Alara Reborn is here!

I have just finished getting all of the Alara Reborn singles up on Don's Magic and Sundry. Over at eBay I have booster packs, complete Common sets and complete Uncommon sets available. After opening 5 boxes' worth of booster packs, I obtained at least one copy of every card in the set except for 1 Mythic Rare card (Uril, the Miststalker), although I did get a copy of that card in Foil.

Alara Reborn is a rather different expansion. It's the first set ever that's "all gold" - that is, every single card is multicolored. In the past multicolored cards (first introduced in the Legends expansion way back when) have been a part of most sets, but usually only a small percentage of the cards. That means this set has no Land cards at all (Land cards, to date, are all colorless) which is rather rare these days.

My favorite card in the set is hard to pin down. I think it is most likely this lady:


This probably has something to do with my aforementioned fondness for the Serra Angel, since Jenara is an Angel herself, but she's also a kick-butt creature in her own right, and also one of the most popular cards in the set. The fact that you can, any time you have a leftover 1W in mana lying around, put a +1/+1 counter on her, so she grows over time....nasty! And, as you can tell from the red expansion symbol, the card is a Mythic Rare, so it's going to be much harder to get your hands on than most other cards in the set. As of this writing I have three copies available.

Another popular card in the set is the Meddling Mage.


This is actually a reprint of a card first introduced in the Planeshift expansion. I noticed last weekend (the weekend of the Pre-release, when the complete spoiler list for the set was let out) that I was getting more "hits" on the store's website from people searching for "Meddling Mage", and then someone finally bought the two copies of the card (in Japanese) that I had available. Then I looked at the spoiler list and found out why! Now that the card has been reprinted, it is once again "tourney legal", and those older cards (which were always pretty popular anyway) are now viable in a lot more decks, so they should show a marked rise in popularity. Too bad I have none of the older ones left - but (right now) I do have 4 copies of this new one available.

In other news, I continue to hack away at the large collections (including one of over 100,000 cards) that I have recently obtained, getting rares & foils listed in the store, and preparing to make a large number of complete Common & complete Uncommon sets for many different expansions. I should be busy for months getting these cards processed!

I have abandoned by Google Adwords experiment. While it was undeniably increasing traffic to the store (I had a few days where the total number of page loads went over 1,000), practically none of this traffic led to any sales (I think only 1 or 2, maybe). I just can't justify paying $0.20 or more per click when these clicks aren't generating any money. I'll just have to rely on word-of-mouth and regular Google searches to bring people to the store.

Magic's 11th Edition - whoa, baby!

I just last night got around to reading this article on the Wizards of the Coast site that describes the major changes that will be coming for Magic's latest Core Set, which everyone assumed would be called the 11th Edition. Here's the main reasons why I am excited/interested/shocked from what I gleaned there:

1. The name. Instead of calling it 11th Edition, they are instead calling it Magic the Gathering 2010 Core Set or just Magic 2010 for short. While this is odd and unexpected, it is not unprecedented to have an un-numbered Core set. The first 3 sets, in fact (Limited [consisting of Alpha and Beta], Unlimited and Revised) had non-number names. Only with 4th Edition did the numbers start. People sometimes retroactively refer to Revised as "3rd Edition" but that wasn't its official name.
2. New cards. For the first time EVER (unless you count the very first Core set that introduced the game), a Core set will have brand-new, original, not reprinted from a previous set cards. This is HUGE! And the idea to make cards that are steeped in non-MtG fantasy roots is very cool. I love the idea of the card Silence, a card that hearkens to my days as a D&D player...so cool!
3. This lady: Serra Angel is my all-time favorite Magic card. I collect them. I'll often trade for them. And I never have them for sale on my site, because I keep each one I get my hands on. I somehow managed to get more 10th Edition Serra Angels than any other Rare card from that Core Set, I believe (I have 15 of them, and 1 in Foil). And while they were originally (in Alpha through 4th Edition) an Uncommon card, they were promoted to Rare in 7th Edition (after being retired from service for 5th and 6th Editions). And, if this photo from the article is to be believed, they are back to Uncommon again - meaning I should get more than ever! Woo-hooooo!
4. Smaller set. This is going to be the smallest Core Set in quite some time. This will make it easier to complete my "virtual collection" of photos of the cards, and hopefully allow me to have enough duplicates of cards to allow people to purchase 4x playsets of the cards they're after from me.
5. New Dual Lands. I'm chomping at the bit to find out new idea they have for Dual Lands that don't have the "drawback" of losing a life like the "Pain Lands" currently in the Core Sets.
6. More frequent. For quite some time now the Core Sets have been released every other year. Now they plan to release a new Core Set annually. I hope they can keep up quality Core Sets on that kind of schedule.
7. Black borders. In the past, since all the cards were reprints, the Core Sets had white borders in keeping with WotC policy. Looks like they are abandoning that entirely, and taking a clue from the popularity of the black borders used in 10th Edition they will keep printing the Core Sets with black borders. Awesome.
8. Planeswalkers. These have been crazy-popular with the customers, and some of the most sought-after cards in recent sets have been Planeswalkers (Jace, Chandra, Garruk, Sarkhan and Nicol Bolas to name the biggest). And all five of the original Planeswalkers from Lorwyn will be reprinted in this set, as Mythic Rares.

All in all, a lot to be excited about. Now I can't wait until July 17!

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

...is the most popular (or at least the currently highest priced) card from the new Conflux set which was just released. Let's take a look, shall we?

