BXCX posted:

Because what else would I do with a free extra hour? We seem to get questions about this often enough, feel free to point out any flaws/dumb stuff in my method. I've burned through enough stamp books and boxes of envelopes to feel like I know what I'm doing.

How to mail cards in a plain white envelope for fun and profit


This is a fatpack box that I keep almost everything I need for mailing out my cardboard treasures. Clockwise from the top are: sleeves of various brand, color and quality Ive received in other trades, a bag of penny sleeves, a bunch of old draft sleeves, toploaders, and size 6 3/4 security envelopes. You will likely only ever need to buy one pile of toploaders ever as you will (usually) get fresh toploaders in every trade you mail out. The standard toploader can hold 2-3 cards in a sleeve snugly. Every so often I'll get a big toploader that can hold 5-6 cards in a sleeve, I set those aside and use them when I have a bunch of commons to mail out. I prefer the 6 3/4 size envelopes because they're closer in size to the toploader and they save a little bit of weight so I can cram more cards in if necessary.


This is everything you need to send out your wizard poker investments. Ignore everything that references PucaTrade, unless you are sending out cards for PucaTrade. On the letter size paper I type out the recipient's address, the cards they are receiving for their half of the trade, my address, and the cards I am receiving for my half of the trade. This is more for me than anything since sometimes I'm sending 5-10 trades on the same day so it helps to prevent me from putting cards in the wrong envelope. Those two lines are to guide folding the paper to fit in the envelope, they're set at something like 1 3/16" from the edge of the paper.


Step 1: Put the cards in the sleeve.


Step 2: Put the sleeved cards in the toploader with the open part of the sleeve first.

Step 3: Put a post-it note on the front of the toploader.


Step 4: Flip the toploader, apply a piece of tape, and fold over the very end of the tape on itself.


Step 5: Stick the tape to the back of the toploader. Note how the folded over bit of tape makes it so that the recipient can easily peel it off.

Note: You can safely skip steps 3-5 by just taping the toploader shut, but this annoys some people and if you forget the sleeve or put it in upside down the cards can stick to the tape, causing potential damage and feelbads.


Step 6: Fold your letter size piece of paper on the long edges, note that I don't care about hitting the guide lines, exactly, I just want it to fit in the envelope. I put it with the face down so that the address of the recipient end up face up so I can double check that I'm stuffing the right envelope.


Step 7: Fold the bottom of the paper a little bit and put the toploader in the pocket you've created.


Step 8: Holding tightly, fold the paper over on the toploader.


Step 9: Using the envelope as a guide, fold the top of the paper down so that it's just barely shorter than the height of the envelope. This keeps the toploader from moving around too much while in transit. Then jam this wad of paper into the envelope and seal it. I forgot to take a picture of this, but I also put two small pieces of tape on the envelope to hold down the flap. I suspect that the bits of tape don't do much, but at some point I decided that it would help the envelopes go smoothly through the machines. Do with that what you will


Step 10: Apply your stamp. _{Freedom FOREVER} Place in a mailbox and expect it to take about three days to make it to the recipient in the continental US.

PROTIPS:

• Only mail stuff out in PWE that you can afford to replace. While hardly anything actually gets lost in the mail, stuff happens. My personal rule is to only send out stuff that's under $20 in value PWE, everything else gets shipped in a bubble mailer with tracking. In the hundreds of cards I've sent in the mail through here and PucaTrade, exactly one hasn't arrived to it's destination. For that one, the receiver moved in between me sending it and it arriving and he screwed up mail forwarding somehow. That card has been lost in the bowels of the postal system. I still received credit for the trade because I record myself putting the envelopes into the locked mailbox in my apartment complex, but YMMV. The card eventually made it back to me and I was able to send it to him at his new address.
  
• Print addresses on the envelope using your computer. Your handwriting is probably awful, which may confuse the machines that sort the mail. That means that someone has to decipher your garbled scrawl by hand, slowing down transit and possibly resulting in them figuring out that you underpaid for postage.
  
