The prices you have quoted for tickets are not even close, the 6% vs 7% thing, that could easily be a typo, don't even care about that. Tickets have been very close to a dollar in value with a tight buy/sell margin, which is a good thing, for about a year. Player Rewards and limited events requiring only tickets (no product) as entry have kept the market soaked up a little better. You can post an ad beating those prices you proposed by far and get stampeded with messages for interested people. I'm sure there's some dealer who is setup at those prices, that's their personal decision, it is not even close to the current market value and anyone accepting it is being ripped off.

On the contrary to paying an extra ticket or more at bots, it's more accurate that you can save a ticket or more (on the highest value cards) with some time and luck through the classifieds. The time factor is more in waiting for someone to respond your ad, or searching for ads of people looking to sell their cards slightly above the best bot buyprice, not really in searching through collections. The luck factor is in the fact there are TONS of listings, and the best offer isnt even always SEEN. Rather than simply rip your advice to shreds, I'll offer the community a piece of my own: Search a cardname in the classifieds, notice that 95% of the offers are the EXACT same price – beat that price by a SMIDGE, if you are the first ad a prospective buyer/seller sees beating the majority, you'll often get the sale – they don't want to be 30 seconds late to pounce on what they likely assume is the best offer.

Your comment about picking up commons and uncommons for a deck "without spending a ticket" is just mind-boggling. It means nothing. How many bots do you shop at? Two? Fifty? How did you not spend a ticket? You "spent" the whole ticket in advance and came back for the rest of what you paid for later. If you didnt "spend" anything on these commons, then you overpaid like crazy on that first card when you left the credit. All I can think of is how unexciting it is to find my own dollar bill in my pocket when I take my jeans out of the dryer.

"As I explained above, bots are an integral part of the MTGO trading structure, and knowing how to deal with them is important if you want to make a significant profit online."

This may be true, but I don't see any explanation of how to deal with them in this article.

"To exploit this variance, it’s important, as both a dealer and a player, to not be stuck buying cards during the prerelease period, and instead wait until the Release events to pick up your singles. During the Prerelease might be the only time where it is profitable to buy and open sealed Boosters, simply because the prices of the cards are so high."

Exactly what you are saying, about refraining from buying during the prerelease period, is WHY it is so profitable a time. It is no mystery the cards are overpriced, it is no mystery when packs go on sale and when drafts/release events begin – dealing during prerelease weekend is an amazingly profitable time, and it's a time when human's have a huge advantage over bots. The people in the prereleases just dump their cards indiscriminantly and whoevers there to hand them to the limited players cashes in big time. All you have to do is divest before it's over.

But then… lol… you go on to mention how it might be the only time it's profitable to crack packs…so are we sticking our heads in the ground or trying to deal in prerelease? Cracking packs can be worthwhile, but note packs arent on sale til afetr prereleases, the only ones around are from miserable pre-re payout and possibly new accoutn creation (m11), thus the UNOPENED packs sell for an amazing amount… unless you manage to get away with charging above inflated bot prices for singles (which is possible in pre-re). You can crack packs to sell signles during prerelease but if youre doing that much it also makes sense to be buying singles.

Ugh, I have to cut myself off here because I could go on and on and yeah, I already have… I would stick to paper if I were you, or hold off until I had more experience with MTGO to advise others. The only accurate information I found in here was about buying your singles during release events. Heck, buy EVERYTHING that seems a TINY BIT underpriced during release events (at buyprices not sellprices). It's easy to aquire and almost all goes up. You'll know whats going down if you have any business speculating in the first place. Don't believe me? Right now Goblin Chieftain is going for 0.08, Honor of the Pure for 0.15, Elvish Archdruid 0.15, Day of Judgment 1.3 (was as low as 1.1), Chandra Nalaar 1.25 (was as low as 1), the 5 mll dual lands combine for 3.1… these are fullprice sellprices at the highest charging mtgo bots, you can buy them at discount bots for less, or buy them yourself as a dealer for even less.

Great, I got 11 for 1 tix a piece!

@the cardfather: i did manage to pick up some Serra Ascendants in physical form. I've bought about 65 for $2 each, should turn out well