Rather a nasty looking character, isn't he? He's the big bad evil genius behind the problems facing the Alara planes in the back-story to this set.

The card is a Mythic Rare, and if you remember your lesson from before, that makes it 8x more rare than a Rare.

And somehow I managed to pull 4 copies of it in less than 5 boxes that I opened. What are the odds? Let's see...I opened 177 packs - that's 177 Rares/Mythic Rares. If 1/8 are Mythic Rares, then I should have pulled ~22 of them. There are 10 possible Mythic Rares, so theoretically I should have averaged just over 2 copies per by random distribution. I did, indeed, pull 22 Mythic Rares (that much worked) and I got 2 copies of most of them. However two of them I only got 1 copy each of, and two I got 4 copies each of (Child of Alara being the other one besides Nicol himself).

Nicol Bolas actually has a bit of history in Magic: the Gathering. He first appeared as an "Elder Dragon Legend" (later renamed "Legendary Elder Dragon") in the Legends expansion. That card was reprinted in the Chronicles expansion, and again as a Timeshifted card in Time Spiral. The original Nicol Bolas looked like this:

He doesn't look quite so menacing in this one, does he? In the back-story for Time Spiral, Nicol Bolas gained the "Planeswalker spark" and left Dominaria to find some other plane to take over - and he has set his sights on the Shards of Alara.

In other Conflux news, I also got 4 copies of the second-most pricey card in the set, a regular Rare called Noble Hierarch (and got 2 additional copies of the Foil version). This just amazes me. I think I got VERY lucky with the case that I ordered. And there are (at the moment) still 39 booster packs left of that case available for sale at my eBay store! So you, too, could partake of the lucky case!

I opened enough packs to make 21 complete common sets and 8 complete uncommon sets and still have cards left over to stock the singles section in the "branch store" (which is fast becoming the main store, actually, so maybe I should stop calling it that?). And I have at least 2 of every Rare available (and more than that for most of them).

Conflux is the first set that I have put ALL of my singles for up in the regular store. The last couple of sets I put Rares, Mythic Rares and most Foil cards up on the eBay store initially. But in keeping with my new policy (and the Great Shift project), I am no longer listing singles on eBay unless to put them up for auction or Buy It Now. No more Store items for single cards.

And the results are...

...not quite what I had expected.

The From the Vault: Dragons cards did turn out to be quite popular. The grand total raw sales came to $91 - a good deal more than the $53 I paid for the set. Once fees are taken out, I still should show some profit, which is of course always nice!

One person ended up winning 7 of the 15 cards, another got 5, a third got 2 and a final person won 1. The person with 7 had a total of around $49, so they are clearly the winner of the special spin-down life counter promised to a winner of 5+ cards. Strangely enough, since no single person won 10 or more, no-one won the box, or the free shipping. I really thought that last one would be a big draw - buy your 15 Dragons cards then go crazy buying booster packs or something really heavy, and get it all shipped for free....but I guess not!

Anyway, I certainly can't complain about the results. It was just not quite what I thought I'd see. I felt for sure someone would try to get 10+ so they could get the box. It's really cool. So I guess I get to keep it :-)

On the great relisting project, I am up to the Invasion set, and should finish getting those done tonight. That leaves only 19 full expansion sets and then various piddly boxed sets, plus some non-English stuff (Italian Legends and Chinese 4th Edition being the biggest two problems). And all of this will be put on the back burner soon as the new set, Shards of Alara, is due out this coming Friday. I hope to get the descriptions of the cards typed up and ready before the cards actually arrive, if my usual source is as with-it as he was for Eventide. And maybe I'll get as lucky as I was with Eventide and get the cards a full day before the release date!

Oh, I promised to say a bit more about Shards of Alara in this post. The biggest deal is that Wizards of the Coast has decided to put a new level of Rarity into their cards. Since the beginning of the game there have been three levels of Rarity (4 if you count "Basic Land" as one): Commons, Uncommons, and Rares. These days a typical booster pack will contain 1 Rare, 3 Uncommons, and 11 Commons (or 10 Commons and a Basic Land for a Core Set like 10th Edition).

Starting with Shards of Alara, they are replacing the Rare in roughly 1 out of every 8 packs with a "Mythic Rare" - so this small set will be even more difficult to find than (and consequently, in theory, worth more than) a regular Rare. And a Foil version of such a Mythic Rare should be insanely valuable. Again, in theory.

Also, they plan to replace one of the Commons with a Basic Land in booster packs for all sets, not just the Core Sets. The theory being that since you essentially must have basic Lands to play, then not having them in boosters makes it more difficult for new players to get started.

The final big change being made is that this set (and ones to follow) will be smaller than the sets in recent history. There are simply too many cards in the game to reasonably expect someone to be fluent with all of them, and lowering the number in newer sets will help with that. For me this means it should be easier to get my hands on all (or nearly all) with the 5-6 boxes I plan on opening. That is one thing I appreciate a good deal.

Portal Three Kingdoms cards now available

I have recently acquired, and only just listed, some cards from the Portal Three Kingdoms starter set of Magic (hereafter abbreviated P3K). From what I understand, this is probably, with the exception of the original Limited Edition (Alpha) set, the smallest print run of any set in Magic history. It was only published in 1999 in four languages, English, Japanese, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. From what I have gathered, this set was never offered for retail sale in the US.

