How to trade/sell cards?

[Hoax]

Yeah so I started using MtgO all of two weeks ago, and I was hoping to sell off stuff from my leagues and draft so I can do some free drafting.  I see people around here talking about drafting and then selling the rare/uncommons so they can draft again for free so how do people do that?  The marketplace seems to be what I can only imagine is bot spammage and I'm not sure what the conventions are on the msg board.  It appears the SoJ of trading are tix but how do you guys figure out how many tickets to ask for a card?  Or is it better to find somebody who is looking for what you have and trade with them?  All help is appreciated.

[Xilren's Twin]

Have you been to the Auction channel yet?  If not, type "/join auction" and hang out for a while watching the action. Its a good way to get a feel for what cards people want and how much they are willing to trade to get them.  You right in the Tix are the medium of trade.  You can submit a "lot" to whomever the current lister is by private message, and the auctioneer will go down the list of lots and auction them off.  Winner gets matched to the sell and they complete the trade one on one.  Auctions are first bid first served.  If you put a minimum number of tickets on your lot you can basically set the price floor at the lowest amount you are willing to accept.  Theres also a lot of individual trading that takes place in the channel.

Any time a new set comes out trades are hot and heavy for the desirable cards like Dual lands and Hypnotic specters are for 9th.  You can also start to get a feel for specific card prices from the marketplace and message board parts of the trading side.  The rare cards and pack are usually the heaviest movers but there are always being trading commons and uncommons too.  There are usually plenty of automated bots that will trade you 1 tix for 2 crap rares.

At any rate, some people live just for the trading side of MTGO; it's like it's own mini-game.

Xilren

[Raging Turtle]

Xil's advice is great but I'd like to add that you shouldn't expect to sell uncommons or commons in /auction.  Even many rares go for under 1 tix. 

"/join casual" is another good little board for trading card for card with another person, but like everywhere in MTGO, there are plenty of people there lurking around just to take advantage of people who are unsure of the value of their cards (like you).

Use the search function and explore the prices on the message board to compare buying and selling rates. 

This topic has come up in the past more than once, check out some old threads.

One final message:  If you're looking to fill out your collection with commons and uncommons, buy some tix and hit the trading bots (or ask for some free stuff if you see me online!).  The stuff in the cheaper rare bots isn't all garbage either.  This is about a hundred times cheaper than trying to do the same thing by buying packs in the store and simply opening them.   

[Margalis]

I once found a bot that was offering 4 uncommons for 1 ticket, but when I went inside I found it was selling 4 RARES for 1 ticket, and they were good rares too. I thought about raping the guy, he had probably 50 good rares up there. I could have gotten all 50 for 13 tickets and sold them back off for 150 or so.

But I felt guilty, closed the window, and sent him a message saying his bot was messed up. Damn my conscience!
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Anyway, there are bots that buy and sell all sorts of things. Some are just generic "2 rares for 1 ticket" or whatever, but there are also ones with specific wish-lists. I often check mtgotraders.com to get a feel for what cards are worth. You usually won't get as much as you will there, but it gives you a relative scale.

Right now here are some prices:
Hypnotic Specter: 13.95
BattleField Forge (R/W painland): 5.95
Sengir Vampire: 1.50

The price of cards is usually dictated by how playable they are in constructed. That's why Pithing Needle is $16.00. It works well in tons of constructed decks.

Usually what you find is 90% of rares are basically worthless, while the other 10% range from medium to insane.

[eldaec]

If you aren't sure on prices it's worth adding 'infobot' as a buddy, then pming it with...

pc <cardname>

... to check prices with the large online dealers, note that the prices this returns are dealer sell prices, so you will likely have to sell below the rates that infobot returns.

And remember that unfortunately most cards are worth jack and shit once they are out of their booster wrapper.

As mentioned above the price of cards is dictated by the number of constructed decks that can use it.

[Jain Zar]

Hypnos are really overrated.  Im happy with using the 8th ed uncommon specter.  Costs 1 more, but is a 3 toughness.
I only play Extended though so YMMV.

[Margalis]

Hypnotic Specter doesn't fit into many decks. It has double black cost on a 3 drop. I think part of what is driving the cost is, it's Hypnotic Specter! I want one just to have one. (Of course, I have 4 from Revised IRL, but whatever)

But yeah, compared to something like Pithing Needle it is way way overpriced. The Needle works well in a ton of decks.

[Johny Cee]

The Specter.

Is it overcosted online due to nostalgia?  Yah, probably a bit.

My thoughts:

If the Type 2 metagame swings towards control,  the specter becomes massively powerful.  In a monoblack or black/other deck,  side in 4 specters against a control deck.  Good chances one comes up and in play on turn 3/4.

This means you're RANDOMLY eviscerating your control opponents hand every turn.  Potentially knocking out important cards, and creating card advantage.  I know when Onslaught was around,  controllish black decks often ran either Headhunter (2/2, opponent discards when it deals damage) or Cabal Interrogator (1/1, BX, look at X cards in target players hand, choose one to be discarded) to combat the W/X decks floating around.  And they were both very, very effective sideboard cards.

This is when we'd see what a buddy calls "targetted Wrath".  The fact that Hypno may be just good enough to maindeck helps push the price.

We saw the same thing with Plow Under.  For many months after 8th was released,  Plow was a 2-3 tix card.  As soon as effective green decks saw play,  Plow came under great demand.  I think it peaked in the 10-12 tix range.

For a card that,  on it's face, looked decent but not powerful.