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Public Image Unlimited

Trading is sales, and image is everything. Chas gives you some tips for how to be successful on and off the trading floor along with this week’s Magic finance trends.

Over the past few months, an interesting community controversy has formed surrounding the DCI’s attitude toward the behavior of Magic players in non-tournament settings. Several players have been suspended, had their suspensions increased, or have been unable to have their suspensions reduced because of something they did or said on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, or other social media portals.

This is a uniquely 21st century dilemma—and one that goes far beyond tournament Magic. It used to be that we all had separate identities for each aspect of our lives. There was the "office" you, the "spouse" you, the "party animal" you, the "parent" you, and dozens more.

Well, things get frictional when these identities clash. Do you remember how awkward it was to transition back into family life during the summer after a year of independence at college? Have you ever run into your boss at a party that you didn’t think had any connection to work? It can be a nightmare.

Social media portals have become the best—and sometimes only—way to communicate with most of our acquaintances. I see my co-workers and fiancee daily and my local friends a couple of times a week, but I communicate with everyone else almost exclusively online. The ability to stay connected to everyone all at once is why Facebook and Twitter are so huge, after all. A friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day that our generation doesn’t need high school reunions because you can read about what the kid you sat next to in Sophomore Lit had for lunch yesterday. These networks were built to spread yourself as far and wide as you have the means to go.

And that’s the problem. My Facebook feed contains posts from high school and college friends, family members and relatives, co-workers and former co-workers, and people from all walks of life. I’m friends with professional gamblers and Magic players, social workers, attorneys, writers, filmmakers, unemployed retail workers, and graduate students going for their PhD. They are all able to read everything I write. And if they want to, they can pass it along to everyone else that they know. And so on.

Our disparate identities have become forever blurred. As an employee of CBS, I signed a social media policy reminding me that anything I do or say anywhere may reflect poorly on the company that has treated me very well for three years now. I don’t believe they spend any time monitoring my online persona, but they have every right to do so. After all, they pay my salary and deserve to know if I am the kind of person they want to continue doing business with.

I doubt StarCityGames.com would like it very much if I wrote a scathing indictment of their business on my private blog, either. My name means something in conjunction with StarCityGames.com, so anything I have to say about them carries that additional weight. I will always have my constitutional right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean the things I choose to say don’t have consequences attached to them. And most of what I say online is accessible by anyone at any point. On the Internet in 2013, it is nearly impossible to hide any part of who you are. If one of your personas is "jerk," chances are everyone will eventually discover that.

Tournament players need to learn this. Wizards of the Coast is a private company that is always seeking to grow and protect their brand. Magic is an all-ages game, and the DCI exists to promote a healthy and fun tournament setting that attracts as many players as possible. They are allowed to ban people from playing in their events if they believe that doing so will be a net positive for them—in other words, your jerky behavior is driving more revenue away from the game than all of your card purchases and entry fees are adding to it. Considering how financially dedicated to the game most tournament players are, I doubt it would be in Wizards’ best interests to go on a social media witch hunt for every player who uses a swear word. There is no slippery slope here—just sound corporate policy.

Of course, this column is about trading and the financial side of Magic. Your public image certainly matters when dealing with the DCI or in tournament play, but its importance is magnified tenfold on the trading floor.

You can be a huge jerk and still win tournaments, provided you don’t rack up any unsporting conduct penalties. I’m glad more people don’t play like that, of course, but I’ve certainly lost matches I could have won because my opponent’s attitude put me on tilt.

But when I sit across from a mean Magic player at a Grand Prix, I have to play him. When I clash with a nasty trader, I can simply walk away. The number of Magic trades that absolutely have to be made in a given night is fairly small—99% of them happen for fun. If you develop a good reputation as a trader, you’ll find people walking up to you all night asking if you have certain cards available. If you cultivate a cutthroat image, people will only deal with you as a last resort.

Trading is sales, and image is everything. If you make yourself as accommodating and fun to deal with as possible, you will go much further than if you believe that everything before and after the exchange of cards is irrelevant. Below is a snapshot of what has worked for me over the years. Feel free to chime in in the comments if you have any additional suggestions—I’m always looking for ways to make the trading process as easy and fun for everyone as possible.