As you would expect, then, this set has become wildly popular and cards sell for very high prices, comparably. Unopened booster packs of the set sell for in the $40 range. The most popular and sought-after card, a rare card called the Zodiac Dragon, sells for over $100 by itself. Unfortunately I didn't obtain one of these when I got my P3K cards!

"Lot 35" is actually two sets of cards that I purchased on eBay from two different sellers. One was auctioning off 6 lots - one of basic Lands, and one of each of the five color of Magic. These cards were in English. I won the Land lot, and the White, Blue, Red and Green lots. I was unfortunately outbid on the Black lot. The seller was a very nice individual, who sent me a partial refund when one of the cards in the Blue lot somehow failed to make its way in the package (one of the Rares, unfortunately, but he reimbursed me what I could have reasonably sold the card for, so it works out). The only other problem is that the basic Lands turned out to NOT be actually from P3K, but from a boxed reprint set called Battle Royale. The seller was unaware of this himself, and had this to say when I told him:

"That's hilarious. I bought those lands from Star City Games when I was trying to complete that P3K set. Obviously, they are oblivious of that info as well. If you would like to send them back, I can refund your money if you like. Let me know."

I did not take him up on his gracious offer, as I believe I will still be able to sell the cards (albeit not misidentified as they've apparently been at least twice previously).

The second batch of cards was a group of Japanese P3K cards. This batch was made up mostly of basic Lands and Common cards, and actually included some English Swamps. Many of the cards are the Japanese versions of English ones I got, making it easy to duplicate their entries and change the photo and language to make the new listing.

I have so far listed English Rare and Uncommon cards from P3K at eBay, and will soon get the English Commons up at www.donsmagicandsundry.com. This will then be followed by the Japanese P3K cards at both Stores.

While I'm giving a Store update, here's some highlights since I last wrote:

• I'm a Power Seller again! Sales have been very brisk of late, and I have once again risen to the ranks of eBay Power Seller (this time without the dubious assistance of selling a piccolo trumpet for my brother). I'm not sure if it's the increase in stock (the Lorwyn sales have helped a great deal), or the approaching holiday season, or the weakened US dollar leading to an increase in non-US sales, or all of the above...but I'm not complaining!
• I've gotten all of the Lots up to "Lot 34" listed now. The last to be listed, "Lot 33", was all Foil cards and should hopefully prove to be popular as gift items.
• "Lot 36" and "Lot 37" have already been purchased. These are collection of over 5000 cards (including commons) and a set of over 400 Rares and Foils, respectively. They should be processed faster than previous lots. As I get more and more cards in my database, the listings get faster and faster, as the photos are already taken and the descriptions are already written.
• I've pre-ordered a case of Morningtide, the next Magic expansion to be released at the end of January. I have discovered through 10th Edition and Lorwyn sales that it definitely pays to be among the first to list these cards on eBay. With few sellers to choose from in the initial week or so, sales are brisk and prices can be quite high, as people are willing to pay a lot to get the cards they really want RIGHT NOW.
• For some unknown reason the Squirrel Token photo I included in a previous post has been drawing a phenomenal number of hits to the Blog. I'm not sure why so many people are doing Google image searches for Squirrel Tokens, but it's bringing people in! If you're one of them - Welcome!
• Sales have actually been picking up at www.donsmagicandsundry.com of late. Again, I can't say for sure why, but I'm hopeful that it will continue to grow, and I can start sending over some of the higher ticket items from eBay and save a boatload on listing and final value fees. About 33% of my sales get lost to eBay and PayPal fees right now! That hurts!

Well, I think that's enough for one post. I promise to do my best to get another post up soon, this time focusing on one of the Lorwyn issues I said I'd write about that I haven't addressed yet.

Happy happy joy joy - Lorwyn is HERE!

Yesterday was both a good day and a bad day. Let me tell you about the bad first...

If you've been following this Blog for a while at all you know that I once, a couple of years ago, received a negative feedback from some crazy woman who never sent me a check, then was amazed that her item didn't ship. She left a nasty negative feedback, and apparently did this for several other sellers and her eBay account was closed down as a result. But, still, I had this one mark against me and a mere 99.9% positive for my eBay account. This made me seethe. But just a few weeks ago my score crept up high enough (I guess over 99.95%) that the score finally rounded up to 100.0% again. Yahoo!!!

That is, until yesterday. Some bloke who bought some cards, and later asked why they hadn't arrived, although the USPS tracking site says it was delivered. I don't know, I tell him - ask at his post office, maybe they can advise (maybe they marked it delivered, but couldn't fit it in the mailbox? Maybe it was left on his front porch and stolen? How am I supposed to know).

Well, it seems that this is not good enough for him. So yesterday I get a negative feedback rating with this message: "cards never arrived, i'd rather have a refund instead of having to track it down"!?!?! How, I ask you, can it be MY fault if the USPS messes up on his end? Or if the package is stolen? I sent the cards he ordered and paid for - I arranged for a tracking number to follow. I offered to insure the package (not taken). What more am I supposed to do?

What's even more galling is that this user has a feedback rating of 18 (1 of which is mine - I left a positive when he paid...I'm starting to understand why some sellers wait for positive feedback for themselves before leaving it for the buyer), and he's only been an eBayer since May 2007, so he's a newbie, doesn't know how things work, doesn't understand that he should try to work things out with a seller before leaving negative feedback...basically he REALLY pissed me off.

But I'm not bitter. Really. Ask anyone.

