How to properly build a collection ?

[nethys]

Hello there !

Let me explain : I play magic since a while (I started with Urza set). But back then, I was a teenager and I only afford some boosters from time to time. So I made deck with what I could found fo casual plays with friends and family. As there was very few player, I still have pretty low experience on deck and collection building.

Since a few years, I was wondering how to build a trading collection.

As for now, I buy the cards that I need for my commander decks. And I sometimes buy boosters or boxes. The fact is I have dozens and dozens of rare cards that hadn't interested anyone since years. And some of them with very little value and in multiple copy.

Sorry if it is a silly question for you, but are there any method or tips to build an attractive collection to trade ? Or it is just all about getting more and more boosters and having luck ? I'm pretty fed up with my binder full of 80% of trash rares xD

[Ominus12]

What formats do you play since that makes a huge difference on what people are going to advise.

If you only play commander those cards don't overlap with your modern and standard players very much so their value is sometimes kinda low since people only need one, and if you only interact with magic by commander then your trade binder will only be really interesting to other commander players since they see cards differently then people who interact with the game in say only modern.

As for general collection building i would say wait until this time every year and grab all rotating cards that look cool or are powerful and rotation is hitting their price hard that can be a cheep way to build a general collection over time it really all depends on what formats you are looking to pick up tradeables for.

[Morganator 2.0]

What I found works best is to build a trade binder for a specific format.

My trade binder is built specifically for commander. The first few pages are all legendary creatures that make good commanders. This means I include legends like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, and exclude Sisters of Stone Death.

After that, I include cards that are played in commander. Even low-cost staples like Elvish Mystic or Dark Ritual are good, because they further promote this as being specific to the Commander format. Hopefully, you also have some high-cost staples like Doubling Season, Mikaeus the Lunarch, or Wurmcoil Engine (just some examples). Because everyone (across all formats) wants a solid land base, adding in rare lands are sure to get you some sweet trades. Avoids cards that are not good, like most of the junk rares. If you ever have trouble deciding on a card, look it up on EDHREC. You can find out how many decks it's played in, and can judge whether it is worth including or not.

[Judaspriester]

If you want to focus on Commander/EDH, dont buy boosters, better buy the cards you need. You may have to spend some more money for specific cards, but on the other hand, you at least know what you get. Boosters usually gives you alot of cards that arent interesting for Commander.

In stead of trading them directly you could also try to sell your cards at https://www.cardmarket.com/ or similar pages. It will be alot of work to add all the cards there, but who knows, maybe you will find some hidden Treasures.