Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Magic, sponsors a series of Magic tournaments through its Organized Play division. The top level Magic tournaments are called Pro Tours and each have a total prize pool of about $200,000, with the winner taking home $32,000. Five Pro Tours along with numerous smaller tournaments are hosted during the year, allowing a handful of "professional" full-time Magic players to exist. Though perhaps not a life goal of mine, playing a game and making money while doing it would be pretty neat. Unfortunately for TFH and I, neat idea it will remain. For us, Magic remains an entertaining liability, not a career.
That isn't to say I haven't tried. Way back in middle school, my brother and I had just discovered Magic. With limited funds, we needed to find some way to grow our collection of cards. The challenge was our only assets were the very things we wanted to get more of – other Magic cards.
Our plan was to repackage cards we owned and sell them at school. Instead of a 15 card pack for $3, we'd sell 3 card packs for $1. We guaranteed that each pack had at least a rare or uncommon card in it and told everyone a few of the best rares that were in our packs. The packs actually sold surprisingly well. In retrospect it makes some sense, as there was a lot of demand for Magic cards at school, but no store to supply them.
With the profits, my brother and I bought pricey individual cards. You can make the argument that some of these purchases were legitimate investments. For example, we bought a single unlimited Ancestral Recall for $72*. As Magic cards are not much different in look and feel than a normal playing card, the price paid may seem high. But as of this day, the Ancestral Recall retails for $599 on cardkingdom.com; this is a compounded annual growth rate of 21.26%!
The truth, though, is I never really sold any of my cards, so to claim I am a card-investing genius is a stretch. The Ancestral Recall and profit are still sitting in a box somewhere at home.
While my Magic profits may not be tangible, the expense certainly is. I currently spend most of my Magic money on Magic Online. Like the name suggests, the game is an official online version of Magic. What's more, you have to separately buy digital cards in order to play. There is no discount over buying cards online versus real life, and you really can't transfer cards from one medium to another. That means I have spent hundred of dollars on virtual cards.
TFH, though, wins the prize for biggest purchase. During Freshmen year, he impulse-bought Magic's "Power 9" on eBay. The Power 9 includes Ancestral Recall along with eight other similarly rare and out of print cards cards. Though he bought it before prices really inflated, it couldn't have been cheap - TFH refuses to tell us how much he paid. What's worse, weeks after he bought and paid for the cards, TFH still had not received them. G$ and I ask about when they are coming, but TFH dodges the question. When TFH finds a few buyers who never received their cards, I figure he's been scammed for good.
One day, though, TFH invites us up to his room. His set of Power 9 are laid out on his bed for display. When we ask how he finally got the cards from the eBay seller, TFH explains, "I left a voicemail and wrote him an email saying that I am a college student. I will get those cards. I have nothing better to do (certainly not attend classes), than get those cards. I will physically drive up to [10 hours away] and call the local police if I do not get those cards." His strongarm tactics apparently worked, as the seller was so intimidated he even included a few extra cards in TFH's shipment.
The Power 9 are exceptionally pricey because they are out of print. But the prices of even normal cards are high enough that it is often economical for them to be shared rather than have each person buy them individually. Before a Magic tournament, TFH, who by this time already moved out to the east coast, has decided what deck he'd like to play, and needs some more cards. He sends an email to our gaming circle describing what he's missing:
"Please please please. My entire function in life at this point is to play this deck, and to do that I need these cards in my mailbox on Friday.
Each person who helps hook me up will also get 10% of my winnings from the Pro Tour that this tournament qualifies into. TEN PERCENT OF $32,000 IS A LOT."
TFH gets the cards from us, plays in the tournament (which goes poorly) then sends them back out to the west coast. I receive the cards and play in a similar tournament the week after (it goes poorly as well). The Monday after the tournament, I am standing in line in the Stanford post office, realizing that in a month my cards will have done more traveling than I have in the last year.
"Can I get insurance on this?" I ask. The deck is in the same cardboard box which we've been using to carry our cards for the last 3 years.
The post office guy nods. "What's that worth?"
"Oh I don't know," I think a bit. "Maybe $500?"
He looks a bit surprised but starts filling out the slip. "What's in there?"
"Uh cards… just cards actually."
I don't try to explain more.
* I recently discovered that any Magic card that sells for more than $44.16 is worth its weight in gold (See the question from April 24th)
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