For each of us, investing in Magic is different.

Some of us are cash people, choosing to move our inventory through TCGPlayer or eBay, while others are more on the trading end of the spectrum. Some of us are into MTG Finance to make money, while some of us are focusing on making an expensive hobby more affordable.

Each of us invests differently, and those various levels of investment take into account not only money and cards, but also time.

There was a time when I spent every minute between rounds trying to make a trade, find a deal, find someone that was oblivious, find #value. Yeah, there's always a hashtag on the word #value. That's just how it's spelled now.

While it's gotten fairly easy to predict trends for Standard legal cards during their lifespan in Standard, going long term is often a lot harder. Sure, if you hold something long enough, it's bound to go up right? Every rare has the chance to become the next Dark Depths, after all...

Compost Heap

In my acquisition of Magic cards, I've developed a number of theories, concepts, and processes for my speculations--most of them nonsense, but some of them stick.

The idea of a compost heap is that you take something of little value (like fruit and vegetable scraps) and let it sit for a long time, then you harvest the value (rich soil for gardening).

As I came to a point where I no longer wanted to micromanage my collection on a daily or weekly basis, I started to apply this same concept to where I threw some of my trades and came up with the concept of a "compost box."

A compost box is just as you would think--a place to throw cards and forget about them, check back later, then reap what you've sewn.

I've divided this out into two main composting areas for reasons I'll explore here.

Bulk

In the past, I would cash in my bulk once a year or so and take the 10-15¢ per card I could get get from the local game stores.

I always traded in a few hundred to a thousand cards and used the credit to acquire something in the $50-$100 range that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

And that worked for the time.

Then I discovered Pucatrade and had another outlet for these cards. I meticulously keyed in those first few hundred cards and threw them in a box, pulling them out every time I could get an envelope full worth $2.50 or more to mail out.

Over time, a strange thing started to happen--some of those bulk rares started showing up on my sends page with real numbers next to them. Door of Destinies - $4, Darksteel Plate - $5, Lurking Predators - $3, and so on.

Cards that I had never been able to trade that had never been worth anything were building my points up, so I could acquire high end foils for my Commander decks and eternal staples like Gamble or Shallow Grave.

I now enter my bulk rares into Pucatrade as I acquire them through prize packs or grocery store indulgences (I love cracking packs). There aren't many feelings greater than a pile of worthless Doomwake Giants turning into a pile of $4 Doomwake Giants.

Thoughtful Compost

With the bulk box, I'm literally just throwing all of my trash into one heap and hoping it decays into something worthwhile.

In my thoughtful compost, I've got cards I traded for with the intent of forgetting about and holding long term. These are cards that I picked up in trades or through Pucatrade because I thought there was an underlying reason why the cards would go higher over time. Let's take a look at my successes and... uhh... unripened successes:

12x Scavenging Ooze - This card has all but flatlined on the graphs. I got in at around $8 for these, so I'm currently holding a certified loser. But the great thing about compost is that I'm in no hurry, so there's still time to turn it around.

12x Stronghold Gambit (4 foil) - I heard musings that Caleb Durward was playing around with including this card in a Tin Fins build, so I picked up a few at 50-75¢ ($8 on foils) on Pucatrade and they've already crested a whole dollar. This is the type of card where someone will eventually have a breakout tournament with it at a Legacy Open and the card will go through the roof because supply is minimal. I admit this was an outside bet, but I'm not in too deep and it's only a matter of time... only a matter of time...

8x Visions of Beyond (4 foil) - The first weekend after Khans of Tarkir was released, I saw the Jeskai Ascendancy deck in action and thought this would be a great piece of tech. It's a one mana cantrip that turns into an Ancestral Recall once enough cards hit the yard, with the fallback plan of being kinda neat in mill strategies.

While the Ascendancy deck moved more heavily in the direction of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, I still feel this one has a chance to play out long term. The nonfoil have remained the same price, but the foils have already seen a 50% bump in price.

8x Epic Experiment (4 foil) - This card has started seeing its fair share of play in Modern and has even made some showings in Legacy. Picking up a mythic rare that sees any kind of play for less than a dollar always seems like a good bet to me, and at $3 each, foils seemed like a bargain.

