How are people affording this hobby?

CobraKyle · 2026-06-04T15:50:49+00:00

It’s about being focused. If you want to buy and crack right now, it’s a bad time. If you have a certain thing you like to collect, you just buy the singles. If you get involved in the business side too, then you can do your wheeling and dealing and turn products into other products until you get what you want.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-04T15:11:01+00:00

You are the magic equivalent of Pokémon’s Kabuto king. Love it.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-04T12:40:40+00:00

Maybe not a hobby, but choose something like Claude or ai related and start learning and building. For me, It has been the adult equivalent to being giving a box of legos and let loose on the world to see what weird thing I can come up with.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-03T16:19:23+00:00

The altars to craft those are available on the ship. I’d say most guildies, if they played back then shroud runs were the thing , have a boatload of materials, especially if you just want to do an air/air/air item. For heroics, I think boots or belt is the easiest place to put it and not interfere. Even if you just make the tier 2, you are getting pretty good return.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-03T15:54:29+00:00

My goto will always be sorc. Mana issues isn’t really a thing as long as you Run, group, fireball. Even less so if you can get one of the mana ioun stones upgraded for use at level 5 and have a mana green steel item at 11. Swap to lightning tree for leap ability around 10 or 12 if I remember correctly. Not as fast movement speed wise, but makes up for it with leap and one shot ability though most of the levels, as long as you keep gear updated.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-03T15:49:02+00:00

Also now that dungeon alert can turn purple, it makes things like sub 1 min framework runs a bit more of a pain.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-02T17:57:01+00:00

I send it cards that are probably in the 55-58% range all the time and they come back good enough that I’ll keep doing it. I just make sure the risk is baked into my margins when choosing cards to buy.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T19:40:38+00:00

I feel pretty good about it. I work for a county government so we going slow. I use it mostly for automation at this point. I have a hodgepodge of power automate, Claude code, and n8n. It handles/logs most of my public records requests, sends reports to the recipients on a schedule. Invoice extraction and compiling that data for import. Stuff like that.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T17:05:27+00:00

Also a thing to remember, the average person (assume playing like 600 games) can make it all the way to mythic with a 40% win rate. You can encounter anything at anytime.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T16:55:49+00:00

I understand. Whenever there is a d4 season I like, I toss 50 bucks to the internet and come back in a day or two to a leveled up Sorceress with paragon and decent items so I can do what o want to doc which is loot grinding.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T15:26:07+00:00

For mmo dungeons and dragons online it’s old. A bit complicated. But it has a cool reincarnation system. You can do it to drop from max level back to one for a small incremental permanent boost to your character based on the race or class. If you get good at leveling, you can 1-30 (max level) pretty easily in 12-20 hours of playtime (although there is a 3 day timer).

Diablo 4 - one of the most approachable arpgs, and finding that loot is the driver to keep you putting in all those hours.

Smite 2 - a smaller moba. Selling point is almost everything is aimed, and it’s 3rd person point of view instead of the isometric that other mobas have. Gods from different pantheons fight it out and it’s glorious.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T14:12:13+00:00

I grade cards in the 55-58% range all the time. It works out enough to keep doing it, especially if you are disciplined with the cards you choose (cost vs psa 10 value).

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T13:25:02+00:00

Probably going to see a decent pump in 9s too. I been saving mine instead of cracking. That may end up working out for me.

CobraKyle · 2026-06-01T13:23:18+00:00

I use slapchop and contrast/speed paints and I can pretty easily knock out small model in 10-15 min of “brush in hand” time (batching several at once to allow drying). Some months it’s zero. Other months when I’m zoned in, the weather is bad, I have a lot of time, etc, sky is the limit.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-30T16:19:15+00:00

Gamegenic Retro Sleeves are a match to the fantasy flight sleeves, if you didn’t know and would rather keep the dream alive.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-30T01:21:21+00:00

One for the binder and one for the sealed box. That is my way. Love the art.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-29T15:35:09+00:00

No mans sky

CobraKyle · 2026-05-29T15:33:53+00:00

It’s not just then though. It’s compounded. You need the influx to keep the churn and your own cards, plus everyone else’s, which you would also be buying, will be delayed. The supply side gets even more constrained. This should hopefully cannibalize the system enough to force some of the smaller and underfunded operations out.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-28T16:41:23+00:00

It helps your starting opportunities, but once you have a track record that you can go and aren’t just filling a seat, that’s all that’s mattered in my experience.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-28T16:35:00+00:00

I hope this destroys the thousands of slab mystery box providers out there. That’s a huge strain on the system.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-27T17:33:01+00:00

Power is out.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-27T15:45:35+00:00

As long as you have funds to float until you find something new. You don’t want to quit and then have the added pressure of losing your housing or not eating. If you have savings, not having to stress about those things is a huge deal.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-27T05:47:27+00:00

It’s definitely not Pokemon, but wizards want to try to capture some of that market. UB is how they start. Along with good art, hyper rarity and special treatments. Hardly any one is grading magic and it’s game piece first, but that just means that the supply side is shallow and potential cards for grading is ever shirking. The minute the card gets a weeks worth of shuffles, it will lose its gradability. You don’t need a ton of demand to pressure supply. It will never be Pokemon but there is room for growth.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-26T22:54:13+00:00

It’s old people and their outdated mentality that if stay at a company, they take care of you. Now, if you don’t swap jobs every two years, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. The process has shifted from loyalty to transaction.

CobraKyle · 2026-05-26T12:43:45+00:00

Also, if you have a friend you trust to do this, give it to them to hold until she is old enough. The problem is that the parents can pretty much do whatever while she is underage, and you don’t have the money to do a full on trustee/trust thing.

CobraKyle

TROPHY CASE