Hooray! Ranked draft is finally here  for Throne of Eldraine!

Why is this important? Ranked Draft lets you build a massive set collection using nothing but your F2P Gold! Ranked Draft is typically available two weeks after a new set is released on Arena.

For collection building, there are many opinions on whether or not to open booster packs or waiting for ranked draft to become available with each new set release. For those of us with patience, we wait it out.

Nobody seems to have any solid data pointing in either direction of which method will net you more cards for your collection.

I have been of the opinion that Ranked Draft is the way to go, and is the method that I choose to go each set release. I decided to write down all of my findings and experience this time so that others might be able to see what ranked draft looks like on paper.

First of all, this article is not going to go into any win rates or how good you are as a player. In fact, this article will have nothing to do with actually playing draft.

Many people state that they don't wish to play draft, or they aren't good at it. Many new players are intimidated by drafting as well. Because of this, many people will shy away from this method of collection building and use the more costly method of mass booster pack opening.

The good news is, you can still do the draft process without playing the games afterwards and still reap more rewards than from only opening booster packs.

I will state the obvious here. I could be playing the games and getting wins and piling on more gems. But, I don't want to. I don't enjoy it. Lets move past this. It's my gold, and it's not hurting anyone.

And since Arena players seem to love free things, I gave away all of my wins to 66 lucky people.

When opening booster packs, you will receive a random assortment of cards that you may or may not need or even want. You would have to open many booster packs to even come close to getting what you specifically need.

As in paper magic, we have a saying that opening booster packs is for drafting, not building constructed decks.

If you need certain cards for constructed, you would traditionally just buy the singles you need. Since you can't do that in Arena, the next best thing is to pick them individually during the draft process.

Drafting produces fewer unwanted duplicates in your collection while helping you build your collection faster. Drafting lets you individually pick each individual card you want from multiple booster packs.

The general opinion on the internets is that you don't get as many wild cards while drafting as you do from opening booster packs. While this is certainly true true, I will show you why that may not really matter. There are other aspects of the draft process that are often overlooked.

Many new players ask how to amass so much gold. The answer is pretty simple. You just need to play the game and save save save.

Since I drafted M20 in mid July 2019, I have been saving my gold until this very weekend, October 11, 2019. I saved up exactly 110,000 gold. This was enough to partake in 22 Ranked Drafts. I also had 21 un-opened Throne of Eldraine booster packs that I had  saved from codes, Mastery Tree progress and returning player rewards.

I play 5 wins per day and make sure that my Daily Quests are all caught up. I don't even flip my Quests for the 750 gold quests unless it's something I really just don't want to do. If I play past 5 wins a day, it's because I just want to play, testing decks, bored, etc. The minimal gold gained past 5 wins a day is not worth grinding for.

You should play 4 wins per day to maximize your gold returns. You may need to play more depending if you have Daily Quests backed up. Don't let more than 3 quests queue up at a time, or it's a heavy amount of lost rewards.

I recommend only playing past 4-5 wins a day if you just love playing and are having a good time. Otherwise, you will burn yourself out quickly and your money making machine will slow or stop between sets. You want to strike a nice balance between healthy fun play and maximizing your rewards.

Remember that playing when you are not having a good time is the opposite of what you want to be doing. You play for fun. If you want to have more fun, you probably want more cards and to get those cards requires gold. Obtaining gold therefore adds in a work aspect to the game. You need to put in work in order to build your gold to build your collection.

There will be days where you just can't get those minimal wins in. Simply walk away. Go watch TV, watch YouTube, surf the internet. Just do something else to clear your mind. You can't win when you are upset or angry. Once you have calmed down, jump back in with a clear head and knock those wins out.

I find that playing first thing in the morning tends to be easier. I can often go 5-0 and 5-1 almost every day that I start early. If I wait much past noon, or I play in the afternoon/evening, the games drag out and I win significantly less games. I also think better in the mornings with a fresh mind. Your mileage may vary here, so find when you like to play and stick with that schedule.

I personally play for 5 wins per day. This gets me the gold I need and an extra free card reward each day, which can add up over time.

Don't let the game become a chore. Keep it light and have fun.

Here is the quick math for minimum effort gold savings:
4 wins per day minimum (550gold)  + Daily Quest (500 gold minimum) = 1,050 gold
~90 days between sets x 1,050 gold = 94,500

You will probably end up with over 100K gold due to 750 gold Daily Quests and those days you play past 5 wins.

M20 Ranked Draft went live July 19. I spent all the gold I had at the time from previous savings and started over at near zero on July 21, when I quit drafting M20. From July 22 to October 11 I was able to save exactly 110,000 gold.

I keep a spreadsheet of daily play statistics so I can track when and where I got gold, won cards, got free packs ,etc. If you are a stats nerd, I recommend keeping a spreadsheet journal of your daily play.

I also have a column I keep just for notes, such as if I had a bad day playing, what I didn't enjoy, what I did enjoy, what was or wasn't working with my deck. This lets me figure out how to tweak my deck to make it better for more wins.

Here is the big question everyone asks:  Do I spend my gold on Booster Packs or on Ranked Draft?

Let's look at my experience as an example. What do I get for 110,000 gold?

Booster Packs Only

• 110 x 8-card booster packs = 944 random cards
• no duplicate protection except for the rare slot
• 110 Guaranteed rares
• Roughly 100 wild cards (can't verify, calculating from the 50 packs I opened)

Total Cards = 944

Collection Drafting

• 22 Ranked Drafts = 66 x 14-card booster packs = 924 hand picked cards
• Pseudo-duplicate protection for all rarities, you pick exactly what you need
• Guaranteed 66 rares, high chance to receive many more
• Guaranteed 1100 Gems
• Guaranteed 22 x 8-card booster packs (176 random Cards), chance of receiving more

Total Cards = 1,100

Now, not all of these cars will be usable. Many will be duplicates lost to the Vault, so you will end up with a smaller number of total usable cards than what you see above.

