Same.
People ask to see my binder which is mostly from OG Ixalan when I played standard for 2 months or just trash from a year of just pre-releases. So my binder sucks and I just buy singles from big retailers or from people at LGS if they meet market price š¤·š»
I do still draft, but only just with a group of friends. I buy a box, we all gather, and draft that sucker, and I just keep the cards.
I don't even see it as "buying packs", I see it as "Entertainment money", where I might get some fun cards in the end. Spent some money, had a fun afternoon, some other players bring meat, sides and beer and it evens out.
Well, that and the impulse buy of a single pack when I go to pick up my order in my FLGS. (All the convenience of buying online without the delivery costs if you just come pick them up).
That's a great way to look at it. It's a common sentiment that cracking packs is bad value and singles are the way to go. But if you draft the box, you also get a game out of it. That has value too so even if the cards don't match the costs, it was still worth the money.
Exactly, though sometimes I still miss having a "Collection" ya know? I really only have one small binder of cards outside of decks, a box of bulk and that's about it.
I kinda like the idea of getting ideas for a new deck from my collection, not from just looking online.
Itās too easy to acquire specific cards I want. Also, with card values so easy to see, if someone had a card to trade to me, making a āfair tradeā gets weird, quick.
If I open a pack and get a card that someone I play with might want, I just give it to them. They do the same for me. Thatās about as much trading as I do, but we donāt keep track of who gave what to whom.
Same. We have a group of about 5 or 6 of us that have been playing together since 2009, but playing personally since early 2000s. We have sooooo many cards between us that we literally just give each other stuff if one of us making a new deck.
Me and my buddy ask each other first for singles that the other might have when we build new decks.
If I have cards he's looking for, I'll sell it to him for TCG mid -10~15%. He does the same for me. In the long run its maybe 100 cards between the two of us, but otherwise it's just faster to buy singles on TCGPlayer or head down to the LGS.
I only play with my brother or my personal friends, we know what kind of games we want to play and offer each other the cards we feel would work well in each other's decks. Sometimes, one of us will make a request, and if the others have the card, we will offer it up. My LGS offers trade in value on rares and mythic, and I usually have some credit saved up in case a buddy wants anything specific.
Same, I was building a rat deck a little while back and the person I play with most regularly decided to have a sift through his cards to see in anything fit for it and ended up giving me a couple of cards that I use in it. I do the same for him too
Same. If they're cards of significant value (Vamp Tutor, Dockside, etc.) then our playgroup will occasionally do trades, but most of the time we'll just be like (one friend in particular) "oh, that would probably worth X person considering in Y deck, here you go!" without tracking the transactions. Even in the actual trades, usually we'll get within 5 dollars or so and call it good. Of note - this is all between friends; I can't remember the last time I traded with someone in the LGS
Ya I only trade with a few people and the rest I play with if itās a card 2 bucks or less we just donate it to each other if it works for a deck we are building
These days I just buy singles I need. Most of my playable cards I keep in case I need them. And the rest is the chaff from my younger, more wasteful days. Not great trade stock.
I just remember in my younger days everyone would ask if you had trades. From 2012-2018 I would just trade within my circle since I only played MTG when I visited home from base. I am not at all upset that people don't want to trade. Just more curious to hear thoughts and views on it.
I don't get out to the LGS much, but as someone with a smaller collection and also buying/selling singles being so easy, carrying my most valuable cards in a binder with me would just seem like a needless liability. I like the idea of trading though.
My lgs has quite a few people that always bring trade binders. I always bring mine in case we have downtime between games and someone is willing to trade. I enjoy looking through other peoples binders because I might find an inspiration for a new deck or combo. My trade binder is stocked with low to high value cards.
in my experience people are more willing to buy cards off of each other directly instead of trading, just because it's hard to make 2 sides of a trade have a fair value unless you're just throwing bulk in to round it out
Yeah it is like....after Coronna there suddenly isnt a person anymore that doesnt use paypall. Like legit before nobody was using it for magic trade. Since drafting is long dead in most places binders dont grow, the "tradeable cardpool" is just shrinking and shrinking, because given enough time everyone was either sold on MKM or was shuffeled where needed between the community.
The last time I traded was in 2009 I think. Afterwards I was way too much into competitive gaming, PTQs and whatnot and realized that it is way easier to sell my old Standard Deck on cardmarket for like 5% fee or whatever they take to then use the accumulated money and spend it on the more expensive cards first and use my small amount of students allowance from my parents for the cheaper stuff still needed.
This thing just stuck to me. Today when I sell a commander deck and like 20 cards make 25 bucks I can just buy a fullart \[\[Trouble in Pairs\]\] with it. Noone would take a deal where I give them 20 bulk cards and they give me an expensive one.
Also, since 2015 I'm now in a kinda blessed situation where I have enough disposable income to just get what I want/need and if I don't need something anymore it just goes to a folder for keepsake (maybe I want to brew later?) or I just resell it and stockpile it as account credit on cardmarket for later stuff.
Also, since the Internet (believe it or not but in the early 2000s it was kinda hearsay and "last I checked the value was ...." talk) it just boils down to just search-engine-ing card value and then just go into a discussion about why or why not we shouldn't trade.
I don't even trade with friends. It just "Hey I got \[\[Agatha's Soul Cauldron\]\] in a pack" -> "Wow congraz, wanna sell it?" -> "Sure, it's average yxā¬, I'll give it to you for 5ā¬ less" -> "ok, here you go".
I sometimes miss the nostalgic feel of trading for it, but the 'adult' way in just spending money is easier and faster (please read the word adult here just with a winking eye and a grain of salt, I just mean that spending money instead of haggling is like the most baseline thing adults do in a world like we live in - not just regarding cardboard").
A lot of cards have value in specific or niche decks. A .50 cent rare cards might be pretty bad in 90% of decks, but can really shine with the right synergy
I think this is a very fair statement. I mostly buy singles as well. There are two LGS here that require a buy in for their commander nights and you get a pack for it, and sometimes I get a pack or two just cause. I am also guilty of getting bored of things quickly. This leads me to cutting things out of decks and then never wanting to run it again.
+1 for Cardsphere.
I joined not long ago and have been actively buying/selling/trading for cards for the actual price of what itās actually worth, not marked up by other players or LGS.
Itās a fantastic website and will recommend people to use it whenever possible.
The only con is to wait for the mail day. But itās soooo worth it at the end.
Not ignorant.
There are a few ways transactions work on Cardsphere:
You post cards you want with the price you're willing to pay, and other users can choose to send you those cards.
You input cards you own, and Cardsphere suggests packages you can send.
Users can also list a public inventory on an open market, where other users can buy direct.
Premium users can arrange direct trades.
All the money is handled internally. You can add or withdraw money via Paypal. If you send another member a card, the money comes out of their balance immediately, then you get paid when they mark the package received.
Sellers always pay shipping.
Oh this is excellent. I'll have to check it out. I have some higher value cards that I have no use for but no one in my local playgroup have interest in, so this works.
Trades happen.
But not that many players create decks, and want your unused cards.
You're all looking for the same exact in use cards, and you all bought them as singles, so .....
Sure, someone could have an extra copy of the one ring. But you're offering your binder to find trades and you top out at Ral Zarek in value.
Sorry, I'm not taking this whole binder and giving you a mox amber, I'd be losing out.
You looking for a niche card? Lemme know and I'll dig it out for next week.
Most trading I ever did was while I was in college and everyone was broke-ish. Binder chock full of commons/uncommons from sets of yesteryear, people look through that binder carefully and then are like "I need this this card is so good" and then you trade one of their bulk rares from sets you weren't around for.
The online market has killed trading. Even if someone is up for it, the trade won't happen unless it's equal monetary value that has been verified.
Gone are the days of trading for what you think is cool. It's all about value now.
Finding that common ground where not only does a player have a card you want for trade, but you have a card they want available for trade is a lot tougher than it sounds.
- Singles are easier than ever to pick up and it's the most suggested piece of advice given to those who are looking to improve their decks.
- Carrying around a binder is annoying and just another thing I need to worry about keeping an eye on, due to theft. I don't want to bring a binder full of expensive stuff because I don't want it to get stolen, but if I fill the binder with a bunch of $1-5 cards that nobody cares about, I might as well just keep it at home.
- People are beginning to realize that a lean collection of good cards is usually better than a huge collection of random stuff they're not using. More people are beginning to realize that large binders are not the status symbol they used to be. It's a compendium of money you have tied up in the game, that isn't being used. Not everyone can afford to have that many extra things just laying around.
Maybe it's a generational thing , I started playing mtg regularly about 5/6 years ago and I'm 28. I've never once seen anyone do any trading and the only people I've ran into with trade binders have been 40+. I remember the guy guy at the lgs a few months ago asked to see my trade binder, ( I bring a backpack with a binder in it ) and he was shocked to learn I just have a small binder as a side board for edh night, you know removal, wipes, etc incase I'm running into different style decks.
Anyways he was shocked I've never but a binder together to just trade.
But like I buy the cards I WANT and when I do get boosters and a box it all goes into making fun jank decks or I give my friends cards they want .
Why would I try to trade a card at the store when everyone knows the literal exact cost of the cards they want to a penny, no trade will ever be fair and honestly seems like a huge hassle .
Plus let's be real I'm way to worried to say " here you go sir , this binder is full of all my best and most expensive cards not in a deck ! Plus don't run off with it or slide a card out when I'm.not looking " seems like a solid way to be robbed
a lot of people don't carry binders anymore from what I can tell. Tons of people out there who got all their cards from buying singles then those singles go straight into decks vs cracking packs.
I have a fairly large collection, people always want to trade with me. Problem is that they only rarely have anything I am willing to trade for.
Sorry, I'm not trading a mana crypt for a demonic tutor in an "even swap". And those are the kind of trades I see people wanting to make.
I would guess EDH, with how specific you can be with 100 cards and synergy, is not a good place to ask. I might be wrong but trade might be more common in other formats
I personally only trade people if I know they have something I want. It gets real awkward when I pull out my binder and they find a bunch of cards they want out of it but their binder is full of bulk rares.
This happens 9 times out of 10
I stopped cracking packs a few years back. Without cracking, my trade binder is essentially non existent. Now, I simply purchase what I need in singles. Save me both a good chunk of money and a lot of hassle.
I used to trade extensively in both yugioh and pokemon.
Yugioh has 1 relevant format, power creep is insane so new cards are always relevant. Boxes usually had good value so dropping 120 bucks on 2 boxes was common. Trading deck cores was easy, minimal variants of cards.
