To effectively speculate on anything, and more specifically on MTGO, you need to master two aspects. An abstract part consists in recognizing the opportunity--knowing what and when to buy or sell. A practical part consists in executing the transactions--buying and selling this position.

To answer the When and What you can count on the help of the QS community, Insider articles and the multiple topic across the forums. For MTGO-based spec especially, Mtggoldfish is the place to start for additional information. The price history of all the cards available on MTGO is accessible there. The charts of all these cards is a great source of information for past and future specs. Especially with cyclical investments such as Modern positions, it is easier than ever to track and predict price fluctuations.

With my newly introduced 100 Tix 1 Year project I provide, via real-time tweets @100T1Y, some Whats and Whens, from small bankrolls up to the one I'm running. However, a question I've been asked several times already is "How did you get these prices?", "Where do you buy your cards?" and "What bots do you use?". There is no simple answer to that, rather a routine I follow for every single spec I'm on.

Today, I'll explain the step-by-step process I use to buy and sell my cards at the best possible rates. This path is not perfect and could surely be optimized and/or extended to more bots (when it comes to looking for the best bot chain), but it will give you a base for your speculations if you were not sure where to start from.

Humans or Bots?

For both buying and selling these are your two options on MTGO--dealing with bots or dealing with humans.

Doing business with bots is the fastest way to buy and sell your cards. Bots are usually open 24/7 and will go straight to the point--buying and selling cards. Because they are able to break prices down into fractions of Tix, they have the best buying and selling prices most of the time. When it comes to more expensive cards with a bigger spread, humans might sometimes have a better deal, but it's quite rare.

The Classifieds is the MTGO marketplace where you can check and post offers. By posting your own offer you are able to set your own buying and selling prices. If you are patient enough and your prices are decent you might be able to buy and sell cards at better prices than if you had to do so with bots.

Rarely, you may find offers from humans buying and selling cards at better prices than bots. While you can theoretically get better prices this way, it might take far more time than proceeding with bots.

If you have well adjusted selling prices you could make better deals listing your cards for sale on the Classifieds, although it will take time. This option is not viable to get rid of 25 playsets in ten minutes following big news.

With less time available than in the past and because better deals with human offers are very rare, I do 99% of my transactions now with bots.

Buying

When I read or hear about a good buying opportunity, unless I'm really aware of the past and recent price movement of that card, I always check the price chart on Mtggoldfish. Whether it is a cyclical position or a Standard speculation it's always good to see what the current trend is and look back at the price history.

Check Points

If for a given card the trend has been upward for months and the current price is the highest or close to it, I investigate more to make sure buying this card now is really justified. The same is true with a card that has been losing value for months. Being at a record low is not enough to make card a good buying opportunity. I want to be as certain as possible that the price is heading up in a near future.

With cyclical positions, checking previous price variations is also going to give me a sense of what could be good selling prices. Based on past heights I know what to expect when I'll be selling these kind of cards. With this information, if I don't have at least a 50% potential profit to make I'm very unlikely to buy.

For instance, I'm totally ok with buying Gifts Ungiven but I won't commit with Daybreak Coronet although the white aura might go up anyway.

Finally, before pulling the trigger I ask myself if there isn't a better opportunity than the one I'm about to buy. These days it's hard to beat the dozen of great positions created by the MMA flashback drafts. Theros boosters look good? But can they beat an expected 200% increase in a month or two of MMA Summoner's Pact?

If all sounds good after these check points then I start looking for the best buying prices.

Finding the Best Deals

My routine here is pretty much always the same. I always compare the prices from three sources first and foremost--Mtgotraders, Goatbots and Mtgo library (mtgowikiprice.com). For more expensive cards (10 Tix and up) I also check the Classifieds, as occasionally humans beat the bots on more expensive cards.

Cardbots, AboshanBots (present on mtgowikiprice) and Cardhoarderbots use the same pricing as Mtgotraders and I also buy from them. This sometimes makes more stock available although Mtgotraders have a huge stock and it's more likely that they increase their price before they run out of stock.

Before the switch to V4 I was frequently using Supernovabots (supernovabots.com). Since last July, their prices became much less attractive. They also almost always increase their price after each copy purchased. It seems, however, that they have implemented a new version of their bots, so I guess I should check them from time to time.

For boosters only, I've also been using Agravsbots and a ClanTeam bots; they are fairly stocked with competitive prices. When you want to speculate on boosters it's important to have multiple sources to buy from and sell to.

Credits

Leaving credits on different bots should not be a problem. On average, you'll be leaving 0.5 Tix per bot chain. This may seem a big chunk of Tix if you are dealing with 30 different bot chains but it's in fact a very low price to be able to deal, for life, with these bots.

Before engaging Tix with a new bot I make sure they have a decent stock and that I'm likely to come back. I won't buy the first time but if I find myself coming back several times, because of good prices, then I commit. If your bankroll is big enough (1,000 Tix ore more) you should go ahead almost all the time, as the credits left on the bot for your first transaction are probably already covered with the potential benefit of the cards you are going to acquire.

The bot chain proposing the best prices are pretty much always the same on Mtgo Library so once you have spread some credits around you should be done with it for good. All of this implies that I'm never trying to "complete" my purchase with penny cards to minimize the credits left--I'll use them next time with more relevant cards probably.

Selling

Finding the best selling prices is similar to buying. I screen the bots mentioned above in addition to bot chains that buy cards only. Hotlist bots and CardBuyingBots, from Mtgotraders (or using Mtgotraders pricing), are two bot chains that buy only and are two great outlets for your specs. They usually buy several playsets of the same cards.

AboshanBots and Hotlist bots probably have the best buying prices on average. However, they are rather selective on the cards they buy. AboshanBots are listed on Mtgowikiprice and Hotlist bots buy the cards at the prices listed on the hotlist of Mtgotraders.com.

Instead of checking Mtgotraders hotlist on their website, and also since there are sometimes discrepancies between their list and what Hotlist bots are actually buying, I put some cards up for trade and open a trade with the Hotlist bots just to check. I also happen to do that with cards I'm not necessarily looking to sell. Knowing now how much Hotlist bots are ready to pay for a card can sometimes open the door for arbitrage situations since they are usually buying very high.

In addition to Mtggoldfish data, checking the hotlist from Mtgotraders can give you a sense of what's hot at the moment. Sometimes it's a good indicator of a card trending up, which can be confirmed by looking at the charts from Mtggoldfish.

Here, I'm really going with the best offer providing the bot has Tix to honor its price, which is not always the case (see below). Goatbots and Mtgotraders buying bots offer the advantage of being able to absorb a fairly large amount of cards quickly, although prices from Goatbots decrease after each transaction.

Bot Solvency

With all bots, but particularly with Mtgo Library, one thing to make sure before you sell your card is how solvent the bot is. Despite a great price, or even the best, if a bot doesn't have any Tix up this should raise a red flag and should make you think twice before selling.

If you've been doing several transaction in the past with this bot chain it does happen that they run out of Tix at the end of the day. But if you have never done any trade with this chain, don't sell your cards for credits. I sell cards to few bot chains without having the Tix right away, I'm still running after the tix...

Hopefully all these tips will allow you find the best deals and to fully enjoy the potential of your specs!

Thank you for reading,

Sylvain Lehoux