What exactly does 22 drafts look like on paper? Or the better question is, what did I get for 110,000 gold instead of just opening booster packs.

Here are my results:

This table shows how many cards I received for my 110,000 gold after drafting and opening all the Eldraine booster packs that I had been saving since release. This also includes all ICRs from daily play as well as the returning player rewards.

This table shows patience and restraint. In order to do this, you must not spend any gold, and must not open any newly released set packs until after you have finished doing the majority of your drafting.

Before drafting,  I received 40 mythics, rares and uncommons from Returning Player Rewards, the Eldraine Brawl event rewards, and through daily ICRs while playing the game. ICR's obviously only include Throne of Eldraine cards. I also crafted 2 Torbrans, which these numbers include, for my RDW to hold me over until Ranked Draft went live.

Eldraine booster packs were obtained from free codes, Returning Player Rewards, Mastery Tree rewards, and pack rewards received at the end of each Ranked Draft process. I ended up with 50 free booster packs when all was said and done.

Lets break down what all I received from my experience.

Entire Set

• 241/249 singles obtained
• 856/996 cards obtained for full playset

As a F2P player, I now have 85.9% of the entire playset, and 96.8% of all of the singles.

This is the first set I was able to save that much gold for and then do this many drafts. I am extremely pleased with the results and what I received.

Lets break this down further and see what I got that is actually usable. Remember, not every card is useful as there are many unplayable and niche cards that add little to no value to your collection. The bulk of your collection will be made up of all the workhorse common and uncommon cards. There are many bad rares, and you should only be concerned with the ones you intend to play with rather than how many you can get.

Commons

• 101/101 singles obtained
• 403/404 cards obtained for full playset

I was able to obtain nearly 100% of the entire common playset. When I say nearly, I mean that I am only missing one single card (Baked into a Pie) for a 100% complete playset.

Common playsets really hit home for me, as I enjoy the Pauper format and buy these for roughly $20 every set release from my local game store. I also put together pauper playsets, draft cubes and decks and sell them.

I have entire common playsets of most sets going back to the mid 90's.

Uncommons

• 79/80 singles obtained
• 307/320 cards obtained for full playset

I was able to get most of the Uncommon playset. I am missing one card completely (Archon of Absolution) which must be the rarest card in the entire game or something to have been able to avoid all of those pack openings.

Uncommons are where much of the magic in Magic happens.

Rares

• 53/53 singles obtained
• 131/212 cards obtained for full playset
  

I was lucky enough to pull the entire set of rares, though I only have about half of the playset.

While many rares are powerful and can do cool things, I don't typically focus on them. The rares I need in many decks are so few compared to the commons and uncommons.

I ended up getting 4 red rares I really wanted, 1 x Torbran, 2 x Fervent Champion and 1 x Castle Embereth. I was hoping for more Fervent Champions and more Castle Embereths to upgrade my Cavalcade deck with.

I am excited to build some new decks with all of the rares I received. There are a lot of fun new possibilities for brewing now.

Mythics

• 8/15 singles obtained
• 15/60 cards obtained for full playset

Lets face it, we're not getting a full playset of mythics as a F2P player. I don't typically use mythics in my decks anyway, I find them more fun to collect than to use, so I am OK with this for the most part.

I am excited to brew some decks with a few of these. Questing Beast and Garruk were awesome pulls for things I had ideas for.

This chart shows the total progress gained towards a collection if you were to only open booster packs. Duplicates have alraedy been removed, of which there were only 11 commons.

I am more going to look at this as someone buying 50 packs for 50K Gold or spending $50 on the pre-release packs.

These booster packs were all obtained for free via codes, mastery tree progress, returning player rewards and Ranked Draft rewards.

I opened each pack, recorded the cards received, and tallied up duplicates. The numbers on this chart only include the cards opened from these 50 booster packs. This is as clean of a data set as I could get for a snapshot of what opening 50 booster packs looks like.

Even though I opened all of these packs after drafting, the rare numbers should still be the same. This is due to the fact that I still haven't opened enough packs to possibly start getting duplicate rares.

As you can see, 50 packs will get you only 67% of the set, and 37% of the entire playset.

Let me state something that doesn't seem to be as obvious out there with all of the misinformation spreading around: VAULT progress still works with drafted cards. All of those common and uncommon duplicates still give you vault progress, just as they do when opening booster packs.

You won't receive rare duplicate protection while drafting, but the chances of getting more than 5 rares or mythics is pretty, well, rare for this amount of drafts.

You also won't receive as many wild cards while drafting, since those are all obtained while opening regular booster packs en masse. This seems to be the main sticking point for the pro-booster-pack-openers. Looking at the data below though, this may not be a big deal to some people, depending on their goals.

It is importnat to finish doing all the drafting you are going to do before opening any booster packs. This gives you better odds at not drafting duplicate rares. Once you have completed all the drafting you had planned to do for the new set, you can now crack open all those booster packs you have been saving.

Opening all of these booster packs will have rare duplicate protection active. Since you just finished collecting a good portion of the rares while drafting, your rare pool will be smaller, thus letting the "random" rare slot focus more on what you don't alraedy have. This will give you better results as you will now start to fill in many of your rare playsets.

You will also receive a ton of wild cards simply from opening all of these packs. This has nothing to do with drafting, and will happen any time you open a regular Arena 8-card booster pack. It's just an extra bonus to note after you finished all that drafting.