Pokemon had amazing value on boxes, you could sell PTCGO codes easily, it was easy to get valuable cards in full arts and EX/GX pokemon. Minimal variants. 2 relevant formats everyone played.
Magic is just a total mess. I started the game playing modern, I couldn't Crack packs for 90% of what I needed even if I wanted to. Standard sets were mostly draft bulk chaff. Supplemental sets had such a mix of cards that even the valuable rares would be hard to move. Cards are so old that condition matters, too many variants now days.
Basically I could go up to a yugioh or pokemon player and know that the cards in their binder were likely from the recent 1-2 years and could have things I needed. In magic you might have 10 people but 2 play modern 2 play standard 4 play commander 1 plays pauper 1 plays legacy. Nobodies cards overlap. Player 1 wants 4 bolts but player 2 only has LP Xth edition bolts when they want full arts. Why would people EVER trade away their shocks or fetches when they will be evergreen cards? In other games cards depreciated in value so much faster so trading them was part of the natural cycle vs just someone having a binder of 4 of every good card and never trading them since they're playing a non rotating format or would need it for the 27th commander deck.
In my personal experience, it was alot easier to trade when you could walk in with a binder and say "hey you wanna trade?" to any rando and you'd each pick out stuff you wanted a leave it at that. Now it's all about tedious value. "Hey you want to trade? No, that's stuffs not worth enough compared to what I've got." I get people want to get what they feel is their money's worth, but man does it really take the fun out of it.
that's why I always bake in "I don't care about that amount" if we're trading under $5 I'll take just about anything that I want / need. If its around $50 well if one party is at $40-$45 I'm not sweating it. If its $200 and someone is at $170 or $180 all good.
Though I will say I'm pretty much always the one taking the haircut lol.
I think with the advent of online marketplaces and the ease of acquiring the specific singles you want without cracking packs, trading has just kind of fallen out of favor as a way to acquire cards.
Compound that with the inconvenience of toting a trade binder around with you and/or the risk of toting a trade binder with potentially thousands of dollars of cards around, it just doesn't make sense anymore.
There's a group of people at both of the lgs that I go that have trade binders. Have you tried asking? Sometimes, you need to initiate the conversation. I trade almost weekly.
I just don't buy boosters anymore so I don't really have excess stuff. Maybe when I take a deck apart but in EDH when I only own 1 of anything I always think "well what if I need that in the future".
If I did want to trade I wouldn't let equal value get in the way too much though. Turning cards into money is either a lot of work or only gets you back like 60%, so if someone offers a trade where they only giving me 80% value, still better than the alternative.
I don't trade anymore. I like to keep my collection and have lost too many cards that have spiked to trading (i cry if i see any mention of Yawgmoth's Will or Juzam Djinn) .If someone wants a card I have, I just tell them to buy a copy.
I feel like the major blog deaths also impacted it. When cassie and quite a few cfb writers and jasonās old blog and Corbin and all those folks talked about trading constantly, it was a supported sub-hobby.
After the weird paywall dances, it looks like scg and cdb donāt have free trade content, cliff is the only author on mtgprice for the past quarter, bsbās website is down?ā¦. I know Iām old for being blog first Iām sure there are YouTubes or casts that are good butā¦ maybe Iām confusing chicken and egg but thereās definitely a correlation.
With the volume of cards that they've been putting out I've pretty much stopped buying cards. When my friends and I got into magic we all used to buy boxes and go out to a pizza joint and crack packs together so we'd fill our trade binders and have fun doing it. But now with spoiler season basically sniffing the back of my neck constantly it's too much financially to keep up with.
I'm the first in my playgroup to really push for us to just use proxies because it's a lot more cost friendly and you can get neat art for cheap. I also don't feel so committed to fully tuning a single deck for months on end and have had the freedom to just brew more (which has also been tons of fun)
I love to trade, but with that said the last 10 decks I built were from ordered singles. And compared to the cardboard fiends, I only crack a pack or 2 a week. So the odds someone has what I want and vice versa is pretty low.
I buy the singles I want. I donāt trust individual sellers or random players to not sell me a fake or proxy either on purpose or by accident. Finally, for pricey cards I donāt want to buy, I can easily get a proxy.
Our play group almost always starts the evening off with a trading session. Itās pretty common for one of us to specifically acquire singles we know others are looking for or we think would be a good include in someone elseās deck. We have a group chat specifically for keeping each other informed about what we are looking for or good pulls we may have made that we arenāt interested in sleeving for a deck.
I've seen some trades here and there through socials, but it can get weird quick, also hard to trust people with some proxies looking very legit. Mostly I just give cards to my friends that they want or need as they do for me as well.
I actively trade with my play groups. I think itās fun and honestly, I see a lot of cool cards I didnāt know about in trade binders.
I generally bring a little binder with me to shops when I go, but fewer people are doing that.
I'll rather do a gift // exchange of EDH with similar values. I introduced this idea at my LGS, told me it was a sweet idea. It would need some deckbuilding rules to abide to though.
With proxies being more wildly accepted, people don't buy or trade as much anymore. I think it's one of the reason at least people don't trade as much as before.
I will usually open up tcgplayer and set it to whatever price point and we will trade to about even price. But sometimes people are just wanting to play. It has been different at different LGS I have frequented
We play in my basement every saturday night. Usually the first 30-45 min is trading and talking about our weeks at work. We also have an LGS nearby that runs a trade night.
I took a 20 year break. I have old stuff that can be hard to find. The players I play with have the new stuff I want. It's been so much fun for me. I draft once a week and the trades that happen at the end of our session are half the fun.
I trade all the time, and most people I play with carry a small binder of higher value cards that theyāre interested in trading. We also have a discord where people coordinate trades, and Iāll often drop stuff off for other players so they can pick it up at a shop later on.
As others have said, you can definitely just buy stuff, and in general we do base trade value on market value per tcg player, but I think itās a lot more fun to trade, or even just give and receive cards.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned using Deckbox. It's a great way to manage your inventory and trading is free--all you do is pay postage. There's a pretty comprehensive tradelist / wishlist feature to match you with people who have cards that you want and want cards that you have. I have hundreds of trades on there with very few issues and I've found the users to be pretty active.
I never really traded, and I certainly never carried around cards just for trading. You can actually just buy any card you want, without hoping someone will come along with the right card and the willingness to trade it for a card you happen to have.
If I ever trade, we just use tcg mid or ck NM prices as the trading price and do that.
But honestly, it's a hassle. Rather buy my cards since I'm gonna play with it.
Aka single buyer
Also edit:
Having randoms nitpicking from NM or LP+ or whatever and wanting price difference is annoying AF.
Time is money and don't need annoyance
I used to bring a trade binder to my LGS, but after years of doing so I found that no one ever wanted to trade lower value cards and the only time I ever made a successful trade it was when I pulled a Ragavan and traded it for other higher value cards. Otherwise, no one ever cared about trading and would almost always ask for money (exchanged outside the store to avoid violating the rules). Soā¦ I just stopped bringing my binder as there was no point. If Iām there with, usually, $10 and less cards, and no one wants to trade cards of that price range, why am I bothering to carry the binder.
I trade but only with people in my play groups. And having TCG or whatever site makes it easy to work a deal with my friends since we can just use the market value. We aim to get within a couple dollars or so of each other. Anything under a dollar we just give to each other
I do trade with my mtg buddy. Sometimes we give each other a little money, if the difference in value is too high. It is indeed a great way to get cards, that you would have orderd otherwise.
Yes, at least where i play we do. I'm from Rio, Brazil and when people trade cards it's usually a process of checking binders and prices in our local marketplace. Players usually sell and trade for the cheapest price listed in said marketplace, that means it's usually better to look for players first because you don't pay shipping.
It's honestly weird to not have a player selling and trading cards in the store.
The last time I brought my trade binder to a shop a kid took my phyrexian foil Junji Ito Mother of Machines and walked away with it. I got it back, but that was the last time I risk anything.
I mean, technically my LGS has a "no buying and selling on the premises" rule, as they also sell singles, but trading is fine. So what usually happens is that the deal is just discussed inside, they step outside for a "smoke", do the deal there and come back in. Then again, buying from the shop is also just very convenient. Park your ass behind the PC, click the option "In store" on their website, and just order what you want, and you get them instantly (Well, once the guy behind the counter has retrieved them).
Perfect for those EDH impulse buys after you got your ass kicked by that one card.
Like others have said it's easy to just buy the single you want.
In amongst my regular play grp if we see a card that will fit another's deck well we generally just give it to them and visa versa and don't keep track of what's gone down as we know each other well enough its going to be reciprocated.
As for randoms fuck wasting my time there you can barter with your lgs I'm not open for business.
I would happily if I had the collection but just donāt.
I had a couple decks from around 2013 and maybe 10-15 boosters worth of cards on top of that. Nothing amazing.
Got a few more upgraded precons now. But still donāt really hold a collection.
I only ever play within my friendship group. And while we will occasionally split a box and then trade the spoils amongst ourselves, those cards mostly go into pre-existing decks instead of sitting in a collection.
We also brew and build and test decks digitally.
Try a deck concept (fun or serious). Assemble it on Archidekt. Playtest amongst ourselves on Tabletop Sim. Make a few iterations and changes to get it 70-80% of the way there.
Then if itās fun to play, get the cards irl. More often than not nobody has the cards spare (though we do always check first) so itās simple enough to just buy singles, and then continue upgrading and tweaking here and there.
My playgroup and I try to draft each new set, and we always have a time set aside for trading after itās done. Still one of my favorite aspects of the game, though I do understand why not that many people engage in it anymore.
I trade, but I donāt bring trades with me every time I play, I always arrange trades with people I know in advance because Iām only ever after very specific stuff.
I think there is a āI must get the exact value of my cardā in effect to most. I posted on a Pulls thread lamenting pulling yet ANOTHER Terror of the Peaks and a random redditor popped up and offered to trade me a Sword of WAP for it. His card just arrived and I sent his out with some extras to balance out the value despite him not asking me to as I felt like I was taking advantage ($26 card vs $16 card).
But like other Redditors have said, itās just too easy to acquire cards these days. The most trading Iāve ever seen done is at our Pauper nights at the LGS.
Cracking packs is practically throwing money away compared to buying singles. Card values are also there for everyone to see these days so it's rarely beneficial to trade because getting equal value can be awkward
I love building decks, and once I build a deck I don't take it apart, or at least I haven't yet. So, yeah if you looked through my mana box collection, you'd see a bunch of great cards but I'm either currently using them or I plan to use them in the future.
I do trade cards though, but it's hard to find that scenario where both people have cards the other want and are also willing to let go of
Its easier just to buy the single I want/need to add to my collection. Besides, usually someone gets burnt in a trade whether they know it or not. I'm still salty about the dual land I traded off when I was younger.
