I am not going to commit to the frequency of these wonderfully named articles, because I am unsure how often they are needed.  With the new year, and new content coming out of the site, I felt it was important to bring readers up to speed. I have been extremely busy with many projects, and sadly the content here on the site has suffered.  I honestly thought that it didn’t really matter, until I logged back in to my StrictlyAverageMTG email and found about a dozen notes from people wondering where the articles went.

My original concept for this Blog/Site was to post information for users of the Pucatrade.com website; to help spread the positivity that I brought to the table while trading on the platform.  But for a good amount of time last year, I wasn’t positive about the site.  I tried to keep up hope, but really didn’t feel excited about Pucatrade. Your emails and DMs made me realize that readers come here for community and content, and not because of the health of a trading platform. (I will get back to Puca in a few).

Patron-only Discord Community

During my time away from cranking out content, my Patreon was thriving. The Discord chat that I offer as part of the Patron rewards became HUGE; the community is amazing. The group is a healthy community of traders, with our focus more on the community instead of what platform people buy/sell/trade on.  We successfully held a killer Secret Santa internally, with multiple gifts over $150 sent. Last month, I mailed out an Ugin, The Spirit Dragon, Revised Taiga, and an Eternal Masters Mana Crypt to Patrons. I host contests, offers deals in my online store (see below), and other cool benefits for the members. I am in talks with a Gaming Store about providing even more giveaways for patrons and site readers. Chatting throughout the day with the StrictlyAverage family is one of my favorite pastimes.

Back to Pucatrade (as promised)

As of the first of the year my friend Jonathan Medina was named Director of Pucatrade. The original founders stepped down from their day-to-day decision-making roles.  I am excited about Jonathan’s new role, and look forward to seeing him succeed in fixing what some consider a sinking ship.  I will be writing more about this soon. For now I want to let the dust continue to settle from the New Year’s announcement by Mitch, one of the original team members, before I try to analyze the state of the Puca Economy.

Strictly Average Gaming

I am shifting the focus of this year’s content slightly. Contributors will post more varied articles, spanning other interesting topics in gaming in addition to MTG.  I have a few friends working on some board game articles, and others on video game articles. The goal is to diversify our content to appeal to more readers.  I know it’s hard to believe that there is any game other than Magic, but it’s true. Although I believe Magic IS the best game ever created, we all need to dabble in other things to remain balanced.

Pucaminute…erm… GeekyPodCast….erm…. ExoticMTG

One of my earliest and strongest supporters is Marcus (formerly known as PucaMinute and other catchy names). He is now focusing his efforts on his YouTube channel, where he opens some amazingly cool Sealed Product. Due to the fact that PucaMinute Podcast has been defunct for a few months I have removed the archives from the site. However, I am working to incorporate his great videos onto our site.

Strictly Average Podcast

Originally there were discussions of launching a podcast prior to the site.  After numerous attempts to make this be a real thing, I had given up all hope.  I honestly felt that there was only so much Magic content my average self could produce before people got bored. However, I am currently in talks with DaLairBear to collaborate, creating a cast about geeky stuff, with a slant towards our MTG careers.

The Store

I have been working very hard on building up my online store over at TCGPlayer. If you need cards, click that link and check the inventory. That is the easiest and most direct way to help the cause over here (outside of Patreon.) The store is doing well, and we have new product in almost 5 times a week. I am currently outlining methods for creating a BuyList here on the site. This will be coming in the near future. My wife has taken over the majority of the shipping and selling side of the business, allowing me to buy and grade more.  We’ve actually made this her part-time job, so she can stay home with the kiddos.  Although I keep investing in the store, I have arranged it so that for the past 6 months I have not had to touch the family finances for my MTG Habit.

MTG

I am still FNM Heroing each week, with a heavy focus on Modern.  I have been finding much success with the 5c Humans Deck I wrote about a few weeks ago. I am currently acquiring cards for another deck I cannot wait to write about.  Next week I will be covering my take on Mono Blue Turns. Yeah, I am sure you are thinking that it sounds super janky, and it is.  But truth be told Search for Azcanta may very well be the most powerful MTG card printed in a while, and it’s a great way to assemble the pieces needed to play solitaire with yourself while your opponent is mesmerized by the sheer awesomeness that is your deck.

Anyhow, that’s all for now.  I hope you all enjoy your RIX prerelease this weekend.  I know I cannot wait to play MTG until 6 am, and deal with my rowdy home crew when I walk in the door with no sleep.

Yours Averagely,

Strictly

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

-Strict

Shipping bubble mailers international to Canada WITH tracking, withOUT getting overcharged!

So the subject of international shipping has come up, with a few mentioning they can’t ship with tracking internationally for less than $15 US. I’m here to show you how to quickly and easily change that.

To begin, you must have a Paypal account. If you don’t have one, GET ONE.

