There are a million ways to write about Magic, but I really like to stick to the fundamentals.
Here is why: I want to equip readers with ideas they can carry with them for years to come.
I could tell you about which card from Aether Revolt is most likely to appreciate in value, but what is the fun in that? There are a thousand articles all over the internet on that exact topic.
This article series is about powerful IDEAS. These are ideas that transcend any particular moment in time. In 5 years when a new Magic set comes out, you can use these ideas to make money.
This brings us to the topic of this article: The truth about MTG Finance Articles.
So what is it?
"Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know."
- Lao Tzu
To me, this is the fundamental issue with MTG finance articles. Let's take a step back for a minute and think about MTG strategy articles.
If you wanted to learn about MTG strategy, where would you go? Who would you listen to?
You would probably figure out who the best players in the world are and read their stuff. Who won the last Pro Tour? You'd want to see what he's doing.
Let's go back to MTG Finance.
Who are the best people at MTG finance? How would we even define BEST?
I would argue that the best people at MTG finance are the ones that are making the most money.
You might start to see the issue here. There is no MTG Finance Pro Tour! How the hell are we going to find these guys?
We don't. They lurk in the shadows.
Okay, so we can't figure out what the best people are doing. Maybe we are at peace with that.
But who are we listening to right now? Do we have a way of validating their advice?
We really don't!
None of the current writers of MTG Finance advice are held accountable for anything, and maybe that's the way it should be.
Still, we should be very aware of this fact. We need to be very careful about how seriously we take any information that isn't grounded in any kind of accountability.
There is one more concept I want to go over in this article. This is the idea of the value of a recommendation to buy a particular card.
Consider the following scenario:
Bob Smith writes an article about Hangarback Walker. Bob knows Hangarback is busted. He tells people they should buy it. He's not wrong.
Let's say at the time Bob writes his article, Hangarback is 5 bucks. Hangarback should really be around 10 bucks. (Bear with me here. Using some ideas from economics, there is some price that Hangarback should settle at once the market properly adjusts.)
Joe is the first person to read Bob's article. He buys 50 copies of the card.
The card goes up to $6.
Mary then reads the article and decides to buy 100 copies.
Hangarback goes up to $8.
A bunch more readers buy the card and the price is now up to $12.
The next person that takes Bob's advice is going to lose money!
And the card is still totally busted!
My point is this: timing is everything. You can buy the right card and lose money. So be very careful with specific financial advice.
Most times, if the information is public, it is already too late!
If you are going to profit off of someone else's advice you really need to ask yourself:
1. Why hasn't the person giving me this advice just bought all the copies himself?
2. Why haven't other readers pushed the price up to the correct price?
If you want a sustainable edge in MTG finance, you have to come up with your own ideas. You can't rely on advice from a public source.
Learn to fish! Don't be a fish!
Some food for thought.
-Luca
[[published_at: 11 Feb 2017, 3:00 pm]]
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