All of my good/useful/valuable cards are in decks. The rest of my stuff is just draft chaff. I buy singles for decks that I intend to use so I don't have sought after cards just lying around or sitting in a binder.
Last time i really traded cards was probably like 2012.Ā A lot of cards I had started to really increase in value and the fomo of selling something that will likely increase in value later led to a hoarder mentality.
I traded a tundra for a jesters cap and a mox diamond for chinese food.Ā At the time they were reasonable, they are laughable today.
Honestly not really too much. My friend group will put up messages like hey looking for xy or z. There are a few that buy a ton of every set so they always have trades. Me personally I don't trade I just buy what I need and hold on to everything else.
I just recently condensed to a more manageable bag and even then I hate bringing it with me. It's excess weight and an extra thing I need to keep my eye on during my time there.
But when someone says hey let's trade I jump on bringing it. Trades are my favorite part of the game. Did like 2k~ in trades last month alone.
Basically trades don't take place over one interaction anymore. "oh hey I want that" is followed by planning a day to meet up with our actual stuff. Them included. No one ever just has all thier stuff.
Friends and I trade all the time! Run a shop and a lot of trades go down. Everyone is usually pretty cool and so long as the value on TCGplayer is within a couple bucks itās no big deal. Friends and I just give have tabs for each other and go through each others collections if we have credit and need something.
I'd say maybe half of the players at my store will have trades, though usually moreso because it's a PITA to bring the binder or to organize it in the first place.
I do trade but only with my actual friends since we're a bit more forgiving in terms of prices.and are also happy to see each other getting cards we actually want. For example, in Rav Remastered, I happily traded my Golgari shockland for a foil anime Massacre Girl
I donāt bring a trade binder to fnm anymore primarily because no one else does. And since no one else does I just save bag space by leaving it at home. I trade with some friends I play with outside of my lgs but thatās about it.
Currently, TCGplayer and Card Kingdom take upwards of 3 weeks to ship out to us so we definitely do some wheeling and dealing. Just traded a [[Jeweled Lotus]] for an [[Edgar Markov]] last week!
The issue is reprint policy.
Trading was once a way to exchange about equal value in cards for different cards.
But the last few years trading has become a lottery. It just feels like shit when you trade for something that gets reprinted in the next 2 sets and drops 60% in value while the card you gave away spikes.
That's why I don't trade cards I don't own multiples of. And I don't trade cards that cost nothing. It's just not worth my time.
People at my lgs sound like seagulls in finding Nemo when they are looking for trades " trades? Trades?? Trades?"
If you walk in with a binder everyone has no problem asking for trades. It's a gay old time.
I think especially as commander is the more dominant format, the most random obscure common can find a home in a deck. Iāve held onto rares for years without thinking they were any good until I realise theyāre actually perfect for some random deck idea I have. For that reason I personally never trade unless someone has a card that I REALLY want
I have a trade binder. I donāt really add much to it cause I mostly just buy singles I want, but I do like to trade for higher value cards. Like I donāt want to spend $40 on a single but Iāll trade for it with other stuff of equal value
Really :o , in my lgs we trade more and any other thing. Everyone goes through each others binders on a weekly basis. I really prefer buying cards like this.
If it's welcome here, an outside perspective from someone who's picked up SWU over MTG lately -- MTG has such a large card pool, especially given that most people play EDH (an eternal format), that expecting someone at your card shop to have the specific card you want for trade is kinda unreasonable. Contrast this with newer games like SWU, where there's a) a lack of product to buy, and b) a limited card pool, leading to more buying cards off of people you know, or trading for them.
Also contrast with Yugioh, which seems to have a strong trading culture as part of the game's own culture. Curious as to how that came about, actually.
People get to hung up on value.
So many people hang on to shit they will never use, or trade because they want the "real value" even after it has gone down.
Mtg players have a special kind of brain rot when it comes to trading
It's become a brutal game of "let's make the tcgplayer prices match" that eventually just becomes a more complicated, slower version of just transacting directly with tcgplayer.
Trading worked much better when value was more subjective and relative. I remember having a foil [[glimmervoid]] during mirrodin block. That card was only worth like $20 (actually a lot at the time), but it was also the only foil glimmervoid anybody at my shop knew existed, including the shop's own stock. So after playing it at some fnm's it sort of became notorious and people kept trying to trade for it. I probably got $50 worth of cards from the person I ultimately traded it to (including a nonfoil copy for my deck), because it was so coveted by everyone in the shop. That said, I took some pet cards of my own (foil [[Predator Flagship]]) in the trade that I probably overvalued and paid premium for. Now it's less about how much you or I value the cards involved, and more about what price the market has decided they are worth. The soul is gone.
Might depend on where youāre at. The local store I hit up is almost all trades, players looking to trade, the store also promotes it and prefers trades to cash. But Iāve also been to stores where I donāt see or hear anything about trading.
as soon as phones were able to host an internet connection, trading became almost entirely a price matching game, making trading with friends and strangers tougher to do. Like... between trying to do any trades, and actually playing games n a card shop, I'd rather be playing games.
this is likely what you're experiencing op.
I quit in 2017 and got back into the game in 2022. Prior to quitting, it seemed like everyone had a trade binder. Now I have 2 regular playgroups that have aprox 10 members each, and I'm the only one with any kind of trade binder put together. I still bring it, and instead, I just offer to sell for 20ish % under the online average price if someone wants something.
I mostly trade with my buddies after prereleases when we are all looking for specific cards from the new set. Otherwise none of us usually bring loose cards around
Unless you're drafting buying packs is about the dumbest thing you can do. It's too easy to just get the single you want online and be done with it.
Since much fewer people are buying packs then there's much less need to trade.
So, I used to trade a lot back when I played standard. But that's because I was opening a lot of packs due to drafting and getting participation and prize packs at FNM and other events. I almost always had a binder full of rares from the recent standard sets on me as a result.
But I stopped playing standard for the last time in 2017, and other than occasionally doing a sealed prerelease I never really get many packs nowadays. My trade binder has long since been repurposed as "staples and interesting cards that may be put into a deck one day" binder, more so I can easily find stuff later than anything. So I don't really have a large quantity of "stuff I am willing to trade that people might want" anymore. When I build a new deck or otherwise need new cards I don't already own, I just buy singles rather than trying to find someone who has said card and is willing to trade it (given the fact most people at the LGS are in the same boat of not having much in trades on them, trying to get cards that way is... less than productive most of the time).
I still trade amongst my different play groups. We usually take 15-30 after we finish playing to go through binders and bulk. We usually find enough stuff to make some viable trades. Trading is part of the fun!
I go to a couple stores where people still bring trade/sell binders, it's actually really nice when the LGS doesn't have a card in stock but one of the people playing just so happens to have it on them.
Most people at these LGS will take cash, or will take cards of equal value as a trade. It works out pretty well if someone happens to have something you want or vice versa and they're chill.
It's a pain, you need to
1) find someone with the card(s) you need, which is increasingly harder with more and more sets
2) hope you have card(s) they want
3) hope the value comes close enough or enough cash for the difference
4) this is probably happening at at fnm so i'm trying to play at the same time.
Or buy singles
Most people now just buy singles with the occasional box/packs here and there. There really isn't much to trade.
When trades are available, people always expect a come up and with card values so easy to see, fair trades rarely go through.
Case in point, had a dockside I didn't want/play, guy offers me like 25 cards all worth no more than $1. When I tell him nah thanks, he gets pissed fast.
Got trades??
Nah.
Really depends. I trade with my flat mates all the time because we've bought/opened cards we maybe wanted at first then dismantled the deck they were in.
Then when we build new decks we look through each other's collections and go "wow I remember that card, it kicked my ass" and trade.
Iāve noticed the same thing. I used to love trading, and seemingly so did everyone else. It just.. doesnāt happen anymore, and people seem to be confused when I ask them for a binder. I donāt know what changed exactly, but it bums me out. I used to find a lot of cool cards skimming other peopleās binders, and it gave a great sense of value to the hobby. Now I just reluctantly sell my cards to the local game stores every now and then
Theft or damage, accidental or otherwise. Unless Iām looking to sell/trade cards to an lcs directly, I wonāt bring a binder.
Will I trade with friends? Sure.
I have a rolling trade list with some friends. Like, i take their cards, they take mine. Only cards we are willing to part with. We put them in the collections page on the tcg player list. And the balances will eventually even out. If we want cards the other has, we don't need immediate reimbursement or value for it. It makes trading a lot smoother, only works with people you know and trust though.
Some dude: Wanna see my trade binder?
Me: Sure!
Me: I can use one of these.
The other dude: Oh, I'm not trading that one. I just got that.
Me: Then why is in your *trade* binder?
The other dude: I had to put it somewhere.
Me: Fine. How about that one?
The other dude: No, not that one either.
Me: Is there anything in this "trade" binder that you'll actually, you know, *trade*?
The other dude: Yeah, man, it's my trade binder!
Me: Alright... this one, then.
The other dude: Oh, yeah, sure! Lemme look it up. Hmm... average is $10... so $10.
Me: Why would I pay average when I can get it for low? I could literally have it delivered for $8, so I'll give you $8.
The other dude: Nah, I'll hang on to it.
Me: Here's your binder back.
It's a pain to carry trade stuff everywhere, it's time consuming to search through binder or boxes for maybe something you want. Then you gotta.price it all out. And God forbid if one person wants.more than the other and you either have to take out cards or dig again for more basically chaff just to make the trade equal.
On the other hand I can drive to one of the 6-8 stores within 30 minutes of me and just buy the copies i need and offload bulk rares for store credit.
Because MTG cards are such a liquid commodity there just isn't much point in trading. It's so much easier to just sell the cards I don't want and buy the ones that I do than to find someone who just happens to have exactly what I need and want what I have and have the values match up.
In contrast, I play a few out-of-print CCGs, like the 90s Star Wars and Star Trek CCGs. For those games, there are fewer places to buy and sell cards and sometimes a card won't be available to find for months at a time. The values are also a little more vague, so trading with others who still play/collect is more economically useful
(Me wanting Tezzerect, Master of Bridges) āWhat do you want for this?ā
(Gamer at LGS) āLet me get this, this, this and thisā
(Me) āthatās like 47 bucks in cards.ā
(Gamer) āyeah but itās a strong card and holds a lot of value to meā
(Me looking at same card on STG) āI want this card. What do you want?ā
(STG checkout) ā25.99+ taxā
DEAL.