Okay, enough of my rant, sorry. So why was yesterday a good day? Because my Lorwyn cards arrived! Woo-hoo! After opening up my three boxes (I love the fact that these showed up on the release date!) I have all of the 121 commons (no surprise there - probably at least 4 of each, actually) and all of the 80 Uncommons (only 1 of a couple of them, but all), 69 out of the 80 Rares (not too shabby, really) and around 35 foils (mostly basic Lands and Commons, but some Uncommons and 1 Rare). This includes three copies of the second most popular card (judging by current eBay prices - in the $10-13 range), Gaddock Teeg. [The most popular, Thoughtseize ($23-26 range), I only got one of]. And I got several copies of the Lorwyn Dual Lands, which will be the topic of my next post.

More on Lorwyn

Okay, Lorwyn is a pretty unusual set, for several reasons, and I want to discuss these over the next couple of quick posts.

Lorwyn is the first set in its block (logically called the "Lorwyn Block"). What makes it unusual here is that this block will only consist of two sets: Lorwyn, and Morningtide (the latter to be released in February 2008). Since the concept of the "block" was introduced, blocks have consisted of three sets, not two. Actually, one could make an arguement for the Ice Age Block as being an exception, as that originally consisted of only Ice Age and Alliances (Homelands, released between the two, was separate from the storyline described in them). However, when Wizards of the Coast (WotC) released Coldsnap back in July 2006, they "completed" the Ice Age block with a third set. But I digress...

For some reason WotC has decided to release two "mini blocks" this time around instead of a normal 3-set block. The Lorwyn mini-block will be followed by the Shadowmoor mini-block (which will consist of Shadowmoor and another set not yet officially named, but code-named "Doughnut" [Shadowmoor was code-named "Jelly" during development...and if you really care, Lorwyn and Morningtide were code-named "Peanut" and "Butter", respectively]). For a while WotC has been releasing 4 sets per year, those four being a 3-set block and some additional unconnected set (a "Core Set" like 10th Edition every other year, Unhinged, and Coldsnap). This year instead they will have two 2-set mini-blocks. Kind of a neat idea.

Okay...things to look forward to in posts to be released soon:

• New card type: bring on the Planeswalkers!
• New Dual Lands (and these look to be as cool as the Ravnica block ones were)
• Going tribal!

Lorwyn is coming!

This Friday (October 12, 2007) marks the official release of the newest Magic: the Gathering expansion set, called Lorwyn.

This is the first set of a new "block", and as such is a rather large set, and includes its own basic Lands. The set will be available in 15-card booster packs as well as large "Tournament Decks". The latter typically is the only way to get the basic Land cards. I have pre-ordered two boxes of booster packs and a box of tournament decks, so I should be well stocked in short order to start selling Lorwyn singles. I'll have a couple of more posts on the subject of this expansion over the next few days as we lead up to the release, and as I open up my packs and see what cool cards await!

Store Update: I just today finished getting the last of Lot 26 listed in the Store. I have three more lots to go - two lots of all Foil cards, and one largish lot of all Foils & Rares. I also have new stock of unopened packs coming (I just recently won boxes of 10th Edition, Unhinged and Planar Chaos) so I have more of "Lot 7" to go. I'm particularly proud of the Unhinged box, as I paid less than $1 per pack for the 36 packs in the box - and each pack contains a basic Land card that I can sell for $1 each. Not too shabby.

The 10th Edition cards have been selling quite nicely. I have had several orders consisting purely of dozens of 10th Edition cards.

I've been having several auctions each week up, mostly consisting of complete common sets, unopened booster packs, and promo Foil card singles. These auctions have often gone well, and have brought customers in to buy more from the Store, which is of course one of the main reasons for having them.

This week I'm trying a new experiment - I have several "playsets" of four copies of a given 10th Edition uncommon card. Since I've bought so many boxes of 10th Edition at this point, I have WAY too many uncommon cards, and it seemed that selling playsets would be a way to cull the herd somewhat, as well as advertise that I have lots of 10th Edition available for sale.

More on Lorwyn tomorrow!

Token Creature cards in 10th Edition

Since the very beginning of Magic (the original Alpha Edition in 1993) there has existed the concept of a "token Creature". In Alpha Edition there was a card The Hive, an Artifact that allowed the controller to spend 5 mana and tap The Hive to put a 1/1 Wasp Artifact Creature token with Flying into play. As long as you had 5 mana to spare, and The Hive was untapped, you could make yourself an annoying little Wasp. The intent was that the user would represent these Wasps with a coin, or a spare card, or anything that could be flipped or rotated to indicate it was "tapped" (when it attacked, for example).

Since Alpha, more and more cards have come out that creature token Creatures. Saprolings, Goblins, Angels, Beasts, Demons, Soldiers - even Sheep and Squirrels! But the intended representation remained the same until 1998.

In 1998 a "silly" set called Unglued was released. This set was never intended for serious play, and I have discussed some of the cards in it before. Included in this set were 6 honest-to-goodness official token Creature cards - cards which served no purpose other than to act as representations of token Creatures generated by a card or effect. There was a Goblin, a Pegasus, a Sheep, a Soldier, a Squirrel and a Zombie. As an example, here's the Squirrel token pictured to the right (cute, isn't he?).

Then, starting in 2001, Wizards of the Coast started releasing more official token Creature cards as part of their Players' Rewards program. I have some of these available in my eBay store at the moment. There have been many printed over the past few years, and the only way to get them was to join the program that they were given out in (or buy them from people who got them that way, as I have done).

