Puca's Mischief #2

I have now reached my 10 card limit for sending out cards for starting users on Puca trade.
Until those cards are marked received by the people I sent to them, then no more visits to the post office for me. I could update my want list to try and receive something worth $5 or less but I prefer to bank those points and aim for something larger.

I won't be idle Puca wise in the next two weeks as I plan to really sort through my inventory in a much more thorough way. While Puca doesn't yet have a way of marking non NM or Korean language cards it does allow you to import card lists from Deckbox.

Deckbox is a site local multi player fiend Kevin introduced me to. It has a lot more functionality than MTG Price which was the site I was using before. For now I will be using my spare time to inspect the condition of my cards and type their details into deckbox. I also need to come up with a better filing system.
Those cards I want to trade away in person are easy, I will just put them in a trade binder but those I want to use for Puca purposes need to be filed in some sort of logical way.

Puca's Mishief #1

I looked into Puca trade a long time ago (over a year) but my mobile number couldn't be verified.

With Ryan from the Cardboard Samurai getting involved and promoting it recently it inspired me to try again and I am now a verified user. It's only been a few days and I still have a lot of cards that I haven't listed but I have already sent cards to Canada and Italy.

It's an interesting system and when they add support for foreign and non nm cards it should be a lot better for someone based in Korea. The system currently only supports English NM cards. It is possible to trade foreign cards and ask for a premium, it just requires a lot more time and effort, To that extent it is not much better than using existing channels (like MTG Salvation, Ebay or Facebook).

If you stick to English and NM the set up is very user friendly and the best I have seen for trading Magic cards online.

Mailing cards is time consuming and doesn't provide instant gratification. Living in Korea if a card is in demand it's easy to sell for cash in hand without any fees. That's always going to be better than an online international trading system.
For someone like me who enjoys paperwork and has more cards than I can fit into my binder, Puca seems a great way to clear out some inventory and work towards some long term goals.

The New Kindle in Seongsu

This is the new and current location for Kindle. It is located near Seongsu Station and will be hosting a lot of tournaments. They also have a fantastic singles collection that includes Power.

It's located very close to the station and easy enough to find. Go out exit one and then follow the map. Key landmarks along the way are Paris Baguette, Pizza School, Dunkin Donuts and Lotteria. From Loteria you can see the store while you sip on your coke.

The store is a decent size and fits about 50 players. They actually display their singles in a case in addition to the binders so that is a definite plus.

I attended the grand opening tournament and had a good time. The event started half an hour late and the prizes weren't as good as advertised in English (looks a translation issue rather than anything mischievous) so I felt a little burnt. It's much to far of a trip for me but I do plan to go back sometime.

If I lived close to the store I would be pretty excited because they run a lot of events and have some creative prizes (old packs, foreign foils, unhinged lands etc).

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.

Magic Overload!

While I haven't been posting updates due to my new work schedule not leaving me with a lot of spare time while in front of a computer, that doesn't mean stuff hasn't been happening.

The multiplayer cube I built is in full swing and we played a hilarious 8 player game with it. http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/8529

Someone died to Hidetsugu's second rite and the game was won with a miracled Thunderous Wrath being copied twice to deal 15 damage during the winners upkeep.

Suwon drafts are now at 1:00 pm and have been regularly filling up thanks to a lot of Korean players joining.

Rolling Dice Hongdae had a massive sale with boosters from W1,000.
I bought a box of Korean dark Ascension for W36,000 and a box of English Khans for W72,000.
I personally loved drafting triple Khans so I plan to keep this box in my MTG vault for drafting later down the line.

Kindle shop is reopening in a new location.

And we had a Modern masters draft last Sunday in Suwon.

The fate reforged re release had 21 foreigners in attendance and an all English flight. It was really unexpected and the store plans to have even more English kits for the forthcoming Dragons of Tarkir prerelease. 

New Dalmuti location, a closer look

Last weekend was the first chance to play at the new Dalmuti's location in Suwon.
It's smaller and the security guard on the bottom floor seemed to enjoy sending people away and telling them the store was located in another building. After getting out of the elevator on the fourth floor it requires traversing a dimly lit maze until you find the front door.

It doesn't take many Magic players until the place feels pretty comfortable with a nice vibe, especially since the store is now 100% Magic. The store is now only running on the weekends except for special events.

Last weekend we had a full pod of 8 but there was a lack of English boosters (something which will be remedied by this Sunday) for Khans of Tarkir. They did have Conspiracy though and we jumped into playing that. Before the draft started I probably would have preferred Korean Khans of Tarkir as I love the format and know the cards fairly well. About 3 picks into Conspiracy I remembered that I loved it (enough to build a cube around it) and had assembled a combo of World Knit and Cogwork Grinder. I had perfect mana and an 18/18 six drop in my deck. 

Sealed Conspiracy is a lot cheaper than regular sets but has quite decent value inside. I think a decent amount of players enjoy it but others want nothing to do with it. So while semi popular I think play groups and stores have a hard time finding the critical mass of players to draft it. We are lucky in Suwon to have a lot of regular drafters who like to have fun rather than dream of winning the pro tour.
There was a lot of value opened, including Eunjae getting a Dack Fayden.
Being an old man,  I get a thrill from opening sealed packs with Brainstorm and Swords to Plowshares in them but my favourite take away from the draft was a foil Squirrel Nest.

That draft was followed up by drafting Dan Leonard's cube and the store provided free prizes. It was a lot of fun and I got to play Stoneforge Mystic fetching Batterskull on turn 2 as well as flickering my creature with the Planeswalker Venser before casting Wrath of God. Good times, even when losing to a brutal five colour control deck in round two.

To try and top those shenanigans the cube will be back for a 6:00 pm draft this week, but the main event will be backdraft. That is where you try and draft the worst deck you can and then it is given to someone else. You then get passed a pool that someone else has drafted and try but usually fail to build something resembling a deck. You score points based on your wins and when whoever got the pool you drafted loses. As well as the usual boosters and pride on the line the store is also giving away Garruk's Nerf Axe and some wall sized posters.
         

This week in Korean Magic

It's been an interesting week for Magic in Korea.
Kindle shop in Seoul and Elder Dragon in Ulsan are set to close their doors. It's sad and the announcement about Kindle closing seemed to come out of the blue.
In retrospect it should not be that surprising as Magic shops in Korea aren't run very professionally. Kindle had a large playing space but didn't have a website, not exactly 2014 best practise.
Last minute scheduling or scheduling changes are fairly frequent at some stores and I have never seen a program designed at catering for new or casual players. There was an article on MTG Price about foreign cards (http://blog.mtgprice.com/2014/12/16/foreign-language-cards-for-dummies/) and the author laments not being able to find a single Korean retailer who ships overseas.
A lot of stores don't operate proper singles sales or buy lists. Giving up margins of 40-60% in favour of letting players handle singles and taking just 10-15%.
This reliance on the sale and price of sealed product (the prices are fixed and MSRP is never publicly broken by an individual store) means Korean stores are especially vulnerable to a wholesale price increase. Just recently Wizards of the Coast reduced the discount they offered to retailers on sealed product and within months we have seen the closure of two major Korean stores.

Despite all this negativity Dalmuti's in Suwon gave me a pleasant surprise when they announced they were not closing when their old lease expired. Instead they have moved to a new location.

Magic in Suwon now has it's own Facebook group. I don't think I am going out on a limb by saying it is the best thing that has ever been on Facebook.  (https://www.facebook.com/groups/303915966473798/)