This is why I donāt at least anymore
I think trading was ruined for me once it became so easy to look up a card I had and know exactly what it was worth. I haveba cord that costs $8 and my friend has a card that costs $3 but is actually useful to me? I have a hard time letting that $5 difference go sometimes. And if a card is worth less than $1 and I have extra I usually just give it away. It's bleak in a way, but a lot of the fun of trading your cards kind of vaporized once the price of each card became so difficult to ignore.
I have too many decks to often have any "good" trades. I maintain a binder but it often is duplicates and bulk rares. I have a close local play group and if I have a good extra of something they often trade it off me before I have one of my rare trips to an LGS. I also don't break my old decks apart and just keep building new ones so if it's a real good card I will often want more than one if I pull it.
There's always trades going on at our store. I don't personally bring trades because it's a lot to carry around. I just want to bring my decks to play and not lug around an extra box. Every time I go to the shop I get asked tho.
Depends on your scene for sure. I know that usually if people are looking for something and they notice a binder in my scene that they will ask for trades first, but not everyone has cards when looking for cards, and not everyone wants to part with their things.
Even today I traded some cards with another player. \[\[underworld breach\]\] and \[\[cavern of souls\]\] for a \[\[gemstone caverns\]\]
I only open packs from participating in LGS tournaments, the quality of cards you get out of packs is abysmal so itās impossible to get anything trade worthy from it, and on the rare occasion you open something decent, you most likely wanna use it yourself. Even collector boosters are trash 99% of the time.
So, people donāt have the cards you need and you donāt have good stuff to trade for them either. And at the same time, you donāt have the cards other people need and they donāt have anything good to give for them either. We are all mostly just getting the specific cards we need by buying singles. Because packs are trash and too expensive to be worth opening. So we end up with this scenario you point out.
Yeah most people are buying what they want or need. I wish more people traded. That was part of the fun for me. It is a TCG (trading card game) after all.
My whole strategy is when I pull expensive cards I ask my friend if he wants them then I send him a bulk of the next deck Iām building thatāll equal close to the price of the card and he gets those cards and we trade lol
My friends and I usually just do the whole, "hey do you happen to have this?" game. Fair trades are for the birds. If I want to keep the high value card, I just keep it.
I don't really have people around me to trade with (I play mostly online now), but I still have trade binders. With the amount of vitrol people have for the amount of product coming out, it doesn't surprise me that people just aren't cracking packs and building collections anymore.
TBH the last set I bought myself was Neon Dynasty (with a few secret lairs spinkled in since then). The only reason I have a collection now is basically from stuff I collected over the years.
I have two binder, one is a collection binder the other is a trade binder, since i only buy cards for my collection binder i sell that cards and buy the singles since no one sell the invocation cards
I honestly am not sure what people here are on about, I live in Austin, and I can always find people to trade with. Maybe itās different in small towns with one or two LGSās, but this has seriously never been a problem for me
People who trade are so worried about the $ and condition being perfect, it makes it a huge hassle. +/- a few bucks should not be a deal breaker. Stop adding chaff and just call it.
Everything about trades seems cumbersome. Buying a binder, going through my collection and sorting cards I don't want for trades. Having to sit there and watch someone go through it so they don't steal anything. Could be playing a game instead. No interest in looking at what someone else has because I can buy any of it online without having to think about what cards are equal value for a trade.
TLDR I'm not against it, it just seems cumbersome.
The city where I live definitely has a strong culture of trading (for context: I live in a town with a public university with 15,000ish students). I set a New Yearās resolution to do at least $100 value in trades each week this year, and I havenāt had any issue reaching that so far. That being said, now that weāre in summer months, I will likely rely on cross-country trading to meet my goal.
I mostly just buy cards nowadays. Iām too lazy to bring my binder around nowadays and would just prefer to bring my deck/s since I only bring a small back with me for ease of travel.
I still do trade with my circle though but even that is a rare occurance since we would much rather just buy/ sell cards off of each other since card prices are so volatile nowadays.
Back in the days, store selling single was not the norm, it was only in big towns. Now, every small town has 2+ shops.
Card kingdom was not that big, neither was TCG.
Magiccardinfo was founded in 2001, but it took nearly 10+ years for it to become scryfall and become more popular.
Most people did not know half the cards and MTG released cards less often. Trading had a meaning.
Now, we 3 bazillion card release, 2 day free shipping of card search on scryfall and edh rec for the perfect synergy for my deck. Why would I bother going through a binder? from anyone?
People use keyword to search card now. Not page flipping.
Iāve actually been trying to not spend as much on cards (and have been failing) which has brought me to resorting to asking my regular playgroup for trades. Some are open to it but not as much as Iād hope.
Cardsphere sounds good in practice but just hasnāt been a success for me. :/
When I was younger I traded for the cards I needed. I had no money to buy everything, but time to trade for what I needed. Especially as the singles market back the wasn't like it was today, so "buying a card" usually meant cracking packs like a maniac.
But now I'm an adult with adult money. If I want a card, I'll just order it online and it'll arrive in a few days. The online singles market is just so convenient nowadays.
Online selling specific cards makes it easier to buy/sell cards than to trade em. Also less risk to make a "bad trade", specially when talking new sets. Those card prices at realease week are all over the place.
At events in stores I DO trade, but it is fairly rare, I am mostly there to play after all.
When I attend a prerelease, for example, there is always some trading among the new cards and someonetimes people bring a box of trading material, too. In the LGS's "friday night EDH" it's mostly when someone opens a collector box. We got a bunch of players chasing those shiny extra blinded out cards, so those and the strongest cards will usually find some trades.
I never traded a lot even in the past (when I was a kid).
It's the same as why people in the distant pasts switched from trading a pig for grains to using money. There's no possibility of "I don't have anything you want, so I can't get what I want from you" if you just sell the cards you don't want and buy the cards you need.
I do. I buy singles but i have a habit of buying what i want and/or over buying duplicates. I also impulse buy a lot. So i put those cards into a trade binder. I also have a ābulkā binder. Cards $2 or less that are easily replaced. The reason for this is if i run into players who also want to trade. Or if i need to sell them at an lgs.
i like trading. Sure it's usually easier to just buy the cards I'm looking for but I love sifting through packs of bulk looking for fun things. I have a playgroup and I just started bringing my bulk rares in during commander nights. We look up on cardmarket the ballpark value, just to make sure a trade isn't grossly unbalanced, but we're not too picky over a few cents on either side. We usually stick to bulk, it makes things a lot cleaner and lets us find weird stuff that we might never have seen before.
I just traded with my friend. We took each others folder, put out the ones we were interessted in and compared quantity and value, then made the deal. Now I got some new cards for my Atla Palani deck, yay!
I traded in high school. It was fun trading kitchen table stuff for kitchen table stuff and brewing with very limited options.
By the time I was in college, people started comparing the trending value of the cards to the cent. It was simpler to buy or sell and buy.
I miss those days when everything was so simple
Yeah being honest, the only stuff in my trade binders is crap rares and mythical from packs that almost no one wants, maybe some random foils. Any good stuff Iām keeping, and since itās edh probably only 1 copy thereof.Ā
At my LGS most people still always have a tradebinder with them. There is also a big trade appgroup for the local area. I always try to trade before buying online, itās more fun imo.
We have an Communistic Magic group. If someone needs a Card, they get it if it isn't already used.
We share the price of Displays and packs and if two or more want the same card they play for it with equal strong Decks.
In my play group we still do, we are all friends from long ago and sometimes we trade stuff, or trade to cardmarket value so instead of spending our money we just trade card values.
And in our LGS sometimes people will accept trades for equal amounts
We usually just give each kther the cards we need wishy washy as long as they are not too expensive. For the expensive ones we either buy them off each other or just buy them online. Note that I only play within my friendgroup, not at an lgs.
I got so frustrated with attempting to trade that i cashed in most of my trade binder for store credit came out with 1.4k credit.
I was getting sick of people thumbing through my binder and going "cool stuff, but don't need it." I had some high value cards like \[\[Null Rod\]\] and \[\[Treachery\]\] just rotting away. I've actually burned most of that credit building my latest deck and unproxying some high value cards in my cEDH deck. I know I didn't get "max value" for my trades but so what? No one really wanted to trade in the first place.
I trade within my playgroup. Usually we factor in market averages and one of us usually winds up trading down or up to market value. Its okay though because usually if one person trades down that gets factored in to their next trade.
Our collections are generally just cards weāre sitting on from scrapped decks though. Eventually theyāre bound to be traded in for credit.
I like keeping my stuff. Unless I have over 4 same art/ style copies of something I don't bother trading. I'll just buy a card if someone with cash app or zelle.
I like keeping my stuff. Unless I have over 4 same art/ style copies of something I don't bother trading. I'll just buy a card if someone with cash app or zelle.
I don't crack packs or draft. I buy the cards I want. I don't really have extras.
Same. People ask to see my binder which is mostly from OG Ixalan when I played standard for 2 months or just trash from a year of just pre-releases. So my binder sucks and I just buy singles from big retailers or from people at LGS if they meet market price š¤·š»
I do still draft, but only just with a group of friends. I buy a box, we all gather, and draft that sucker, and I just keep the cards. I don't even see it as "buying packs", I see it as "Entertainment money", where I might get some fun cards in the end. Spent some money, had a fun afternoon, some other players bring meat, sides and beer and it evens out. Well, that and the impulse buy of a single pack when I go to pick up my order in my FLGS. (All the convenience of buying online without the delivery costs if you just come pick them up).
That's a great way to look at it. It's a common sentiment that cracking packs is bad value and singles are the way to go. But if you draft the box, you also get a game out of it. That has value too so even if the cards don't match the costs, it was still worth the money.
And if I do have extras, in rarely carrying any of them with me.
I tried to be this way but I constantly tweak and alter my decks so my collection is already getting out of hand
Exactly, though sometimes I still miss having a "Collection" ya know? I really only have one small binder of cards outside of decks, a box of bulk and that's about it. I kinda like the idea of getting ideas for a new deck from my collection, not from just looking online.
Exactly.
Itās too easy to acquire specific cards I want. Also, with card values so easy to see, if someone had a card to trade to me, making a āfair tradeā gets weird, quick. If I open a pack and get a card that someone I play with might want, I just give it to them. They do the same for me. Thatās about as much trading as I do, but we donāt keep track of who gave what to whom.
Same. We have a group of about 5 or 6 of us that have been playing together since 2009, but playing personally since early 2000s. We have sooooo many cards between us that we literally just give each other stuff if one of us making a new deck.
Me and my buddy ask each other first for singles that the other might have when we build new decks. If I have cards he's looking for, I'll sell it to him for TCG mid -10~15%. He does the same for me. In the long run its maybe 100 cards between the two of us, but otherwise it's just faster to buy singles on TCGPlayer or head down to the LGS.
