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Welcome back everyone! My mythics article from last week generated a little bit of response though I feel like some of it was some trolling and a small bit actually was quality response. However, I promised you a how-to go guide for going infinite on Magic Online without playing, and that's what I am going to do. Unfortunately, my example became obsolete this week with a price increase on a few of the cards. So instead of being able to use specific current prices, I will use generalized examples and suggestions on what to do.
Step 1: Figuring out what things are worth.
Duh! On to the next step.....ok, I guess I will give a bit more to this point. You need to research the going prices of the cards on MTGO and what it is going to cost you in both Tix costs and Dollar costs to make and redeem your sets. This will tell you A) What sets are worth redeeming, and B) How far away the bad sets are from being redeemable. Point B is actually more important than point A. If you can keep an eye on the other sets and notice the change, it can give you a head start in buying up the cards in mass before other people and the sellers on MTGO correct their prices to the supply drop of that particular set.
Step 2: Acquiring Capital
This is actually one of the trickiest parts to making money on MTGO. Buying from the MTGO store will cost you $1 per 1 tix, unless you are from a Non-US or Canada (I think) country, and then you are paying $1.22 per 1 tix (22% VAT tax). This makes redeeming sets for profit very hard. Also, the most important thing is finding a reputable source of tix at a lower number. There are several clans out there that focus on getting cheap tix. I recommend doing research and finding who you can trust on MTGO. I would recommend getting no less than 2000 tix to start. You are going to blow through these tix quickly and you want to have a cash flow at all times so as to never not be redeeming sets (hot double negative there, huh?).
Step 3: Finding the cards
There are several ways you can go about doing this. The first is just spending Tix on bots and buying the cards. Simple. Second way is to visit websites that offer singles. A lot of these places offer discounts if you pay with Paypal over Tix. Take advantage of this because sometimes they are slow to recognize changes where as MTGO can be harder to find incorrect prices, save for the random bot at times. Another way is to let your friends and clan mates know that you are buying cards. Many times you just need to buy a bit higher than bots will buy at or even the same and they will hook you up. Also offering Paypal instead of tix is a lot more enticing to certain people.
Step 4: Redeeming.
This part really is simple. It will cost whatever WoTC is charging these days (still $6.99?). You need to factor this into your math when it comes to figuring out if a set is worth redeeming. Usually you can just sell off the common/uncommon playset that comes along and get your money back on the shipping fee.
Step 5: Unloading the cards.
I won't go into a whole lot of detail about this since I think it will do you more good to research these options on your own then for me to just spoon feed them. Just realize that if you have enough capital and can keep going without a pause to recoup money from the incoming cards, you should try to capitalize and make all that you can on your redemptions.
That is basically it. It is rather simple when you break it down and see the steps. It isn't AS profitable as it use to be. At one point I was redeeming 16 sets of Lorwyn a week and profiting $250 per playset redeemed. It was HOT. However, when the switch to 3.0 happened and WoTC started charging a VAT tax to overseas customers, it caused tix to rise from .80-.85 up to their current levels. People tend to only go into this kind of venture with a small bank roll, and in reality, it takes thousands of dollars to do it correctly and make the kind of money that is actually impressive.
Join me next week when I discuss....well, I actually have no idea. Why don't you guys suggest something and I can see what I can come up with! Thanks ya'll.
Contact
E-mail: tennis_stu_3001@hotmail.com
MOTL/MTGO: stu55
AIM: stoopskoo15
Store: The Vault- Greensburg, PA
Good article however there's a couple things to note when taking this route on MTGO.
A) Higher margins can only be found if you're in the States when you redeem. Other countries have the following rules: "There is a $5.00 handling charge for each redeemed set and a flat shipping fee ($2.99 in the U.S. or $29.99 outside of the U.S.) for each order. Please note that your shipping address MUST be in the same country as your billing address or your redemption order will not be shipped. In addition, you will be obligated to pay any sales tax, VAT, duties, or import fees charged by your state and/or country." So all your work may have a small return. However the more you redeem at once, the shipping will be eaten up across the large redemption. Don't forget about IMPORT fees.
2) It might be hard to move the sets once you have them. Unless you have a store that goes through high volume, or are known amongst the magic community to have a stockpile of standard cards 24/7 then it's plausible.
3) One other note is that MTGO redemption is about a month after the paper release. This allows for cards to be filled into collections before you get a chance to help them out. So demand might be low as well.
Now this isn't saying it won't work, I've done the math and you guys should too. But it'll require a big bank roll to get started.
Interesting read, though sadly (as you note) it's very short on specifics. Seems like a lot of up-front risk, but tantalizing enough for me to 'do the math' as you and Cypher3060 suggest. Mind letting us know what your example would have been before it "became obsolete"?
M11 was hot for a few days, but a few cards rose in price and making the math not as enticing.
Sorry I was late to reply, I was sorting and picking 400k commons and uncommons I bought this weekend.
Most of my experience was during Lorwyn block back in MTGO 2.5. I would redeem roughly 4 playsets a week with profit being $250 per playset. Between magictraders and a few stores buy prices, I was able to easily unload the cards and get paid rather quickly. I took like 10 days to receive the cards, so I had working budget of like $5k at the time and that easily covered me. Only reason I didn't do more was because of grad school at the time.
I did do a foil set, and it just wasn't as profitable. Foils are so hard to find on MTGO that people want unrealistic prices for them compared to the rares on there.
The sets usually go down around the time the next set in the block is released. This mostly only works for the 1st set in the block, the 2nd and 3rd just aren't drafted enough to bring tix prices down to something workable.
Of course like I said, this all changed when tix became so much more expensive.