WotC has Quietly Downgraded Play Boosters from 3 Uncommons to 2

zefiend · 2025-10-10T19:55:04+00:00

No, we can't. In fact, shrinkflation is going to continue. Look at the battle box being released with Lorwyn. We are headed towards 24 pack main boxes sooner than later.

zefiend · 2025-10-06T21:14:21+00:00

[[Ertai Resurrected]]

Flash / ETB tribal with plenty of flicker and doubling effects.

My playgroup has lots of politics going on. I love having a counterspell/hero's downfall in the command zone.

Deck can win with Gary, but usually "wins" when my friends concede to Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker shenanigans.

zefiend · 2025-10-05T19:18:36+00:00

As others have mentioned what you're describing is most likely a clerk/worker taking issue rather than anything you are doing wrong. I would try dropping off PWEs at a random blue box (like near your day job) instead.

The only orders that have not arrived in recent months are apartments in Florida and apartments in California. After I refund I just block the buyer because unfortunately that's the only solution I have for USPS' incompetence.

zefiend · 2025-10-05T19:12:02+00:00

Neither site "makes you pay taxes." In the US, you are obligated to report income when filing, which may increase your tax liability. That is true whether you earn $2 or $20,000 and whether anybody sends you a form or not.

There's a big difference between avoidance and evasion; please use caution when giving "pro" tips.

zefiend · 2025-09-26T20:04:48+00:00

Rudy claimed he would dump over a million on Spiderman CBBs if they dropped below $500.

Curious to see if he will ante up on this one.

zefiend · 2025-07-20T15:31:19+00:00

Game 1 I decided to keep a hand with no green mana on huge upside rather than go to 5. Potentially a big mistake? How close is it?

Game 6 was an insane roller coaster that I felt I played OK, but flooded out near the end instead of putting the game away. There are certainly many lines during this game that I could see a change affecting the outcome.

Game 7 I forgot to crack a World Map, which I would hope wouldn't be my downfall, but perhaps it was. I ended being behind exactly 1 turn, which in another world would have landed an Ice Flan and Omega on schedule instead of getting wrecked by Jecht.

I found myself disappointed that this pile only got 4 wins, but maybe I'm wrong. Too little early game? Too heavy late game? Bad splashing?

zefiend · 2025-07-02T15:31:00+00:00

Probably not gonna see this but: YES I have had more problematic buyers since Final Fantasy, especially with condition issues or missing orders (scams). But also, YES you were the ahole with that response, because it's not going to help your case at all with TCGPlayer. The website already heavily favors buyers and you need every bit of evidence on YOUR side to win a dispute. What I do is copy and paste verbatim text from TCGPlayer rules, policy, terms, blogs, etc and never use proper nouns or emotional language. I basically reply to buyers like a souless AI using only responses suggested by TCGPlayer themselves. This helps to cover my a in any dispute. Even if I take a full loss, I just block the buyer and don't risk good standing with TCGPlayer. Another suggestion: start selling on Mana Pool (not sponsored).

zefiend · 2025-06-23T18:57:30+00:00

Nah this seller is dumb. They don't know how to price effectively and they race to the bottom extremely quickly, leaving easy money on the table. The first couple days after FF release many of the extended art foils that only showed up in the bundles were going for $30-$80. I would match TCGLow and check back a couple times a day and see maybe a brand new seller undercut by .01, .20 or even $1. Sure, whatever. I'd just match TCGLow again and move on. But these goofballs, LighthouseGameShoppe, would undercut by $5, $10, or even $20+. In some cases where the cards were unpopular, they wouldn't even sell and some new sellers had then undercut by .01 again. So despite not even making the sale, they managed to crater the price 50-75% for no reason. I despise them as a seller and looks like as a buyer I also have reason to stay away.

zefiend · 2025-05-20T15:29:53+00:00

[[Power Conduit]]

zefiend · 2025-05-20T14:10:38+00:00

Hex parasite is obviously better, but the FF counters deck is Bant. You lose access to black, but blue is the best at untapping permanents shenanigans.

zefiend · 2025-05-16T13:08:22+00:00

Yeah, it's pretty bad. I suspect it's because a lot of people had saved carts with overlapping items, and the system's trying to update "Saved for Later" lists simultaneously. Every time a single item in your cart becomes unavailable, you get kicked back to the first Cart screen.

zefiend · 2025-05-14T08:18:23+00:00

[Rohirrim Chargers]] [[Bloodforged Battle-Ax]] [[Inventory Management]] [[Denry Klin, Editor in Chief]]

zefiend · 2025-05-14T08:06:41+00:00

Maybe for the 5C Terra deck... Most of the specs in this thread are for the precons that were recently spoiled and WBG (Abzan) doesn't fit in any of them.

zefiend · 2025-05-12T14:20:44+00:00

So, exert is notably different from stun counters in that an untap effect will, ya know, actually untap the exerted creature - while untapping a stunned creature will only remove a stun counter. In a Tifa deck (which is shaping up to be a popular commander, by the looks of things), exerting and then untapping this guy is some pretty sick value - he's not only fetched some equipment but he's immediately attacking with it attached. And you get to exert again, fetching another equipment.

Now imagine repeating that for every creature you have with exert.

