Recently, I found my old Magic: The Gathering card deck that I used to play with. The deck isn't as special as the "usual" tournament decks, but I want to check out how much my deck is worth after all those years of not playing. When I was a kid, I tried to save money so I could buy a few packs. I have bought a lot of old cards from a guy for 25 euros, but I'm pretty sure I probably spend a few hundred Euros on cards. Which isn't a lot for adults, but when I was young, this was a big amount for me.
Of course, I loved the sound of "Black" and "Suicide", having no idea how emo it sounded, but I just loved the art of black and green cards. I just didn't have that many good green cards, and I did happen to have a bunch of strong black cards. So, I made a deck out of them. I thought that when I was looking at the cards, I would remember the combos or something. But I can hardly remember anything.
I thought it would be fun to take some photographs of my cards, so you know exactly what I used to play with if you're interested to know.
The Deck
The last time that I played, I must have played around with cards from my side deck, as Megrim is in my side deck, and there are a bunch of aggro cards in my deck that I usually didn't play with.
List of cards
15x Swamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Yawmoth's Will
3x Nantuko Shade
2x Ivory Tower
2x Unearth
2x Phyrexian Negator
4x Diabolic Edict
1x Chainer's Edict
4x Dark Ritual
4x Funeral Charm
2x Mishra's Factory
1x Strip Mine
4x Hypnotic Specter
1x Necropotence
2x Spinning Darkness
1x Cabal Coffers
3x Duress
1x Nevinyrral's Disk
4x Hymn to Tourach
2x Smother
1x Howling Mine
1x Pox
Deck: Total of 63 cards
Side deck:
1x Pox
3x Megrim
1x Animate Dead
2x Spinning Darkness
1x Swamp
2x Perish
1x Dance of the Dead
1x Unearth
2x Phyrexian War Beast
My favorite art from the cards
I just loved these cards for their art. Combine that with some gameplay, lore, and an opponent to play against, and I can just get really into it. Love it. All black cards are pretty sinister and dark, hence the name "black".
Checking how much my deck is worth
I consulted mtggoldfish.com to check the price for my version of the cards. I have a bunch of old cards, some of them date back to Unlimited and 4th Editions, which is pretty insane if you think. Unlimited editions were released back in 1993, and 4th editions in 1995. These cards have been around almost just as long as me. The prices that are displayed on the website are pretty inaccurate (lol), as every card is in a specific kind of condition (mint, near mint, used, etc.). My cards are pretty used, and some are even damaged.
Anyway, I discovered to my surprise that Yawgmoth's Will is the most expensive card that I have in this deck, it's a little worth over 200 US dollars in mint condition. Demonic Tutor and Necropotence are both around 40 USD. This is quite interesting, as the rest of the 60+ cards are worth about 300 US dollars combined.
500 DOLLARS? Thats 20x my investment!
Reap what you sow: always do the stuff you like doing
Yeah, that's a pretty good conclusion. I had tons of fun playing the game, and from an investment point of view, this netted me money for just holding the cards. Seems I've been training my brain to hold stuff that may increase in value over time. I remember going with my dad to pick up these cards for 25 euros, I was... 14 years old? The guy who sold them to me surely made me a deal I was going to find out about much later.
Have you played or do you play Magic: The Gathering?
I have a feeling a bunch of you on Hive play or have played Magic: The Gathering. I used to play a lot with red, and green as well, but never as much as I did with black.
Cheers,
Ruben