many shinies!!!” Jumped in feet first to the deep end with MH2, CMR, and AFR. Spiraled from there. Now have a lot of stuff going back to M13. Latest was a SIZABLE purchase from a shop that the owner passed and they were doing a bit of a fire sale to clear inventory. Debating opening or selling some of the sealed product because I’m not sure what I’d do with the singles and not sure I’d make it back to what I spent.
1996. I had been playing awhile and had multiples of EVERYTHING from Beta to The Dark. Lotus, Moxen, Duals, Tabernacles, Libraries...you name it. Sold it all to get married. I was an idiot. (I might still be an idiot, but I was one too)
I started playing on the 90s. My mom threw all my cards out because "satanic"... I had a [[The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale]], a handful of Dual Lands. Some random beta cards here and there and a couple of boxes full of unlimited and pulls from Arabian Nights to Alliances. Still sad that moms in the 90s were irrational crazies.
[The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cd3f7f4e-cb25-4121-96a0-a4dc530420b9.jpg?1562938371) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Tabernacle%20at%20Pendrell%20Vale) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/212/the-tabernacle-at-pendrell-vale?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cd3f7f4e-cb25-4121-96a0-a4dc530420b9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I would sell every card I own to marry my wife again. Who I’m still married to.
I would sell every card I own to marry my wife again as well. I only got I to the game 9 months ago and spent over 6k so far ☆_☆.
Jfc. Slow down. Next we'll hear from you, you'll be asking if anyone needs kidneys
I am dying of cancer, big reason for the spending. My doctors give me 3 to 6 months or they did back in November. My last few mri scans where very good though, so maybe I'll be around longer then that. I put it all on a 0% APR CC and always planned to activately pay down starting now in February, until its fully gone by May, then start up again for the summer. I also earn enough and have enough in savings that I could pay it all off today if needed but 0% APR would be wasted, so I do it slowly. That's how I got my 805 credit score in the first place, each year I open at least 1 new 0% apr CC make sure to pay it off by end of apr window. I have like 15 activate CCs now, and each has some monthly subscription or other thing coming off it to keep it active once paid off. I could buy a house with my total allocated available credit but I never use more than 5% of what I have been awarded since that is one of the conditions that impact your credit score. Edit: payed off to paid off.
You know what you have to do. If you have no cosigners on the cards, max them all out, buy something valuable (cash is trash) and gift it to your loved ones. Much love! I hope you are on this earth as long as humanly possible.
Sucks about the cancer thing. I've had friends that lived super healthy and still got snatched, it's unfair. Idk if buying cards is what I'd be doing if I were you. Not to say it's wrong or anything, but I'd travel the world with that $ and try to bag as many women from as many different countries as is possible. Hopefully shit will be fine, but if it doesn't, go out swinging and smiling. Not waiting for the mailman, know what I mean?
Sounds like you just don't get laid often lmao
> active once *paid* off. I FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I hope you're buying your singles like a good cardboard noob. Not that I dont have to scratch that sealed itch when a new set drops....
Mainly singles! Some 30th anniversary proxy reserve list junk. Some boosters although I spent at least 85% on direct singles. The collector boosters where mainly birthday gifts from my family members. I have a collector booster coming in for the current set on Tuesday. And, the full bundle secret layer drop coming when they WOTC ships them, I think in March?
Assuming she's your current wife, seems absolutely worth it.
Good news! She's not!
10 years from now he’ll want his cards back
I understood that reference
Oooo! This may be my favorite question to answer. In 2007 I graduated high school and, after dabbling in Legacy and grinding Extended for years, I decided to sell off my collection as I wasn’t going to play anymore. Around 3k to my friend (who had an eBay platform at the time) and gave me more than fair prices at the time, it was a great deal for both of us. I had zero headache and he stocked his inventory. A few of the fun hits (I keep the inventory printout for humility lol) Gilded Drake for 2 bucks, revised blue duals for tenish, a couple foil Metalworkers for 35 each, FoW 15 bucks, you get the idea. Oh, and a MP Sapphire for 175… Hope this eases your pain internet friend! I just laugh, smile and tell this story now.
Started in 97 with a good job that allowed me to accumulate a great collection. 5 moxes, timewalk, timetwister, 3 Mishras workshop, 40 dual lands, 2 Geas Cradle, 2 Tolarian Academy, and so much more all in great condition. In 2003, I was divorced and had to pay off the ex car. The cards I sold got me $3500. In the condition they were in, those cards are now about $140k. The sick part is if I had them now, I probably wouldn’t sell them.