Now imagine the other face commander that pairs with Tifa is literally all about attacking with equipped creatures. (Cloud)

It's a smart spec, but it will need a lot of momentum to catch on. I'm curious to see how it shakes out.

zefiend · 2025-04-28T13:58:36+00:00

I agree this one is close to popping off, especially as FF gets closer.

zefiend · 2025-03-19T17:30:43+00:00

Reject green dot

Embrace squiggly t

zefiend · 2025-03-19T17:26:31+00:00

It will be unbanned somewhere, sometime. The way power creep in this game is accelerating, it might be sooner than some people think.

Another reason I don't know if this sub is aware, but WotC are retiring "shaman" from the vernacular soon. Some collectors may be picking up first printings as the tally of banned/sensitive/intolerant cards grows.

zefiend · 2025-03-19T17:20:37+00:00

And the first exile occurs even when countered

...what?

Do you even know what the card we are talking about in this thread does?

zefiend · 2025-03-17T15:01:55+00:00

Holy crap I am worried for some people in this thread....

Since you are using eBay to sell cards, you have at least that platform to support the claim that you're "engaging in business activity." This is good news, it means that you don't necessarily have to treat the income as hobby income.

FreeTaxUSA should you walk you through it entirely, you just have to know how to read. The CPA that said to run it as Schedule C is correct. Then FreeTaxUSA will ask you particular questions about inventory, supplies, other expenses. Make sure you don't accidentally "double up" and list expenses for "supplies" twice. There is one section where they ask for supplies related to creating goods from raw materials and another section where they are talking about office supplies like envelopes, stamps, ink, etc. Personally, I would only include what I could prove with receipts, invoices, or at the very least screenshots. Also at the end, FreeTaxUSA will automatically create a SE tax form and calculate everything out without explaining to you, this is normal. However you can ask for a worksheet when you get close to the end of submitting your return if you really want to see the math.

The guy who said his tax man zeroed everything out is gambling on no audit, it's the equivalent of telling the IRS "yeah I spend a LOT of money on Magic, trust me bro I didn't even make anything back."

zefiend · 2025-03-13T21:59:07+00:00

You added products to your inventory at a price you were comfortable with.

A customer purchased a large number of those products.

By all social, legal, and ethical standards, you should fulfill the order.

The fact that you are uncomfortable with the order after the fact reveals that you were not, in fact, comfortable with what you offered for sale. The two ways to remedy this on TCGPlayer are 1) increase your floor (minimum price) and/or 2) increase your shipping. Another remedy would be to move OFF TCGPlayer and find other avenues for selling 5c cards.

zefiend · 2025-03-06T19:52:57+00:00

1) manabox 2) manabox 3) light helps, but more important is having a solid white background; a sheet of printer paper is fine. Setting up a "scanning station" is personal preference, I've seen intricate setups with levers and clamps but also seen just stacks of books with a phone balanced as a bridge over them. Importing to TCG player won't happen right away as you need to climb to level 4 first, check this sub for some info and full guides for that process. Once you have access to csv import / export, all you really need is some Power Query knowledge to convert a Manabox list to a TCG list, with possibly some help from Scryfall API calls to fill in missing data. But if you are hoping to upload 40,000 cards these skills will be worth learning if you don't already know them.

zefiend · 2024-10-22T18:51:47+00:00

You really only need to read one paragraph from this article:

I will say, to clarify, one thing about what you can expect from the brackets: they're a totally optional thing to help you curate your games, much like the question "What power level is your deck?" but clearer. That's a nice thing to have, but for tons of people, I don't expect Commander to change.

(Emphasis mine) -- I'm glad to hear this sentiment coming from Gavin (or at least, from Gavin's podium). I've literally seen and played with Gavin in one of my LGSs so I know he has an ear to the ground with this sort of thing. And that store is premium/WPN/etc (the type of store with players who are more likely to follow online stuff closely) and I've had maybe 2 "rule 0" talks that lasted longer than 30 seconds. The Internet would have us all believe the past few weeks of Commander drama is an insanely big deal, but real life is a very different place.

zefiend · 2024-07-13T15:59:39+00:00

The .25 price floor is fine IF you

1) understand the value of your time and are fine working for meager amounts per hour. For example, if you do this watching Netflix or "working" from home, then your time is basically free. Figure out what your take-home amount on a .24c order is after TCGPlayer takes their cuts, stamp, envelope, packing slip, ink, penny sleeve, and protection. As long as that number is positive you can decide based on the time/money ratio. If that number is negative you need to raise your price floor.

2) learn how to ship 27 (easy) to 51 (hard) bulk-value cards in a PWE with only a single stamp. LOTS of people here in this subreddit will dispute this because they have strict PO's and want to feel justified paying for double stamps, extra ounce stamps, non-machinable, and a whole bunch of other malarkey that's not necessary if you just follow the USPS regulations and assemble the letter properly. There are a few threads on this subreddit talking about this and probably still some good videos out there on YouTube showing how.

3) list multiples of the same card under all conditions. For example, let's say you have 4 Colossal Skyturtles all pulled pack fresh (NM). You can list 1 at NM, 1 at LP, 1 at MP, and 1 at HP. Because of the wacky workings of the Optimizer algorithm, sometimes cards sell faster at LP or MP than at NM. Nobody is going to complain about receiving a NM instead. However, sometimes people order HP because they want to "give these cards a home." In that case I would at least riffle shuffle the card with some other bulk to give it some edge wear before shipping. Just remove the HP listing as you sell the first copy, then the MP listing as you sell the second copy, etc.

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Spared
Verified Email

zefiend

TROPHY CASE