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[MTGO] 1 Year, 100 Tix – How Far Can You Go?

Posted on by Sylvain Lehoux

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A Year-long MTGO Challenge

More than six months ago I completed a series of articles in the Insider section called Nine Months of Portfolio Management, the first part of which is being unlocked today:

In my (biased?) opinion, it was a very interesting and educational experience about the complete management of a portfolio on MTGO throughout nine months.

It's time now to move on to another project I briefly mentioned a while ago but haven't taken the time to put together. I called this project "100 Tix 1 Year".

The concept is pretty simple. I opened a fresh new MTGO account and dropped 100 Tix in it--nothing more, nothing less. I'm going to invest these 100 Tix the best I can for the next 365 days.

The goal of this challenge is to see how far I can go with 100 Tix in the span of 1 year. 100 Tix is a rather limited bankroll to speculate on MTGO, but I intend to show that even with a very small bankroll, decent returns can be achieved over the course of a year.

This account has no history of trades with anyone and has no credits at any bots. It starts from scratch.

What Approach To Take With a 100 Tix Bankroll?

I often say that there are only to three types of investments on MTGO--Cycles, Speculations and Quick Flips. If you had a chance to read some of my articles, I also say that, depending on your bankroll size, you should adjust the way you use the three types of investments.

With a very small bankroll of 100 Tix, here is how I plan to use them:

  1. 30% to 50% of my bankroll will be dedicated to Quick Flips and very short term opportunities. I intend to stay as liquid as possible and to avoid long term commitments.
  2. The other 70% to 50% of my bankroll will be mostly used for cyclical and short term investments. These types of investments are usually extremely reliable with very decent returns.
  3. Close to nothing for pure speculative positions. In order to grow my portfolio rapidly, I absolutely don't want to be stuck with specs that may last up to a year before showing any progress.
  4. With the exception of Quick Flips, I won't be buying cards worth more than 5 Tix--at least in the beginning while my bankroll is still small. This is to ensure enough diversity and avoid any risk with a specific position that would be too big for this portfolio.

How Should This Unfold?

The first one or two months should be relatively slow. I'll have to get the account and investments going and I'll have couple of Tix stuck as credits with several bots. The value of my account might as well be negative after the first month.

The Modern Pro Tour in February could make the account grow rapidly with some juicy quick flips. The growth should then be exponential and I expect to have grown my account by 50% to 100% after the first six months.

A new core set and the rotation of Standard could represent a nice source of Tix, with many good spec maturing by the end of 2015.

Where do I see this account in one year from now? Anywhere between doubling and tripling--maybe even more.

Follow Me And Win Too!

As I like to share my experiments, I'll make the process of this challenge public and visible to anyone. I'll be posting on Twitter every single transaction I'll be making, buying or selling. You can follow this challenge @100T1Y , @QuietSpec and #100T1Ychallenge.

Follow, share, comment, and go with the calls if you believe in them!

Every month I'll be evaluating my account and write a brief report.

A Contest For You

Finally, I have two little contests for you.

The goal of these contests is to guess the total value in Tix of my account after six months and at the end of the challenge, after one year. To participate:

  • Follow @100T1Y on Twitter.
  • Leave a comment after this post with your two guesses and your Twitter handle, so I can contact you later on.
  • You have until the end of January (January 31st 2015, 11:59 pm EST) to participate via a comment on this post only.
  • The value of my account will be estimated after 6 months (June 30th 2015) with the number of Tix + the value of the cards I own at the time (I'll use for reference 90% of Mtgotraders.com selling prices). I'll have all my cards sold by December 31st and will have only Tix on the account, this will be its final value.

The closest guess after six and twelve months wins.

What are the prizes?

Six months winner. If you are not a QS Insider, I'll pay for a three-month's subscription to QuietSpeculation, valued at $28.75. If you are already a QS Insider, I'll give a draft set of the newest Standard set on MTGO.

One year winner. Your total prize will be determined by the performance of the "100 Tix 1 Year" challenge and will be equal to half of the profit generated by the challenge.

If you are not a QS Insider, the dollar equivalent of half of the benefit in Tix (1 Tix=$0.95) will be used to pay for your QS Insider membership for that many months. If you are a QS Insider, I'll transfer you half of the benefit to your MTGO account.

Good luck to all of us!

Sylvain lehoux

 

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Sylvain Lehoux

Sylvain started playing Mtg in 1998 and played at competitive level for more than 10 years including several GP and 3 PT. When he moved to Atlanta in 2010 for his job he sold all his cards and stopped "playing". In 2011 he turned to Mtg Online and he experimented whether it was possible to successfully speculate on this platform. Two years later and with the help of the QS community his experience has grown tremendously and investing on MTGO has proven to be greatly successful. He is now sharing the knowledge he acquired during his MTGO journey! @Lepongemagique on Twitter

View More By Sylvain Lehoux

Posted in 100T1Y, Finance, Free, MTGO, Timeless Info

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60 thoughts on “[MTGO] 1 Year, 100 Tix – How Far Can You Go?”