Image and Etiquette at Events

At small events like Friday Night Magic, there’s a good chance that you already know 75-80% of the people playing. If you don’t pay attention to how each of your regulars approaches trading, you’re missing out. Some people love to deal and always have a binder chock full of new stuff—hit these guys up first. They never mind being asked about trades, and you can get the deals flowing early in the night. Generally, the more timid traders will approach you once they see you comfortably making deals with the more gregarious players.

If you see a large group of players engaged in a Commander game or playtesting, it’s okay to ask if anyone is interested in trading. It’s best to ask this as a blanket question to an entire group, though—putting individual players on the spot can be awkward or uncomfortable.

If you want to trade with someone new to your store, it’s generally better to engage them about another topic first. Ask about their deck, how their tournament has gone so far, or what their favorite cards in the new set are. This is also a good way to make new friends. I also recommend asking your opponents if they are interested in trading after each round where we had some good games—you’ve already established a dialog for 30 or 40 minutes by this point, which can often lead to a fun trading session.

It is okay to ask a group of people who are already trading if they would like to trade with you afterward, but be respectful and wait your turn. Interjecting in a trade you aren’t part of can make everyone at the table feel uncomfortable. Trying to trade for a card out from under someone who is already trying to make a deal on it is even worse.

Never ask players for trades while they are playing a sanctioned match of Magic or when there are fewer than five minutes remaining before the draft or the next round. This seems like an obvious "no," but I’ve been asked about trades multiple times while I was picking cards during an actual sanctioned draft. It did not make me eager to trade with them once I finally was free.

It’s also not great to lurk around while someone is finishing up a match unless you are genuinely just watching the game. Don’t put pressure on people when there’s no reason to do so.

At large events like SCG Opens or Grand Prix, it’s less okay to ask people engaged in games of Cube or Commander if they would like to trade. Because it’s such a large event, these people are generally asked this question every five or six minutes. It’s better to find a trade that’s already going down and ask the people involved if either of them is interested in trading with you once they’re done.

You can also set up your binder at the designated "shark table"—you can’t miss it—and hang out there all afternoon. I recommend spending some time here, but don’t stay all day. Many traders are (rightfully) intimidated by the traders there and will give it a pass.

No matter where you trade, the best thing you can do when making a deal is to try to mirror the energy of whomever you’re trading with. If you’re trading with a no-nonsense tournament player who has specific needs and knows their prices, don’t lead with your binder of bad Commander junk and try to grind out a giant deal. If you’re trading with a timid casual player, don’t start barking out prices and demand that they keep up with you. Fighting against your trade partner’s energy is going to make the night feel twice as long and will give him or her second thoughts about dealing with you in the future.

As a general rule, the further you can stay away from prices during a trade, the more quick and fun the trade will be. Of course, prices are a cornerstone of modern trading, so in most of your deals someone will be pulling out a phone and looking up prices. Don’t fight it—this will make your trading partner feel like something’s up since there’s a good chance a shark or two has tried to "get" them on prices in the past. The best thing you can do is to help and make it go quickly. Pick a common source for prices that you both agree on, and help your partner look up the values on both sides.

In order to combat endless hours searching for prices on my smartphone, I’ve recently started carrying around boxes with $0.50, $1, and $2 cards and telling people that my prices on them are firm. This creates a low-pressure situation: they either want the cards at that price or they don’t. Because I use retail prices to value my cards beforehand, I can let my partner use whatever guide he or she wants to value the cards coming back to me and know that I’m getting a fair deal.

If you travel to enough major events, you’ll start to see many of the same faces at the trade tables. These are the trade grinders—people who travel the Open Series and GP circuit making bank with their binders. It’s an insular world, but if you know your stuff and earn their trust and respect, they can be a very valuable asset. Several of them once tracked down a deck for me that was taken out of my bag at an event, and back when I was working hard to finish my cube, many of them helped me find some incredibly rare foils.  

When trading at large events (or at FNM after a full week of work), it’s very important to stop trading before you get totally burned out. One of my biggest weaknesses as a trader is the desire to keep trading long after I have the mental capacity to do so. In these instances, I can get snippy and short when my trading partner just wants to take some time on a fair and diligent deal. It’s better to end the night on a high note than to drive yourself to frustration.

