To me the most fascinating thing about the "game" of card trading is various psychologies inherent in the dance that is negotiation between actual human beings over a digital object of desire.
Understanding what drives the other person across the table from you has always been the key and trying to figure out that other player is in my book what makes these games so fun. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it can be maddening. It all starts with the ad. You learn some things in the best cases that can speed you along to your destination. “Have X for trade-Looking for Y.” These are the easiest trades to make and for most folks they are the bread and butter type of trades they look for and tend to ignore the other less tangible ads. Most real players that are working it hard to make every lucky pull worth even more are playing a game that hinges on uncertainly. You’ve seen it on hot drops, a flat statement that only tells you one side of the story and leaves it to you to fill in the blanks on your side. “Trading this” is all it takes to send you over to send an offer that in many cases crashes on the stony cliffs of the other’s sometimes unrealistic hopes. Now obviously the vague “Trading this….” Is a come on and in most cases it’s laid in hopes of landing a nice overpay, especially in the first hour frenzy of a drop. So it’s up to you really. If you got lucky over the weekend and landed two of the new WV in 3 packs should you get super precious about the perceived value of it based on odds really? Why not spend your luck and slap it down for what is still basically beating the odds on a 1:10? Some traders are just insane and frankly quite a few are straight up assholes. You know the dimwit that posts “Trading this for Reflections!” on Star Wars or “Trading this for Brady needs!” on Huddle. For everything. There seems to be an army of these doofuses (doofi?) for one simple reason. Once in a 100 times this actually works. Those are the fringe cases, the dude looking for the moderate overpay and the a-hole hoping you’ll make him a scratch-off hillbilly millionaire. Neither one is particularly fun but it is what it is, takes all kinds etc… In the happy middle are folks who don’t really know what they want but they are hoping for an offer that will make them hit accept. As a smart trader, if you have a lot of different things to offer there’s an opportunity to get that hot new thing you need and make them happy too. Before you send an offer, take a few minutes and look at their collection. Are they an obvious Boba Fett freak? On Huddle, look at their profile and see what their favorite team is. Do you have anything in that category of stuff, similar count or odds that they need? It might have been some random tossed in kicker you got two months ago that suddenly is the key to both parties feeling great about the deal they got! Maybe they have a several of a set you gave up on and throwing a bunch of those not only helps them along but erases the stank of ever starting with it out of your stack. Stack Stank. The struggle is real. I have a pile of the Droids marathon cards in my SWCT I’d happily trade 9 of for just one decent card just to be rid of them. Creatures too. Huddle is lousy with people still trying to cull out all those Bowman cards they wish they hadn’t dumped all their offseason credits on. One man’s garbage might be another’s gold. Well, not Bowman. This comes back around (circuitously I admit) to crosstrading which has exploded in popularity and recently commented in an interview that it was more popular than Jesus Christ much to the consternation of Middle America. A lot of people have gotten really strict about the "cost of daily credits between apps" argument on value and it is a point to consider but shouldn’t be the end all be all. Thing is, even within apps people are always looking for an advantage. Take 1 leave two on big hurry up sets or leave one more than you take 3:4-8:9 are pretty standard stuff. So I'd say considering relative daily value is fine as a starting point but if you say that you're only going to trade in exact 1:1 situations then you are likely to not have as easy a time as you might. X trading is tough enough without placing a hidebound stricture on yourself that others might be less willing to go along with. Free credits and lucky pulls are tools to aid your collection in the app you care most about. Getting all precious about those cards is to my mind kind of silly. It's like the old vagrant they find dead with thousands of dollars in their pockets unspent. They could have lived in comfort if they'd spent the money instead of using it to line their coat. On a related note, Rest in Peace uncle Charlie. You old Vagrant. Thanks for the coat.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Gregg Keefer
|