Strategies for trading and negotiating in general - Part 3

Next, I want to talk about the "throw in" guy. When I was younger, I traded often as my funds were very limited and it was hard for me to acquire new cards by means other than trading. I found that there were some people who would trade fairly and some that wouldn't.

The most unfair deals ended up being with the people who would say things like, "That's almost fair, can you just throw in some stuff?" Ultimately it ended up with both of us "throwing in" several inexpensive cards worth very little.

What I realized they were doing was getting incremental advantage by choosing my "throw ins" that were of higher value than theirs. By the end, they had a much better deal. As soon as I realized this, I found that when I would take the value of my "throw ins" they exceeded the value of a "good" card that I wanted from the other person. When I suggested them keeping their throw ins for another good card, they said no. This was to ensure they got a good card for another good card and ended better than they started.

My advice is to avoid throw ins at all costs. If you have to trade more than one card for a card, you're trading up, that's good a lot of the time, but when you both have lists of cards it tends to be less good of a deal. If your trade with someone and they insist on "throw ins" I recommend not trading with them. There are a lot of people to trade with especially on Magic Online, you'll certainly find someone who doesn't need "throw ins".