But now, with the advent of 10th Edition, official token Creature cards are being given out in ordinary booster packs. About 1 out of every 3 10th Edition boosters contains one of six Creature token cards (which I of course have available for sale): Dragon, Goblin, Saproling, Soldier, Wasp and Zombie. Why these six? Because they are each generated by a card in the 10th Edition (Dragon Roost, Siege-Gang Commander, Verdant Force, Mobilization, The Hive and Midnight Ritual, respectively), and they are the only six token Creatures created by cards in 10th Edition. Yes, The Hive has returned to the Core Set after being absent since 6th Edition - and the Wasp Token (pictured to the right) has been printed to be used to represent the little blighters.

Wizards of the Coast has already announced that they will continue to include token Creature cards in booster packs at least through the next three expansion sets (Starting with Lorwyn, to be released this Fall), and has said that they will start to be more common, in around 2 out of every 3 packs instead. I'm glad to hear it - I think they're kinda cool, and I'm glad that "ordinary" people can get their hands on them now.

Tenth (10th) Edition is Here!

Well, the brand new Core Set, 10th Edition, has arrived. The big release party was back on July 14 (that's the day of the Scavenger Hunt if you remember my earlier post on that - I'll have an update on the results of those sales later), but the two boxes of booster packs I had Pre-ordered didn't arrive until Friday this week. My son and I feverishly opened packs and sorted cards, and as of this morning all my 10th Edition Rares, Uncommons and Foils are up at eBay and all the Commons are up at Don's Magic and Sundry.

I'll talk about some highlights of the set here, and write a few more entries over the next couple of days focusing on some of the cooler (in my opinion, anyway) aspects.

The first big thing to jump out at you about 10th Edition is the appearance of the cards. First of all is the black border. This is the first Core Set since Beta Edition back in 1993 to have black borders in all languages (normally they get black borders only if it's the first time the cards have been printed in that language). Wizards of the Coast decided to do something special since it is the 10th Edition, and next year marks the 15th anniversary of the game. Secondly there's the Edition symbol - a roman numeral 10 (X) was chosen but an almost 2/3 majority of online voters at magicthegathering.com over continuing with the same style of symbol used for 8th and 9th Editions (a stylized hand of cards with the number 8 or 9, respectively, in the center). The Edition symbols were first used in 6th Edition, when they used a roman numeral (VI), then changed to a fancy font 7 for 7th Edition. Then it seemed they settled on this new method for 8th and 9th, so I was quite surprised when I found out that the roman numeral would be coming back for 10th.

The next cool thing is the booster packaging - 5 different wrappers, one in each of the colors of Magic. Very nice.

And then there's the 16th card...normally a booster pack has 15 cards in it: 11 Commons (or 10 commons and a basic Land card for 8th/9th/10th); 3 Uncommons; and 1 Rare. For the last couple of sets, if there is a Foil card inserted, then it takes the place of one of the Commons (previously it would take the place of the same level card as it was, so a Foil Uncommon would replace a normal Uncommon). But in 10th Edition there's a 16th card - a special insert card that has an advertisement of some sort on the back and either a Token Creature or a "Tips & Tricks" message on the other. I plan to write entries talking more about these later so look for them over the next couple of days.

Another surprising thing (to me, anyway) is that the set actually includes cards from the Time Spiral block (Time Spiral, Planar Chaos and Future Sight) - the most recent expansion sets. Since boosters from these sets are still readily available, I didn't think they'd be considered for use in the Core set until 11th Edition. Of course I wasn't really actively buying when 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th Editions were released so I can't (without some research) say whether they contained cards from the current expansions when they came out.

Overall I was very pleased with the cards that I got in the two boxes. Some great cards include two Crucible of Worlds (one Foil - extremely rare and VERY popular), two Serra Angels (which will not be sold - they get added to my Serra Angel collection), a Paladin en-Vec a Pithing Needle (remember this card from an earlier post? It made it into 10th Edition!), a Troll Ascetic and several Pain Lands (yes, my prediction that the Pain Lands would be replaced by the dual Guild Lands from the Ravnica block did not come true, alas).

Sweet Pain: Dual Lands Part II

As mentioned in my last post, the Dual Land concept, having a single Land that could produce more than one type of mana, was a very popular one, but they were deemed too powerful and taken out of circulation. However, the idea has been revisited many times, with limitations added to the cards to take them down a notch.

SIDE NOTE: For purposes of this discussion, to save typing, I will use the same mana conventions I use in my listings. Therefore:

• "W" means "one White mana"
• "U" means "one Blue mana"
• "B" means "one Black mana"
• "R" means "one Red mana"
• "G" means "one Green mana"

The first of these attempts was in the Ice Age expansion. This introduced two types of Dual Lands. The first type became known as "Pain Lands", because when they are tapped for a colored mana they also deal 1 damage to you, although they can be tapped for one colorless mana with no damage dealt. An example is the Adarkar Wastes that can produce W or U (this link is for a 9th Edition version of this card). The second type are known as "Depletion Lands"; when they are tapped for colored mana they get a "depletion counter" on them. If they have a depletion counter on them at the beginning of your turn, you can't untap them, but remove a depletion counter instead. Essentially this means you could only use these lands every other turn. An example is the River Delta that can produce U or B. So both types had a limitation - take a point of damage, or only use every other turn.

