How To Buy Singles On Mtgo
Hey y'all. I recently came back to playing Magic a couple years ago. I use to have a group I played with in person, but in the last year COVID and life have put a hold on that. I downloaded MTGO the other night and I'm trying to build some EDH decks. Is there a way to buy specific cards or singles on this platform? I noticed there's a trade option, but I'm brand new and don't have much to offer for trade. Any tips or suggestions are welcome. Thanks y'all!
how to buy singles on mtgo
I wanted to address one last thing while we are on the topic of redemption, the myth that "you should just buy singles." This myth is one of the big arguments people bring up against using redemption to acquire cards. Now to be fair this is a complicated topic because what avenue is right for you depends almost entirely on what your goals are. What if you only want the cards that matter?
One of the criticisms of buying complete sets is that you end up with a ton of cards that are unplayable. I mean, when you buy a complete set, you are getting every horrible Common with all the cards you really want, Mythics and some of the Rares. If you only want a single card, or a couple cards from a set, you're likely going to be better off buying singles. There's not much sense in spending $127.50 to redeem a set of Shadows over Innistrad if all you want is a copy of Arlinn Kord for your Werewolf Commander deck. On the other hand, if you are looking to own all the playable cards in a set, you're still generally better off redeeming.
Fate Reforged is amazingly cheap to redeem: $46.50 including the redemption tax. On the other hand, one of the reasons the set is so cheap is because it doesn't contain very many desirable cards, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Monastery Mentor are about it. So let's imagine that these are the only two cards you want from Fate Reforged. Option A is to buy the cards as singles, which will set you back $46 at retail prices. Option B is to pay an extra $0.50 and get an entire set of Fate Reforged. If you choose Option B, you can immediately buylist all the cards you don't want for $21, which brings your total cost of getting an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Monastery Mentor down to $25, significantly below their combined buylist price of $32!
There's one other way of looking at redemption. Start at the top of the set, with the most expensive cards, and simply work your way down the list to see how far you have to go until you get to the point where redeeming a set is cheaper than buying singles. I already use the example of Arlinn Kord, and how if you only want one card from a set you're better off buying singles, but how many cards from a set must you "want" before redemption becomes the best option?
As you can see, the break even point varies quite a bit from set to set, depending on how the value of the set breaks down. If you want more than 10 cards from a set (on average), you're better off redeeming a set than you are buying singles. While 10 cards each set might seem like a lot, if you look at the "free" cards from each set, you'll see there are a ton of playable cards on the list. Magic Origins is particularly insane value, since Standard staples like Languish, Hangarback Walker, and Dark Petition (all in the $8 range) fall after the break even point, and this isn't even counting a bunch of $5 cards like Knight of White Orchid and Abbot of Keral Keep.This list doesn't even take into consideration the possibility of buylisting cards you don't want.
At this point Magic Online still supports a popular redemption program that allows players and vendors to collect entire sets of Magic cards in either non-foil or foil and redeem them through the MTGO store to receive a sealed paper set of the same cards. There is currently a $25 redemption handling fee per set redeemed + $2.99 US domestic shipping fee for each order, regardless of the number of sets redeemed. Whenever a set is redeemed in this way, the digital assets involved are effectively taken out of circulation, while additional inventory is added to the paper market. Traditionally this has led to a couple of important trends: paper vendors resupplying key Standard staples more reliably than through booster box cracking via the acquisition of sealed sets AND the gradual collapse of MTGO singles prices once sets rotate out of the redemption window.
The fact that you need sealed product to participate in these online tournaments makes boosters inherently more valuable than they would be if you could only rip them open for cards. They are like entry tickets, in addition to the event tickets you need to participate. As soon as you open that booster pack, you lose this virtual value and rely on the singles within the booster to recoup the cost. In 95% of the cases, the singles in the booster pack are worth LESS than what you had to pay for it. Do not fall for fantastic stories from players about how they always open great stuff and that the difference is marginal; it is not. So what should you do if you need cards to grow your collection, then? You should sell the boosters for between 3 and 4 event tickets and use those tix to buy specific cards you need and like. You can buy up to 10 nice, playable rares (no tournament powerhouses, mind you) for a single event ticket or around 30 good commons/uncommons. Even if you are not chasing the most desired cards, this is much more than you will get from your booster pack. To inform yourself about what a booster is worth, feel free to check the classifieds section in game or go to
Many beginners make the mistake of buying too many singles. They pick a few cards they need and repeat the process over and over until they have a deck together that they like. The problem with this approach, if you have very few cards, is that as soon as you are bored of the deck, or simply want to try something else, you are forced to buy singles again. This can be very costly and in most cases, you are far better off buying in bulk. What that means is that you should buy a lot of cards at once and get a huge discount on the price. Often you can get hundreds of cards for very little money and can use the cards to build many different decks over time. There are several ways to go about this; one of the most popular ones are the Beginner Specials on
Magic Online is a client that allows us to play the game - Magic: The Gathering - online. We can look at it as a simulation of the paper game in a digital world. With that Magic Online also brings an economy that it shares similarities with the paper game. We have to understand that there is a secondary market. In paper, we buy our singles from online or brick and mortar stores, but also from other players. On Magic Online, we also have the possibility to buy singles from online stores or players. During our trades most of the time we won't be dealing with an actual person (referred as human) but computer scripts that operate Magic Online user account (bots).
New players or those that don't have much time to trade and want to play constructed usually want to buy a whole deck at once. That can be easily done in a very short time. The downside? It costs a little bit more money. There are different stores online that you can use which usually means that you go to their site, order what you want and pay with either cash, paypal or tickets in client. Each store is done differently so payment methods and delivery may differ. The most used are MTGOTraders.com, Cardhoarder.com and Goatbots.com but there are others as well (for example dojotradebots.com, mtgoacademy.com). Both Cardhoarder and MTGOTraders allow you to load a decklist and buy the whole deck right away. All you need to do is fill your credentials and pay. This can be done either via their own respective sites or via MTGGoldfish. If you go to MTGGoldfish you will notice that each decklist shows 'Buy from ...'. The first two are for paper cards and Cardhoarder and MTGOTraders are for digital ones. If you click on the respective store will fill your cart with the items as it see fit (usually first available lowest price version of a card). If you want cards from a specific set (or foil) you can create a decklist in Magic Online with the exact cards you want and export the deck in the native format (.dek). This you can upload to either MTGOTraders or Cardhoarder site and buy it, it will put the correct versions in your cart. After you submit your order, you will get a message from one of their delivery bots. You trade the bot and take your items.
Complete Sets and redemptionI'd like to mention one more thing. Through Magic Online we are able to redeem a full digital set and get it in paper. This is something that can be lucrative for those that know when to redeem and when to buy the cards. The quantity of redeemed sets can also play a role because you will be paying for shipping and tax (declared value is 75 USD) and also a redemption fee which is now 25 USD per set. Complete sets can be won at events, bought from bots selling them (search for 'complete', dojotradebots have a dedicated bot for sets for example) or collected by playing or buying singles. For players that trade with both digital product and paper product this can be a good way to get hands on paper cards relatively cheaply - cheaper than buying boxes/cases for end user price and cracking them open. Note that only regular sets can be redeemed and there is a certain period for redemption (if the period is ending and you still have a set on your account you should sell it).
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