Below is a chart I put together with what you can expect to see when a new set is released. This chart assumes you have zero cards from the new set. I removed all of the cards I previously obtained from these numbers to make it as fresh a start from zero as I could.

I chose 8 drafts since this equals the same amount of cards in 50 booster packs

• 50 booster packs = 400 cards opened
• 8 drafts + 8 Booster Packs = 400 cards opened

Booster Pack Data
The 50 booster pack opening is the same data from the standalone booster pack opening section above.

50 Booster Packs = 400 Guaranteed cards. I only ended up with 372 cards due to many being wild cards, which is not a bad thing, it can either help complete your set, or you can use them for other sets.

I only ended up with 361 usable cards for my collection, but received 45 wild cards in the process.

Ranked Draft Data
The 8 drafts that I used for this chart were the first 8 drafts that I did, along with the first 10 booster packs earned from rewards. I include the booster packs because they are part of the price of entry for the draft and add to your total collection after drafting. This is meant so show total value in drafting vs just opening booster packs. For zero wins, you are guaranteed 1 booster pack per draft with the chance of receiving two. I received an extra pack on two different drafts, totaling 10 booster pack rewards in all.

Here I ended up with more usable cards, 397 total for my collection, but received far fewer wild cards, only 9.

Note that 2 of my 13 duplicates were my mistake. I picked cards I alraedy had as my draft tracker somehow missed a few cards I had full playsets of already from the Brawl event. The duplicates would have been exactly the same as if opening packs in this case, with 11 total duplicates.

Comparison
50 Packs = 361 usable cards + 45 wild cards = 406 Total Cards
8 Drafts = 397 usable cards + 9 wild cards = 406 Total Cards

This was surprising to me. It looks like they are exactly the same for total cards received for the new set if you used your wild cards for missing Eldraine cards.

Unfortunately you can't scale this since the randomization of booster packs prevents you from figuring out what duplicates you will or won't get.

I do believe that drafting is still the way to go if you have enough to spend on 20 drafts vs 100 booster packs.

When opening booster packs, think about the sheer number of duplicates you will start to receive later on that you have no control over. These will only go into the main vault, and be counted for very little in the end.

When collection building while drafting, you can keep on picking through each pack to select those last few cards you don't have yet, thus not needlessly wasting common and uncommon slots on useless vault progress. I would rather have the card than gaining .1%-.3% progress for a small handful of wild cards.

I feel that if I have all the cards to build nearly anything I want, then I will have very little use for wild cards, or I can save those wild cards for older sets or just some really special deck build that needs more rares and mythics.

I also enjoy the process of selecting each and every card that goes into my collection. I enjoy looking at the artwork of each card, reading the card. Becoming familiar with the cards that I carefully pick out.

Even if the comparison above shows the same numbers at a lower volume, you will still come out a head when drafting because of the gem rewards.

Some random stats I collected. The most useful are probably the wild cards gained once I opened all the booster packs at the end.

I don't include wildcards in with my total card counts since they most likely won't be used for Eldraine, and thus can't be counted as Eldraine cards.

The gems will come in handy, and put me 1/3 into the next Mastery Pass. I guess I could look at it this way, I can still get one free mastery pass every 3 sets, even if I don't play any of the draft games for more gems.

Since I didn't want to play out my draft games, I took someone's suggestion and instead gave away wins. I queued up all 66 times and immediately conceded, giving my draft opponent a free win. I hope that helped those folks out on their way to greater riches.

A random stat I forgot to put on a chart was that my rare draft rate was averaged at 3.9 rares per draft. I ranged from 3-6 rares per draft.

kIf both methods might possibly net the same amount of usable cards, what is the better value to spend your hard earned gold on?

Using the same data from the previous section:

• 50K Gold = 50 Packs = 400 cards = 361 usable cards + 45 wild cards = 406 Total Cards
  
• 40K Gold = 8 Drafts = 400 cards = 397 usable cards + 9 wild cards = 406 Total Cards + 400 gems
  

The clear winner is by far the Ranked Draft option in my books.

I hope that you found this lenghty article of some use. The numbers even surprisd me somewhat for the booster pack output being the same as the draft output.

The obvious choice here should be to save your gold for Ranked Draft. The more gold you have, the better the returns for Ranked Draft will be.

Surviving Mars is the free game available this week from the Epic Game store. It will be available until 10/17/19.

If you scroll further down the product page, you will find both of the expansion free as well -  Surviving Mars: Mysteries Resupply Pack and Surviving Mars: Space Race.

About This Game

Surviving Mars is a sci-fi settlement builder all about colonizing Mars and surviving the process. Choose a space agency for resources and financial support before determining a location for your colony. Build domes and infrastructure, research new possibilities and utilize drones to unlock more elaborate ways to shape and expand your settlement. Cultivate your own food, mine minerals or just relax by the bar after a hard day’s work. Most important of all, though, is keeping your colonists alive. Not an easy task on a strange new planet.

Building a sustainable colony in space
Building on a planet not fit for human life challenges you to build a smart, functional colony. Bad planning isn’t about traffic jams, it’s about survival of your colonists. You really don’t want rolling blackouts in a city constructed in a place without oxygen.

Individually simulated colonists
Each colonist is a unique individual with problems and strengths that influence the needs and behavior of the other colonists. Things can get really interesting if your chief scientists develops alcoholism after one too many long nights in the lab.

Futuristic Space Dome construction
Retro-futuristic super structures housing colonists, factories and commercial buildings with their own “neighborhood personality.” Create colonies that value science over everything else, while tired workers drink their pay away at a local bar, or attempt a utopia among the stars.