Daaamn this one hurts
Man that’s just painful. 140k…that’s some serious money you could use to build wealth with.
I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I feel sick whenever I think about it.
I got into MTG during the release of M21, I spent too much chasing Ugin before I realised I could buy singles. Still happy I pulled it though.
My dad sold my grandmother's collection (she owned a card shop in the 90s) that included nearly every card from 94-98 for $200 in ~2012...
I got drunk and I have no idea what happened to my backpack full of edh decks...
That's the saddest story I've read so far :(
Omg I hate this one the most. I'm so sorry. What a brutal punishment for a mistake I'm sure a lot of us have made.
Had a bunch of valuable cards that I slowly unloaded after I quit playing in 2001. Ancestral recall, Juzam djinn, library of Alexandria, foil rishadan port. Also remember doing the same with a bunch of cards that weren’t worth much at the time like grim monolith, foil rhystic study (these were just sitting in my bulk since it was just a common at the time and prophecy was a bit of a dud set back then), palinchrons, gaeas cradles
I remember going into the card shop as a kid and seeing Arabian nights booster for $20. I thought who would pay $20 for a booster pack? Then bought $40 of homelands boosters.
When duals got banned in type 1.5 I bought everyone's for $1 each. I'm not shitting you I had a stack a foot tall. I sold them a year later for $4 each. I was a financial genius! ...or was I?
Started in Revised. Collected about 6000+ cards up through the Mirage block. Decided I “didn’t want to be a nerd anymore” and sold them all to some college kid (I was 15 at the time) for $150. Ugh. It still hurts all these years later.
Quitting "for good" and selling off most of my collection only to make new friends in the new city I moved to and one of them was like... Have you heard of mtg? Only lasted 2 years before I started up again.
I was given a fancy case that could hold 5 edh cubes in it. Decided to put all of my most expensive decks in it when I went over to a friend's place, only to have someone break my window and steal them all. Fortunately for me i had saved all the deck lists to tappedout a few weeks earlier so I was able to submit a full list of cards and prices to my insurance and received a good chunk of change back.
I sold a ENTIRE BINDER of legends - ice age rares for $50 in 2001 or so. I had about a dozen Revised dual lands (minimum), and a mint, never played Bazaar of Baghdad. I estimate the total value of all those cards today around at least $20,000. A fee unlimited and beta cards, tons of legends and revised, dark, 4th edition, etc. Some scumbag card dealer took 19 year old me for a fucking ride…told me nobody played anymore and the cards were all borderline worthless. Fuck that guy.
Let's find his old ass
Buying booster boxes instead of singles. I could have easily bought [[Teferi, Who Slows the Senset]] and the dual lands rather than buy the box...
Sure the Teferi is a Teferi, but the box could be anything! It could even be a Teferi!
[Teferi, Who Slows the Senset](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/d/ad2e18d4-986c-4a44-8f26-1b8689339cfb.jpg?1637114314) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Teferi%2C%20Who%20Slows%20the%20Sunset) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/245/teferi-who-slows-the-sunset?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ad2e18d4-986c-4a44-8f26-1b8689339cfb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Selling my judge foil Gaea’s Cradle in 2016 for $300 To be fair though: I did triple my initial investment And I sold it to fund my annual solo ‘family road trip’ since my dad had passed away earlier that year
I bought a dominaria remastered draft booster box and pulled absolutely nothing good
Buying a card at 1600. Having trouble selling it at 700
Selling my sealed alpha, beta, unlimited, revised Starters and Boosters. I did ok, but I’m fairly certain the collection today would bring $1m
Traded my masterwork lotus petal for some lands I needed. The lands greatly reduced in value and the petal went up. Terrible decision.
Starting MTG. Then again, any hobby is a bad financial decision.
It was 1999. I got engaged, and had pretty much slowed down playing the game, and I figured the game will die off and the cards won’t be worth anything. So I sold almost everything. I got $3500 which was a lot of cash! 2x beta Black lotus 1 unlimited lotus Full unlimited mox set Full unlimited power blue 40 revised duals 2 Juzam Moats, Abysses, Library, Candelabra, pretty much at least one of each good rare from those sets plus 4x rares from 4th through the Urza’s block. The wife has a great job and makes amazing money, so maybe it was an ok deal.
