I used to play a lot of games on the pc quite competitively, L4D, COD...stuff like that. But over the last year or so, my gaming time has dropped considerable amounts, I now just casually game, probably like 3 hours a week. I just enjoy watching SC2 in this layout, makes it seem more like a sporting event. Its quite entertaining.

I stumble every once a while, but I tend to be quite the fan of Reddit. So much time can be wasted on that site, and it generally will have most of the important news on it quicker than other sources.

In response to a few things brought up in the thread,

From what I see, reseller and scalper have so much overlap that they are basically the same thing. Even eBay stores, dedicated to cards, who are run by really nice people, still have insane markups on some of their decks. Everyone who resells anything is in it for the money, plain and simple, its human nature.

Another thing; I totally agree that with the increased number of people reselling limited edition decks, that it creates a much more competitive market, therefore lowering prices. But from what I have experienced with the recent V6 release, even with the competition, resell prices seem to have leveled out out at a 200-300% markup.

If other companies started to do what E did with the Red Artifice, I cannot see how that would benefit anyone other than resellers. At least for me, the Red Artifice has by far been my most profitable deck I have sold, with over are 500% markup on them....and that was using and auction style process. If more companies released a very limited deck while mass producing its counterpart, it would still allow for huge resell value.

And yes, as I stated in my original post; the only way I ever see a decrease in resellers and high resell values is if people just stop purchasing from them......which is not likely to happen.

I have seen some users on this forum begin to talk about this subject, and there was a fairly good discussion about it over on the UC forums, so I figured I would make a thread and allow you guys to express your views on the matter. As many of you may have noticed, relatively recently there has been a huge number of people jumping on the card resell bandwagon and I am curious on everyones opinions. First off, I do not want this thread to turn into a flame war, with personal attacks being thrown around. Simply state your opinions and explain your reasoning behind them.

Ill start it off.

Quite frankly, I have no issues with anyone trying to profit off the resale of playing cards. I, myself have started to sell of extra decks of playing cards that I order from initial releases, in order to allow me to have my collection to fund itself essentially. I don't purchase bricks upon bricks with plans to resell but in the case of the Red Artifice I purchased 8 decks, opened 1, sold 4 and keep the remaining 3 in my collection. Same goes with the recent V6 release, I purchased a brick and have ended up selling 7 decks for a decent profit. Do I feel morally wrong for doing this? Heck no. Do I feel like I am some how ruining the card collecting community? Heck no. My opinion is that having any sort of collection is a luxury, no one truly needs hundreds upon hundreds of decks of cards, and if you feel like you do, you have issues. There are plenty of decks that I would love to get my hands on, like Cage Gardens, Smoke and Mirror V1's and Jerry's, but I really do not see that happening anytime soon because I will not allow myself to pay that much just to add to my collection. However, everyone is different, and that is why many people, including myself, are able to sell a $7 deck of cards for $40+ ( in the case of the Red Artifice ). If people are willing to pay a premium for a sold out deck of cards, there will always be somebody willing to sell. This is true for every retail business out there. Just because the store buy an Item for $100 does not mean they will sell it to you for that, thats just not smart business. Playing cards is a pretty niche market, but what I have found is the people in it tend to have a fair amount of excess money to spend on what they want, even if the markup is high.

On to my Next point

If you are a person who strongly objects to anyone scalping cards, let me explain the only way it will ever stop. First we need to understand that scalping cards, when done properly, is virtually impossible to lose money on. Unlike, say scalping a concert ticket, a deck of playing cards will 99% of the time at least maintain its original purchase value, if not increase. This differs from a concert ticket because if you end up being able to sell the ticket until the day of the concert, generally you would accept a reduced price, instead of taking a greater loss by not selling it. So, How to stop card scalpers? simple, do not buy from resellers. Although, your going to have to convince a majority of everyone else that purchases from resellers to do the same as well. It is simple supply and demand, if people continue to buy, there will be somebody to sell it to them.

My advice to anyone who absolutely hates resellers….make sure if, for some reason, you absolutely need to purchase an upcoming deck, be there for launch or don't complain afterwords when you can't buy it for the original launch price. And if you don't get the deck you want, remember that it is only a deck of cards and there are much more important things in your life than cards, I can guarantee that.


Please post your opinions about this issue and please keep it civilized, there is no need to hurt peoples feeling here.

Also, I enjoy though provoking discussions, ones where both sides have solid statements to back up their opinions. So if other card related stuff, and maybe even some non card related stuff comes to my mind I will probably try and start a decent discussion about it.

- Curt

Wait, will these be in the design of V1 or V2 that is the question.

I am going to bet they are released with the white border. I hope they prove me wrong because the borderless edition looks much better in my opinion. But it really makes sense to continue with the release of the v2 design instead of going back and forth. I also am intrigued to see exactly what green is used, the cards could look awesome with the right shade.

And on a side note, if these are indeed released relatively soon, these combined with the Red Artifice would make some pretty cool christmas decor. 

Quick suggestion,

Would it be possible to disable the ability to double post? ( not allow the same user to post twice in a row on the same thread ). It would just help reduce useless posts, and teach people that there is a thing called and edit post button.

I realize this is ironic since I am currently doing this exact thing in this thread, but my reasoning is so it will show up as a new post and either Alex or Peuan will notice it.

Thanks

Not surprisingly, my first deck was a rider back. But, my first decks I added to my collection were a few from Theory 11. The Propaganda and Centurion deck and 1st edition Bee Stingers were my first order of decks specifically for collecting purposes.

Those will just increase as you move up user ranks in the forum, having a higher post count.

British Columbia, Canada for me! Just starting to get into the winter feeling around this area, and really looking forward to it. Kelowna, the town where I live, is perfectly situated 45 minutes from one of the best ski resorts in Canada and possibly North America, but also is situated on a huge lake that is awesome for beaches and water sports in the summer. I love the varying range of weather we can get in the Okanagan, part of BC. temperature ranges from 40+ degrees on hot summer days to -50 on the coldest days at the ski resort ( Celsius of course ).

Haha, old is such a powerful word.... but its sort of true.. I am turing 20 relatively soon, and that seems like a much older age than 19. Drinking age in BC is 19 anyway so nothing special about being 20, just seems like a way older age.

Quote from: Curt on October 06, 2011, 12:17:31 AM

I wouldn't call my video amazing. But its pretty cool. No gimmicks used in the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBI59QpiTLs

I've seen that video before - but I don't remember where you posted it.

On your Facebook page silly 

And, Thanks Magic, a lot of my grade 11 spanish class went into learning how to muscle pass.

If you have not heard, Steve Jobs, Apple Co-founder, has lost his battle with pancreatic cancer

Full story

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/steve-jobs/Apple+founder+Steve+Jobs+dead/5508129/story.html

I wouldn't call my video amazing. But its pretty cool. No gimmicks used in the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBI59QpiTLs