In addition to the limitations, a striking difference between these and the original Dual Lands is that there were only 5 of each type of these - only the allied color combinations were made. So there is no Ice Age Pain Land that can make either Red or Blue mana, since Red and Blue are enemy colors. Another important difference is that these lands do not count as both of the basic Land types they mimic. In other words, a River Delta is not an Island or a Swamp, although it can be used to make U or B. The Ice Age Pain Lands were reprinted in 5th Edition, 6th Edition, 7th Edition and 9th Edition (I'm not sure why they were dropped for 8th Edition). All of these lands were Rare cards in Ice Age, as well as when reprinted in the Core Sets.

Homelands had perhaps the least popular of all attempts at making multi-color lands. It had 5 uncommon lands that could be tapped to add one colorless mana to your mana pool, or to turn one mana of any color into a specific colored mana, or to turn 2 mana of any color into an allied color of that specific color. So, for example, Koskun Keep can be tapped to turn 1 mana into R, or to turn two mana into B or G.

In Tempest, the Pain Lands idea was picked up again for a set of Rare cards. This time two significant changes were made compared to the original ones in Ice Age. First of all, an additional limitation was added. These Pain Lands comes into play tapped, so you can't use them immediately upon putting them down. Secondly, again only 5 were made, but this time in the 5 possible enemy color combinations. An example of the Tempest Pain Lands is the Scabland that can produce R or W. Tempest also had 5 uncommon Lands that could be tapped for one colorless mana, or for one of two possible colored manas. If the colored mana was chosen, the Land would not untap the next turn. These are functionally the same as the Depletion Lands from Ice Age without the confusion of dealing with depletion counters. An example is the Mogg Hollows that can add either R or G to your mana pool, but then doesn't untap your on next turn.
The expansion called Invasion introduced two new types of Dual Lands. First there were 5 common lands that could be tapped add one mana of a given color to your mana pool, or be sacrificed to add one each of the two ally colors of that given color to your mana pool. For example the Ancient Spring can be tapped to add one U to your mana pool, or can be tapped and sacrificed to add WB to your mana pool. The second set of lands was a set of 5 uncommon cards that could produce either of two allied colors, but came into play tapped as a limitation. For example the Urborg Volcano comes into play tapped, but thereafter can be tapped to add B or R to your mana pool. These 5 uncommon cards were reprinted in 8th Edition as uncommon cards (for example this 8th Edition Salt Marsh that can produce U or B), I guess to replace the Pain Lands that were taken out after 7th Edition only to be added back in for 9th Edition.

In Apocalypse, it was apparently decided that the additional limitation of coming into play tapped added to the Pain Lands in Tempest was unnecessary, so a new set of 5 enemy color combination Pain Lands was introduced. These are functionally identical to the 5 Pain Lands in Ice Age, except that they combine non-allied colors together. An example is Shivan Reef that can produce either R or U. These 5 Pain Lands have been reprinted in 9th Edition (such as this Yavimaya Coast that can produce G or U). So 9th Edition has a complete set of all 10 possible two-color combination Pain Lands, making it the first Core Set since Revised Edition to have all 10 combinations represented.

Planeshift had an odd twist on the dual land idea. It introduced 5 "Trio Lands", the Lairs of five Legendary Dragons. These Lands required you to return a non-Lair Land you control to its owner's hand when you play them, but they can be tapped to add one of any of the three colors of mana needed to summon that particular Dragon. For example, Crosis' Catacombs can be tapped to add U, B, or R to your mana pool. Crosis, the Purger is a Legendary Dragon that has a casting cost of 3UBR.

An interesting variation of the Dual Land concept was introduced in Odyssey. This set included 5 lands that could be tapped to turn one mana of any color into two mana of allied colors. For example the Darkwater Catacombs could be tapped for one mana of any color (even colorless) to make UB.

Champions of Kamigawa introduced 5 uncommon Lands that were functionally identical to the 5 uncommon lands in Tempest. These lands can produce a colorless mana with no penalty, or one of two allied color manas at a cost of not untapping the next turn. This means that the Pinecrest Ridge from Champions of Kamigawa does exactly the same thing as Mogg Hollows from Tempest.

Now in the Ravnica block of expansions (Ravnica: City of Guilds, Guidpact and Dissension) the whole underlying concept involved 10 Guilds, each representing a melding of two colors of magic. Each Guild had a special rare Dual land that comes close to mimicking the original Dual Lands. Like the originals, each counts as two different basic Lands, and can produce either of the appropriate two mana colors. As a limitation, however, each comes into play tapped unless you pay 2 life when you play it - a nasty upfront cost, but cheaper in the long run than a Pain Land if you use it more than twice. And if you can afford to wait a turn before you use it, then no life cost at all! A good example is the Overgrown Tomb, a Land from Ravnica: City of Guilds that is a Swamp Forest, so can be tapped to add either B or G to your mana pool. Judging by current prices these cards are even more popular than the Pain Lands, and I wouldn't be too surprised if they make their way into a Core Set (maybe 10th Edition?), replacing the Pain Lands in that set.

Each Guild in the Ravnica block sets also had a common Land that was interesting. They come into play tapped, and you have to return a Land you control to its owner's hand when you play it. But thereafter it can be tapped to add two mana to your mana pool, one of each of the Guild's two colors. For example the Izzet Boilerworks from Guildpact adds RU to your mana pool when tapped for mana.

