Next best box to get

I'm not looking to fill a collection, I mostly want to  trade for value. Right now, I don't have any big cards to trade for the multiple cards I want to make my decks more consistent. If core and current isn't the way to go, maybe I should try mirrodin or something before?

Good point. Perhaps I'm just antsy and feel I've exhausted my trade value for the things I've wanted so far. I suppose I'm just hoping to be lucky with titans or other $30 cards so that I can get the stuff I want.

And when you say to trade all my low end cards, it's easy if they were in high demand. I have a bunch of new stuff and I feel they are saturated already. Nobody wants 4 sanctuary cats or burden of guilts, for instance. I'll be hard pressed to find someone to unload those and more like it for one of their cards.

My understanding is that buying from TCG is like buying from amazon.  Every card may come from a different vendor.  if that's true then you will pay tons of money in shipping fees when attempting to acquire many cards at once.  This probably makes SCG and CFB better in that instance but it really depends on what you're buying.

The only way to know for sure is to do the math and see what's cheaper in the end.

I'll second Borgin's point.  The new "calculator" (that's not what it's called but I'm not remembering its actual name off the top of my head) tool TGC has is REALLY useful.  When it comes down to acquiring those last 10-12 cards for a deck or two, I've found TGC to be quite good.  Some vendors offer $0.99 shipping and almost all of them you can find near mints or slightly played cards well below the TGC average.  So then you save some serious time by not having to work out 10 more trades while minimizing shipping.

The only reasons I want a box more than just buying directly what I want:

• I can get lucky with some high priced cards. This can benefit me in either trades or new deck ideas to utilize.

• I can come across some cards I didn't think of a use until it hits me right then.

• I can get extras of cards to get either more family or friends interested and build a deck for them to try.

• With those cards I find with value, i can also make trades and look at their tradelist for things not originally on my wishlist. I did this once on here and picked some really awesome cards for ideas for decks.

• I could also score the exact card I wanted along.

As for the pros and cons for buying directly, I'll get exactly what I want and at a cheaper rate, but I'll be stuck with it unless I get bored and want to trade it for something else. I could try to put those cards in certain deck ideas, but I'd be limited.

Am I forgetting something? I hope I'm not just convincing myself I want a box, but I've really thought about buying directly too. Then again if I did, I wouldn't have the interaction I've had with some of the people on here.

As for waiting on the new edition coming in May, I can get one now and get that one later...

lol

Excellent insight. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

Thinking retrospect....

Glad I didn't get M12, should have went with New Phyrexia and not hooked on Zendikar. Some reason, I thought that had a lot of good cards I wanted. Surprisingly, not so much.

Or, just should have bought the cards I wanted directly but I still need time to figure out what I want.

Told you so.

As one who is very concerned with getting "value", here's my strategy whenever a new set comes out.

-Evaluate all rares in the set. Are there enough "chase cards" (things like Huntmaster of the Fells, or Snapcaster Mage) to warrant buying a box (usually, more than ten for a large set or 7/8 for a small set)?
-Are there any commons or uncommons that might make a box worth buying (cards like Gitaxian Probe, Lingering Souls, Gut Shot, Dismember)?
-Is it a small set (very relevant; smaller sets are often underdrafted and thus worth automatically more money)?
-Are the mechanics of the set "broken" (often, set-centric mechanics are awful, but occasionally some are very busted like Dredge, Persist, and Undying)?

Considering a box is usually about a hundred bucks, a set has to be very good to meet my criteria for being "worth buying". Often, I'll buy a box for the first set in the block, and then simply buy a set of common/uncommons for the later sets and buy the "junk rares" from the next sets, which often wind up being quite good (I bought 32 Dungeon Geists and made about 150 bucks off them, for example).

If a box isn't worth buying, just getting 300 "bulk rares" from a new set is almost always worth your time. I'll buy semi-playable cards for 30 cents a piece, trade them at two dollars, and make a huge return. For example, tonight I traded a playset of Markov Blademasters for a Garruk Relentless and two Dungeon Geists, which is about a 500% return on my investment (I paid 75 cents a piece for the Blademasters). This isn't difficult to do at all.

I almost always buy my "bulk" stuff from tcgplayer.com. Basically, right when a new set gets released, there are a lot of rares that are semi-playable that you can get for a quarter, and "bad" rares (albeit rares people still like building around casually) are like ten cents. A card like Requiem Angel isn't "bad" by any means, it simply isn't the best six-drop available in standard so it's basically worthless. A playset of these sets you back 52 cents. I often trade full playsets of cards like this for a single "playable" card- something like Hellrider, or Dungeon Geists, or Sulfur Falls, and people are usually quite happy about it.

I usually buy enough rares to fill out my trade binder- often about 300- and it costs me about 70 dollars each time I buy this quantity of cards. It works very well because I am offering a service- other players may want a playset of Requiem Angels, which are only worth 13 cents, but don't want to pay the 3 dollar shipping fee associated with that purchase. Players are happy trading for virtually any rare at at least a dollar in value, so this makes "bulk rares" give you a huge return on your investment. For example, I bought zero packs of Dark Ascension but I have 3 Huntmaster of the Fells, 3 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, 18 Lingering Souls, 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (one of which is foil), 8 Hellriders, and many more of the more valuable cards from the set.

Of course, this can be a lot of work. It's all about trading up, and often you are only making a dollar or two at a time. You also have to be able to find people who want some of these cards- I've found that there are a few specific players in my area who enjoy playing with some of the more overlooked rares in standard, and I've figured out the sorts of cards they enjoy playing. Sometimes you're only able to find one or two people who are looking for what you have. However, if you can get in fifty trades a week, you stand to make a substantial return.