There's been basically no movement on this card yet. Epic Experiment is also the type of card that only needs one or two things printed to push it from a fair card to completely over the top. It's not a matter of "if" but "when?"

10x Faith's Reward - at 40¢ apiece, why not?

4x Knight of the Reliquary - The cream always rises to the top, and KotR is one of those cards that's price always recovers from a reprint. At $5, these were a safe pickup because they can always be traded away. But the upside potential is still there.

3x Prophet of Kruphix - Picking these up around a buck seemed pretty safe. I probably should have jumped off the train when they hit $3.50, but, like I said--put it in the box and forget about it.

13x Necrotic Ooze (4 foil) - Picking these up at 50¢ and $2.50 respectively seemed like a safe bet after that sweet Borborygmos Enraged / Griselbrand deck showed up. Ooze is a card that only gets better over time as more cards are printed.

8x Loxodon Smiter - Poster child for efficient creatures. At less than a buck, not picking a few up felt like a crime.

7x Gilded Lotus - Picking these up at $3-4 seemed like a good idea at the time because of the huge appeal this card has in Commander. It has essentially doubled up already. I should probably get out of these soonish, as it's a popular card to reprint.

10x Chromatic Lantern - Same as the Lotus, this card has a huge Commander appeal. Got in around $2.50-3 and they've nearly doubled.

16x Magus of the Bazaar - At 50¢ apiece, this was as much a bet on Golgari Grave-Troll as it was on Magus.

20x Swan Song - The premier one mana counter spell for combo decks in Modern. Picking up a small pile of these for less than a buck each seemed like a sure bet long term.

16x Demigod of Revenge - I bought into these after Theros at a little under $3 each. With the arrival of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx on the scene, I expected more support for Devotion as a mechanic--a mistake I won't make again. If a mechanic seems powerful, Wizards shows great restraint in not printing enough for it to actually be powerful. See also: Constellation.

8x Thespian's Stage - At $1 apiece, these seem powerful enough in conjunction with Dark Depths or Urzatron lands to warrant a higher price. It hasn't shown up yet.

9x World at War (4 foil) - All of those Narset, Enlightened Master players seemed to have skimmed over this one. Why would you play Relenteless Assault over a card that does the exact same thing with Rebound? I'm still holding out hope that those monsters rediscover this card for their Commander decks.

4x Mirran Crusader - This card has been all over the place, but picking them up at $2 seemed like a good bet with the various strategies this card is able to slide in alongside.

9x Champion of Stray Souls - I expected this card to do a lot more in Standard and Commander than it has. Maybe it was simply forgotten, maybe it's just too clunky for people to understand clearly. At $1 apiece, these seemed like pure gold at the time.

8x Blazing Shoal - Watching a friend on stream pitching Reaper King to pump his Glistener Elf in Legacy made this card seem like a breakout star. At his big debut tournament, variance went the other way and a different Infect build has solidified itself in Legacy.

23x assorted Theros Gods (9 foil) - I imagined these to be surefire Commander staples, but only time will tell if these capture the imagination of the next generation of players or if these end up being another forgotten cycle of forgotten heroes. I only included the mono-colored gods as all of the two color turned out to be mostly terrible (with Keranos, God of Storms being the exception).

12x Summoning Trap (4 foil) - With regular copies under a buck and foil copies sitting less than $3, this card seemed to have been all but forgotten. But thanks to a few recent tournament showings, this card is starting to tick upwards with foil copies reaching roughly $5.

Lessons Learned

Keep in mind, none of these are cards were anything I spent actual money on--most everything was acquired through Pucatrade.

That said, the compost heap isn't exactly ripe for harvest yet. I also wasn't really intending to reexamine everything this soon to begin with. I just happened to find it while trying to get things organized this weekend.

Going back through and looking at it, a lot of these picks turned out to be mediocre choices when it came to the non-foil versions, but there was some success with the versions.

Going forward, I can see that when betting on inexpensive cards, there's a much higher return rate for the foil versions, and you're more likely to see movement on the price before the non-foils. So I'll definitely be leaning more heavily in that direction in the future.

The important takeaway from this exercise is to periodically audit yourself and make corrections. I have a ton of mistakes listed above, but I also learned a valuable lesson: foils are where it's at when betting on long shots. So I'll be aiming at those in the future.