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Synthesis: I want to trim down my magic collection into a contained collection that can be easily played with later.

Background: Our gaming group has finally let go of magic, with most of its members selling their collections. I do not want to sell my entire collection as I know I will most likely cycle back into it. However I have no need for 15000 cards. Our group was very competitive, was MTG crazed for several years, and I live 4 blocks from a massive MTG store. These factors mean that my collection spans a large number of sets, lots of them worth money, with very little centralize theme.

Goal: To get a MTG collection to fit into the largest card box, including land, (i think its 5000) and have it be able to make for some compelling deck building for 2 when I next open (could be a year, or a decade). I do not want to spend more money on this game.

Now for your part!

What would dakka do in my situation? How would you slim your collection down into a well rounded collection?

Back in ’99, I sold most of my collection. I did it in bulk, at a convention. Could have made more money parsing things out on e-bay, but the connivence was worth it to me. I kept some of my foreign language cards, and all my alpha/beta cards.

There was some novelty to breaking out a very old deck and playing against the modern ones. But even with some of the old power cards, I just got trashed. The game has moved on from where it was in my day. I sold the last of my cards a year ago.

The first time I sold my cards, the cash went into helping with a down payment on my house. The second, my 40k hobby.

If you don’t want to quit cold turkey, just put together a few play decks, with sideboards to swap stuff out and keep them fresh. Sell the rest. If there are cards with sentimental value, or cool artwork, keep them if you want. But if your goal is to be able to play competitively in the nebulous future, you are going to need the next new thing, not necessarily what’s in your collection now.

Take this with a grain of salt, I’ve been out of the game for a while, even if I still had some cards. But it’s my experience.

I did something similar to Nevelon when I purged my MGT cards. I kept about 100 cards for my favorite deck, and disposed of the rest.

So my collection is expensive enough where I am sure I can get a block playset.

For those that have jumped out with just their decks... Do you wish you went this route?

I almost sold all my cards, but i really do love just cracking the boxes with friends and deck building casually. But as life gets more hectic as I get further from college, I feel that will happen less and less.

If you want to retain some of the value, then check your collection for any legacy/vintage and modern staples, as those will only get more expensive over time, especially anything on the Reserve list.

If you just want to go with some casual decks/ deckbuilding, pick out the cards you most enjoy building around and playing with and cards that go well with them into decks, and keep that.
5000 lands in waaay too many to keep. A few hundred of each basic land (plus whatever nonbasics you want to keep) should more than suffice for whatever decks you want to keep.

 Twoshoesvans wrote:
So my collection is expensive enough where I am sure I can get a block playset.

For those that have jumped out with just their decks... Do you wish you went this route?

I almost sold all my cards, but i really do love just cracking the boxes with friends and deck building casually. But as life gets more hectic as I get further from college, I feel that will happen less and less.

Does your FLGS do draft tournaments? There was one going on parallel to the 40k tournament I played in Saturday at my store. Everyone buys a few boosters. Open one, take a card, pass the rest to your right. Repeat, add land, play a few rounds. That kind of format sounds like it might scratch your M:tG itch, but without dealing with the investment and space storing all your cards. At the end of the night you can see if the store wants to buy any of your cards as singles to recoup your entry fee.