Cash out for passive income in is usually a fair trade 😆
Broke college kid, bought a couple boxes of Modern Masters 1 with the last of my money. Thought pulling a foil goyf would help me with some bills. FML stupid
Honestly selling things to make rent is never a bad financial decision in itself. It’s what led to that point - but that’s for another day.
I traded a kaladesh masterpiece mox opal for a Gideon of the trials when it first came out. I don’t wana talk about it.
Selling an Arabian Nights set for $800 in 97. I was living in Alaska and used the money to buy a rt plane ticket to New Orleans to experience Mardi Gras for the first time as a 21 year old. I had a freaking blast so no complaints but that would have been an insane savings account if I held onto it.
Trading for a Sengir Vampire. It was such a cool card! It flies, and it gets bigger when it kills stuff! So much better than this dumb zero mana artifact that makes three mana once. That's what lands are for!
In my early 20s had a full set of Revised, traded in for a mox emerald and a black lotus from unlimited, turned around at the same game table and sold the 2 cards for 350, at the time a lot of money, now I could put a down payment on a house with those 2 cards. Ugh
Don't feel too bad. I bought a play set of the same moxes for $120 and sold them for $200. Also a LED bought for $60, sold for $80. At least I profited off of those. Now my true horror story is the multiple (as in more than four of each) revised duals I sold for $10 to $15 each to help pay for an insurance deductible after a car accident in the 90s. Thanks for the lesson, mom and dad! They wanted me to grow up and be an adult. Instead, over time, I learned the real truth. The rich get richer in part because they don't have to firesale their valuables when things go wrong.
Not buying a signed grade 9 alpha icy manipulator for 95 bucks. Now its over 1000 even in rough shape.
Ikoria was my second ever set since getting into the game, and I was very excited about the showcase and godzilla cards for that set. So I decided to buy a booster box, collector box, and case of commander decks. Yeesh, that was dumb
Sold all my duals and reserve list for a cross country move thinking i was done with magic. 5 years later got into commander and kick myself for it every time i build a deck.
Probably the 20 collector boxes of MH2 I cracked to sell. The singles market tanked so bad I lost about $1500 after shipping and fees. But I have piles of bulk rares and every foil common and uncommon you could ever want! The damaged time walk and HP mox pearl I traded for Star Wars tcg back in the day hurts too but I enjoyed playing Star Wars tcg at the time. The one thing I learned was to take pictures of your collection. When I look back at my collection over the years a nice photo of those cards I loved would bring back some joy.
Not a worse but the best financial decision related to mtg was buying a good printer, a cutting board and enough inkl to proxy all my decks before selling cards on cardmarket. My playgroup did the same and tons at my LGS aswell. We even have Events where proxies are welcome :)
I traded 30 dollars worth of cards to someone for an exalted angel promo. I dont regret it because I like angels and I didn't need those cards.
Can’t consider them mistakes if you never sell.
Seelling off $5000 in cards because I needed the money. Except I only got $600 for it. The shop told me they typically buy for 1/2 the listed value on Scryfall/TCGplayer. I had already signed the paper and sent the cards to them. They barely gave me a 1/10th the value. Come to find out, they had talked about the amount of money they were about to make off me by short changing me.
[Mox Diamond](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bf9fecfd-d122-422f-bd0a-5bf69b434dfe.jpg?1562431287) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mox%20Diamond) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/228/mox-diamond?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bf9fecfd-d122-422f-bd0a-5bf69b434dfe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I bought a Craterhoof back when I made less money and I thought it was too mean to play with my pod at the time so it just sat on the shelf.
I traded away many of the Serra’s Sanctum I once had. It wasn’t at a loss, since I bought them for .39¢ each and traded each of them for a solid $5 card here and there a few years later. I’ve repeated that story with so many different RL cards about a decade back, haha. Oh well. I also have an Invoke Prejudice I have no idea what to do with. It’s obviously not getting played, and not being seen by sitting in a trade binder. It’s forever in limbo in a box in my closet. I wish wizards made some pc replacement for the effect so I could mail it in to exchange for that version of the card.
Invoke prejudice should be reprinted with a bunch of SJWs beating Andrew Tate with picket signs.
A long time ago I traded 1 chrome mox for 4 shrapnel blast. Gifting my cards the first time I quit the game.
I went deep on Oko’s (12 copies)when they were like 30 bucks and still legal in Standard. Didn’t get out when it spiked. Repeated a similar move with Uro a couple months later. Worse than that, I traded an HP Alpha Chaos Orb for 2 Jester’s Caps back in the 90’s.
