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Last week I said we would go more in depth with the upcoming extended metagame and the cards you should be on the lookout for. That’s been pushed back a week so I can give you a more in depth report, hopefully one that will make you a lot of money as we approach seasonal rotations. This week we are going to focus on the technologies that we have at our disposal and how to make the most of them.
This article may not contain new information for some of you, but I feel this is a necessary article for the people that have recently come to the site and might want some help getting a jump start.
In the age we live in a good number of us all have access to the latest updates in pricing data. Because of the possibilities of instant communication, as traders we have to be able to keep up with the others in our field, and ahead of others who are lagging behind. When the first Eldrazi spell was spoiled, the difference between $3 Eye of Ugin and $10+ Eye of Ugin was all of about 2 hours for the online retailers that kept themselves updated. Yes, there were still those retailers that had them mispriced a full 24 hours after the buying frenzy started, but much like Black Friday deals, if you want the best you have to be fast and on top of your game.
Twitter and you
One of the greatest tools you can use is Twitter. There are a host of people that are worth following, but for those of you that are just getting started, or that need to expand your follow list a bit, I’ve provided a short list of people worth following. This is not to say that only the people below are worth it, but it’s a good start.
Bmkibler – Pro player Biran Kibler
Chosler88 – QS writer Corbin Hosler
Conley81 – Pro player Conley Woods
Fatecreatr – QS writer Chris McNutt
Fivewithflores – All around awesome dude Michael Flores
G3RRYT – Pro player and recent GP Nashville winner Gerry Thompson
Jtrentini – QS writer James Trentini
Legacysallure – QS writer Doug Linn
LuisScottVargas – Pro player LSV
Magicprotour – Official twitter feed of the pro tour
Mananation – Official twitter feed of Mananation.com
Mtgaaron – MTG developer Aaron Forsythe
Mtgmetagame – BAMF Jonathan Medina
Mtgsalvation – Feed for Mtgsalvation.com, useful for spoilers as they come out.
Mtgstephenmoss – That’s me!
MtgVeteran – Fellow financial personality Brian Doran
Mulldrifting – Awesome lady Lauren Lee
Nwhinston – QS Writer Noah Whinston
QuietSpec – This sites twitter feed
SMenendian – Wall of text creator Stephen Menendian
Thepchapin – Pro player Patrick Chapin
TheZvi – Pro player Zvi Mowshowitz
YoMTGTaps - Yo! MTG Taps! twitter feed.
Websites to use to your advantage
While not all websites are worth attention, the few that are can be very important to your success as a trader. Keeping an eye on average prices, knowing the cards that are most in demand, and having access to multiple pricing sources and stores when a card jumps in price can help you to catch the next Eye of Ugin before it explodes.
Find Magic Cards – This site has multiple connections to sellers, a top 5 current in demand cards, a price history graph per card, and an easy to use search option. Highly recommended for people looking to find the best deal across multiple vendors.
Apathy House – This site is used mostly for its trade evaluator. While not always accurate, you will often find close to current prices to see how much you gained or lost at the end of the nights trades. I use the prices here to show the gain/loss value of my trading journals, unless the price is obviously wrong.
TCG player store - Another site with a number of vendors for you to browse, much like findmagiccards.com
MTG Salvation – Primary site for set spoilers, and also has an extensive constructed segment for those of you interested in that. There is also the market community where you can trade, buy, or sell your own cards.
MOTL –The home of Magic Online Trading League, or MOTL. It’s primarily used for trading, buying, and selling your cards to other users, and is an excellent way to unload extra cards for cash.
All Magic Cards - Reader suggested site from Samgc3 in the comments below, Allmagiccards.com is much like findmagiccards.com with more options and more things to the site. Thank you Samgc3 for showing this to me, I think its going to become a new usual stop for me.
How to tie it together
Using these tools is great, but unless you use them in conjunction with each other then you’re missing out on a huge amount of profit potential. Keeping good records can mean the difference of hundreds of dollars over the year, so it’s imperative that you are able to keep track of your traded inventory. I’ve often lost small trade journals because I’m rather forgetful, and since then I just take a quick note of what I’ve traded and then enter it into an Excel spreadsheet at the end of the night. Excel is a powerful tool that can be used to track your progress in a multitude of ways, and as our own Chris McNutt has shown us it can be used for more than just work related data. If you don’t have access to Office and Excel, there are options available for you. You can download the Open office software or you can use Google Doc’s which has a spreadsheet program and a word processor. I suggest learning these programs, as they can lead to a much higher level of productivity which will turn into higher profits for you.