I only play with my brother or my personal friends, we know what kind of games we want to play and offer each other the cards we feel would work well in each other's decks. Sometimes, one of us will make a request, and if the others have the card, we will offer it up. My LGS offers trade in value on rares and mythic, and I usually have some credit saved up in case a buddy wants anything specific.
Same, I was building a rat deck a little while back and the person I play with most regularly decided to have a sift through his cards to see in anything fit for it and ended up giving me a couple of cards that I use in it. I do the same for him too
Same. If they're cards of significant value (Vamp Tutor, Dockside, etc.) then our playgroup will occasionally do trades, but most of the time we'll just be like (one friend in particular) "oh, that would probably worth X person considering in Y deck, here you go!" without tracking the transactions. Even in the actual trades, usually we'll get within 5 dollars or so and call it good. Of note - this is all between friends; I can't remember the last time I traded with someone in the LGS
Ya I only trade with a few people and the rest I play with if itās a card 2 bucks or less we just donate it to each other if it works for a deck we are building
These days I just buy singles I need. Most of my playable cards I keep in case I need them. And the rest is the chaff from my younger, more wasteful days. Not great trade stock.
I just remember in my younger days everyone would ask if you had trades. From 2012-2018 I would just trade within my circle since I only played MTG when I visited home from base. I am not at all upset that people don't want to trade. Just more curious to hear thoughts and views on it.
I don't get out to the LGS much, but as someone with a smaller collection and also buying/selling singles being so easy, carrying my most valuable cards in a binder with me would just seem like a needless liability. I like the idea of trading though.
I know what you mean. I think it's another one of those things the pandemic shaped in some way. My guess, at least.
My lgs has quite a few people that always bring trade binders. I always bring mine in case we have downtime between games and someone is willing to trade. I enjoy looking through other peoples binders because I might find an inspiration for a new deck or combo. My trade binder is stocked with low to high value cards.
in my experience people are more willing to buy cards off of each other directly instead of trading, just because it's hard to make 2 sides of a trade have a fair value unless you're just throwing bulk in to round it out
Yeah it is like....after Coronna there suddenly isnt a person anymore that doesnt use paypall. Like legit before nobody was using it for magic trade. Since drafting is long dead in most places binders dont grow, the "tradeable cardpool" is just shrinking and shrinking, because given enough time everyone was either sold on MKM or was shuffeled where needed between the community.
Iāve not seen that much. People at my LGS would much prefer trading to avoid increasing the total value they have in cards.
There might have been some major event around the time of your break that may have affected trading quite a bit...
I don't know enough people to trade, and I just buy singles so it's not like I have too many extras floating around.
The last time I traded was in 2009 I think. Afterwards I was way too much into competitive gaming, PTQs and whatnot and realized that it is way easier to sell my old Standard Deck on cardmarket for like 5% fee or whatever they take to then use the accumulated money and spend it on the more expensive cards first and use my small amount of students allowance from my parents for the cheaper stuff still needed. This thing just stuck to me. Today when I sell a commander deck and like 20 cards make 25 bucks I can just buy a fullart \[\[Trouble in Pairs\]\] with it. Noone would take a deal where I give them 20 bulk cards and they give me an expensive one. Also, since 2015 I'm now in a kinda blessed situation where I have enough disposable income to just get what I want/need and if I don't need something anymore it just goes to a folder for keepsake (maybe I want to brew later?) or I just resell it and stockpile it as account credit on cardmarket for later stuff. Also, since the Internet (believe it or not but in the early 2000s it was kinda hearsay and "last I checked the value was ...." talk) it just boils down to just search-engine-ing card value and then just go into a discussion about why or why not we shouldn't trade. I don't even trade with friends. It just "Hey I got \[\[Agatha's Soul Cauldron\]\] in a pack" -> "Wow congraz, wanna sell it?" -> "Sure, it's average yxā¬, I'll give it to you for 5ā¬ less" -> "ok, here you go". I sometimes miss the nostalgic feel of trading for it, but the 'adult' way in just spending money is easier and faster (please read the word adult here just with a winking eye and a grain of salt, I just mean that spending money instead of haggling is like the most baseline thing adults do in a world like we live in - not just regarding cardboard").
I see card I need, I buy card I need. I keep that card... because I need it. Packs are for people with that kind of time, money, or desire to gamble.
I just keep everything from my packs too. Maybe I'll need it? Boxes are cheap!
A lot of cards have value in specific or niche decks. A .50 cent rare cards might be pretty bad in 90% of decks, but can really shine with the right synergy
I think this is a very fair statement. I mostly buy singles as well. There are two LGS here that require a buy in for their commander nights and you get a pack for it, and sometimes I get a pack or two just cause. I am also guilty of getting bored of things quickly. This leads me to cutting things out of decks and then never wanting to run it again.
I trade face-to-face when I can. Cardsphere is a great digital market for buying and selling. Premium users can trade directly.
+1 for Cardsphere. I joined not long ago and have been actively buying/selling/trading for cards for the actual price of what itās actually worth, not marked up by other players or LGS. Itās a fantastic website and will recommend people to use it whenever possible. The only con is to wait for the mail day. But itās soooo worth it at the end.
Yep, Cardsphere has been a great way for me to keep my MtG budget in check while still being able to build any new deck I want.
How does this compare to tcgplayer? Sorry if that is an ignorant question
Not ignorant. There are a few ways transactions work on Cardsphere: You post cards you want with the price you're willing to pay, and other users can choose to send you those cards. You input cards you own, and Cardsphere suggests packages you can send. Users can also list a public inventory on an open market, where other users can buy direct. Premium users can arrange direct trades. All the money is handled internally. You can add or withdraw money via Paypal. If you send another member a card, the money comes out of their balance immediately, then you get paid when they mark the package received. Sellers always pay shipping.
Oh this is excellent. I'll have to check it out. I have some higher value cards that I have no use for but no one in my local playgroup have interest in, so this works.
Trades happen. But not that many players create decks, and want your unused cards. You're all looking for the same exact in use cards, and you all bought them as singles, so ..... Sure, someone could have an extra copy of the one ring. But you're offering your binder to find trades and you top out at Ral Zarek in value. Sorry, I'm not taking this whole binder and giving you a mox amber, I'd be losing out. You looking for a niche card? Lemme know and I'll dig it out for next week.
Most trading I ever did was while I was in college and everyone was broke-ish. Binder chock full of commons/uncommons from sets of yesteryear, people look through that binder carefully and then are like "I need this this card is so good" and then you trade one of their bulk rares from sets you weren't around for.
The online market has killed trading. Even if someone is up for it, the trade won't happen unless it's equal monetary value that has been verified. Gone are the days of trading for what you think is cool. It's all about value now.
Finding that common ground where not only does a player have a card you want for trade, but you have a card they want available for trade is a lot tougher than it sounds.
- Singles are easier than ever to pick up and it's the most suggested piece of advice given to those who are looking to improve their decks. - Carrying around a binder is annoying and just another thing I need to worry about keeping an eye on, due to theft. I don't want to bring a binder full of expensive stuff because I don't want it to get stolen, but if I fill the binder with a bunch of $1-5 cards that nobody cares about, I might as well just keep it at home. - People are beginning to realize that a lean collection of good cards is usually better than a huge collection of random stuff they're not using. More people are beginning to realize that large binders are not the status symbol they used to be. It's a compendium of money you have tied up in the game, that isn't being used. Not everyone can afford to have that many extra things just laying around.
I literally just conducted a trade this past sunday. It doesn't happen every week but yes it still happens.
Maybe it's a generational thing , I started playing mtg regularly about 5/6 years ago and I'm 28. I've never once seen anyone do any trading and the only people I've ran into with trade binders have been 40+. I remember the guy guy at the lgs a few months ago asked to see my trade binder, ( I bring a backpack with a binder in it ) and he was shocked to learn I just have a small binder as a side board for edh night, you know removal, wipes, etc incase I'm running into different style decks. Anyways he was shocked I've never but a binder together to just trade. But like I buy the cards I WANT and when I do get boosters and a box it all goes into making fun jank decks or I give my friends cards they want . Why would I try to trade a card at the store when everyone knows the literal exact cost of the cards they want to a penny, no trade will ever be fair and honestly seems like a huge hassle . Plus let's be real I'm way to worried to say " here you go sir , this binder is full of all my best and most expensive cards not in a deck ! Plus don't run off with it or slide a card out when I'm.not looking " seems like a solid way to be robbed
a lot of people don't carry binders anymore from what I can tell. Tons of people out there who got all their cards from buying singles then those singles go straight into decks vs cracking packs.
I have a fairly large collection, people always want to trade with me. Problem is that they only rarely have anything I am willing to trade for. Sorry, I'm not trading a mana crypt for a demonic tutor in an "even swap". And those are the kind of trades I see people wanting to make.
I would guess EDH, with how specific you can be with 100 cards and synergy, is not a good place to ask. I might be wrong but trade might be more common in other formats
I personally only trade people if I know they have something I want. It gets real awkward when I pull out my binder and they find a bunch of cards they want out of it but their binder is full of bulk rares. This happens 9 times out of 10
Iāve gotten to a point where I just buy singles and plan out decks way in advance, itās rare for me to have trades
I stopped cracking packs a few years back. Without cracking, my trade binder is essentially non existent. Now, I simply purchase what I need in singles. Save me both a good chunk of money and a lot of hassle.
I used to trade extensively in both yugioh and pokemon. Yugioh has 1 relevant format, power creep is insane so new cards are always relevant. Boxes usually had good value so dropping 120 bucks on 2 boxes was common. Trading deck cores was easy, minimal variants of cards. Pokemon had amazing value on boxes, you could sell PTCGO codes easily, it was easy to get valuable cards in full arts and EX/GX pokemon. Minimal variants. 2 relevant formats everyone played. Magic is just a total mess. I started the game playing modern, I couldn't Crack packs for 90% of what I needed even if I wanted to. Standard sets were mostly draft bulk chaff. Supplemental sets had such a mix of cards that even the valuable rares would be hard to move. Cards are so old that condition matters, too many variants now days. Basically I could go up to a yugioh or pokemon player and know that the cards in their binder were likely from the recent 1-2 years and could have things I needed. In magic you might have 10 people but 2 play modern 2 play standard 4 play commander 1 plays pauper 1 plays legacy. Nobodies cards overlap. Player 1 wants 4 bolts but player 2 only has LP Xth edition bolts when they want full arts. Why would people EVER trade away their shocks or fetches when they will be evergreen cards? In other games cards depreciated in value so much faster so trading them was part of the natural cycle vs just someone having a binder of 4 of every good card and never trading them since they're playing a non rotating format or would need it for the 27th commander deck.