Beyond the Floor

If you think your job as a trader ends when you go home for the night, think again. Nothing is totally separate from anything else anymore, and that includes being effective in Magic finance.

Maintaining an online network filled with Magic players and traders is incredibly helpful. This is especially true when you are looking to buy or sell specific cards. If you are "the trader" in your circle of Magic friends, you’ll be the first to get a call or email when one of them needs a playset of the hottest new rare by Saturday or someone else has decided to leave the game and sell their collection. If you come across a rarity that doesn’t trade well and only has a niche market, you can use Facebook or Twitter to cast a wide net for buyers. When I recently decided to sell my Collector’s Edition set, Imperial Seal, and Grim Tutor, I was able to bypass eBay and PayPal fees by passing the cards along to online friends and acquaintances.

If you don’t have any Magic friends outside your local group, it might be worth it to join an online community and make contacts that way. I wrote an article last summer all about online trading where I review most of the larger forums—it’s worth taking a look at if you don’t know where to start. Magic Traders, Puca Trade, and the MTG subreddit are fine places to start.

One mistake I see many novice traders making online is bragging about their latest scores at the trade tables in their local stores. Even if you aren’t Facebook friends with your regulars, word travels fast. I remember reading an article by Sigmund Ausfresser last year where he detailed a story about how an online trader backed out of a deal because he saw Sigmund talking about Magic finance on Twitter and assumed he was a ruthless shark—in fact, Sigmund was trading for a card he needed to finish a deck. If even a little bit of finance talk can cause a reaction like that, what do you think a brag post is going to do?

Even if you don’t want to trade online, maintaining a digital haves/wants list can help facilitate local trading. StarCityGames.com has a shareable "wants" list that I like because it has constantly updated prices, but even an Excel spreadsheet works well. This may help you keep track of cards you have waiting for you at home while trading at the store and might even allow you to form the basis for a deal via email before FNM even starts.

The bottom line in all of this is that knowing people—lots of people—is the key to successful Magic trading. It’s frustrating that our new technologies no longer allow us to successfully compartmentalize our lives, but without them we wouldn’t have such an unprecedented sphere of influence. Take advantage of it—awesome deals can come from all corners of the world, after all. The cost of doing business, in most cases, is that you may have to try to become a better person. Don’t bully people at events. Don’t rip them off and brag about it later. Be a good trader, a fair trader, and a fun trader.

Word spreads. Fast. Make sure the buzz about you is always positive.

This Week’s Trends

– If you’re reading this on Sunday night or Monday, the first weekend of Standard legality for Dragon’s Maze is in the books. I’m writing this in the middle of last week, so I don’t know if any of the new cards suddenly jumped in price. I’m certain one of my awesome readers will post something about the latest tech in the comments below, so please scroll down and check that out when you’re done with the article.

Voice of Resurgence has jumped from $20 to $30. This is THE best card in the set, so if you open a Ral Zarek and can trade it straight up for a Voice, do so. Unless, of course, a Ral Zarek deck just won the Standard Open this weekend. If that happened, feel free to laugh at me from the future.

Blood Baron of Vizkopa is up to $15. I liked him as the third best card in the set, so if you can pick him up at $10 still, you should.

– There’s been a lot of talk on Twitter about Deadbridge Chant as a possible sleeper mythic. I’m a little skeptical—it costs a lot and doesn’t do much when you play it—but it’s very unique and quite powerful. At just $4, I picked up a few to hedge my bets a little. Worst case, it should hold its value as a long-term casual card.

Sire of Insanity is up to $6 and continuing to rise. I like this card a lot, but it’s probably not an $8-$10 card. If it keeps jumping up, sell into the hype.

– Modern Masters is just weeks away. It will be nuts. The Magic finance world is going to go crazy. Get ready. DO NOT buy any Modern cards (that you don’t desperately need) until after the spoiler is released.

– SCG just lowered the price of Thespian’s Stage to just $0.75. That’s just silly—the card is going to see play in Commander and other casual formats for the next five years at least. I bought them out, and if they list any more I suggest doing the same. These cards are going right into my long-term spec box.

 Until next time –

– Chas Andres