Exploration of Mars’ secrets
Inspired by the classic sci-fi of Asimov and Clarke, Surviving Mars holds many secrets. During each playthrough players may encounter one of Mars’ individually crafted mysteries. Uncovering these secrets might bring your colony great fortune, or terrible ruin. What is that sphere that manifested itself outside colony HUB B, and is it friendly?

Randomized research tree
Combine static and random research through experimentation, which allows for a different experience for each journey through the game. Attain new scientific breakthroughs by exploring the uncharted terrain of Mars's surface.

Unique retro-futuristic aesthetic
A sleek, modern take on the bright futurism of the 1960s. A time of exploration and adventure.

Expansive mod support
Craft your own fantastic buildings, parks or even a mystery to share through Surviving Mars’s extensive and convenient modding tools. Share your finest creations with the community to build the perfect society.

Also
Cloud Save Support, Full Controller Support and Paradox Achievements

Reviewers give it:

• 80/100 - PC Gamer
• Mostly Positive - Steam
• 76/100 - Metacritic Reviewers
• 6.6/10 - Metacritic Users

You can find it here:
Download Surviving Mars

A new player on MTG Arena was recently asking about the sequence of turns, the multiple main phases and more. I got to thinking how new Arena players have a disadvantage when trying to learn since they are missing out on some nice helper cards that the physical products for new players usually come with.

Here are all of the different cards I've set aside to help teach friends.
I hope new Arena players will find these useful.

Summer 2019 Update

It's been a while since I got around to editing my photos from Appalachia this summer. I wanted to catch up and start making this a regular blog feature each month or quarter.

I got a few nukes, some nice landscape shots, some weird scenes and a lot of photos of me posing with various critters.

Enjoy!

I have been waiting for today to arrive for some months now, ever since the latest Magic: The Gathering (MTG) set, Throne of Eldraine, was announced.

This new set is unique in that it encompasses two major themes: Fairy Tales and Camelot. This is especially exciting because it's one of the first themes that my wife was truly excited about. She casually plays MTG with me, but wished there was a more appealing theme or set that interested her. This is it!

Another unique first for this set is the new "showcase" border art they are using on certain cards as an alternate version that you have a small chance of getting in a booster pack. These new card frames feature scrolling vine-work around the card's art, and many feature alternate art. These are collector pieces. They are absolutely stunning.

I would love to buy lots of booster packs and boxes for this set, but it is not in our budget. Instead, I have been buying the full common play-sets every three months when new sets release as an affordable option to building my collection.

Another affordable option for buying into new sets is to purchase the Planeswalker decks. Each of these decks includes the basic strategy of the set, some of the game's latest settings and characters and the newer mechanics.

These decks are considered starter decks, and not something that are used at a competitive level. These are for the casual and new players that are wanting to pickup a fully working deck and play right out of the box.

Throne of Eldraine offers only two Planeswalker decks this set, Oko, the Trickster and Rowan, Fearless Sparkmage.

"Oko is a shapeshifting iconoclast, uncommonly clever even for a faerie, who prefers trickery and manipulation to all-out battle. Deploy evasive creatures and augment them at crucial moments to build and unstoppable force" states the back of the Oko, the Trickster box.

Rowan, Fearless Sparkmage's boxes states, "As the daughter of a king, Rowan has trained extensively in both swordsmanship and etiquette- but she greatly prefers to solve her problems with a blade. Marshal an army of noble knights and assault your opponent with military precision."

Each package contains one full, ready-to-play 60 card deck, as well as 2 booster packs for Throne of Eldraine and a code to unlock the full deck on Magic: The Gathering Arena, which is the digital version of the game on PC. Each deck retails for about $13.

These decks contain a special foil Planeswalker and several supporting cards that are unique only to this deck, and not found in the rest of the full set.

Game play was quite good for these two decks. I chose Oko and my wife chose Rowan. While it's clear that many of these cards are unplayable outside of this deck, you will have to look beyond that and think of this as a standalone product. That said, I thought the deck synergy worked very well and they both played nicely against each other.

I was constantly countering my wife's creatures, while she was building up a strong army and leading the charge early on when she got Rowan out. Once Rowan came out, there was not much I could do to stop her. She pounded away at me while I continued to draw land after useless land and had no answers left to counter her attacks with.

Aside from my brutal beating, I found that the game play was quite fun and we really enjoyed these decks. They will be played often.

Since my wife is a casual player, I will be adding both of the Arena codes to her account so that she has more decks to play against me. The added value of the Arena codes are a really good value add to this product if you also play Arena, which we do.

After playing, we got to cracking those booster packs!

I was hoping to see at least one of the showcase cards, as I had not seen many get opened in some of the booster box openings I have been watching from some of my favorite Youtubers. I was not expecting much.

Instead, I was greeted with four showcase cards! I couldn't believe our luck! One of them is even a foil!

As far as card value goes, we pulled a few $1 cards a few $2.50 cards. The foil Planeswalkers are worth about $8 each. I was most excited to pull the showcase cards though.

Total value for each deck is:
~$19 Rowan, Fearless Sparkmage (~$9 deck + $6 booster packs + ~$4 Arena code)
~$22 Oko, the Trickster (~$12 deck + $6 booster packs + ~$4 Arena code)

We picked each one up for $12.99 at our local game store.

I would highly recommend these decks for any beginner, returning player or those that just play the occasional casual game of Magic.

Minit is a peculiar little adventure played sixty seconds at a time. Journey outside the comfort of your home to help unusual folk, uncover countless secrets, and overcome dangerous foes, all in hopes of lifting a rather unfortunate curse that ends each day after just one minute. Minit is a collaboration between Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio & Dominik Johann.

