Subject: artiicle (Misc) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 21:10:02 -0500 From: Asaf Peleg To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com [MIC] To me trading in magic is like the melting pot of the states, it is so diverse and different that no one person is the same or thinks towards trading the same way. There are so many aspects to the world of trading in magic sometimes it doesn't even seem worth it. Further more there are some topics that I would like to discuss. The first and most important thing is value. Value is and the most annoying aspect of trading. Reason, well mainly because there is no standard on price for a certain card besides the fact of the rarity of the card. Another thing that makes it so hard to price cards is magazines, what I mean is some people follow them and some people don't. It would seem that they might follow on an average price but it never seems that way to me, it's always lower or higher. This makes it very difficult for a "non-follower" of magazines and a "follower." How the traders resolve it is either come to an understanding or just walk away and either way you just always seem to get a bad felling about it afterwards. Lastly on this subject is who usually sets the standard for they big card of the set such as Cured Scroll, Mox Diamond, Reflecting Pool etc. Is it just me or does it seem like scrubs set the standard doesn't it. People trade for these rares a lot, not because they are good it's because they can rip some newbie off for it, get a better deal for it. So the more you can get from newbies for the big rare the better. The biggest case I have ever seen with this is Time Warp. When this card first came out it was expensive or the big rare. But not because it was especially good it was because newbies wanted it. But the phenomenon is that I would never see a newbie with a Time Warp. People who knew it was just ok always traded it to other people who knew it was ok and doing so it would be kept out of the hands of newbies. But why did the newbies want it is my next area of discussion. Second I would like to discuss the name and picture. People say that it has a large effect on the card, and I agree. If you took lets say two cards from a set let's say Mox Diamond and Sword of the Chosen, one being the big rare the other the worst rare. Now Mox Diamond is not such a bad card and actually a pretty good one but Sword of the Chosen bites the dust. But something makes me think that if you swapped names that you would almost swap the prices. Once again I blame the newbies. They heard of these cards called Black Lotus and Moxes and the rest of the power nine and now Mox Diamond comes out and there is a frantic rage to get it no matter what it does. This really annoys me because now for my deck I have to trade for a $15 card when it should only be around $7-8. I hope that this has impacted your view of the world of trading in magic I hope the newbie that read this will change their newbie picks to a worse rare so we won't need it for our decks. I am speaking truthfully when I say my collection is the greatest and my trading skill isn't the greatest but all I have to say is there should be a way to change how it is all done, but of course there isn't and it will never change but it is certainly fun to complain and that is what I am doing. Good bye and good night. Asaf Peleg Controlboy@mindspring.com Controlbo on Irc