The Time Spiral expansion added 5 new "Mana Battery Dual Lands." This combined two concepts. The Dual Land idea I've been talking about was melded to the "Mana Battery" Land idea first introduced in Fallen Empires. The basic idea here is that these Lands can be tapped at a cost of 1 mana to add a storage counter to them. They can then later be tapped for a price of one mana and you can remove any number of storage counters you want (call it "X"). You can then add X mana to your mana pool, in any combination of two allied mana colors. So, for example, the Calciform Pools can be used to store up mana of any color, and then release the stored mana as either W or U.

Finally, the newest set to be released, Future Sight, introduced five new varieties of "Dual Land", one for each ally-color combination. Each one does something different. Graven Cairns can turn either R or B into RR, BB or a RB. Grove of the Burnwillows can add R or G to your mana pool, but each opponent gains one life (almost the opposite effect as a Pain Land). Horizon Canopy can add G or W to your mana pool, but you have to pay 1 life for the privilege (functionally the same as a Pain Land, but the wording makes the life loss unpreventable). Nimbus Maze can add W to your mana pool only if you control an Island, and U only if you control a Plains. And River of Tears can be tapped to add U to your mana pool, or B instead if you played a Land this turn.

How's Bayou? A look at the Dual Lands.

Okay, at long last, the promised post on the Dual Lands! When I got done writing this, I realized it was WAY too long, so I have split it up into two posts.

Our saga starts way back in the very first edition of Magic, Alpha. In this original set were introduced 10 rare cards, know collectively as the Dual Lands. Each of these land cards counted as two basic Land types, and could be used to produce mana of two different colors. For example, the Bayou (of which I have one up for auction this week) counts as both a Forest and a Swamp, and could be used to make Green mana (G) or Black mana (B).

Since there are five colors of mana possible (see my previous post on the subject), that's 10 possible combinations, and thus the 10 original Dual Lands. These lands are:

• Badlands (Swamp Mountain)
• Bayou (Forest Swamp)
• Plateau (Plains Mountain)
• Savannah (Plains Forest)
• Scrubland (Plains Swamp)
• Taiga (Mountain Forest)
• Tropical Island (Island Forest)
• Tundra (Plains Island)
• Underground Sea (Island Swamp)
• Volcanic Island (Island Mountain)

These 10 Lands survived through Revised Edition before they were declared too powerful, and taken out of print. They remain immensely popular, however, and the most recent versions from Revised Edition sell right now in the $25-$30 range; ones from Unlimited Edition in the $30-$45 range; and ones from Alpha Edition and Beta Edition sell in excess of $100.

Since they have been taken out of the set, however, several attempts have been made to create Lands that could make multiple colors of mana, with some limitation to them to make them a little less powerful. I'll look at these other attempts in my next post, Dual Lands Part II

The Colors of Magic

I have promised to write a post talking about the Dual Lands for a while now, but I think that in order for that post to make complete sense, a little bit of Magic background is necessary. So, I am going to first present this mini-Magic lesson on the Five Colors of Magic.

If you look at the back of a Magic card you'll see a symbol made of five colored dots (the symbol appears in the extreme left-hand side of my Store logo). These dots represent the five colors of Magic. Starting at the top and working clockwise you have White (although it looks a bit yellowish in the symbol), Blue, Black (appears more brown than Black), Red and Green.

Each of the five colors has its own strengths and weaknesses, its own specialties, if you will, in the type of Spells and Creatures that are available to it. Each has two colors that tend to ally with it, and two that tend to be its enemies. In the symbol, the five colors are arranged so that their allies are adjacent to them (one clockwise, one counterclockwise) and the enemies are across from them. And each color has a basic Land type associated with it, the simplest source of mana (magical energy) of that color.

For example, the color White has specialties in Order and Good. It is allied with Blue (which has a specialty of Reason/Thought, a good companion to Order) and with Green (which has a specialty of Life, a good companion to Good). Its enemies are Red (Chaos) and Black (Evil). White's basic Land type is the Plains.

The table below sums up the five colors and their attributes. Especially relevant to the coming Dual Land discussion is the idea of each color having 2 ally and 2 enemy colors.

Color	Basic Land	Specialties	Ally Colors	Enemy Colors
White (W)	Plains	Order, Good	Blue, Green	Black, Red
Blue (U)	Island	Reason/Thought, Water	Black, White	Red, Green
Black (B)	Swamp	Death, Evil	Red, Blue	Green, White
Red (R)	Mountain	Chaos, Fire	Green, Black	White, Blue
Green (G)	Forest	Life, Nature	White, Red	Blue, Black

Arabian Nights - Old Man of the Sea

All of Alan's complete sets have now sold, leaving only the individual Arabian Nights cards that haven't yet sold (about 30 of them still to go).

So, last week I decided to start listing the Arabian Nights cards one at a time at auction. This would serve two purposes. First, to finally sell these cards. Second, as previously mentioned, I really believe that sales pick up if I have something flashy up for auction, so I think that having some Arabian Nights cards out there will draw in traffic - and maybe even sell some of the remaining of Alan's cards at full Store price!

Last week I listed the Bazaar of Baghdad, a rather popular Land card from that set. I had listed it in the Store at $225, which is a bit on the high side for that card, but it was in really great shape. The final bidding price was $174.50 - about 20% lower than the Store price had been, but at least a decent price for a single card.

This week I have listed the Old Man of the Sea. Originally in the Store for $55, we'll see what it ends up at by the end of the auction - I started the bidding yesterday at $0.99 and it has one bidder and three watchers so far. This is kind of a cool card - you can use this Creature to take control of a Creature from another player. This card has never been reprinted again since the Arabian Nights set came out.

