MTG Finance - My first spec

Outpost Siege is my very first active speculation and entry into the murky world of MTG Finance. I pre ordered 20 @ 49c each from Starcity Games.

I chose this card because I thought it was better than bulk and would have long term casual appeal. It wouldn’t have to go up much to be worth it even if it took a couple of years. Phyrexian Arenas and Gravepacts have always been very popular cards in my binders, and this is the red equivalent of Phyrexian Arena.

I was hopeful it would see type 2 play but no one seemed to agree or talk about the card during set review season so I started to doubt my judgement.
Living in Korea its not worth it to buy list to America and Korean buy lists don’t really exist. While that is a disadvantage the advantages of being in Korea is that there is a constant stream of new faces (1 year contracts for foreign workers plus a lot of US military) and you are allowed to openly buy and sell in the shop as the stores don’t run their own singles binders.

I am following an interesting article series on the Cardboard Samurai blog (http://thejapanhobbyist.com/2015/03/11/puca-pals-week-2-report-underwear-gnomes/) about Puca Trade as a lot of what he writes about is relevant to Korea.

Finance - What makes a mistake worth money?

Some recent machinations behind the scenes in Korean Magic have shaken things up a bit.

For the first time since I have lived here stores seem allowed to price individually rather than sticking with a fixed price. There is now some decent discounting going on and the price of drafting has actually dropped.
I cant ever recall a regular price decrease in the cost of playing Magic previously.

That said compared to America it is still expensive but that is the case for most consumer products. Seriously Americans pay much less (like half in some cases) for Lego than Europeans and Lego is a European product!

So with my regular drafts going from 18,000 원 to 16,000 원 make no mistake about it, I am feeling pretty content.

Talking of mistakes (fantastic segue) there is no Ashiok like blunder on this crop of Korean cards. Brimaz has some funny wording that is vague about the number of tokens you get but I don't think it is the type of error to get people excited about. The Ashiok blunder was clear and obvious and involved the numbers printed on the card. This Brimaz mistake is more subtle and only accessible to Korean speakers. I don't think this mistake will add anything to the value of Brimaz. That said he will still be an expensive foil because it is a great card and a legend.


As a rule I would say any mistake or difference between versions that can't be explained just by pointing at it is not going to be a factor in value.
The Ashiok mistake was cool and created a visible difference between versions. If you need a linguist to explain why your version of the card is different than Joe's version the purpose of pimping has been defeated.