Next, go here:

This will take you to the Paypal login page. Log in and you should see a popup like this:

This is the easiest place to input your shipping info, starting with the country. Once you fill that out, it should take you to this page:

Notice the service type and package type chosen. These are the reasons why:

According to the USPS description, a large envelope being sent First-Class Internationally may be up to 11.5 inches long, 6.125 inches high, and UP TO ¼ INCH THICK. This covers the majority of any bubble mailer you may send as long as it’s not a large number of cards being sent. And as you can see, the shipping (tracking IS included!) comes to a whopping $2.71 to send to Canada. Fill out your customs slip (make sure the weights match, if you say your package weighs 3oz, you need to say you have 3oz of cards in there. It won’t accept partial ounces as a weight on the individual cards, however. You need to say there is 1 card that weighs 3oz for it to accept, just easier that way.) and complete the payment. You are now able to print your label, and drop it off at the post office in the morning!

-MTG_Phil

Phil is an avid collector of Storm Trooper Winter Hats, has a crush on Smurfette, and is a HUGE fan of Deadpool. His favorite MTG tribal is humans, and Thalia’s Lt is by far one of the most underrated cards in all of MTG. Also, this is what happens when you do not provide the editorial team with an actual Bio yourself.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THE STRICTLY AVERAGE MOVEMENT OR IF YOU WANT TO GET IN ON NEXT MONTHS DRAWING, FEEL FREE TO CHECK OUT OUR PATREON

MTG Phil

You probably received a link to this page because you offered me, or someone like me, a reciprocal trade on PucaTrade.com.There’s been some ambiguity around the word “recip” so I’d like to get us on the same page with two definitions:

Recip — Short for reciprocal trade.This is trading cards for cards. It’s based on a negotiation and the terms agreed upon by all parties.

Return — Short for return send. This is when you check someone’s list and send them a package, after they have committed you a trade on PucaTrade. 

Jonathan_D_Medina

Before we get into the rules, I’d like to share some of the awesome gifts that were sent out during the last Secret Santa event, to highlight how some users will go over the recommended value.  This is encouraged, but not required.

Very simply, things will work like this.  You sign up, you send a killer gift to Kriple.  In that package you will include an envelope with your address on it, and a stamp.  After we collect all the gifts, the list will get randomized, and the gifts sent out.  You will be contacted by one of us with the name of the recipient of your package.  And then hangout on discord and look for the pictures of the cool packages that get received.

How to Participate (read the rules carefully, or I keep your cards and you get NONE… Not kidding, and don’t test me.)

• Sign up Here 
• Contact Beanna, Kriple, or Strictly on Discord to get the address to send cards to.
• Send a card or package of cards with a value of your choice, with at least 1 card worth a minimum of 500 points. Previously some people have sent some ridiculously packed gifts, and I would hate to see them get a pile of foil basic lands. Basically, this is a volunteer run event meant for the benefit of the community, and anyone that tried to game the system, or beat someone out of a gift is merely hurting the other members of the community.
• All cards must be protected with a top loader as minimum protection, more protection at your own discretion – Within the package you will also include a Self Address Stamped-Envelope (US users only for this part)
• For Canadian and other out of country participants, you will be responsible for contacting Kriple to send him PayPal for the cost of a US International Stamp, you still need to send an empty envelope addressed to you.
• Anyone’s package that does not include a self-addressed envelope will be confiscated and fed to Strictly’s Daughter.  Although this would make an amazing video for the site, I highly doubt you would like seeing your gift devoured by my monster.
• If you choose to provide a gift to another user that includes a larger volume of cards (something that is more than you would send in a normal envelope without an extra stamp) please include an extra $.21 stamp.
• If for some crazy reason someone wants to send a killer gift that will not fit in a PWE, contact Strictly and Kriple and work something out for the cost of shipping.
• All Packages to Kriple need to be postmarked by 6/15 and will be shipped on or around 7/15
• If there are any issues or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me on Discord, or join the Community Projects channel on Discord.
• By entering this event, you agree to submit to my final decision on any issues, complaints, gripes, or tough decisions.

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

I must acknowledge that, if you break the PucaTrade Terms of Service, you can purchase PucaPoints from other members. I do not condone this practice. It was clear to me that buying PP from another user would be a bad idea. It would be terrible for one of the most vocal supporters of the service to get his account banned. However, a cursory search did reveal that I could purchase PP at a rate of $.35 per 100 PP. Using this baseline, I set out to discover if it was feasible to purchase cards for cash, and mail them out for PP. (Spoiler .. IT IS!!) Let’s talk about how.

Keep in mind that the values used in this discussion may fluctuate; I can only use the values available at the time of this writing. My goal is not to instruct readers on specific cards to buy and send for points. Instead, I want to illustrate that it is feasible to obtain a good rate on your cash investment when trying to get  PucaPoints. As with most things I discuss, this method will take a little bit of work. In my opinion, however, the payoff is there.