You can grab it for free from the Epic Game store until 10/10/19.
Download Minit

Many players think that virtual game items have no real world value. And they're absolutely right!

The value you get from your purchased virtual items are strictly to let you enjoy the game more, be it changing the way something looks, using a more powerful item, or simply for bragging rights. That virtual item you bought brought you some kind of joy.

However, what if there was a way that you could parallel your virtual items with real world items to find a real world value?

After all, you most likely did spend real money on Magic: The Gathering Arena. Even if you did not, you can look at it as if someone gave you a large collection for free, just for playing.

Since there actually is a direct comparison to a real world product in this virtual game environment, then this makes it easy to calculate what your in game virtual items are virtually worth.

If you have not yet read my previous article on Throne of Eldraine Season Rewards and Real World Value, then check out that article HERE

While that article goes very in depth on how values are calculated, fortunately you won't need to do any math at all to figure your collection value out. All that is needed is an Arena tracker to export your collection, a quick cleanup of the data, and then you can import it into another collection system to give you the values.

Let's get started!

This is not difficult if you are somewhat computer savvy, but if you are not very technical, you may want to skip this project.

I am in no way sponsored or paid by any of the companies whose products I will be referring you to. I simply use them myself.

Things you will need:

• MTG Arena installed with an already established account
• Tracker that can export your entire collection. I use MTGArena.Pro
  • A comparison of others can be found HERE
• Something to edit a spreadsheet with, I use Google Sheets in this example.
• Notepad, or other simple text editor
• EchoMTG Account, make sure you can log into the website (Free account)

There are many trackers available for Arena.

You can find a quick table of features of the various trackers HERE to choose which one you want. Just make sure it includes a Collection Tracker and/or Browser.

I use MTGArena.PRO. It's the most powerful one of all the trackers I've tested.

For a full write-up of how to install MTGArena.Pro, click HERE (COMING SOON)

Make sure that your tracker has synced itself with its website counterpart. To check this, log into the website for your tracker and check your card collection inventory to make sure everything is showing up correctly.

Once your MTGArena.Pro client has synced itself, then you may now log into the website.
Their site is located here: https://mtgarena.promtgarena.pro

Once you log in:

• At the top of the site, click on My Arena --> Collection

An Export window will pop up, asking you to select a format to download to.

• Click on MTGGoldfish CSV

A window will pop up asking to open or save the file.

• You can either save it or go ahead and open it with a spreadsheet application.

It should have opened and/or saved as the file name "collection.csv"

Before we can import this into another system for pricing, we will need to clean up the data first. You may be asking, "But why can't I just import this into MTGGoldfish?". It is because MTGGoldfish will not let you bulk import a collection unless you pay for a premium membership. Since we want to find this out for free, we will be using another system.

• Open the collection.csv file in your favorite spreadsheet application. For the purposes of being free, I will be using Google Sheets as an example. You are free to use Excel, Libra Office or any other spreadsheet software.
  

Once the file is opened, we can see what MTGArena.Pro exported.

You should see a spreadsheet with a few columns, such as the card name, the set it is from and the quantity.

The only two columns we are concerned with are Card and Quantity.

• Delete the other columns.
• Next, you need to move the quantity column in front of the card column.
  
• Next, you can delete the header row that says Quantity and Card.
  

You should just be left with two columns, one with numbers and the other with the card names.

If you wish to sort alphabetically and remove all the basic lands, you can. You may also remove the lands later after importing it into the pricing website.

• Once completed, save this as a CSV file (Comma Separated Values).
  
• Let us call it "collection.csv"
  

We have one more cleanup step to perform.
Open collections.csv in a simple text editor, such as Notepad.

You will something like this:

Note the commas between the card names. We need to remove all of these commas using the Replace tool in Notepad.

• Click Edit--> Replace

The Replace window should open up.

• In the Find What field, type in a single comma
• In the Replace With field, type in a single space (just hit the space bar once)
• Then click the Replace All button
  

Your file should now look like this:

• Save this file as "collection.txt" and close it.

Now we need to log into EchoMTG.
EchoMTG is a collection tracker for the physical MTG card-collecting world. It tracks and bases all of its values on TCGPlayer.

Here is the address for EchoMTG: https://www.echomtg.com


The free version only allows you to import 350 cards into its collection database. But there is a cool feature called Lists/Decks that allow for unlimited cards, without adding them to your collection. This will also show you the value of this list/deck.

• On EchoMTG, on the left hand menu, click on Lists/Desks

Give your List/Deck a name in the field above
Click on the Select File button, then find where you saved your collection.txt file

• Click on the Create New List button
  

You should see a list of card names scrolling quickly by on the right hand side of the screen. This could take a minute or two depending on your internet connection and how large your collection is. Once completed, the scrolling will stop.

You can now click on your newly created list. Give it a few seconds for the card names to populate. Remember, there is probably 1000's of cards in here.

As you can see from the image above, as of this writing, my MTG Arena virtual collection is worth virtually somewhere between $1,369-$2,576.

Due to the basic lands being imported, it automatically selected some of the vintage lands, which, in total, added about 150 cards to my list, totaling about $75 in value. Therefore, I would also just subtract this from whatever final value I came up with. Basic lands in Standard have little to no value. You could add in each land you have, but it is just not worth the effort.

You could remove the basic lands from the spreadsheet earlier in the process, or once imported into EchoMTG, you can slowly click the - (minus sign) next to each of the 5 basic lands and remove them all. It all depends how tech savvy you are.

