Puca's Mischief #5

I had slowed down for a while on Puca Trade as I had credit in the bank, cards on the way and an empty want list. I upped my standards for what I wanted to send and wanted it to be worth my while. Nearly a week went by of casually checking Puca with no deals worth taking. And then BAM, 5 fat envelopes in a single day were packed and sent to all corners of the globe (Finland, Canada, America, Australia and Singapore).

I received my first envelope last Friday and I expect two more to arrive some time this week. Inside was a pack fresh pair of Time Spiral Gemstone Mines and a Gruul Signet. I am now one Gemstone Mine away from finishing my Legacy deck (well the main deck, the sideboard could take a while).
The Gruul signet completes the cycle and puts a cap on my OCD for now.

With more members getting involved in Korea it's getting interesting. While it means I am no longer the exclusive Puca representative of Korea it opens up the chance for cheap and quick trading. It's easier and cheaper for me to go to the post office than it is to go to Seoul.
It has alsomeant the possibility of selling points to fellow members which opens up a whole new dimension to the trading I am doing. If that works out I could finally get Magic to pay for itself!

I am in the middle of finalising my cube want list after a massive overhaul so I am now willing to send a lot more of my collection.
I have a Legacy Deck, two Modern decks and a fun cube. My EDH deck could do with a little love and I should build another one or two for variety. So it feels time to sit back, put the feet up and try and remember who won the dice roll. 

Podcasts 2015

It's pretty early in the year and not long since I last did this but there have been some changes so I wanted to update the list.
Last time I wrote that a lot of the podcasts I listened to felt like they were at the crossroads, and looking back some fared better than others.

The Deck Tease is on hiatus and scratched from my playlist. The members of the EH team are playing more Magic and KYT is now on the pro tour (awesome) but it feels like the cast is an obligation rather than something they look forward too. Some of the hosts go missing for long periods of time and the cast runs for too long given so little content.

There was controversy around Heavy Meta as Channel Fireball leant heavily on Face to Face Games (the main sponsor) to have TSG removed from the cast. This was really petty from Channel Fireball and the cast just feels morbid as a result. TSG brought a lot of organisation to that cast and in his absence the cast feels much worse.
I stopped listening half way through the last one and it seems to all be about upcoming GP Vegas and merchandise from here on in.

I am probably down to only listening to 15% of Drive to Work episodes. Mark Rosewater's game designer series has gone from one of my favourites to an auto delete. I do really enjoy the 15% that are a format I like though such as the "during this year of magic" ones.

Limited Resources came out of it's co host search with LSV in the second seat. He is a fantastic addition and my only quibble is that he is too similar to Marshall's drafting style. Brian Wong seemed to draft different decks which led to more interesting discussions a lot of the times. There is actually a limit on how many times I need to hear the word "value" in a single podcast and it would be nice if they could spare a second for decks that attack the opponent before turn 15..

My Top 7 for last year were:

1 – The Spike Feed

2 – Brainstorm Brewery

3 – Ced Talks

4 – Heavy meta

5 – Limited Resources

6 – The Deck Tease

7 – Drive to Work

Ced talks has fallen a little on my rankings but only because Limited Resources have added LSV and I get plenty of Patrick and Cedric while watching Star City Games Open coverage via Twitch replays.

I like Wizards of the Cast because the hosts are nice guys and mostly talk about limited and cube. You don't get the level of expertise as you do from Limited Resources but the format is much easier to listen to. A Spike feed style 30 minute well produced podcast that focussed on limited would be ideal. The problem with limited resources is that it often goes too long with a lot of stuff that is irrelevant to me.

At Your End Step is a good review of recent SCG events and is very Standard orientated, with good chemistry between the hosts who all seem pretty decent at Magic.

MTG Goldfish is another financial podcast that features some really sharp people with interesting things to say.

My Top 7 for this year are:

1 – The Spike Feed

2 – Wizards of the Cast 

3 – Brainstorm Brewery

4 – Limited Resources 

5 – Ced Talks

6 – At Your End Step

7 – MTG Goldfish

Puca's Mischief #4

This morning was another Pucca first for me, I received notification that someone plans to send me a Revised Wheel of Fortune. I am pretty excited about that and it will be going into my cube straight away. I just checked and Wheel of Fortune is not banned in EDH, I will definitely be jamming it in my EDH deck as well.
It is banned in Tiny Leaders which is further personal justification for never playing that format again.

I am especially excited to add a card from Revised as that was the set I started playing Magic with and I feel nostalgic for the cards from that set. I have to admit though that the Korean 4th Edition versions of the classic cards look better. Instead of a white border and a faded pastel look they have a spiffy black border and decent contrast.

Sending wise I have picked up a few points but it's probably later this week or early next week when I will really start to bank some points as all the trades I did straight after my 10 card sending limit was removed start to arrive.

I have slowed down in the sends this week, I was waiting to see if people would actually send good cards to Korea and my collection is in a bit of flux so I wasn't comfortable sending out good cards I may need.
Once the first card has arrived I think that will give me the impetus to really get a move on with listing my inventory and getting more points.

Another exciting development over the weekend was that I am no longer the only Korean Puca Trader. Another player from Dalmuti's Suwon has joined the Cult and sent out an invite to entice another.

It hasn't all been online where exciting Magic card trading has taken place, this week in real life trades I received a Deathrite Shaman, Hersheys Chocolate Ice Cream and a Beta Sea Serpent amongst others. A pretty cool haul, not huge in value but I have never owned a Beta card before and I cracked a Sea Serpent in my very first Magic Starter.

When looking for an image of a Beta Sea Serpent, this one cracked me up. Someone bothered getting it graded!

Puca's Mischief #3

The shackles are off restriction wise as I am now free to send as many cards as I want.
I still haven't even finished grading and uploading my inventory of rares and mythics so I have a long way to go.
Having EVERYTHING you want to trade listed makes it much easier to find worthwhile trades as a couple of uncommons or junk rare add ons can pay for shipping and feel like free money.

One trade I did was for Temporal Trespass, at 207 points ($2) it is not worth the effort and cost ($1) to ship. Only making 100 points. Luckily that user was also looking for a dragon hunter from the new set which has a value of 59 points. 3 weeks from now I expect Dragon Hunters to be free draft left overs.
Adding that card to the trade had zero impact on my costs and made the trade worthwhile for me. Others might have a higher thresh hold of what is worthwhile and I have heard a lot of people say $4 or $5 is their minimum.
I may end up feeling the same, but at the moment I am happy to be clearing out my binders.
So far I have sent out 23 cards and will send another 7 tomorrow. There is a dilemma approaching though, I will son run out of top loaders and I don't seem to be able to find any in Korea.

In about 48 hours the Indigo funding campaign for Puca Trade to add support for foreign and non NM cards is set to end. They are about $5,000 away from their goal of $50,000 so it will be a close run thing. 

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).