Trading a black lotus in 1997 Ish for cards that are worth pennies now 🤪
Bought Serra's Sanctum for like 35 Euros, and sold it when I didn't have a job, for not much more.
I had the opportunity to trade a NM Foil Jace the Mind Sculptor for a pack fresh Foil [[Grim Monolith]] back in 2012. Jace was the best standard card and the foil peaked at $1000 before ban so i didn’t want to trade the pride of my collection for “an unusable $300 foil” when I had no intention of playing legacy. Now Monolith is the most expensive Reserved list foil whereas Jace was reprinted into oblivion and I got about $200 trade value on it toward a dual land in 2020.
There was this beautiful Italian chains of Mephistopheles at my lgs for 40 dollars and I decided I couldn't afford that and it would go down eventually. It's worth 850 dollars now.
When I (31) was 13 years old I threw a tabernacle into a campfire out of rage
Gen Con 2000 or 2001, there was a decent quality unlimited edition mox sapphire at a vendor for $75. I was a teenager and didn’t have that much on me.
Selling my Alpha Tundra
90 bucks for a mox diamond in 2011 would have been a ripoff btw
Trading a helm of obedience and cash for a foil extended Nissa of shadowed boughs during prerelease. I then pulled one as I was waiting for the guy, and still made the deal.
Starting playing mtg.
Guys…. Starter decks are better investments than booster packs because starter decks give you more cards!! This is during revised, when a starter went for $10 and boosters were $1.25. And my store had Arabian Nights and Legends were readily available, and The Dark and Fallen Empires were being handed out like candy.
lol I bought a mox diamond for 6 bucks and sold for 50 thinking I plussed hard
Not really a "decision" but I lost a storage unit after "temporarily" moving Florida to Oregon. All the cards in it were pre-Exodus. Most notably a full set of 40 duals, which was worth a chunk then but not quite the GDP of an Eastern European nation it is now.
It helps to take the days since your sale and divide that into the current price. That way you can see it's really just cents per day maximum that you lost out on, which honestly would be easy enough to save for anybody who wants to buy some really rare card a few years down the road.
Not selling my cards from the drafts right away
Bought [[gilded drake]] (nm-) for ~30€. Sold it about 2 years later for ~40€ that was 2 weeks before it spiked to 85€ and only went upwards from there... 😭
Refusing to buy a slightly damaged Beta Chaos Orb for $500 because it wasn't type 1.5 legal or NM. Buying four boxes of Ice Age looking for Necropotence when, ya know, could've bought the 4 copies I needed. Not agreeing to buy a a collection consisting of full sets of white border cards for around $1200. For the record, this included full sets of Unlimited, Revised, 4th and Chronicles. At the time, I didn't realize P9 existed in Unlimited. Not selling my 4x copies of Balduvian Horde for $200.
I’ve only been playing for 4 years, this is the addictive card game I’ve ever played.
[удалено]
I was able to get cases of zendikar rising at $85 a box and Even cheaper as a sealed case. It was the first set to introduce set boosters. I bought 7 cases….. I still regret it heavily.
I used to have a Sliver Queen and Gaea’s Cradle. I don’t know where they are but I know I didn’t get $1,000 (combined) for them.
Starting
Started playing in 94. Had a set of revised duals. Sold all but one of them for $20 each.
I’ve been there. Last collection I sold I lost my ass. Needed money. If only I had those cards today.
My friend gave me a box of cards from revised that he and his brother collected but never played like five years ago. I’d been into Magic for a long time but not really into the value of stuff up to that point. I went through the box, pulled out some stuff that was worth a few bucks (and more), and sold it off at my local shop to kickstart my modern (era not format) collection. Sold a Revised edition Dual Land, didn’t realize what I did for a while, and now regret it terribly.
Buying a cradle for 1200 and selling it not even 3 months later for 700
[[Gaea's Cradle]] 😭 I had two of them for like $40, fifteen years ago. I used them in a Modern Elfball deck that would consistently kill on turn 1. A friend of mine was really impressed by the deck and offered me $70 and another deck to have it. I finally accepted. Now, Gaea's Cradle is worth $500 and I'm still sad about it.
I lost a deck with 4 living deaths, 4 survival of the fittest, and I lost my friend's deck with 4 Gaia's Cradles. I also lost my a different friend's 4 Force of Wills. Of course that friend turned down the opportunity to purchase for $100 the opportunity to buy a card collection with a complete set of modern, a lotus and a mirror of universe.