If you remember your history lesson from yesterday's post, you know that the Arabian Nights set was only printed in English. It was also the very first expansion set to Magic: the Gathering, and so had the smallest print run. That makes all the cards from that set rather rare in the world. PLUS, since they came out so long ago, and in such a time before Magic became such a world-wide phenomenon, many of the original cards got pretty beat up, leaving very few cards in Mint or Near Mint condition. That's what makes Alan's collection so remarkable - his cards were kept in REALLY great shape!

On another note - I decided to try for that unopened box of Chinese Fourth Edition booster packs. I was willing to go as high as $135 for the box (plus the $9.50 for shipping). I was outbid, and wasn't too stressed about it. Later, though, the seller made me a "Second Chance Offer", since he apparently had more than one of these boxes available. This allowed me to buy one at my maximum bid price if I wanted. Heck, yeah! So, winging its way to me tomorrow by UPS should be a nifty box of valuable cards. And I know they'll be in Unplayed, Mint condition because the packs haven't even been opened yet! Only one person on eBay seems to be selling these packs, and they're asking $22.00 for one booster pack. I just bought 36 of them in the box for substantially less per pack! I think I'll try auctioning off at least one unopened pack and see what I get. If I even get $5 per pack I'd turn a profit! And the earnings could be even more if I open some packs up and sell the cards individually. Sounds like fun!

The French Renaissance

Okay - a rather odd post title, I admit...until you read what I have to say.

Today I finished getting the last of my French Magic: the Gathering cards up. The majority of them come from a Magic expansion called Renaissance.

In order to fully explain this I need to give you a little background info. If you're a Magic person already, you can probably skip these next couple of paragraphs.

When Magic: the Gathering started, it was only printed in English. The first versions of the game, now known collectively as the Limited Edition and separately as Alpha and Beta were published with black borders around the edges of the cards. When these cards were reprinted under the name Unlimited Edition, the borders were changed to white. Precedent was then established that the first time any card was published, it would be with a black border. This precedent was then extended to the first time any card was published in any given language, it would be printed with a black border. So, for example, when the next edition, Revised Edition, was released in English and also, for the first time, in Italian, German and French, the English cards were printed with white borders (because they had been previously printed in English). But the Italian, German and French versions were printed with black borders. In many cases now, these other language versions of these cards sell for more than their English counterparts because of the black borders. Normally, if all else is equal, non-English cards sell for less, it has been my experience.

As a side note, Revised Edition also "cycled in" some cards from the expansion sets Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends. Since these cards had previously been published in English under these sets with black borders, they still fit the precedent to have white borders in Revised.

Okay, now here's where it starts to get a little funky. When it was decided to move on to the Fourth Edition of Magic, Wizards of the Coast wanted to "cycle in" some different cards from Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends as well as The Dark and also planned to return some cards that were taken out of the set for Revised (notably Ironclaw Orcs and Twiddle). The problem was that these sets were not published in any non-English language (except for Legends and The Dark which were published in Italian). As a result, cards that were going to be "cycled in" to Fourth Edition had never been published in German, French or (for the Unlimited, Arabian Nights, and Antiquities cards) Italian with black borders. So, to meet policy, they couldn't be printed with white borders along with all the rest of the Fourth Edition cards until they were first printed in those languages with black borders.

Enter Renaissance. Released only in German and French (and in a scaled down version, Italian), this expansion set printed the cards that they wanted to "cycle in" to Fourth Edition with a black border. These cards also bear whatever the appropriate expansion symbol for these cards from their original appearance (a scimitar for Arabian Nights, an anvil for Antiquities, a column for Legends, or a crescent moon for The Dark). So it might seem just by looking at the cards, that they came from those original sets, only in German, French or Italian.

As far as I can tell, I am the only person on eBay with any Renaissance cards up for sale. That makes it extremely difficult for me to price the blasted things! Is a black-bordered with expansion symbol Bird Maiden in French worth as much as one in English from the original Arabian Nights? Almost certainly not. But is it worth more that a white-bordered one in English from Fourth Edition? Almost certainly so.

Another problem - how to market these? Technically they are Renaissance cards. But most people don't know about that expansion! The closest English equivalent is Chronicles - a set published as a companion to Fourth Edition, printed in English and then Chinese of all things a year later, that reprinted many cards from the earlier expansions with expansion symbols but with white borders. It would be dishonest to imply that a card from Renaissance was actually from Arabian Nights, say - even though that's what it looks like.

Another issue is that I have been unable to find, anywhere, even at Wizards of the Coast's official Magic: the Gathering web site, a rarity listing for this set (that is, which cards were "common" and "uncommon" or even "rare") which is information I usually include in my listings. I finally settled on using the rarity from Fourth Edition, since that I could determine.

All in all, it's very perplexing. I settled on including the words "French", "Chronicles" and "Renaissance" in my item titles. If I'd had more room I would have included "Arabian Nights", "Antiquities", "Legends" or "The Dark" for whichever set the card originally appeared in.

By the way, for the sake of historical completeness, Fourth Edition was also the first one to be printed in Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. These, of course, had black borders, since they were being printed for the first time in those languages. I am eyeing right now an auction for an unopened, factory sealed, box of Chinese Fourth Edition booster packs. That's 36 packs (each containing 15 cards) of cards with black borders that sell for more than their white bordered English equivalents (double or better in many cases!). If it sells for a reasonable price, it could turn a healthy profit. I may well try to buy it.

Yeah, yeah - I know, I know - I swore I wasn't buying any more. So much for that!