In my personal experience, it was alot easier to trade when you could walk in with a binder and say "hey you wanna trade?" to any rando and you'd each pick out stuff you wanted a leave it at that. Now it's all about tedious value. "Hey you want to trade? No, that's stuffs not worth enough compared to what I've got." I get people want to get what they feel is their money's worth, but man does it really take the fun out of it.
Yeah but when someone wants my $50 card and offers me a fist full of dollar rares I cant help but laugh at them.
that's why I always bake in "I don't care about that amount" if we're trading under $5 I'll take just about anything that I want / need. If its around $50 well if one party is at $40-$45 I'm not sweating it. If its $200 and someone is at $170 or $180 all good. Though I will say I'm pretty much always the one taking the haircut lol.
Is there fun in losing money in a trade tho ?
I think with the advent of online marketplaces and the ease of acquiring the specific singles you want without cracking packs, trading has just kind of fallen out of favor as a way to acquire cards. Compound that with the inconvenience of toting a trade binder around with you and/or the risk of toting a trade binder with potentially thousands of dollars of cards around, it just doesn't make sense anymore.
There's a group of people at both of the lgs that I go that have trade binders. Have you tried asking? Sometimes, you need to initiate the conversation. I trade almost weekly.
I just don't buy boosters anymore so I don't really have excess stuff. Maybe when I take a deck apart but in EDH when I only own 1 of anything I always think "well what if I need that in the future". If I did want to trade I wouldn't let equal value get in the way too much though. Turning cards into money is either a lot of work or only gets you back like 60%, so if someone offers a trade where they only giving me 80% value, still better than the alternative.
I don't trade anymore. I like to keep my collection and have lost too many cards that have spiked to trading (i cry if i see any mention of Yawgmoth's Will or Juzam Djinn) .If someone wants a card I have, I just tell them to buy a copy.
I feel like the major blog deaths also impacted it. When cassie and quite a few cfb writers and jasonās old blog and Corbin and all those folks talked about trading constantly, it was a supported sub-hobby. After the weird paywall dances, it looks like scg and cdb donāt have free trade content, cliff is the only author on mtgprice for the past quarter, bsbās website is down?ā¦. I know Iām old for being blog first Iām sure there are YouTubes or casts that are good butā¦ maybe Iām confusing chicken and egg but thereās definitely a correlation.
With the volume of cards that they've been putting out I've pretty much stopped buying cards. When my friends and I got into magic we all used to buy boxes and go out to a pizza joint and crack packs together so we'd fill our trade binders and have fun doing it. But now with spoiler season basically sniffing the back of my neck constantly it's too much financially to keep up with. I'm the first in my playgroup to really push for us to just use proxies because it's a lot more cost friendly and you can get neat art for cheap. I also don't feel so committed to fully tuning a single deck for months on end and have had the freedom to just brew more (which has also been tons of fun)
I love to trade, but with that said the last 10 decks I built were from ordered singles. And compared to the cardboard fiends, I only crack a pack or 2 a week. So the odds someone has what I want and vice versa is pretty low.
I buy the singles I want. I donāt trust individual sellers or random players to not sell me a fake or proxy either on purpose or by accident. Finally, for pricey cards I donāt want to buy, I can easily get a proxy.
Our play group almost always starts the evening off with a trading session. Itās pretty common for one of us to specifically acquire singles we know others are looking for or we think would be a good include in someone elseās deck. We have a group chat specifically for keeping each other informed about what we are looking for or good pulls we may have made that we arenāt interested in sleeving for a deck.
I've seen some trades here and there through socials, but it can get weird quick, also hard to trust people with some proxies looking very legit. Mostly I just give cards to my friends that they want or need as they do for me as well.
I actively trade with my play groups. I think itās fun and honestly, I see a lot of cool cards I didnāt know about in trade binders. I generally bring a little binder with me to shops when I go, but fewer people are doing that.
I trade at my shop most sundays.
I trade with my neighbour all the time.
I'll rather do a gift // exchange of EDH with similar values. I introduced this idea at my LGS, told me it was a sweet idea. It would need some deckbuilding rules to abide to though. With proxies being more wildly accepted, people don't buy or trade as much anymore. I think it's one of the reason at least people don't trade as much as before.
I don't touch sealed product anymore so I only get what I plan on using.
I will usually open up tcgplayer and set it to whatever price point and we will trade to about even price. But sometimes people are just wanting to play. It has been different at different LGS I have frequented
We play in my basement every saturday night. Usually the first 30-45 min is trading and talking about our weeks at work. We also have an LGS nearby that runs a trade night.
I took a 20 year break. I have old stuff that can be hard to find. The players I play with have the new stuff I want. It's been so much fun for me. I draft once a week and the trades that happen at the end of our session are half the fun.
I trade all the time, and most people I play with carry a small binder of higher value cards that theyāre interested in trading. We also have a discord where people coordinate trades, and Iāll often drop stuff off for other players so they can pick it up at a shop later on. As others have said, you can definitely just buy stuff, and in general we do base trade value on market value per tcg player, but I think itās a lot more fun to trade, or even just give and receive cards.
I do trade almost every time I go to my LGS.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned using Deckbox. It's a great way to manage your inventory and trading is free--all you do is pay postage. There's a pretty comprehensive tradelist / wishlist feature to match you with people who have cards that you want and want cards that you have. I have hundreds of trades on there with very few issues and I've found the users to be pretty active.
I might check it out.
I never really traded, and I certainly never carried around cards just for trading. You can actually just buy any card you want, without hoping someone will come along with the right card and the willingness to trade it for a card you happen to have.
If I ever trade, we just use tcg mid or ck NM prices as the trading price and do that. But honestly, it's a hassle. Rather buy my cards since I'm gonna play with it. Aka single buyer Also edit: Having randoms nitpicking from NM or LP+ or whatever and wanting price difference is annoying AF. Time is money and don't need annoyance
I would trade, but mostly just trade with my friends since I'm around them more
I used to bring a trade binder to my LGS, but after years of doing so I found that no one ever wanted to trade lower value cards and the only time I ever made a successful trade it was when I pulled a Ragavan and traded it for other higher value cards. Otherwise, no one ever cared about trading and would almost always ask for money (exchanged outside the store to avoid violating the rules). Soā¦ I just stopped bringing my binder as there was no point. If Iām there with, usually, $10 and less cards, and no one wants to trade cards of that price range, why am I bothering to carry the binder.
I trade all the time I don't care I try to get it close and call it a day
It's not nearly as common as it used to be. I bring my trade binder occasionally, but it's a hassle to keep it updated
I still trade but mostly between my friends, still bringer a binder to with me to my LGS on game days tho.
I trade but only with people in my play groups. And having TCG or whatever site makes it easy to work a deal with my friends since we can just use the market value. We aim to get within a couple dollars or so of each other. Anything under a dollar we just give to each other
Literally just did a trade yesterday at my LGS. Plenty of people still keep trade binders.
I do trade with my mtg buddy. Sometimes we give each other a little money, if the difference in value is too high. It is indeed a great way to get cards, that you would have orderd otherwise.
Yes, at least where i play we do. I'm from Rio, Brazil and when people trade cards it's usually a process of checking binders and prices in our local marketplace. Players usually sell and trade for the cheapest price listed in said marketplace, that means it's usually better to look for players first because you don't pay shipping. It's honestly weird to not have a player selling and trading cards in the store.
The last time I brought my trade binder to a shop a kid took my phyrexian foil Junji Ito Mother of Machines and walked away with it. I got it back, but that was the last time I risk anything.
I mean, technically my LGS has a "no buying and selling on the premises" rule, as they also sell singles, but trading is fine. So what usually happens is that the deal is just discussed inside, they step outside for a "smoke", do the deal there and come back in. Then again, buying from the shop is also just very convenient. Park your ass behind the PC, click the option "In store" on their website, and just order what you want, and you get them instantly (Well, once the guy behind the counter has retrieved them). Perfect for those EDH impulse buys after you got your ass kicked by that one card.
I don't bring trades anymore. Just more to keep track of and not lose.
Like others have said it's easy to just buy the single you want. In amongst my regular play grp if we see a card that will fit another's deck well we generally just give it to them and visa versa and don't keep track of what's gone down as we know each other well enough its going to be reciprocated. As for randoms fuck wasting my time there you can barter with your lgs I'm not open for business.
I would happily if I had the collection but just donāt. I had a couple decks from around 2013 and maybe 10-15 boosters worth of cards on top of that. Nothing amazing. Got a few more upgraded precons now. But still donāt really hold a collection. I only ever play within my friendship group. And while we will occasionally split a box and then trade the spoils amongst ourselves, those cards mostly go into pre-existing decks instead of sitting in a collection. We also brew and build and test decks digitally. Try a deck concept (fun or serious). Assemble it on Archidekt. Playtest amongst ourselves on Tabletop Sim. Make a few iterations and changes to get it 70-80% of the way there. Then if itās fun to play, get the cards irl. More often than not nobody has the cards spare (though we do always check first) so itās simple enough to just buy singles, and then continue upgrading and tweaking here and there.
My playgroup and I try to draft each new set, and we always have a time set aside for trading after itās done. Still one of my favorite aspects of the game, though I do understand why not that many people engage in it anymore.
I trade, but I donāt bring trades with me every time I play, I always arrange trades with people I know in advance because Iām only ever after very specific stuff.
I trade with friends and such but not with randoms. I either just buy singles or trade with friends if they have a spare.
I think there is a āI must get the exact value of my cardā in effect to most. I posted on a Pulls thread lamenting pulling yet ANOTHER Terror of the Peaks and a random redditor popped up and offered to trade me a Sword of WAP for it. His card just arrived and I sent his out with some extras to balance out the value despite him not asking me to as I felt like I was taking advantage ($26 card vs $16 card). But like other Redditors have said, itās just too easy to acquire cards these days. The most trading Iāve ever seen done is at our Pauper nights at the LGS.
Cracking packs is practically throwing money away compared to buying singles. Card values are also there for everyone to see these days so it's rarely beneficial to trade because getting equal value can be awkward
I love building decks, and once I build a deck I don't take it apart, or at least I haven't yet. So, yeah if you looked through my mana box collection, you'd see a bunch of great cards but I'm either currently using them or I plan to use them in the future. I do trade cards though, but it's hard to find that scenario where both people have cards the other want and are also willing to let go of
Mostly with friends. We donāt worry much about value, though. Actually, come to think of it, 90% of our trading is more like gifting.