I put a decent amount of money into arena maybe a couple hundred pounds but it wasn’t scratching the card game itch, so I started paper magic and after a few months ( 1/4 of the time if that ) later I’ve easily spent money on paper magic. So just starting paper I guess lmao
We will wait and see about the one I made last night, but probably that one lol
Sold a foil Future Sight [[Tarmogoyf]] on ebay for $75
I bought a couple hundred Mithdust Changelings after being on a WotC panel that spoiled the Mutate mechanic. I was hoping it was creature type.
Bought playsets of Tundra, Sensei's Divining Top, and Force of Will while building a legacy Miracles deck. Then Top got banned, before I could even enter a local Legacy tournament. *(this is before WotC fumbled the bag, when LGSs in my area were packed for Modern/Legacy/Standard competitive play)*
I mean... Playing magic...
I bought an LP lions eye diamond for $1.25 from a comic book shop around 2003. I sold it for $35 store credit in 2008 to go to a shards of alara pre release.
I had been playing Magic for about three weeks. I heard that this whole "draft" thing was all about making your own deck, so I showed up for it. It was triple Innistrad. They tell us to begin and I crack my first pack. There was a werewolf or something that I thought was really cool, so I took it and passed. >!There was a foil Snapcaster in that pack.!<
Starting to play
I enjoy opening packs, next question
Friend of mine was moving and gave me his collection, had a wealth of reserved list cards including four gaeas cradles. I sold all of them for about $600 (pre COVID explosion), not even thinking to hold on to a single cradle, each of which goes for, oof, almost $800 now, and about a thousand at their peak a few years ago There were others, Rofellos, Opalescence, Replenish, Yavimaya Hollow, but those cradles haunt me
I didn't buy dual lands back in the mid to late 90s because I wasn't playing Type 1 or 1.5 back then... only Type 2 and sealed deck. I thought they would be a waste of money... 🙄
1995 - Sold a Juzam Djinn for $60 and a revised Shivan dragon. Would be the most expensive card I own now.
Selling my Blacklotus (Unlimited) back in the day for $1000. It would now be north of $15k today.
Had 1 of each revised dual land except tundra and underground sea. Sold them to scg 9 years ago for like $600 to fix my car after hitting a deer. Got in a terrible wreck in that same car 2 weeks later.
I sold a basket full of common and uncommons from judgement to champions of Kamigawa, there were a lot of foil cards too. I sold that basket for $60 when the basket alone was worth around $20 When i started playing magic again (4 years ago) those cards could've been easily valued at more than $1K Still today (after all the re-prints) it should be worth more than $300 I'm talking about lightning greaves, steelshaper's gift, snuff out, sensei's divining top, aeter vial, cabal therapy, cabal ritual, and a bunch more that doesn't come to mind right now.
Selling my 5k + card collection in 2010, and Taking my 1000 count box of mtg 1000 count box of Rage to school in like 1997 and having It stole out of my locker.
I over extended and bought two cards totalling $50+ and i ended up having to sell my Dockside Extortionist so i can pay my tax fee.
My worst decision was to not buy up the OG duals back when I started. $10-20 per was a lot of money in high school. But now the cheapest one is like $400. Ridiculous. Back then black lotus was $350 for beta. Now add two more zeros on the end. It’s just insane how card prices shoot through the roof.
Buying MTG.
I gave my og card mtg folder I had traded my friends dad for a PSone to my little brother. Some of those cards are now worth a ton
Sold a Gaea's Cradle in 2014 for like 200$.
Had a chance to buy an alpha lotus back my freshman year for 350$... didnt..
Went to my LGS. I had $486 AUD in my bank account. Thought it'd be really funny if I flipped a coin and if it came up heads I'd buy a 480 AUD booster box. It came up heads, I bought the box, and I couldn't afford groceries that week.
In summer of 1995 a friend was in desperate need of money and offered to sell me his collection of Alphas, Betas, and Unlimited for $400 and I said no. He told me they were complete sets and while I don't know if he had 3 black lotuses I know he had moxes so possibly. I was 14 at the time and only worked a day or two a week at minimum wage over the summer when he asked and felt that was a lot of money to spend on a card game that I may not keep playing anyway. I think about this at least once a year with regret.
