MTG thread

Burren said:

Maybe that'll help them kick the heroin addictions.

Click to expand...

Good thing they did not start playing with the Magic cards.

Glad it tends to be idiots that commit those kind of crimes. More likely to get caught, and in this case they were, which is great for your friend. Glad he got his stuff back.
If it was a smarter person, they could piece out the collection to a few different online vendors, especially the rarer stuff, and never get caught.

I've long wondered why game stores don't get knocked over more often. The one I draft at has what looks like 100k? Maybe more? in their legacy/vintage display case what amounts to easily portable, untraceable high value cardboard.

I mean their stack of several hundred tundras alone is valuable enough to make me wonder why no one ever does it.

Because the vast majority of the public (and thus criminals) have no idea how much it's worth, or how to move it when it's stolen. While cards are a commodity, it's actually really hard to move a huge, expensive collection fast. A thief would need both the time and patience to slowly piece out the stolen goods via mail order, probably over several buyer accounts, while also sitting in a large pile of stolen property. People don't generally buy from ebay vendors without good reputations, and it's a small enough community that the high volume vendors that actually trade in expensive cards mostly know one another.

Most thieves are fucking stupid. We had two players in this area who knocked over a couple of shops. They could have gotten away if they had been very careful, but instead they took a chunk of their ill gotten gains across town and tried to sell it to another shop. You can't take this stuff to a random fence, and no pawn shop will touch it. That store owner called the cops right away and they were arrested in the shop while playing FNM.

Random player gets beaten up / stabbed and robbed for his many thousands of dollars... even when that happens they usually catch the guy. However, if it's just a bag on a GP floor? Petty theft at best from the police's perspective. Those guys get away all the time.

ronne said:

I've long wondered why game stores don't get knocked over more often. The one I draft at has what looks like 100k? Maybe more? in their legacy/vintage display case what amounts to easily portable, untraceable high value cardboard.

I mean their stack of several hundred tundras alone is valuable enough to make me wonder why no one ever does it.

Click to expand...

I've had a similar thought, but I realized it's really not common knowledge what all that stuff is worth. Meaning, it's the actual magic players that know which cards are worth money, where to sell them, etc.. and they are part of the same community. Even if you were a robber, you aren't likely to rob from a good friend or someone you like. Basically, the cross section of people who know the value of the goods at the store and have the ability/demeanor to actually go through with stealing it is very small.

Or, to think of it another way, people who commit robbery tend to want to steal cash or gems. Things that are very liquid, regardless of your background, and also hard to trace. You don't hear about a toy store being robbed and the thiefs make off with a bunch of collectible figures. They just rob the safe or cash registers. Game stores don't carry all that much cash, in relation.

Amusement.

"Hey kids, how do you like a format where half of the (4) competitive decks play mindslaver attached to a 13/13 Flample?"

The replies are fun.

LOL flample.

Thankfully, this sort of market IS difficult to steal and get away with. But, my big concern was found on Craigslist when I was keeping an eye out for my brother. There were several buyers who had ads that simply said "Buying MTG in bulk" which to me, sounds like no questions asked. If a thief saw that ahead of time, they would have an outlet lined up to unload. Otherwise, you guys are right; not easy to move pieces of paper worth thousands.

Bulk means something very specific though, which is generally $3-5 per thousand cards. Most of those folks definitely will ask questions, especially if they see obviously constructed decks etc. and the seller has no idea what they are.

To be fair to the craigslist guys, they're the ones people are trying to scam half the time.
"here's my totally unsifted collection"
*10,000 Commons Later...*

It's largely just hoping for every 10 guys knowingly selling you garbage, there'll be one old person whose son moved out or died and they're trying to get rid of the stuff he left behind.

Burren said:

Thankfully, this sort of market IS difficult to steal and get away with.

Click to expand...

Don't confuse an over representation of morons in the criminal arts with the difficulties of moving illicit goods.

Kuro said:

Amusement.

"Hey kids, how do you like a format where half of the (4) competitive decks play mindslaver attached to a 13/13 Flample?"

The replies are fun.

Click to expand...

I actually don't hate standard at all right now? I hate a few specific cards in it (fuck you Avacyn and whoever thought you were a good idea) but on the whole there's enough flexibility in it right now that you can play some pretty crazy brewed piles of garbage and do well enough at FNM/showdown events.

There's some design decisions right now I don't agree with, like spells and removal in general being just worse than dudes, but that's more personal preference than anything. Just because I'm used to llanowar elves and premium 1-2 mana removal doesn't mean that's the way it always has to be. The current design of jamming good 2-4 mana creatures is just a different approach, even if reflector mage is complete bullshit.

Imperial seal judge promo, I'm sure Heylel is happy.

Tezzeret spoiled, not super exciting. Poops Lotus Petals.

Yea he's solidly in the meh category. Probably not quite as bad as Dovin, but he doesn't look like he'll do much.

Spamming out lotus petals is kinda neat, but he just won't live to do enough of it to matter.

ronne said:

Imperial seal judge promo, I'm sure Heylel is happy.

Click to expand...

Weeks old at this point. They previewed it at the RC conference last month, so I knew it was coming. I'm not bothering to move my P3K one because I'd rather have the first print. Meh, I lose some phantom money. Oh well.

New tezz seems like he could be good if there is a deck that makes lots of artifacts normally. if you have 2+ artifacts consistently by turn 4, he can generally kill a creature or two with his -2 ability.
Of course, if there is no deck that does that normally, he wont do much.

Enzee said:

New tezz seems like he could be good if there is a deck that makes lots of artifacts normally. if you have 2+ artifacts consistently by turn 4, he can generally kill a creature or two with his -2 ability.
Of course, if there is no deck that does that normally, he wont do much.

Click to expand...

Yeah, not sure how likely that is. Starting with 5 loyalty is pretty beefy however.

Will be interesting to see if the Fabricate mechanic continues to Aether Revolt and has some better buttressing at the rare slot. Could be a good source of critical mass for Tezz's artifact requirements. Master of Marionettes is rather expensive, mana-cost-wise, but he runs a pretty big game once he's in play.