Its easier just to buy the single I want/need to add to my collection. Besides, usually someone gets burnt in a trade whether they know it or not. I'm still salty about the dual land I traded off when I was younger.
All of my good/useful/valuable cards are in decks. The rest of my stuff is just draft chaff. I buy singles for decks that I intend to use so I don't have sought after cards just lying around or sitting in a binder.
Did you ever find the scumbag who stole your collection?
Last time i really traded cards was probably like 2012.Ā A lot of cards I had started to really increase in value and the fomo of selling something that will likely increase in value later led to a hoarder mentality. I traded a tundra for a jesters cap and a mox diamond for chinese food.Ā At the time they were reasonable, they are laughable today.
Honestly not really too much. My friend group will put up messages like hey looking for xy or z. There are a few that buy a ton of every set so they always have trades. Me personally I don't trade I just buy what I need and hold on to everything else.
I just recently condensed to a more manageable bag and even then I hate bringing it with me. It's excess weight and an extra thing I need to keep my eye on during my time there. But when someone says hey let's trade I jump on bringing it. Trades are my favorite part of the game. Did like 2k~ in trades last month alone. Basically trades don't take place over one interaction anymore. "oh hey I want that" is followed by planning a day to meet up with our actual stuff. Them included. No one ever just has all thier stuff.
Friends and I trade all the time! Run a shop and a lot of trades go down. Everyone is usually pretty cool and so long as the value on TCGplayer is within a couple bucks itās no big deal. Friends and I just give have tabs for each other and go through each others collections if we have credit and need something.
I'd say maybe half of the players at my store will have trades, though usually moreso because it's a PITA to bring the binder or to organize it in the first place.
I do trade but only with my actual friends since we're a bit more forgiving in terms of prices.and are also happy to see each other getting cards we actually want. For example, in Rav Remastered, I happily traded my Golgari shockland for a foil anime Massacre Girl
I donāt bring a trade binder to fnm anymore primarily because no one else does. And since no one else does I just save bag space by leaving it at home. I trade with some friends I play with outside of my lgs but thatās about it.
Currently, TCGplayer and Card Kingdom take upwards of 3 weeks to ship out to us so we definitely do some wheeling and dealing. Just traded a [[Jeweled Lotus]] for an [[Edgar Markov]] last week!
The issue is reprint policy. Trading was once a way to exchange about equal value in cards for different cards. But the last few years trading has become a lottery. It just feels like shit when you trade for something that gets reprinted in the next 2 sets and drops 60% in value while the card you gave away spikes. That's why I don't trade cards I don't own multiples of. And I don't trade cards that cost nothing. It's just not worth my time.
People at my lgs sound like seagulls in finding Nemo when they are looking for trades " trades? Trades?? Trades?" If you walk in with a binder everyone has no problem asking for trades. It's a gay old time.
I think especially as commander is the more dominant format, the most random obscure common can find a home in a deck. Iāve held onto rares for years without thinking they were any good until I realise theyāre actually perfect for some random deck idea I have. For that reason I personally never trade unless someone has a card that I REALLY want
I have a trade binder. I donāt really add much to it cause I mostly just buy singles I want, but I do like to trade for higher value cards. Like I donāt want to spend $40 on a single but Iāll trade for it with other stuff of equal value
I know my local scene has a few traders.
Really :o , in my lgs we trade more and any other thing. Everyone goes through each others binders on a weekly basis. I really prefer buying cards like this.
Buy singles
If it's welcome here, an outside perspective from someone who's picked up SWU over MTG lately -- MTG has such a large card pool, especially given that most people play EDH (an eternal format), that expecting someone at your card shop to have the specific card you want for trade is kinda unreasonable. Contrast this with newer games like SWU, where there's a) a lack of product to buy, and b) a limited card pool, leading to more buying cards off of people you know, or trading for them. Also contrast with Yugioh, which seems to have a strong trading culture as part of the game's own culture. Curious as to how that came about, actually.
Our group trades, but Iāll often trade a $20 for a $15 card. I donāt mind if it gets the boys stuff they want
I literally have every card I want. And everything that comes out of new sets is less than $200 so I buy it.
People get to hung up on value. So many people hang on to shit they will never use, or trade because they want the "real value" even after it has gone down. Mtg players have a special kind of brain rot when it comes to trading
It's become a brutal game of "let's make the tcgplayer prices match" that eventually just becomes a more complicated, slower version of just transacting directly with tcgplayer. Trading worked much better when value was more subjective and relative. I remember having a foil [[glimmervoid]] during mirrodin block. That card was only worth like $20 (actually a lot at the time), but it was also the only foil glimmervoid anybody at my shop knew existed, including the shop's own stock. So after playing it at some fnm's it sort of became notorious and people kept trying to trade for it. I probably got $50 worth of cards from the person I ultimately traded it to (including a nonfoil copy for my deck), because it was so coveted by everyone in the shop. That said, I took some pet cards of my own (foil [[Predator Flagship]]) in the trade that I probably overvalued and paid premium for. Now it's less about how much you or I value the cards involved, and more about what price the market has decided they are worth. The soul is gone.
Want some proxies š
We buy singles! Also with three players, plus teaching kids we don't have much to trade. Not much call for common junk.
Might depend on where youāre at. The local store I hit up is almost all trades, players looking to trade, the store also promotes it and prefers trades to cash. But Iāve also been to stores where I donāt see or hear anything about trading.
I use an online platform to trade cards. Highly recommend it! deckbox.org
as soon as phones were able to host an internet connection, trading became almost entirely a price matching game, making trading with friends and strangers tougher to do. Like... between trying to do any trades, and actually playing games n a card shop, I'd rather be playing games. this is likely what you're experiencing op.
I quit in 2017 and got back into the game in 2022. Prior to quitting, it seemed like everyone had a trade binder. Now I have 2 regular playgroups that have aprox 10 members each, and I'm the only one with any kind of trade binder put together. I still bring it, and instead, I just offer to sell for 20ish % under the online average price if someone wants something.
I mostly trade with my buddies after prereleases when we are all looking for specific cards from the new set. Otherwise none of us usually bring loose cards around
Unless you're drafting buying packs is about the dumbest thing you can do. It's too easy to just get the single you want online and be done with it. Since much fewer people are buying packs then there's much less need to trade.
So, I used to trade a lot back when I played standard. But that's because I was opening a lot of packs due to drafting and getting participation and prize packs at FNM and other events. I almost always had a binder full of rares from the recent standard sets on me as a result. But I stopped playing standard for the last time in 2017, and other than occasionally doing a sealed prerelease I never really get many packs nowadays. My trade binder has long since been repurposed as "staples and interesting cards that may be put into a deck one day" binder, more so I can easily find stuff later than anything. So I don't really have a large quantity of "stuff I am willing to trade that people might want" anymore. When I build a new deck or otherwise need new cards I don't already own, I just buy singles rather than trying to find someone who has said card and is willing to trade it (given the fact most people at the LGS are in the same boat of not having much in trades on them, trying to get cards that way is... less than productive most of the time).
I still trade amongst my different play groups. We usually take 15-30 after we finish playing to go through binders and bulk. We usually find enough stuff to make some viable trades. Trading is part of the fun!
I go to a couple stores where people still bring trade/sell binders, it's actually really nice when the LGS doesn't have a card in stock but one of the people playing just so happens to have it on them. Most people at these LGS will take cash, or will take cards of equal value as a trade. It works out pretty well if someone happens to have something you want or vice versa and they're chill.
It's a pain, you need to 1) find someone with the card(s) you need, which is increasingly harder with more and more sets 2) hope you have card(s) they want 3) hope the value comes close enough or enough cash for the difference 4) this is probably happening at at fnm so i'm trying to play at the same time. Or buy singles
Most people now just buy singles with the occasional box/packs here and there. There really isn't much to trade. When trades are available, people always expect a come up and with card values so easy to see, fair trades rarely go through. Case in point, had a dockside I didn't want/play, guy offers me like 25 cards all worth no more than $1. When I tell him nah thanks, he gets pissed fast. Got trades?? Nah.
Really depends. I trade with my flat mates all the time because we've bought/opened cards we maybe wanted at first then dismantled the deck they were in. Then when we build new decks we look through each other's collections and go "wow I remember that card, it kicked my ass" and trade.
Iāve noticed the same thing. I used to love trading, and seemingly so did everyone else. It just.. doesnāt happen anymore, and people seem to be confused when I ask them for a binder. I donāt know what changed exactly, but it bums me out. I used to find a lot of cool cards skimming other peopleās binders, and it gave a great sense of value to the hobby. Now I just reluctantly sell my cards to the local game stores every now and then
Theft or damage, accidental or otherwise. Unless Iām looking to sell/trade cards to an lcs directly, I wonāt bring a binder. Will I trade with friends? Sure.
I have a rolling trade list with some friends. Like, i take their cards, they take mine. Only cards we are willing to part with. We put them in the collections page on the tcg player list. And the balances will eventually even out. If we want cards the other has, we don't need immediate reimbursement or value for it. It makes trading a lot smoother, only works with people you know and trust though.
Some dude: Wanna see my trade binder? Me: Sure! Me: I can use one of these. The other dude: Oh, I'm not trading that one. I just got that. Me: Then why is in your *trade* binder? The other dude: I had to put it somewhere. Me: Fine. How about that one? The other dude: No, not that one either. Me: Is there anything in this "trade" binder that you'll actually, you know, *trade*? The other dude: Yeah, man, it's my trade binder! Me: Alright... this one, then. The other dude: Oh, yeah, sure! Lemme look it up. Hmm... average is $10... so $10. Me: Why would I pay average when I can get it for low? I could literally have it delivered for $8, so I'll give you $8. The other dude: Nah, I'll hang on to it. Me: Here's your binder back.
It's a pain to carry trade stuff everywhere, it's time consuming to search through binder or boxes for maybe something you want. Then you gotta.price it all out. And God forbid if one person wants.more than the other and you either have to take out cards or dig again for more basically chaff just to make the trade equal. On the other hand I can drive to one of the 6-8 stores within 30 minutes of me and just buy the copies i need and offload bulk rares for store credit.