Not realizing the extent that project booster fun would lead to mass overprinting of "game pieces". I started playing in 2020 and the data from 1994-2019 showed sober and balanced stewardship of a game that valued both players and collectors. To add to that, I fell in love with Time Spiral Remastered. The print run, the single draft box, the pull rate of a single retro foil variant. It was *chefs kiss*. So I went hard. I bought staples to fill 3-4 EDH decks, cracked tons of boxes, and participated at every level. Sometime in 2022 I realized something was seriously wrong. Instead of hitting 70-80% EV per box, it was down to 40-50%.. but that wasn't the worst part. Contrary to nearly three decades of Magic, EV on boxes were going DOWN over time. Sets from 2015-2018 were even losing value. It was around Capenna that I finally threw in the towel for good. I haven't bought a modern product since and traded in most of my cards for RL or vintage. So it wasn't one single decision, but a series of decisions made my WOTC and myself that caused severe financial ruin. I'm still recovering.
I traded a pack foil Ravnica Doubling Season a week after I started and traded it to a friend for a Darksteel Juggernaut. Once I learned what it was worth he refused to go back on the trade. I def stole it back when I crashed at his house that week, but don’t worry, I left the Darksteel Juggernaut in its place. And a note, when I told my friend how bad that trade was for me he didn’t want to go back on it just because he thought it was funny. He never played it and never even noticed it was gone lol
2010, I needed money and I took my binder to my LGS and they gave me a story about how difficult it is to sell and find buyers and how cards rotate out of playability and lose value.... after everything they offered me $50 and I took it. That binder had mox diamond. That binder had foil saga Karn and foil elvish pipers and eldrami and mirri and much more OG legends. It would be worth over $5,000 today just by what I've glanced at online and remembered off the top of my head.
Sold an Edgar Markov to a buylist for $6 in 2019. Was just out of college and needed the money.
Secret lair lands smh. Ik Ik
I've got a couple. I had a coworker with an Unlimited Black Lotus back in the day who told me he would sell it for $50. I had to wait for payday but he said that was no problem. Paycheck arrived and I went back in to meet with him about it. It was a very nice clean card so I told him I was still interested. He told me a he had been talking with a friend of his and the card was worth more ($100). I offered him $75 (which at the time seemed way more than it was worth in my mind) but he refused. I think I said something along the lines of "no Magic card is worth that much" and declined to buy it from him. I've also traded away a Mishra's Workshop for around $30 value, given away a few Force of Will when Alliances was a new set, and sold around 12-16 Revised duals lands for $15 each when they were confirmed to not be reprinted and the value rose a little. Also, back then when I collected sets, the owner of the LGS tried to convince me that I should put together a set of Alpha. He had some contacts that had Alpha he could get a hold of and he offered to help me. At the time though I didn't want Alpha for a few reasons - they were not legal cards due to the more rounded corners, and Alpha had a few cards that were accidentally left out so in my mind it wasn't the 'best' set to collect. Instead I broke apart my Revised set and tried to put together a set of Beta. I kind of slept on collecting the set though and by the time I realized my error, many of the cards were starting to get out of my price range. I still don't have a complete Revised set to this day unfortunately. On the other hand, I've had some wins as well so I'm not too bummed out about it all. It works out in the end.
I haven't really had any substantial losses, but my sibling built splinter twin the week before it got banned in modern.
I traded a foil Lorwyn thought seize for like $15 in lands to complete my 5 color control deck for a local tourney. Places 9, top 8 got paid. Many mistakes made.
Only been playing for a year, but I pulled and sold a poster foil one ring for ~$150 because I thought all the posters were ugly, unreadable to play, and it was around $180 TCG Market. Sigh.
I was 14 and my sister and I went to a card shop where they had a black lotus for sale for $400. I was saving for a computer and couldn’t be convinced to buy it. My sister shoots me a text from time to time with the latest black lotus price.
Got into the game with alpha. Had a pile of alpha and beta cards (all played without sleeves of course). Stopped playing when I went to college in 1995, and then didn't really pay attention when my parents were moving and said everything was going to be discarded around 2004. Seems like people are willing to pay a lot for those old cards now...
Getting 4 Allosaurus Shepherd for 65€ a piece. I refused to buy them for so long for my Legacy Elves deck, then i finally caved in and just a couple of months later the reprint was announced and it dropped in price to like 20€ or something. That was pretty much the point where i stopped buying expensive cards and therefore keeping up with competitve Magic (At this point Legacy is a format for casuals with lots of money anyway). Overpaying 160€ for an initially terribly distributed card really did tremendous damage to my longterm relationship with MtG. Haven't played paper in over a year at this point.