The easier option is to just mouse over each of the basic lands and see what their value is. Looking at my example image below, you can see that it EchoMTG chose to import a Fifth Edition basic Island, which is worth quite a bit more than any basic land in Standard.

For this example, multiply $.79 x 31 cards = $24.49 and subtract that from your total value.

Do this for each of the other basic lands as well.

Speaking of lands, if you have the full art basic lands for Unhinged or Zendikar,those are worth roughly $1 on average in the real world.

Figure you probably bought 24 of each of them in real life, 24 of each full art basic lands (120 cards total) is worth another $60-$120. Double this if you have both sets.

Pricing for EchoMTG is pulled from TCGPlayer. The values shown are between lowest market value and the average market value. Lowest value typically lists damaged or high play cards as well, so this may not be entirely accurate for near mint cards. Keep in mind the Average price includes those that have listings that are multiple times more than a card is worth, which can skew that number as well. You should probably just take the average of the two values for a more real world representation of what your collection is worth.

This pricing does not take your card styles into account either. Since the card styles are essentially "foils" in Arena, you can value them in this manner. Though, they now look like the extended art cards from Throne of Eldraine, so this would signifigantly increase the value over a foil.

I hope you enjoyed this article. It was certainly fun to research and write! If you would like to see more articles such as this, please leave me a comment or contact me with more ideas.

Back in July 2019, I bought out the remaining inventory of an MTG online reseller.

This is the story of my massive MTG haul, how I sorted through it all, and all of the gems I found.

Before you ask, yes, I do have lots of full pauper sets for sale!

I enjoy a good bargain as much as the next person, and when it comes to gaming, that's no exception.

Games are expensive. Especially collectible card games, such as Magic: The Gathering. As such, I am always on the lookout for deals on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and other sources.

While browsing on Craigslist, I came across someone selling an abnormally large collection of cards for a very cheap price. It was estimated to be around 60,000 cards, mostly common and uncommon.

The gist of their story was, their store sold multiple products online, and collectible cards was just one of those items. They were looking to get out of the collectible card business and were liquidating their inventory. I was told this collection contained mostly standard bulk, with many full play common play sets and some rares scattered in.

I quickly realized this was an amazing deal, so I took them up on their offer, and said I could pick it up the next day.

The next morning I left the house at 7am and drove 3 hours to their location. On arrival, I was welcomed by one of the most friendly persons I have ever met. He was a fellow gamer, not only for Magic: The Gathering, but video games and other tabletop games as well. I'm glad for such a friendly person as I ended up spending over 2 hours there.

When I arrived, this is what I was greeted to:

I didn't fully realize just how large a collection 60,000 cards might be until we started loading them up.

It was contained on 4+ book cases, the floor, the corner of the office, the entire table you see in the photo and then some.

Their office space was located on the 2nd floor of an office complex, so thankfully they had a shopping cart and an elevator that came in very handy.

I made roughly a dozen trips to the car and back over the next couple of hours. My new friend helped me the whole way. We chatted about video games, Magic, Munchkin and several other gaming related topics.

I barely got everything loaded into my car. Every square inch was packed, the trunk, floors, seats, and the front passenger area were all packed with boxes upon boxes of cards!

I graciously thanked the sellers for the awesome deal and the generous help in packing them all up and hauling them to the car with me. I then made the 3 hour trip back to home.

After arriving at home, I had to quickly figure out what to do with everything. I knew I was going to need to go through and sort every single box and card. I sent the wife an apology text about all the boxes going in the living room and hallway for a couple weeks while I figured out where to put everything.

After unloading the car, I decided that sorting by set was the best place to start. I organized everything in as neat a pile as I could.

Half the cards were in the original flimsy display boxes, the other half was stored in a mix of large card storage boxes, bundle box deck boxes, shoe boxes and whatever else the previous owners had laying around to stick cards in.

I cleaned out a section of my office, setup a folding table, laid a large tabletop neoprene play mat on top of it and got to sorting.

After looking through quite a few boxes and spot checking others, I realized that except for color and set, nothing was sorted alphabetically. In order to find out what all was there, they needed to be in alphabetical order as well.

This meant I was going to have to handle all 60,000+ cards one by one. Every. Single. Card.

Thankfully there was a cool sorting tray that was included with everything. I had never got around to purchasing one of these sorting trays, as I don't typically buy collections this large. I am glad I got the opportunity to try it out, as it was a life saver in speed sorting and greatly decreased fatigue. I highly recommend one of these trays for anyone that likes to buy and sort any type of card collection.

At first I wasn't sure where to put all the cards I had sorted. I didn't want to put them back in the flimsy booster box displays, but after realizing there was nowhere else to put them, I reluctantly put them back in the boxes they came out of.

I had wanted to buy some storage boxes for them all, but then thought better of it when I remembered one of the main reasons I was buying all of these cards was to sell off everything I didn't keep. I would end up with a bunch of empty boxes once they were all gone, which was money wasted.

I did need to get all of the cards out of the shoe boxes and deck boxes though, as those were not very efficient ways to store a massive amount of cards. I ended up buying a 10 pack of BCW 3200 card Monster Storage boxes.

For the cards that came out of their matching set booster box, I just re-used those. For the cards that had no relevant set box, I used the large storage boxes. Thankfully quite a few large card storage boxes were holding many of these cards, so I was able to condense them all back into the boxes they came out of.

Once I had finished sorted everything, it was time to find out how many sets I could make. I already had several friends that wanted to buy full playsets, so this was a good start.

I realized I needed some smaller card storage boxes to put all the sets in for individual sale, so I ordered a 50 pack of BCW 400ct card storage boxes. On top of this, I would be re-using all of the bundle box deck boxes and empty booster boxes as well.