While I know that a portion of you already know some of this, I felt that it was time to bring it all together for the readers of Quiet Speculation. Twitter is an amazing real time resource and I recommend that anyone who seriously wants to stay on top of current price trends to sign up for an account. The websites listed will help you quickly find the cards that are suggested, and the usage of Excel and other data management software will help you keep track of your inventory and progress overall.
The research for next week’s article is eye opening so far, and I think that many of you will find it useful when looking through binders of older cards. With no defined metagame there are massive opportunities to pick things up cheap right now that can see a sharp rise within the first couple of weeks of the PTQ Nagoya season. Thats all for now. Thanks for reading, and have an awesome Thanksgiving. I know I'm thankful for the opportunity to write here, and for those who take the time to read these articles and comment, they help make the content better.
Until next week,
Stephen Moss
MTGstephenmoss on twitter
stephen.moss@ymail.com
Solid advice. If you have been avoiding taking the plunge into Twitter, it's time to do it. It really is insanely awesome for Magic. If you start an account and follow the people Stephen has suggested then your feed will be plenty lively enough and you'll get the hang of it quickly.
Great websites listed and article all-around. A little game me and a few trading friends play is a price guessing game on Magiccards.info. There is a random card option at the top and will throw out a card from Magic's history, try and guess the price of the card and when you scroll down magiccards.info has listed the BrainBurst store and current pricing. Fun way to sharpen your eye for certain cards and sleepers.
James,
That's an awesome idea, I'll have to swing that through my circle. Sounds like it could be fun and a good way to learn prices.
Similar post was made concerning twitter in a different article (I apologize for not citing…been a long day of research, papers, and blasted citing) and the one twitter account left out that was included in the other article was: @kellyreid
On to the matter at hand, I have been dreading the notion of signing up for twitter (being coerced into facebook was sufficient…), but I can see the importance of adding that tool to your repertoire. I succumbed to facebook due to a previous girlfriend and it looks like I will succumb once again to a social networking device (linkedin is good though), but this time for Magic. Cheers Gentlemen and thank you for the fine work being done on this site.
PS: James, you know its funny. Having recently come back to Magic, I find myself using magiccards.info to look up current prices, but for the sake of entertainment I find myself doing just that and hoping to get a randomized vintage card.
Frags,
Yes, some time ago there was a semi-related post. Its common for different writers to cover the same idea from a new angle with updated information or a new look on a topic. Here I was just trying to give an all around useful piece for newer people since its rare that people will look too far back in article history.
Twitter > Facebook. Much easier to surround yourself (digitally) with people you want to talk to. I log onto Twitter every day, but Facebook just once a month or so.
Corbin,
Thanks for the comment up top, and yes it is much easier for you to focus on the group you want to with Twitter. Twitter also has the bonus (or to some, the drawback) of a limit of short messages. People on twitter only have room to post the important pieces.
Twitter > Facebook. Simply because it is much easier to tweet on your smart phone, not everyone is as cool as Gerry and carry around a laptop on the tournament floor.
I apologize for being a noob but what exactly do you track in Excel? Just your outgoing and incoming cards for the month with an overall valuation for each column? Do you track price when at the time of the trade vs. price at the end of the month?
Just curious what kind of information I should be setting up for when I create a journal like this.
Memidas,
Nothing noob about the question at all. Yes, I track both outgoing and incoming cards, with individual card valuations and overall valuations. Each month gets its own tab, and each year its own book. Also, I try to keep the prices updated once a week for the cards that I traded for and traded away overall. Here's a quick explanation:
Column A: Card name
Column B: Week 1 value
Column C: Week 2 value
etc, etc
Card names go down the rows; 1,2,3 and on and on. Usually at the end of the month in column F I'll put an overall gain/loss value per card so I can see where the value of that card went after a month.
Excellent article. I had setup twitter but wasn't following anyone. I added everyone you mentioned and will have to get familiar with it.
Is there a reason for not listing allmagiccards.com? Seems like a refreshing take on findmagiccards.com? Just wondering if you don't like it for some reason.
Are there any sites you recommend for strategy? I know the basics: channelfireball, starcity, blackborder, tcgplayer. Looking for some hidden gems like QS.
Thanks for the article!
Samgc3,
In all honesty the reason I didn't include it is because I completely forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me though, I'll go in and edit after this!
Oops, I forgot the other part of your post. While I don't search out many strategy sites, but the two that I do keep up with that are semi off radar are http://www.02drop.com and http://www.60cards.com, both offer some great content.
If there is one thing I've gotten loud and clear from the guys on this site it's get on twitter. I jumped on as @the_cardfather.
This is one of the more comprehensive lists I've seen. I was only following about half of those.
The_Cardfather,
Thanks! I know that there is the idea of #followFriday where people on twitter suggest people you should follow, but I may toss out some names of people who are worth following on twitter in my weekly articles.