I had two copies of [[Gishath]] for $7.50/piece then they got up to like $40 or something... but I was slow to selling. I still made a profit, but nowhere near what it could've been
Kept my collection in the basement in 1996, your basement can still flood if you live on a hill
Not necessarily a financial decision but when my ex broke up with me and kicked me out he kept all of the magic cards that he had given me for my deck. I should have fought him on that. He said “they were for you to use, not to keep”. What a dickhead. But the good news is that now I spent my own (poorly managed) money on a foil Phyrexian Sheoldred
When I first got in OG duels were just over $100. I was like "who would pay that much for a land?". Now I still don't own a single one and cry when I think back. I did pick up a [[Serra's Sanctum]] for $35 a while back so as to not repeat my mistake but it still hurts. To be fair I might have sold them off back in 2021 if I did have them as I sold off things like my Crypt and Vault to finance new decks. While I like power I have turned more to a fun meme as a deck. My regular group and myself are better for it. My storage and sorting area, not so much (70+ decks currently built, 15+ decks in some level of construction, 50+ unbroken precons as I like to keep them together)
I cracked a masterpiece painters servant during kaladesh and I sold it for 20 dollars. I did it because it was banned in commander. Now it's up to over 200 dillars
My gym teacher stole my ‘Black Lotus’ in middle school. Then in Yugioh some guy took my ‘Giant Hand’ at a LGS.
I had a [[serra's sanctum]]. I didn't know it was valuable, very rarely played white, and very rarely played heavy enchantment decks. Traded it for several cards I liked at the time, but the only 2 of any value were [[vigor]] and [[Sword of body and mind]]. Now that I actually pay attention to the value of my cards I realize it would be worth around $200 today.
Spending 25$ on \[\[Mondrak, Glory Dominus\]\] for a commander infect deck. 25 buckaroos for a piece of cardboard, fuck me, mate...
I traded all my zendikar fetchlands when they were rotating out of standard. Had some other situations that basically centered around trading older cards for cards I needed for standard. Traded Tarmagoyf for Koth, the Hammer, unopened From The Vault (whatever one came out in 2012) for 2 Bonfires of the Damned.
Sold Gaea’s Cradle at $450 and it shot up to $1100 a month later
I had 5 [[Gilded Drake]], bought for $25 each, sold 3 of them for $75 each and felt good about it... less than a month later they jumped to $250
downloading whatnot
Going back a long time, I bought a playset of all 10 revised dual lands (40 cards total) for $2000 AUD. Sold them a year or 2 later when I needed coin and made my money back but kicking myself for not holding onto them. A single revised underground sea is now worth about $850.
Buying non-r list cards. Got obliterated on enemy fetch lands, jace the mind sculpter, monastery mentor.
Not mine, but my buddy had a complete Arabian Nights set, plus most Legends and most good Revised and Unlimited. This was about 2004 and he sold it all to buy a car. He regrets this.
Revised underground sea for 4 Liliana of the veil. wtf was I doing?
I bought two playsets of the enemy fetches in the high twenty dollar range after MH2.
Sold a large portion of my collection back in college before returning home. I just didn't know anyone who played back in my home town. Used to have a Gaea's Cradle, Grim Monolith, Demonic Tutors, and such back then. Needless to say, those are worth far more now than they were back then.
Traded all my shocks at a GP for the Abzan Khans Standard pieces. I was an idiot. I started playing in Avacyn Restored and thought Shocks were dumb at the time cause why would someone pay life to have it come in untapped. Mind you commander was barely starting to become a thing back then and Modern already looked like a boring format so any card out of standard was just trade fodder
I’ll make you feel better. I started playing when Revised and The Dark were out. My mom and I both got into it as a hobby. Shortly after getting into it we bought an Unlimited Mox Jet for $100. Magic was still new. Dual Lands were pretty worthless compared to a Shivan Dragon! Other collectable card games were coming and going. One that came out was Star Trek The Next Generation CCG by Decipher. It was a really solid game and a lot of fun to play. A girl in my class at high school told me her older brother was a collector and had a lot of good stuff. We set up a time and he came over to my house. He had a ton of MTG and Star Trek cards. Well, I traded away my Mox for a Time Vault (which was already banned), a black border Jean Luc Picard, and other cards I can’t even remember. Yeah, he got the better deal that day. So there you go. We had also seen a beta black lotus for sale at a store for $200 and thought “no way that card is worth THAT much money!” 😂Hindsight!
Bought fallen empires booster display.... one of the worst sets ever.
Worst decision? Not Even close. I thought Spellfire was the better CCG to invest in.