While making up full sets was not nearly as difficult as the original sort project, it was still very time consuming. It still took several days to go back through all of them and figure out the maximum amount of sets I could make.

As you saw from some of the previous pictures of the sorting process, you'll notice not all stacks are of equal size. This means I was only able to make full play sets from the cards with the shortest stacks.

I went through every set, color by color, using the Scryfall database on my tablet as reference. Since the sorting tray was divided into 18 sections, I started by making a maximum of 18 playsets for each set. I made note of those sets that might have produced a few more playsets in case I ran out later on. Some sets only produced 3-4 full playsets. Others I was able to produce full playsets and then partial playsets, which were only missing a few cards each.

I ended up with nearly 100 full common playsets, spanning 13 sets from Eldritch Moon to Ravnica Allegiance. There's even a few sets of Modern Masters, Eternal Masters and tons of Unstable!

Some sets were missing a few valuable commons, so I added in all of the uncommons I had for each set to make up for it.

Now, I need to sell everything off as quickly as I can.

All of this was bought for three main reasons.

1. To add to my personal collection
2. Sell off as much as I can to upgrade my computer for my new job
3. Share the awesome savings of this bargain with other fellow MTG players

It took a couple weeks before I could finally remove everything from the hallways, living room and much of the floor space and table of my office. I got all the remaining left over cards up on my book shelves and everything else is all boxed and ready to sell!

If you are interested in purchasing any of these sets, please contact me.

If you are interested in pauper cubes or draft packs, let me know and I can make some in the set(s) of your choice.

In case you've made it this far, here is most my personal collection. This includes all of the non-land, non-token cards.

That's 6 x 3200 card boxes. There is another 4 x 3200 card boxes full of tokens and land also that are not shown in this picture. This spans Unlimited through Core Set 2020.

My original collection was in 5 x 3200 card boxes, and now spans 10. I am only keeping playsets of each card, so cards beyond sets of 4 I put in another box for giving away. Anything valuable I keep in a separate box outside of what you see here so I don't lose track of them.

As for valuable cards? I dug about 400 cards worth $860 in value out of all the bulk. I got quite a few mythics and rares, including lots of Planeswalkers, cards for Commander, tons of foils and some other cool stuff.

I keep these and my reserved list cards all in a binder, and anything in a certain value range in a separate box.

I will save further discussion of what all is in my collection to a future article.

I hope you all found this journey as entertaining as I did. Thankfully reading about it was not nearly as time consuming as the actual project.

Throne of Eldraine has arrived on Magic: The Gathering Arena this week. The peasants rejoice! 

Today's article will be about Real World Value for the Mastery Tree. I have calculated the values for both Free to Play and Mastery Pass players.

The Throne of Eldraine (ELD) season will go a little longer than Core Set 2020 did. ELD will run for 110 days total, starting on 9/26/16 and allegedly ending on 1/14/20 (110 days from 9/26).

I will be basing the Mastery Tree totals on what I actually see in game, since Wizards of the Coast's (WotC) own press release has incorrect numbers in it.

Mastery Tree - Throne of Eldraine (Free to Play)

The new Mastery Tree is even more generous than the previos M20 tree. This is because of how weekly booster packs were removed from weekly win tracks, and instead spread out over the course of the new Mastery Tree.

With every even-numbered level, you will receive 1 Throne of Eldraine booster pack for free, up to level 92. This totals 46 free booster packs. You also receive 5 free orbs spread out over a few of the odd-numbered levels, up to level 69.

46 Booster Packs x $1.11 = $51.06
5 Orbs x $2.08 = $10.40

Throne of Eldraine Mastery Tree = $61.51 in free value

Returning Players (Free to Play)

This also part of the F2P path. You don't need to spend any money to receive these rewards.

WotC offered players that logged in prior to 9/26/19 an extra bonus that was received post patch for ELD.

In addition to the rewards above, returning players will also receive the following extra free bonuses in the Mastery Tree.

• 2 Throne of Eldraine Booster Packs x $1.11 = $2.22
• 4 Miscellaneous Booster Packs x $1.11 = $4.44
• 10 Random Uncommon Cards x $? = $0

Returning Player Rewards = $6.66 in free value

Mastery Pass - Throne of Eldraine (3400 Gems)

The Mastery Pass was a big hit for M20, so it will be returning for all future sets. The rewards are quite generous, especially if you play a lot of draft and have a lot of reward gems. Even if purchased for around $20, this is still well worth the money.

The key to purchasing and using the Mastery Pass is that you need to play every day in order to advance through all of the levels to reap all of the rewards. If you don't plan to play much, you should probably skip the Mastery Pass.

The nice thing about this pass is that you can purchase it at any time, even on the last day. This is good for those that aren't sure how much they will play. They can then see how far they get before spending the money on the pass. The rewards are retro-active, so you will receive everything from the past, up to the level you are currently at at the time of purchase.

Lets see what all we got for the Throne of Eldraine Mastery Pass:

• 5 Throne of Eldraine Booster Packs x $1.11 = $5.55
• 15 Misc. Booster Packs from previous Standard sets x $1.11 = $16.65
• 25 Card Styles x $2.08 = $52
• 10,000 Gold x $.0011 = $11
• 2,000 Gems x $.0058 = $11.60
• 10 Random Mythic Cards x ? = $0
• 3 Random Rare Cards x ? - $0
• 25 Orbs for Card Styles x $2.08 = $52
• 2 Card Sleeves x $5.62 = $11.24
• 1 Avatar x $3.04 = $3.04
• 1 Pet = $19.32
• + 1 Random Uncommon past Lvl 110 for every level after  x ? = $0

Throne of Edraine Mastery Pass = $182.40 in value

In Conclusion

Wizards of the Coast has been very generous with it's Free to Play player base. For those that are enjoying themselves and would like to support the game, please consider purchasing the Mastery Pass, as it's an exceptionally good value if you are an active player.