The Promoted Trade Dashboard is available to everyone. All it requires is a little bit of time to crunch numbers. This tool has allowed me to take advantage of up to a 500% bonus. Here’s how it works in a nutshell: I commit to a trade, and then buy the card from TCGPlayer.  I ‘drop ship’ (mail the card directly to the trade recipient) from TCG. This gets the cards to the receiver fast. I reap the benefits of buying low (with cash) and selling high (for PP).

Note, I do not necessarily concern myself with the highest percentage bonuses on the dashboard. Sometimes these can be cheaper cards, and not worth the effort. Instead, I sort the list by Size of Bonus and look for Bonus % of more than 275% or so.

For example, I found that I could get a solid 20,000 pucapoints for a Noble Hierarch.

 I quickly threw these numbers into Excel and started calculating. I could purchase the Hierarch from TCGPlayer for a cost of $63. In return, I’d receive $200 worth of pucapoints. This meant that I’d be spending $31.50 in cash per $100 worth of PP. That’s a better rate of return than the current rate of $35 per $100 ($.35 per 100 PP). I feel that buying PP from other traders no longer makes sense when the Promotion bonus option offers better deals, and is within the TOS.

In other words, if I was to buy the same amount of PP from another player, I’d have to spend $70 cash. Instead, I spent just $63 cash on the Hierarch. This may seem like a small margin. However, if you turn these points around and acquire cards that you need at a lower promotion rate, you are increasing your ‘profits’ without breaking any rules. This exercise requires a knowledge of the cards you want to acquire and understanding what the current promotions are on those cards. If the cards you want are ALSO promoted at 500%, this method probably isn’t for you. 

For the sake of this article, I chose Watery Grave and Koth of the Hammer as the cards I would want to acquire through PucaTrade. Watery Grave from RTR is currently at a base of 1172 pucapoints, and top promotion is 2500 points. Koth of the Hammer is base 1300 points, and promoted at 2500. Full playsets of both of these two cards at their promoted price would cost 20,000 PP. That’s the same amount of Puca Points as the promoted Hierarch. If I was to buy four copies of each of these cards, it would cost me $92.36 in cash from TCGPlayer. Instead, I can feasibly obtain $92.36 in cards for the cost of buying and sending a single $63 card.

The biggest risk with this scenario is that the exact cards that you want may not be sent to you via promotion.  Although this is a risk, I chose two cards that I myself have been sent by random members in the past. I have faith in the system, and I am perfectly comfortable using this method to pad my points. I acknowledge that others with very specific wants may feel differently. The point of this article is not to argue the health of the system. Rather, I want to show that there is more than one avenue to increasing your point total.

If you find yourself in a spot where you have little faith in the system, but want to make it work, feel free to check out some of my very popular PucaTrade articles.

• Have Courage and Be Kind
• Puca Trading–The Strictly Average Method
• Strictly Short – A Want List That Works

Always remember to Give and Let Give

-Strictly

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THE STRICTLY AVERAGE MOVEMENT OR IF YOU WANT TO GET IN ON NEXT MONTHS DRAWING, FEEL FREE TO CHECK OUT OUR PATREON

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

I also want to take a moment to thank my partners in the Patreon who all stuck with me for the Month of March.  They are committed to making this project work and have all kept up the support. In order to thank them, I have changed the structure of the Patreon Prizes for the month of March, and am giving everyone something.  All of my Patrons are entered into winning one of 3 packs of MM17, and the remaining Patrons from March are Receiving a pack of Aether Revolt. I will be posting the drawing later today. I have also added some unlisted benefits to the Patrons that are shared with them in our private Patreon packs, which includes facilitating major card sales on their behalf (allowing them to earn near TCG Mid pricing) and help to acquire hard to find staples for them.

Here are some of the upcoming articles you can expect to see on the site:

• Strictly Learns Modern + Decknology Esper Death Shadow
• Standard: Delerium Isn’t Dead Decknology
• Legacy: Mana Less Dredge Decknology
• Modern Masters 2017 Draft: Losing with the Best Deck in the Pod
• Strictly Theory: Additional Factors When Considering Financial Value
• Strictly Story Time: An Amazing Tale of My 1st Large Event (Last May, but the story is still worth it)
• If you have any topics you would like to see covered, send a note through the Contact Us Page.

-Strictly

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT THE STRICTLY AVERAGE MOVEMENT, FEEL FREE TO CHECK OUT OUR PATREON

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com

This is a FREE tournament, with prizes paid out in Puca Points.  Each ‘season’ the prizes will vary. For the first season, 1st prize will be 2,000 pucapoints and 1 Free Month of Gold Membership to Pucatrade, 2nd will be 1,000 pucapoints and 1 Free Month of Silver Membership to Pucatrade and 3-4 will receive 500pp.

For more details, head on over to your League Page for more information.

Jeremy Beardsley

Jeremy aka “Strictly Average” is an ‘average’ guy with ‘average’ plans. He is the creator and overboss of Strictly Average Gaming, which includes the Patreon group and StrictlyAverageMTG.com

https://strictlyaveragemtg.com