  1. I’m thinking that at the 6 months mark you’ll be looking at 200, and by the 12 month mark you’ll be looking at 342.

    Good luck! I’m thinking about doing this as well to compare how poor my specs are and see if it can help me grow. I’m wondering what the bottom end is. Is 50 tix too low? 75? At what point is it not enough bankroll to actually make any profit in a given year.

    1. Hi Matt,

      Thanks for participating, what is your twitter handle?

      With less than 100 Tix it might take longer to “take off” Since you’ll have to bury few tix in credits among few bots in the beginning.

      The lower the bankroll the less real spec you do. I mean that you may only do “Quick flips” and no buy and wait. Quick flips aimed to produce low to moderate profit on cards that are highly expected to rise over a short period of time (few hours to 2-3 days) and are extremely low risk.

  7. Good luck Sylvain! Big fan of your QS articles when I was still a member.
    I think your returns will depend more on how much of your 2015 you really want to devote to v4.

    My predictions:

    6month – 600tix
    12month – 1500tix

    2. Thanks Tom,

      V4 is still good enough for specs. The upcoming Modern PT may help for big gains earlier and then allow better returns afterwards. I like your high expectations with this project 🙂

  12. hope it does not double post, didn’t seem to go through first time….

    6 months 225 tix

    12 months 650 tix

    @CheapStuffBot

    very interesting read and project, will be following for sure!

  21. @dryoyo

    I think the first 6 months you will have only 243 tix with maybe 20 credits spread out over various bots
    12 months you will have 432 tix 2 credits spread. I think you will dump to create a tix even if the deal is an overall loss once you get to the end to clean up the credits

  23. Something that I’m interested in in particular is how you’re buying and selling cards (i.e. thru a bot or by trading with a human). Would it be possible to list this info as part of each of your posts, such as Bot Buy, Bot Sell, etc.

    1. I’m mostly trading with bots (like 90-95% of the time). Trading with humans and offers via the Classifieds in game takes more, although if you are patient enough that where you might the best buying and selling prices.

      If I’m listing bots I’m afraid it would not fit in a single tweet. I’ll be sharing this more in details in the first report.

      I’ve been also commenting on that on some of my tweets/replies.

      I’m always looking for best buying and selling prices (obviously) among Mtgotraders bots (and related bots using the same pricing system, Goatbots, Aboshans and Mtgo Library bots and Classifieds for buying and selling.

      I’m careful now not to spread to much credits around too much different bots. By experience I know which bots are sufficiently stocked with cards and Tix so I know I’m gonna back often. Sometimes the best price is not worth it if the bot has no stock and or no Tix.

  27. 6 months, 189 tix. One year, 295. Then you’ll look back at all the work and realize you could’ve made more money busking on the subway in 1/50th the time and come to the conclusion that speculation in general is a total waste of time and resources.

    1. Hi Robert,

      Do your have any Twitter handle?

      Not everything is straight scalable but higher bankrolls generate higher profits with about the same mount of time spent/research done.
      What I’m doing buying 0.5 Tix cards for 1 Tix profit I’m also doing it with 10 Tix cards for 30 Tix profit.

      I actually believe that the benefit of this project will go well beyond the few tix collected with this bankroll. The time invested in this project might as well the best time I have ever invested in MTGO speculations related things.

  28. I have another question (I’m still relatively new). Are there any tools available, similar to
    TT3, that work for MTGO for finding arbitrage opportunities that will let me buy low & sell high for quick flips? If not, what’s the best way to find quick flips? Or do you just come across opportunities while doing research?

    1. I’m not aware of any universal tool that would compare buy/selling prices of all majors bots on MTGO.

      You have that kind of info with all mtgo library related bots, where you can see what bot is buying/selling at what price.

      Goatbots and Mtgotraders bots are two big bot chains with buying ( only hotlist for mtgotraders) and selling prices, you can compare and play with them.
      What I also do from time to time is put up for trade cards I’m might be looking to sell and open a trad with mtgotraders bots, inclusing hotlist, and see how much they offer. Sometimes I’m not ready yet to sell but then I can look if other bots are selling for cheaper than these buying prices, you can grind few tix this way if you have enough time.

    1. Guess what?

      I’m flipping the fries at McDo AND and making 50 tix a month on MTGO. How about that?

      So you’re betting on 400 Tix after 6 months and 700 Tix after 12?

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