Peeling back the foil around your gleaming new booster pack of Lorwyn just purchased from the local card shop you catch a glimpse of your own reflection in the wrapping.  Your face reads a mix of both anticipation and hope.  The 15 cards are held in a tight stack in the palm of your hand so you can slowly reveal each card to yourself one by one as you always do.  But not this time.  You’ve opened too many packs of Lorwyn to care about the commons and uncommons.  This time you go straight to the rare card in the back.  Slowly revealing the single card to yourself, a small patch of foily blue pokes out from under the 14 other cards above it.  Every possible blue Lorwyn rare flashes through your mind.  Could it be a Sower of Temptation?  A Scion of Oona?  You’ve revealed the card enough to see the casting cost and you already know what you’re looking at.

The moment any CCG player hopes for.

Quite possibly the best blue instant since counterspell.  Now fully revealed, a foil Cryptic Command beams back at you and even though you know precisely what it does you read the entire card again to make sure it is indeed the powerhouse all wizards agree that it is.  Of course, it reads the same as it always has and reality begins to set in.  You are not only holding a game shattering Magic: the Gathering card, you are also holding a small fortune in your lucky little hands.

I would hope that each and every Magic the Gathering buyer has had the chance to live this experience.  Opening a booster pack and nabbing a great card is one of the best feelings in the entire CCG experience.  You feel like a winner.  But how do you get the most out of these lucky draws?  Do you keep the card for your own decks or do you cash in on an easy $30 profit?  On the one hand, a standard blue deck could be taken to the next level with two or three Cryptic Commands.  On the other you could sell the card and use the money to purchase at least 10 more packs of Magic cards or a stack of rares you’ve been wanting playsets of on eBay.  Neither of these choices are wrong.  The trick is figuring out which is right for you.  Here are some things to consider when you find yourself in the envious position of pulling a fantastically valuable (in more ways than one) card.

Firstly, you need to examine your own situation.  Lets start by assuming that you (like me) are not independently wealthy and spend less than $30 average on Magic cards per month.  Are you a tournament player and would need to purchase this card at some point anyway or do you mostly play casually with friends?  If you’re playing top tier decks in tournaments and enjoy winning, I would consider keeping a card like cryptic command as it will be legal in all formats for quite some time.  If you’re more of a casual player I’d consider swapping it out on an online auction site for a huge stack of new and interesting rares.  $30 can buy you a great new deck to share with your buddies.  While you might not be winning any standard tournaments with it, you’ll get more out of the $30 with an entire deck than you will with a foil Cryptic Command.

Secondly, take into account the set in which the card came from.  Cards inevitably lose value as time goes by because they are no longer playable in the most popular format, standard, which only includes the last 2 blocks and the latest core set.  For example, a card in 10th edition, as of this writing may not be legal by the end of this year as 11th edition is set to be released around that time. That card may not be reprinted in the new core set.  As we get closer to that day, premium cards in 10th will lose value.  There is also the fact that cards, when they first come out, tend to be worth much more as players scramble to be the first to own them.  I recall planeswalkers in Lorwyn and Alara going for $20-$30 soon after their release but can now be found for under the price of a booster pack.  So consider the cards current value and usually assume that it will go down with time.  You may have snagged that hot, new card of the day and can sell it now only to purchase three at a later date once the hype has worn off.

Also, the card being foil automatically adds monetary value to the card.  You could conceivably sell a foil copy of one card and get two of the same non-foil if you’re looking to complete that playset.

Unless this is you, consider selling extremely valuable cards that you may not need or want.

Lastly, you should consider your own wants and needs.  Are you the type of player who has a great time with some of these unique cards that just happen to be worth a lot of money?   Often times these expensive cards are not only powerful in standard tournaments but are wonderfluy fun cards to summon in a casual game.  Don’t let the fact that you’re shuffling a $15 card around soil the enjoyment that card brings to a game.  I do think that many times a casual player would have been better off selling that Mutavault for $25 and bolstering the rest of their collection with the profits.  But oftentimes I think people sell some of their most fun cards for a quick buck and miss out on a ton of fun.  Just be sure to consider your own wants and needs before you decide to sell or hold on to a card.

Like this article? Try these:

1. Three Up and Three Down – Magic 2010
2. Let’s Open a Booster – Zendikar
3. Let’s Open a Booster – Conflux
4. The Tricks of Trading
5. Chosen One – The Magic of a Single Card