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Oct 7, 2012 -- 8:12PM, Anon_Eon wrote:

The next bit is some folks DO buy 3 booster boxes and then trade or resell anything of value to get the cards they are interested in and while the inital investment is fairly costly you do tend to get the cards you want. This can get fairly expencive quickly especially if a set overall has verly little in it to play other than a few specific cards.

Honestly, buying a couple of booster boxes over the next month or so is probably possible for me.  It's just a matter of justification of cost or return on investment... let me explain.  The only way I could justify it is to hope that I got more than one of each of the worthwhile cards in the set.  But, of the 274 cards in RTR, very few are worth more than a a few dollars... maybe 10 or so.  Per TCGPlayer.com, the average value of the full RTR set right now is $381.84 or $1.39 per card.  And at least five of those cards that are really helping to push the value up are dual color lands.  If RTR actually had enough cards that were worth something that people and card shops would take them in trade (for a decent amount of credit), then buying boxes would be the way to go with this set.  Unfortunately, with RTR... five dual color lands, the two planeswalkers, and only a few other cards are worth more than about $3 (which really doesn't turn into good trade value).  Most are valued at WELL under $1 (even the Rares and Mythic Rares).  Granted, M13 isn't worth what it used to be, but about this time during M13's lifecycle, it had more cards that were actually worth something in trade.

Oct 7, 2012 -- 8:12PM, Anon_Eon wrote:

The best for a single player is to just buy/trade singles of the cards that you need. Why bother busting booster or buying a box when you dont care for anything other than specific cards, as long as you have the money. Also you dont HAVE to buy them all now. Especially when a new set releases you can wait a few weeks for the buy it now timmys to get it out of their system and for the new shiney to wear off and afford the single you want when you think you can get them.

That is actually extremely good advice.  The only problem is that it seems most of the people at the store I play at are already playing decks centered around RTR cards.  While my Exalted can still hold its own on occasion, the lack of kill spells especially is causing me to lose games I formerly would have won.  So, to really be able to compete at all (even in friendly games between matches), I've got to get my deck revamped with RTR cards.  I've posted a thread about swapping out some cards to replace the kill spells that rolled out in my Exalted deck.  Just want to really make sure Exalted is still viable before I go and spend the large sum of money to get the Isolated Chapel s, Blood Crypt s, Dreadbore s, and Ultimate Price s I need to replace Go for the Throat and Doom Blade .

Oct 7, 2012 -- 8:12PM, Anon_Eon wrote:

Lastly to the play group pressuring you to not play or only to play certain ways.....I say screw'em. Play what you want and what YOU will have fun playing. If for no other reason that if you decide to play a upper teir or deck they feel like they dont want to play against a deck like that, well its not your fault that you find fun playing a deck that can stomp theirs while they only bring garbage (sounding like catowner...yeesh) If they dont want to play competatively that fine, and sadly playing against them probably wont raise your game much, but they SHOULD NOT bring you down just cause the herd says so. If that still is a issue then if possible find another store.

Here's the thing.  The store I play it is the perfect atmosphere.  It's extremely laid back and casual yet we still do play in store tournaments (like FNM).  For me, MTG isn't about winning.  I mean, I'd like to win a few games... maybe two or three matches out of five, but I'm not looking to play to come in first each week.  I have tried so many things in the past to help me unwind and just be able to relax after a really tough week at work and possibly even a tough weekend coming up.  Nothing worked until I started playing MTG seriously (rather than just on and off on MTGO) at FNM.  The friends and people I've met there mean just as much to me as playing the game does.  Just a very relaxing atmosphere where we can all have fun rather than trying to win.  Yes, we do have one regional tournament caliber player that very recently joined us after he got sick of his old store.  But, he's also one of the nicest guys you'll meet.  He's willing to help out in any way he can and explain anything that someone doesn't quite understand. 

So making enemies because of my deck is something I'm willing to stay away from to be able to play with this group of guys/girls.  A tournament level Aggro/Burn deck would probably win against most of the people I play against... but I'd probably end up making a lot of enemies pretty quickly.  There are two more stores that play a lot of MTG.  One I really know nothing about.  The other is a place where players are playing only to win... not to have fun.  And they are only having fun if they are winning.  And that kind of atmosphere is one I want to stay far, far away from.

SG