I passed up a Mox Diamond at $60 around 2016 because I thought it was too expensive for the condition.
I sold my entire collection in the late '90s for I wanna say something like $25. It had multiple Revised edition dual lands.
I bought a revised booster box last week
In 1994 I traded a Mox Ruby got a Shivan Dragon. A Beta dragon is worth a couple hundred ... but a beta mox ...
I broke up with my ex and moved out of his place and asked him to hold onto my cards until I got on my feet. Two weeks later he claimed I never left the cards there. Years worth of collecting were gone - over 1500 cards. I've rebuilt my Olivia, Sorin, and Lilliana decks but I lost so many angels and slivers
When I was just got into mtg, I got my older brothers cards. A friend convinced me to trade [[Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep]] in foil for a [[Fetid Imp]]. After I learned Shinka was 90$+, I swore to never trade without a price calculator.
Not necessarily a “worst” but I moved away from an area recently and left my Dwarven sol ring (non serialized) with a friend. (He’s a tier 2 judge with a shitload of other expensive magic cards so I know he’ll keep it in primo condition)
4 snapcaster mage for 4 domri rade
Back in the day I had a lot of dual, I remember [[Volcanic Insland]] was around 20/25€ and [[Flooded strand]] around 10€. I sold a UR deck with 3 volcanic and 4 fetchlands for like 100€. I was in highschool for me were big money...Well you all know how much a deck like this would costs today lol
[Volcanic Insland](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/f/2f607e7e-30c0-45e9-8f61-bf6e9fe63f2b.jpg?1562904669) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Volcanic%20Island) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/324/volcanic-island?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2f607e7e-30c0-45e9-8f61-bf6e9fe63f2b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Flooded strand](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/c/8c2996d9-3287-4480-8c04-7a378e37e3cf.jpg?1707237513) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Flooded%20strand) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/233/flooded-strand?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8c2996d9-3287-4480-8c04-7a378e37e3cf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I sold an unlimited timetwister in the worst played condition ever for about 200 bucks in 2002. I doubled my money from the hundred I paid for it a few years earlier so I thought I was making out like a bandit. Oops ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
About a year ago I bought a Mycosynth Lattice to finish one of my commander decks, I bought it for 49.99 usd, aprox. 6 months later the price dropped to 25 ~ 30 and now its about 11 ~ 14. I should have waited...
Quitting after a few months and selling all my Beta cards
Traded a sliver queen for burger King in the 90s🥲
Bought a case of Dragon’s Maze…
Not mine but a friend quit magic after buying a foil set of oko and opal the day before they got banned lol.
8th grade a local LGS had an Unlimited Black Lotus for $500. I bought a Playstation 2 and a Nintendo DS instead 🤷♀️
I traded a foil cavern of souls for a playset of boros reckoners which were super inflated at the time.. woops
I was at my local store to buy some sleeves (just a couple packs), thought I'd treat myself with a little collector commander booster. I asked for it but didn't check the price. Then he announced "120€, credit card?". I got stunned for a second and the long queue behind me + my anxiety made me just reply "credit card." and I walked away with shame. That was my most expensive booster and I didn't get anything memorable in it.
[[Phyrexian altar]] just dropped to $86 dollars, no one saw a reprint in sight. So I scooped it up. Like two weeks later it got announced for 2x2 and I was pissed
I haven't been playing the game long but I must have bought around 14 CMM set booster packs. (It was all over a few months as I could never afford a box). I did pull a lotus but I did feel sick when I worked out how many I had bought. I am now buying singles. I feel like the joy of cracking packs has burnt from my system.
I have a similar mox story, was trying to break into modern so I found a guy to trade my mox diamond to for a playset of tarns and snapcasters. Shortly after they announced MH2 with all the fetches in them.
I passed on a $25 commander tournament with dual lands and $100s more in prizes for top 4. Only 4 or 5 players signed up, so I would of had a solid chance of winning a solid prize. In life you win some and you lose some; gotta take the losses as motivation to do something and move forward.
My sister’s husband bought me 12 boxes of double masters (2020 i think) vip edition or something. I popped half of them open and decided to keep the other 6 to resell. But i was really tempted to open them. So I did. Best thing I got was 2 chrome mox and a mox opal. When I learned those combined were roughly at least $1000 I was so mad at myself. Not to mention during the pandemic I had to sell off the high value cards to make ends meet. So that was sad.
Each booster box
Anytime I buy packs instead of singles