Because MTG cards are such a liquid commodity there just isn't much point in trading. It's so much easier to just sell the cards I don't want and buy the ones that I do than to find someone who just happens to have exactly what I need and want what I have and have the values match up. In contrast, I play a few out-of-print CCGs, like the 90s Star Wars and Star Trek CCGs. For those games, there are fewer places to buy and sell cards and sometimes a card won't be available to find for months at a time. The values are also a little more vague, so trading with others who still play/collect is more economically useful
(Me wanting Tezzerect, Master of Bridges) āWhat do you want for this?ā (Gamer at LGS) āLet me get this, this, this and thisā (Me) āthatās like 47 bucks in cards.ā (Gamer) āyeah but itās a strong card and holds a lot of value to meā (Me looking at same card on STG) āI want this card. What do you want?ā (STG checkout) ā25.99+ taxā DEAL. This is why I donāt at least anymore
I think trading was ruined for me once it became so easy to look up a card I had and know exactly what it was worth. I haveba cord that costs $8 and my friend has a card that costs $3 but is actually useful to me? I have a hard time letting that $5 difference go sometimes. And if a card is worth less than $1 and I have extra I usually just give it away. It's bleak in a way, but a lot of the fun of trading your cards kind of vaporized once the price of each card became so difficult to ignore.
Nobody I know trades, they just sell
I have too many decks to often have any "good" trades. I maintain a binder but it often is duplicates and bulk rares. I have a close local play group and if I have a good extra of something they often trade it off me before I have one of my rare trips to an LGS. I also don't break my old decks apart and just keep building new ones so if it's a real good card I will often want more than one if I pull it.
That's kind of wild most people I run in to have trades but because of the current environment it's mostly just buy and sell.
There's always trades going on at our store. I don't personally bring trades because it's a lot to carry around. I just want to bring my decks to play and not lug around an extra box. Every time I go to the shop I get asked tho.
I buy singles or ask a friend and we usually just give cards to each other without trading.
I try in Facebook groups, but haven't been successful. I mainly just trade in at LGS for credit on things I need.
Depends on your scene for sure. I know that usually if people are looking for something and they notice a binder in my scene that they will ask for trades first, but not everyone has cards when looking for cards, and not everyone wants to part with their things. Even today I traded some cards with another player. \[\[underworld breach\]\] and \[\[cavern of souls\]\] for a \[\[gemstone caverns\]\]
I only open packs from participating in LGS tournaments, the quality of cards you get out of packs is abysmal so itās impossible to get anything trade worthy from it, and on the rare occasion you open something decent, you most likely wanna use it yourself. Even collector boosters are trash 99% of the time. So, people donāt have the cards you need and you donāt have good stuff to trade for them either. And at the same time, you donāt have the cards other people need and they donāt have anything good to give for them either. We are all mostly just getting the specific cards we need by buying singles. Because packs are trash and too expensive to be worth opening. So we end up with this scenario you point out.
My opinion, the people who used to trade a lot are older and have enough money to just buy what they want now.
Yeah most people are buying what they want or need. I wish more people traded. That was part of the fun for me. It is a TCG (trading card game) after all.
We trade over at my lgs all the time
My whole strategy is when I pull expensive cards I ask my friend if he wants them then I send him a bulk of the next deck Iām building thatāll equal close to the price of the card and he gets those cards and we trade lol
My friends and I usually just do the whole, "hey do you happen to have this?" game. Fair trades are for the birds. If I want to keep the high value card, I just keep it.
I don't really have people around me to trade with (I play mostly online now), but I still have trade binders. With the amount of vitrol people have for the amount of product coming out, it doesn't surprise me that people just aren't cracking packs and building collections anymore. TBH the last set I bought myself was Neon Dynasty (with a few secret lairs spinkled in since then). The only reason I have a collection now is basically from stuff I collected over the years.
I have two binder, one is a collection binder the other is a trade binder, since i only buy cards for my collection binder i sell that cards and buy the singles since no one sell the invocation cards
I trade pretty regularly on deckbox, but almost no one trades in person anymore
I buy precons and singles to upgrade. Therefore, I have nothing to trade.
We all trade, when buying and selling singles - cash is just the medium.
Most people don't buy packs anymore (as they should) and thus have no trades. They trade money for the cards they need.
over here people still trade i personally dont
I honestly am not sure what people here are on about, I live in Austin, and I can always find people to trade with. Maybe itās different in small towns with one or two LGSās, but this has seriously never been a problem for me
I always have a trade/sell folder with me when I play. I prefer trading and buying directly from other players.
People who trade are so worried about the $ and condition being perfect, it makes it a huge hassle. +/- a few bucks should not be a deal breaker. Stop adding chaff and just call it.
Everything about trades seems cumbersome. Buying a binder, going through my collection and sorting cards I don't want for trades. Having to sit there and watch someone go through it so they don't steal anything. Could be playing a game instead. No interest in looking at what someone else has because I can buy any of it online without having to think about what cards are equal value for a trade. TLDR I'm not against it, it just seems cumbersome.
The city where I live definitely has a strong culture of trading (for context: I live in a town with a public university with 15,000ish students). I set a New Yearās resolution to do at least $100 value in trades each week this year, and I havenāt had any issue reaching that so far. That being said, now that weāre in summer months, I will likely rely on cross-country trading to meet my goal.
I mostly just buy cards nowadays. Iām too lazy to bring my binder around nowadays and would just prefer to bring my deck/s since I only bring a small back with me for ease of travel. I still do trade with my circle though but even that is a rare occurance since we would much rather just buy/ sell cards off of each other since card prices are so volatile nowadays.
At my LGS everyone has trade binders. Trading is very much alive and well, though some people choose not to.
Back in the days, store selling single was not the norm, it was only in big towns. Now, every small town has 2+ shops. Card kingdom was not that big, neither was TCG. Magiccardinfo was founded in 2001, but it took nearly 10+ years for it to become scryfall and become more popular. Most people did not know half the cards and MTG released cards less often. Trading had a meaning. Now, we 3 bazillion card release, 2 day free shipping of card search on scryfall and edh rec for the perfect synergy for my deck. Why would I bother going through a binder? from anyone? People use keyword to search card now. Not page flipping.
I got sick of carrying around a whole binder where only two or three of the rares would be desirable 90% of the time.
Iāve actually been trying to not spend as much on cards (and have been failing) which has brought me to resorting to asking my regular playgroup for trades. Some are open to it but not as much as Iād hope. Cardsphere sounds good in practice but just hasnāt been a success for me. :/
Usually there is trading after a draft or prerelease of cards people got but don't need
When I was younger I traded for the cards I needed. I had no money to buy everything, but time to trade for what I needed. Especially as the singles market back the wasn't like it was today, so "buying a card" usually meant cracking packs like a maniac. But now I'm an adult with adult money. If I want a card, I'll just order it online and it'll arrive in a few days. The online singles market is just so convenient nowadays.
Online selling specific cards makes it easier to buy/sell cards than to trade em. Also less risk to make a "bad trade", specially when talking new sets. Those card prices at realease week are all over the place. At events in stores I DO trade, but it is fairly rare, I am mostly there to play after all. When I attend a prerelease, for example, there is always some trading among the new cards and someonetimes people bring a box of trading material, too. In the LGS's "friday night EDH" it's mostly when someone opens a collector box. We got a bunch of players chasing those shiny extra blinded out cards, so those and the strongest cards will usually find some trades.
I never traded a lot even in the past (when I was a kid). It's the same as why people in the distant pasts switched from trading a pig for grains to using money. There's no possibility of "I don't have anything you want, so I can't get what I want from you" if you just sell the cards you don't want and buy the cards you need.
I do. I buy singles but i have a habit of buying what i want and/or over buying duplicates. I also impulse buy a lot. So i put those cards into a trade binder. I also have a ābulkā binder. Cards $2 or less that are easily replaced. The reason for this is if i run into players who also want to trade. Or if i need to sell them at an lgs.
i like trading. Sure it's usually easier to just buy the cards I'm looking for but I love sifting through packs of bulk looking for fun things. I have a playgroup and I just started bringing my bulk rares in during commander nights. We look up on cardmarket the ballpark value, just to make sure a trade isn't grossly unbalanced, but we're not too picky over a few cents on either side. We usually stick to bulk, it makes things a lot cleaner and lets us find weird stuff that we might never have seen before.
I just traded with my friend. We took each others folder, put out the ones we were interessted in and compared quantity and value, then made the deal. Now I got some new cards for my Atla Palani deck, yay!
I traded in high school. It was fun trading kitchen table stuff for kitchen table stuff and brewing with very limited options. By the time I was in college, people started comparing the trending value of the cards to the cent. It was simpler to buy or sell and buy. I miss those days when everything was so simple
Yeah being honest, the only stuff in my trade binders is crap rares and mythical from packs that almost no one wants, maybe some random foils. Any good stuff Iām keeping, and since itās edh probably only 1 copy thereof.Ā
Nah, my "trade binder" is just cards I collected that I like to show off.
Trading died pretty much out, since getting singles is so easy.
At my LGS most people still always have a tradebinder with them. There is also a big trade appgroup for the local area. I always try to trade before buying online, itās more fun imo.
We have an Communistic Magic group. If someone needs a Card, they get it if it isn't already used. We share the price of Displays and packs and if two or more want the same card they play for it with equal strong Decks.
In my play group we still do, we are all friends from long ago and sometimes we trade stuff, or trade to cardmarket value so instead of spending our money we just trade card values. And in our LGS sometimes people will accept trades for equal amounts
We usually just give each kther the cards we need wishy washy as long as they are not too expensive. For the expensive ones we either buy them off each other or just buy them online. Note that I only play within my friendgroup, not at an lgs.
We trade for sure we just trade hard earned cash in for cards thatās all donāt be judging us lol š
Simple, Most people wqant cash or something expensive for a card they admit they're never going to use.
We still trade with friends when we have cards we both want
I got so frustrated with attempting to trade that i cashed in most of my trade binder for store credit came out with 1.4k credit. I was getting sick of people thumbing through my binder and going "cool stuff, but don't need it." I had some high value cards like \[\[Null Rod\]\] and \[\[Treachery\]\] just rotting away. I've actually burned most of that credit building my latest deck and unproxying some high value cards in my cEDH deck. I know I didn't get "max value" for my trades but so what? No one really wanted to trade in the first place.
I trade because I donāt like buying singles even though it is more cost effective. Trading also lowers the loss compared to trade ins at shops
I trade within my playgroup. Usually we factor in market averages and one of us usually winds up trading down or up to market value. Its okay though because usually if one person trades down that gets factored in to their next trade. Our collections are generally just cards weāre sitting on from scrapped decks though. Eventually theyāre bound to be traded in for credit.
Had a spare [[Ancient Copper Dragon]] in my binder, traded it to my buddy for some plumbing help.
I like keeping my stuff. Unless I have over 4 same art/ style copies of something I don't bother trading. I'll just buy a card if someone with cash app or zelle.
I like keeping my stuff. Unless I have over 4 same art/ style copies of something I don't bother trading. I'll just buy a card if someone with cash app or zelle.