I hope this article has been of some use to you. Please leave any questions or comments below.

This past Father's Day, I wanted to make my dad a meal fit for a king. I wanted to spend some quality time with my parents, so we had them over to our home for a Father's Day lunch. I asked my dad what he would like for lunch, and he said steak, loaded baked potatoes and some kind of dessert so long as it had ice cream.
 
While many families were going out to eat, and spending quite a bit of money at restaurants, I decided to go in the opposite route. If you already read my Baller on a Budget articles, you'll know that I like to see how much I can get for the least amount of money, while still maintaining high quality.

I am a big fan of shopping at smaller grocers, such as Aldi and Save-A-Lot. Many people think these grocery stores are "discount" chains, and have sub-par offerings. In fact, they do not. What they do is focus on smaller stores while focusing on their own house brands and only offering single options for each item you are looking for. Do you really need 20 brands of ketchups to choose from? No. Do you need 32 brands of pasta? No.
 
Quality is quite high for these stores. Aldi's house brands, meats and cheese are top notch. Save-A-Lot has excellent produce and meats. I often combine trips to both stores to maximize savings. Thankfully, I live one block from the Save-A-Lot, and about a mile from the Aldi. There is also a Wal-Mart Superstore between both of the stores that I use when neither store has what I am looking for.
 
I try to avoid overly expensive stores such as Publix, Whole Foods and Lucky's. I like the prices of Winn Dixie and their new store Fresco Y Mas, but I refuse to shop at stores that force you to sign up for a "loyalty" card in order to get the better prices.

Save-A-Lot had T-bone steaks on sale this week for Father's Day. Score! My dad was talking about T-Bones the last time we were at a steakhouse. For the rest of us, I chose ribeye steaks. I grabbed a bag of baking potatoes and a few other items and was on my way. Earlier in the week we were at Aldi noticed they had avocado oil sitting next to the olive oil, so I decided try some out and bought a bottle.

The smoked salts, that I will mention using, were purchased at a local spice and tea shop. I really enjoy cooking with smoked seasonings. The tellicherry pepper I use is the same thing as regular black peppercorns, except they are larger. The larger size of the peppercorns loses some of the heat, but adds in a larger more fragrant aroma to your cooking. You can pick up a grinder of these at nearly any grocery store. The champagne vinaigrette dressing we got at Wal-Mart.

Everyone is an expert on steaks. Everyone has their own opinions and methods of how to cook the perfect steak. My opinion is no different from any other method(s). In fact, I usually just try other ideas every time I cook one so that I can formulate my own opinion and learn from them. The method I decided to try today was a quick and simple method I had not tried before.
 
I started by taking the steaks out of the refrigerator an hour before I was ready to cook them. I want to bring them down to room temperature before cooking.
 
There is a multitude of opinions on when to season your steak. This is the method I used on this occasion. I coated both sides of the steaks in avocado oil (you can use olive oil for the exact same effect). The oil helps the seasonings stick better, and it helps it brown nicely (crust) when you sear it later on. I then sprinkled a generous amount of smoked alderwood salt and tellicherry pepper on it.
 
Cooking the steaks was very simple and easy. Do not over complicate steaks with tons of methods you read about or see on TV. It is just seasoning it how you want it and then heating it up to the right temperature and doneness to your liking. That is it.
 
Your only goal is to not overcook it. Otherwise, do whatever you want to them. There is no wrong way to cook steaks if you like how they turned out.
 
I take that back. Do not put steak sauce on a good cut of meat. Ever. The actual taste of beef, and what you season it with, are more than enough to create one of the best meat flavors out there. Covering it all up with sauce is an insult to the cow that the steak came from. Please do not sauce your steaks! Enjoy the taste of the meat and your seasoning choices.
 
I heated my grill up to around 500*F, put the steaks on and closed the lid. The method I was following said to leave it on for 2 minutes. Do not check them. Do not touch them. Do not flip them. Just let them sear for 2 solid minutes. Once 2 minutes is up, flip them and sear the other side for exactly 2 minutes.
 
After searing them on the grill, I put them on a baking sheet, put two small pats of butter on each steak and put them into the oven at 425*F for 5 minutes. I chose this temperature because it is what it was already at when I took the baked potatoes out. I employ the KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid!
 
After 5 minutes, I took them out and covered the entire baking sheet with aluminum foil to let the steaks rest for a few minutes.
 
The T-bone was a good inch+ thick, and came out medium.
The ribeyes were a little thinner and came out medium well.
 
What I learned was I would have cooked them a couple of minutes less in the oven to keep them slightly more rare.

There is not much to baking a potato. I preheated my oven to 425*F.

I first washed and dried the potatoes. I then slathered them in avocado oil (you can use olive oil for the exact same effect), and coated them with hickory smoked salt and tellicherry pepper. Using a knife, I cut slits in the tops of each potato to help them breath while cooking.
 
I then baked them for 1 hour.
 
After baking, I cut mine in half, chopped up the middle, and covered it in butter, cheese, bacon and sour cream and some Texas Pete's hot sauce.

Salads are self-explanatory. The cornbread muffins, ice cream and pecan pie was store bought and on sale for much cheaper than I could make them, so I just got those. The point of this meal was eating like a king on a budget, not necessarily making it 100% from scratch.