• The official rules of the USPS state that you're supposed to use a 66 cent stamp and write "nonmachinable" on the envelope because the rigid toploader allegedly won't go through the sorting machine, causing the envelope to get shredded potentially losing the valuable cardboard rectangles inside. I've never had an issue sending one out and I've never had cards packed similarly come in damaged. The only envelopes I've had come in with any damage are those where someone just threw a toploader into a letter size envelope. But again, circumvent the USPS rules at your own risk.
  
• Three cards is a good amount to send in one envelope. I've sent 4 in a toploader with 2 cards in a sleeve taped to the side of it in one 46 cent envelope, but it required some cutting of the wrapping paper and careful weighing to make sure it stays under the 1 oz mark. Any more than 6 cards and I'll just send two envelopes.
  
• Throw-ins are fun! If I'm only sending out one or two cards I try to throw in something fun, whether it's tokens that go with the card I'm sending or an on color foreign card I have lying around.
  

uggy posted:

I do actually wonder what everybody's fav/pet card is.

wild mongrel

Samael posted:

I just started playing again, so it's all pretty new to me. I played a bit during shards block but thats about it. I love most of rebecca guay's art so far, even though I have only seen the promo Path to exile, dark ritual and bitterblossom. Is there any other good rebecca guay cards I haven't found about yet?

C-Euro posted:

I'm building one tonight too, I think I'm doing this wrong because every time I make a first pass at a new EDH deck I end up with a stack of cards at least twice the size of an EDH deck, usually more.

Also I can't decide if I want this to be a budget Momir Vig deck, or to drop the blue and make a good old-fashioned fatty party with Yeva as a commander

qbert posted:

My favorite way of determining who goes first is pulling out Rock Lobster, Paper Tiger, and Scissors Lizard and shuffling them facedown and letting my opponent pick his card and mine.

ManiacMatt posted:

Oh I know, I'm not arguing with how much sense it makes. I just remember at the GP I went to back in Toronto, they talked about it a bit. You could take a picture of your pool (it was a sealed event), but were not allowed to post it until after the first round or something like that.

MTGO also lets you look at all your previous draft picks, mid pack, which you're not allowed to at a competitive REL event either (which I also think is ridiculous). At my local store, every draft people are talking at the table, checking their previous picks, hell, some even occasionally check the price of a card to see if it's worth picking up in later packs. I honestly feel allowing people to look at their previous picks mid-pack helps people pick faster as they don't have to stop and think exactly about how many 3 drops they have, or if they had some enablers they fell into for Nemesis of Mortals earlier in the packs when they get passed one, etc.

Now I generally take the game a lot less seriously than a lot of people though too. I have lots of friendly banter mid-game (well unless they're counting up total damage or something when you get big late game board states). I mean I still take my time, and make sure I play everything out in a smart way, and generally do decently well I feel. One of the regulars at my store played 2 seasons of Pro Tour if I remember, and I'm generally a pretty decent match against them. It just bugs me when people go on tilt/freak out over the simplest things.

TL:DR

I agree with you in thinking that it's silly, but I can understand someone asking you not to do it if it's technically against the rules, regardless of what it is (taking pictures of cards, talking during draft, etc.)

Promoted Pawn posted:

Damnation was in Planar Chaos because it's literally a black version of Wrath of God. Black gets board sweepers normally, but MaRo said in a recent podcast that they don't want to put black and white sweepers in the same block. Fated Retribution is a white one in Born of the Gods. Drown in Sorrow is most likely the best board sweeper black is getting until the next block.

Dr. Clockwork posted:

Snacksmaniac posted:

What in the world.

Sorting tip: I'm trying to catch up on sorting. It took me far too long to go through a box and toss out the advertisement cards. Throw them away first thing !

The Wonder Weapon posted:

They allow for phenomenally consistent manabases, absurd splashes, and eat up huge portions of time off the clock in every format. No fetches would increase game speed and reduce obnoxious combo decks without requiring opponents to MD narrow hate cards.

If you don't appreciate the clock time thing, you've never been to a GP. At Montreal this past weekend, the shortest round was ten minutes over time. Modern is no different, but if you remove fetches, you may actually get rounds to finish in under 50 minutes. Keep in mind this problem will only get worse as GPs grow. The round is only as fast as the slowest player.

morning wood posted:

Just got back from my first FNM draft. I have to say I didn't really like it. I understand it takes practice to get good but I don't think I know card combinations well enough to build something competitive. Being the 0-3 + a bye whipping boy is never fun.

morning wood posted:

Thanks I'll have to try a sealed when I get the chance. Luckily my LGS plays a lot of standard, so I may just hit another store for FNM on draft nights at my primary store for the time being.

