Last week I covered the major cards from Hour of Devastation and discussed their financial as well as competitive applications. Since I wrote that article, not much has been added to the spoiler. I'll most likely jump back into the spoiler breakdown next week, but for now, I have an interesting finance concept to present to you guys.

As buyers or competitors, one financial concept that will always be relevant is the cost of a deck. Frequently, we as writers break down the cards you should be buying and selling all the time. But for players switching decks or buyers acquiring these decks, what's the most profitable way to move the whole pile of cards?

This is a concept I've put a lot of thought and analysis toward lately. I've been streamlining my collection, and as part of that process, I intend to liquidate most of my Modern decks. With less time to play, some of these decks have been sitting around unused for a while. So I'm going to sell them.

But Why?!

Why would I sell these decks? Isn't investing in Modern a great place to put your money?

Actually, no. With Wizards's insane printing schedule this past year and the docket we have in store for us in the future, I don't think the prices of Modern staples are going to rise the way we thought they would. A great example are the Khans fetchlands, and they haven't been printed again since that time.

With all that in mind, there are many reasons to sell a deck. What we want to look at today is what options you have for making the most out of your investment.

The Buylist Option

The first, most obvious choice is to buylist your entire deck at an event. I've seen it time and time again: players get furious about their losing streak and rage quit their decks. Most of the time, this ends with a hasty walk straight to a dealer to unload their misery and replace it with a little cash in their pockets.

I’ve never rage quit a deck, but I have sold decks like this before. The reason to choose this option is when you have only a few cards worth money in the deck. Anyone is going to pick out these select few cards as the highlights from the deck and make an offer on them. This happens a lot with Standard decks filled with good commons and uncommons. Unless people are running low on playable, low-rarity cards, they will ignore most of the deck.

This can also happen in Modern with budget decks like Mono Red Burn. Most Burn decks are expensive because of the mana base, but if you take that away, what’s left is Goblin Guide and not a lot else.

You might choose this option as well if you really need the money. I’ve seen players who keep up with finance choose this option because they had a bad streak of luck and just needed some cash to catch up.

Whatever your reason, this is the quickest and easiest route to cashing out your deck. It’s not the most profitable for you, though, so if you can avoid it, choose another option. To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at two of the decks I am liquidating: Tron and Affinity. (Keep in mind the Tron deck is missing the Grove of the Burnwillows because I chose not to sell them.)

(The Forests are from Unglued.)

Trader Tools Buy List Price: $468.05
Trader Tools Retail Price: $604.52

That’s actually decent. Let’s see how Affinity breaks down.

(The Island is from Unglued.)

Trader Tools Buy List Price: $489.47
Trader Tools Retail Price: $665.66

Honestly, I was expecting these numbers to be a little higher for a staple Modern deck like Affinity. The buylist numbers from Trader Tools seem great, though. We have Tron at 77 percent of the retail price and Affinity close behind at 74 percent.

I haven't buylisted either of these decks and I don’t expect to, so what other routes can I take?

Local Stores

One avenue you should always explore is your local game shop. Some of these stores operate like the big businesses and will offer to buy your deck similar to above. They might be more interested in keeping the deck together to sell, though. The fact that you have a complete deck is an asset that can get you more money. If you don’t sell your Vault Skirges, Galvanic Blasts or Sylvan Scryings, what would you do with them? So being able to get some value out of your entire deck allows you to maximize your potential profit.

Unfortunately for me, I am my local game store. There are a couple smaller stores near me, but the store I co-own is the biggest store within a 45-minute radius. I don’t want the deck to go into the store’s inventory, so this method won’t work for me, but keep it in mind for yourself.

Selling Groups

Next up is checking with any groups you are a part of on Facebook. This can be competitive players or maybe you are a part of a group that regularly sells cards, which would be even better. You can also check with the Twitter #mtgbuysell hash tag. I have not had much luck with #mtgbuysell, but I think it will pick up in popularity, so keep it in mind as an option.

I love selling options like these because this is where you are most likely to make the most money. There are no fees for you to keep in mind for your profit calculations and no shipping to worry about.

For Affinity, I was able to move it within one of the Facebook groups I am a part of, and because of that, I was able to price it at $640. This price point is the TCGplayer low value for the deck. (For reference, the TCGplayer low value for Tron is $618). Those numbers are pretty close to the $665.66 for Affinity and $604.52 for Tron that Trader Tools pulled for the retail value.

TCGplayer or eBay

After you’ve explored these options, you have a couple of choices. You can list the entire deck on eBay and deal with the fees and shipping. You can also list the cards individually on TCGplayer, but then you have to make multiple shipments once the cards sell – and deal with the fees as well.

Of those two, I prefer eBay over TCGplayer for decks, but TCGplayer for most other things. You can always just jump back to step one as well and buylist the expensive cards from your deck.

As for me, I’m going to try to move Tron as a deck and not split up the components just yet.

Let me know in the comments if you liked this article. Have you gone through this process as well? Which did you choose and why? Did I miss another method to moving your unused deck?

Until next time,
Unleash the Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter