JMatthew’s Guide to Trading Duel Masters
Valid as of April 15^th, 2006

 

The world of trading cards can be a sticky one. A great deal of reasoning and negotiation goes into nearly any trade and more often than not you may find yourself needing to pass on a trade. The following is a guideline for trading. Note the word guideline – depending of the cards you need and want value and tradability may vary at certain times. Still, I’ve had over a decade worth of experience with trading and have fallen into nearly every single pitfall out there. Take or leave these suggestions as you like. If you believe this to be a good guide I suggest you print out a copy and be sure to take it with you when you go trading to use as a reference.

*I will attempt to update this around the 1^st of each month (starting September 1^st, 2005). You should not expect any suggested values for new sets until they have been released for at least a month as the market tends to spike and drop to much and to quickly on new sets.

**Note that these trade values are just that – trade values. While these cards may be ‘worth’ a certain amount of money you should not expect to turn around any cards for instant cash at these values. True, you may witness stores selling cards at similar prices, however you must understand that much more goes into running a store and often some of these cards will sit for months or longer until someone comes along and is willing to purchase a card at certain price.

Types of Trading

Trading for a Collection

By nature, a collectible card game is…well…collectible! For some people this is one of the more interesting aspects. The idea of owning one of every card possible really gets them going. If you are trading to collect you must remember one thing, though. Some cards you are going to be forced to trade for just aren’t going to be worth what you trade for them. Be patient and negotiate your trades well and you should be able to get pretty close. Patience is the game when it comes to any good trading.

Trading for Decks

Unlike trading for a collection, when you are trading for a deck you will be forced to obtain more than one of the card you need. This can also be rather costly, especially when you get into some of the more popular and expensive cards! Because of this, I recommend that before you begin trading to build this new deck that you test your build either by using proxies or through some online means (such as DM Civilizations). This will allow you to tweak the deck and perhaps you won’t have to trade your entire collection just to get that fourth Bolmeteus Steel Dragon only to find that your would have been better off only having three!

Trading to Establish Connections

Sometimes you will run into traders who really need a certain cards, yet they do not have any cards that you need. This is where you have the opportunity to do this person a favor that they may return the future! While, perhaps, they don’t have anything you really need or want they may have a card that would be equal to that card, allowing you to not really loose any of your trade stock in the deal. If you establish a trading environment where traders only trade for what they need you will quickly find it much more difficult to locate the trades you require when you need them.

Etiquette of Trading

Jumping Trades

There is nothing more unfair than someone jumping in on a trade. Basically, this is when you are conducting a trade with someone and then another individual who is not part of the trade jumps in and counters your offer. For example, Jane offers Johnny two Crystal Paladins for his Ballom.  Johnny is considering the offer when Clyde walks up and says, “ I’d give you three Crystal Paladins.” This quickly creates a hostile trading environment.

My own policy in relation to people who jump trades is that I never trade with them – ever. And I make sure they know that I will not be trading with them in the future right there on the spot. This does not have to be done in a hostile fashion, rather simply, matter-of-factly state, “I really don’t like the way you trade I don’t believe we will be trading in the future.”

Trade Auctioning               

This type of trading used to be pretty normal practice on many websites, though much of it has fallen to the wayside. In person, this is just plain tacky. When I offer someone a deal and they pull out of it saying, “I’m going to see what else people are willing to give me for it today and then maybe I’ll do the trade” I immediately close the door on the trade. Once again, this type of trading tends to create a hostile trade environment which is something you do not want.

Ask Before You Take

This applies in two cases. An easy way to start a trade is to simply take cards out of the other persons binder so you can show them what you are interested in – especially if a number of cards are involved. You should always asked the other person if this is okay before you proceed with this sort of action. Also, be sure to try to put back any cards you don’t trade for as best as you can.

Secondly, confirm any trade you do before you take the cards. This can work to your advantage both ways. If you misunderstood and under-traded an honest person may correct you and give you the correct cards (I had this happen not to long ago – a person I was trading with thought I was giving them 1x Splinterclaw Wasp for Ballom – I was, in fact, giving him 3x Splinterwasp). Also, you may be accidentally stealing some cards that other person did not intend make part of the trade deal which could lead more trouble than you want to deal with. 

Trading Commons

When someone asks you for a common and you demand a trade for it you look nothing less than pathetic. While every card technically has a value you are best off keeping the commons you need and then helping out your fellow Duel Masters players with your extra commons – and they should do the same. If a large stack of commons is involved you may want to work out some sort of trade, but be nice – don’t bother to negotiate this to high. And yes, I practice what I preach – to the extent that I once sent a player I met via Pojo.com cards through the mail and asking nothing in return.  Note: even richer players should consider this for uncommons also.

In the case of few commons there maybe an exception to this rule – basically ones that everyone ends using and thus they possess a real value. These cards I’ve listed in the price guide as having an above normal value.

Value

Most cards of more common rarity possess relatively the same value. A few cards tend to be worth a little more than others based upon sheer popularity. Any cards of common, uncommon or rare rarity which are not listed possess a value right around the following…

Commons  $0.10
Uncommons $0.25
Rares $1.00 

Tradablity

How easily a card is to trade away in the average trading market. This tells you which cards you have to be careful with as people are more often scouting for High and Godly cards to rip people off of. However, you can normally use these same cards to get whatever you might want.

Poor

Poor cards are cards which will normally sit in your binder nearly forever. They are very difficult to trade away and you should likely get rid of them at the first opportunity.

Fair

While these cards are not completely abysmal, they may take some time and effort to trade away. Most often players who are building unusual decks maybe looking for some of these cards and you will be able to take the opportunity to trade them away at that time.

Good

These cards won’t be flying out of your binder quicker than you can take time to appreciate them, however they tend to be popular enough that you can begin getting into some serious negotiations over them.

High

High cards are cards that nearly any person you trade with will be looking for. These are cards you should not trade lightly – use them to help negotiate those trades for cards you really want.

Godly

These are cards that only a fool would not take off your hands if they were offered to them. They are in extremely high demand and if you are to stand in the middle of a room and say you have one of these cards for trade I can pretty much guarantee that you will have traders lined up and ready to negotiate with you. If you are willing to part with one of these cards you can get pretty much obtain whatever you want in trade.

Card

Rarity

Value

Tradability

Base

Aqua Sniper	Super Rare	$6.50	Fair ­
Astrocomet Dragon	Super Rare	$9.00­	Fair
Deathblade Beetle	Super Rare	$2.00	Poor
Deathliger, Lion of Chaos	Super Rare	$9.00	Fair
Hanusa, Radiance Elemental	Super Rare	$6.00	Good
King Depthcon	Super Rare	$2.00	Poor
Roaring Great Horn	Super Rare	$3.00	Fair
Scarlet Skyterror	Super Rare	$7.00	Good
Urth, Purifying Elemental	Super Rare	$5.00	Good
Zagaan, Knight of Darkness	Super Rare	$4.00	Fair
Bolshack Dragon	Very Rare	$15.00­ -$5.00	Good ¯
Gatling Skyterror	Very Rare	$9.00	Good ­
Gigaron	Very Rare	$2.00	Good ­
Gran Gure, Space Gaurdian	Very Rare	$3.00	Fair
King Ripped-Hide	Very Rare	$3.00	Good ­
Rayla, Truth Enforcer	Very Rare	$1.50	Poor
Seamine	Very Rare	$1.50	Poor
Thorny Mandra	Very Rare	$1.50	Poor
Tower Shell	Very Rare	$1.50	Poor
Vampire Silphy	Very Rare	$3.00	Fair
Crystal Memory	Rare	$1.50	Fair
Natural Snare	Rare	$2.50	Good
Teleportation	Rare	$1.50	Good
Terror Pit	Rare	$4.50	High
Illusionary Merfolk	Uncommon	$.50 -$.50	Good ¯
Tornado Flame	Uncommon	$0.50	Good
Aqua Hulcus	Common	$0.25	Good
Bronze-Arm Tribe	Common	$0.25	Fair
Crimson Hammer	Common	$0.25	Fair
Deadly Fighter Braid Claw	Common	$0.25	Good
Death Smoke	Common	$0.15	Good
Ghost Touch	Common	$0.25	Good
La Ura Giga, Sky Gaurdian	Common	$0.25	Fair
Sentatine Jade Tree	Common	$0.25	Fair
Spiral Gate	Common	$0.25	Good

Evocrushinators of Doom

Armored Blaster Valdios	Super Rare	$8.00 -$2.00	High
Crystal Paladin	Super Rare	$9.00­	High
Fighter Dual Fang	Super Rare	$8.00­	Good
Ladia Bale, the Inspirational	Super Rare	$5.00	Poor
Ultracide Worm	Super Rare	$3.00 -$3.00	Fair
Bolzard Dragon	Very Rare	$6.00­	Good ­
Dark Titan Maginn	Very Rare	$1.50 -$1.00	Poor
Ethel Sea Star Elemental	Very Rare	$2.00	Poor
Plasma Chaser	Very Rare	$2.00	Poor
Xeno Mantis	Very Rare	$2.00	Poor
Elf-X	Rare	$1.00 -$1.00	Fair
Rumbling Terahorn	Rare	$2.00 +$0.50	Good ­
Barkwhip, the Smasher	Uncommon	$0.50	Good
Burst Shot	Uncommon	$0.75	High
Chaos Worm	Uncommon	$0.35	Fair
Crystal Lancer	Uncommon	$0.75	High
Diamond Cutter	Uncommon	$0.50	Good
Lost Soul	Uncommon	$0.75	Good
Corile	Common	$0.25	Fair
Critical Blade	Common	$0.25	Fair
Horrid Worm	Common	$0.25	Fair
Magris, Vizer of Magnetism	Common	$0.25	Good
Marrow Ooze, the Twister	Common	$0.10 -$0.15	Good

Rampage of the Superwarriors

Chaos Fish	Super Rare	$3.00	Poor
Earthstomp Giant	Super Rare	$5.00	Fair
Garkago Dragon	Super Rare	$10.00 -$5.00­	High
Giriel, Ghastly Warrior	Super Rare	$4.00	Fair
Miar, Comet Elemental	Super Rare	$9.00	Fair ­
Gigamantis