Snacksmaniac posted:

There's a handful of pretty good stores around Detroit. Pandemonium is the only one I don't care for because of ventilation and smell issues. The store and employees were really cool when I used to go.

Death Bot posted:

With regard to the Detroit area, Eternal Games just opened up a couple of weeks back and is pretty nice. Haven't played up there much but the store is clean, their selection is great (packs back to... Kamigawa, I think?) and the people I have talked to have been cool.

Don't know what area you're in though!

AnacondaHL posted:

Do not agree. If you're not set on using Voice until October for Standard do not buy. It is barely eternal playable and you will be able to pick them up for $5 a pop after rotation.

Death Bot posted:

As someone who used to live in Ferndale, Eternal's probably gonna be your best bet. GG is indeed small as poo poo and TT is neat to go to but bad to stay at for very long. Eternal is right off of 696 anyways so it's only 5-10 minutes further than GG is and all of their stuff starts a bit later.

I would probably go to GG more if their prize support wasn't poo poo, but they tend to get 12-16 people for drafts and even when they do two pods of drafting they mash them together for play and only pay out to the top two. I had one month where between drafting and standard I placed third at every single FNM and didn't win a single thing

Eternal also does drafts on sundays if you want to try and make that work, and I live less than a mile away if you just wanna meet up for a beer some time or something

Literally The Worst posted:

I paid for college with mint copies of Spawn #1.

PhyrexianLibrarian posted:

I can't speak to the lore of Alara, but I remember hearing another possibility that I hadn't considered; that they may reprint Ajani Vengeant. Seems unlikely since land destruction isn't something they print very often, but it's the only other alternative as I don't think they'd have two mono-white walkers in the same block.

Saeku posted:

Stranglehold, Chaos Warp, and Torpor Orb are your buddies here.

vOv posted:

What? BXCX already has the cradle, I figured they just wanted to borrow an LGS's loupe and blacklight instead of buying their own.

Tharizdun posted:

I've enjoyed a lot of your posts about sweet finds and miscuts and ultra-high-end acquisitions, What a Judas. I fully expect to see you post your newly-acquired Splendid Genesis any day now.

That doesn't change the fact that living in la-la land where you're dealing with insanely high-dollar cards has caused you to lose perspective on what it sounds like when someone suggests that it is reasonable to expect a dingy rathole android's dungeon with packs of 1991 Donruss baseball cards covered in a layer of dust on the shelf would have a loving jeweler's loupe of all things lying around.

It's not that I'm an rear end in a top hat, it's that some people are completely delusional and on comedy website something awful dot com, it's ok to laugh at those people.

Zoness posted:

A lot of the stock that moves for stores isn't the expensive cards though.

Toshimo posted:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-60X-Je...=item51ab46c4b6

Theres a ton of these in a million variations on ebay for $2-3.

If you are concerned at all, just buy one.

Ramos posted:

I'm personally seeing five color Chromanticore control continuing its excellent streak so far in the competitive scene.

JerryLee posted:

Yeah, an official CFB person explained it in chat after I posted that. I had just tuned in.

Also, this poor guy. On the one hand it's to me because he's basically playing the platonic ideal of schoolyard constructed Magic decks, on the other hand it's because I have to believe he just completely didn't know what he was getting into by showing up at a GP like this. If you're going to drop $40 (or whatever it is here) registering for a huge Magic tournament, why wouldn't you at least learn what's up and maybe build a budget tier 2 deck like, I don't know, not this.

e: apparently Ben Lundquist is being really nice though

vOv posted:

This is a very different post taken out of context.

Konstantin posted:

Another speculation target is Legion's Initiative. If there's a constructed playable constellation card in red or white you could flicker all your enchantment creatures and get multiple triggers, which might make it worth a slot.

Ramos posted:

Context?

Mikujin posted:

For anyone who has ever been interested in Custom Sleeves, looks like your dreams might be coming true.

Devor posted: