By Zach Sharrai
Hello everyone, today I'll be giving my insight on the game state of the format, why certain decks work, why players are starting to play consistent, and why opening a "4 or 5" turn hand can win you the game.
To begin, this is realistically the first format where the skill of the player affects over 60-70% of who will win the game. This being said I will also state that there will always be sacky decks like burn or stall that lesser players will choose to get an easy win with. This of course takes 10-20% of the other percentage. Nowadays players are becoming a lot smarter with knowing how to get synergy with any deck, and with that I feel the last 10% is due to "bad hands".
My next point is the most important. The players. WE have seen many pros come and go but this is really a good time in yugioh where we actually have "pros". Not just kids with money who buy DAD decks and win at locals because no one else can afford it. WE have seen the same players top over the past year or so whom in my opinion have become the "celebrities" to the world of yugioh. Player like the great Billly Brake and Robert Boyaijin are consistent toppers along with Joe Giorlando and Simon He (not to mention the rise of the ARG empire). I see the struggles in the game because of the amount of skill it can take- just goes to shows how hard these guys work. End result: Studying, playtesting and mental toughness are 3 keys to success in this game.
On to my next point, I am starting to see that ANY deck can win, yes that means that Watts, GK, Sabers, ALL have ways that they can win. Hence why I believe this is a player format. Now do I think there is a best deck? No in my opinion there is not a Tier-0 deck nor do I think there will be for a while. With that being said I do feel that Merlanteans is the deck to play if you want the most success. Reason being is because the deck has everything it could possibly need regarding back row destruction, field presence, conservative or slow play and a little draw power. Due to the fact that this is a mostly monster deck makes it a lot easier to know how to play around indecent hands. Decks like Inzektors and Geargia can give you strange hands and confuse the player on how to approach the situation (I.E. decks with consistent hands win games). I am not disregarding Inzektors as I want to build them as well, I just feel that it was fantastic meta call (and the rise of Threatening Roar has begun).
Lastly, going back to the consistency matter of Yu-Gi-Oh! Decks that open hands like that win because they can predict turns into the future. Not saying Yu-Gi-Oh! players are psychic but we study decks enough to know what to expect most of the time. For example I am currently piloting Chaos Dragons. I open up with a Ryko, Trag, Lyla,Light Pulsar, P.O.A. and Veiler. I can set Ryko save my veiler have Lyla next turn etc. The reason this win games is because myself as a player was taught to try and foresee what a player will do and outplay him. This once again all falls back on the consistency of designing your deck to draw well enough hands to get that situation. Because it is then that you get to use skill over luck. And no offense but I'll take skill over luck any day...
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
My YCS Re-Cap
Better late than never, right? :)
I had wanted to do this a long time ago, but after YCS I was pretty much behind on all my homework and with the holiday coming up I really just didn't have any time.
I won't be going over all my matches or anything like that, I went 4-3 drop losing Round 1 to Geargia who had Armor+3 or 4 backrow opening plays, Round 6 to Heroes that sided into Wind-Ups; in Game 3 - totally blew me by surprise as I had anti-Hero stuff sided in, and he goes Rabbit+Factory, then proceeds to Magician-Shark me ftw. Then in Round 7 lost to Chain Burn, just don't have anything sided for that match-up besides a pair of Dust Tornadoes :/
All in all it was a fun event though, our hotel was sick and Danny met a lot of pros and got to chat it up with them. I met LFN, who's a very cool guy. Besides that, my binder went through Weight-Watchers (ie the vendors) and I got to sell a lot of stuff off. Even though I know basically everything is really under-cut, I didn't really care because a lot of that stuff was just stuff that sat in my binder for many many months.
I think the best thing that came out of this event for us was motivation to go to YCS' across the country. After thinking about it, it's entirely possible to do even in my situation so I'm fairly sure that once the stateside YCS' are announced for the coming year, we will be making plans to go to as many as we can.
I had wanted to do this a long time ago, but after YCS I was pretty much behind on all my homework and with the holiday coming up I really just didn't have any time.
I won't be going over all my matches or anything like that, I went 4-3 drop losing Round 1 to Geargia who had Armor+3 or 4 backrow opening plays, Round 6 to Heroes that sided into Wind-Ups; in Game 3 - totally blew me by surprise as I had anti-Hero stuff sided in, and he goes Rabbit+Factory, then proceeds to Magician-Shark me ftw. Then in Round 7 lost to Chain Burn, just don't have anything sided for that match-up besides a pair of Dust Tornadoes :/
All in all it was a fun event though, our hotel was sick and Danny met a lot of pros and got to chat it up with them. I met LFN, who's a very cool guy. Besides that, my binder went through Weight-Watchers (ie the vendors) and I got to sell a lot of stuff off. Even though I know basically everything is really under-cut, I didn't really care because a lot of that stuff was just stuff that sat in my binder for many many months.
I think the best thing that came out of this event for us was motivation to go to YCS' across the country. After thinking about it, it's entirely possible to do even in my situation so I'm fairly sure that once the stateside YCS' are announced for the coming year, we will be making plans to go to as many as we can.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
YCS-Bound
The time has finally come, and tomorrow we will be traveling to the first YCS of the northwest. The last major we had was 4 years ago with SJC Seattle, and I'm guessing the next one we have will be another 4 years from now lol. I would love to be able to travel to participate in more events like these, unfortunately my situation doesn't allow me to, and the financial returns even if I performed very well, consecutively, doesn't warrant it in my opinion. This event will be so important for me because who knows where I will be 4 years from now or if the game will even still be around by then. Not only speaking on my performance, but being able to go in with my team and doing our best to tear it up; this will be a momentous event.
Good luck to all participating!
Good luck to all participating!
Monday, November 5, 2012
The Doldrums
Doldrums [dohl-druhmz]
noun
1. a state of inactivity or stagnation
2. a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits
So over the past few weeks it seems that there has been a big divide in the community - half seem to be taking a break or quitting for what ever reason, and the other are still going at it and enjoying the relatively balanced format. I find myself in both places; when it comes to blogging about Yugioh, I find it hard to talk about anything new or what's been going on in the meta, because it feels like not much has been going on. This almost seems contradictory since our newest set was just released. I've noticed this happen among fellow bloggers and various YouTubers. Perhaps Kris Perovic's article put things into perspective for people, with the self-understanding that things probably won't change on Konami's part. On the other side of things, as I prep for YCS Seattle, I am very motivated in tweaking my main, side, and extra to what I think is the best that I can, because I know there won't be a YCS in our area for the foreseeable future. I wish I could playtest more, but it's almost a daunting endeavor simply because you never know what you're gonna play against in such a large field with a brand new set just released. I could test for hours and hours against the popular decks, get my siding strategies down perfectly and whatnot, only to get blind sided by a "random" deck and then get sacked by a sacky deck, virtually eliminating me from the tourney. This factor became very apparent when Carl got 2nd at the Sneak Peek tourney with Six Sams. Not to take anything away from Carl, but when people think of "sacky" deck, the top 3 basically consist of Sam, Darkworld, and Lightsworn. It sucks to know that at any given time, regardless of skill level, you can get sacked. Such is Yugioh.
It just goes to show that regardless of the state of the game, it's impossible to please everyone. When they reprint something, some people will bitch and some people will praise. When something gets rarity-bumped, some people will bitch and some people (profiteers) will praise. I guess you just have to take the beast for what it is, and for God's sake (side rant) people need to open their eyes in regards to patterns. I still see people holding onto freshly pulled Sneak Peek cards because of hype or whatever, when it isn't doing them any good but they refuse to trade it to someone that's only missing that 1 card to finish their deck. The old "I'm not sure why this is good, but I'm going to hold onto it because everyone seems to want it" line. Go ahead and keep your card bro, cuz in a week or two it's value is gonna drop. Happens all the time. Remember Tour Bus? I offered $50 for one when it was new-ish, but they held onto it cuz it was "70 on eBay". What's it at now - 10 to 15? Looks like you plussed hard there. It's the same damn story for new stuff that comes out - if you're not gonna build the damn deck, learn to let it go for a fair value. And trust me, if all you got is that 1 card for the decktype, chances are you aren't actually gonna go all out and pick everything else up especially when it's rarity bumped to shit, just to build it, and still be shitty anyway. I love Sneak Peeks! lol.
Side rant aside, I believe this YCS will be a big factor, in one way or another, for a lot of people when it comes to sticking out the rest of the format or not.
noun
1. a state of inactivity or stagnation
2. a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits
So over the past few weeks it seems that there has been a big divide in the community - half seem to be taking a break or quitting for what ever reason, and the other are still going at it and enjoying the relatively balanced format. I find myself in both places; when it comes to blogging about Yugioh, I find it hard to talk about anything new or what's been going on in the meta, because it feels like not much has been going on. This almost seems contradictory since our newest set was just released. I've noticed this happen among fellow bloggers and various YouTubers. Perhaps Kris Perovic's article put things into perspective for people, with the self-understanding that things probably won't change on Konami's part. On the other side of things, as I prep for YCS Seattle, I am very motivated in tweaking my main, side, and extra to what I think is the best that I can, because I know there won't be a YCS in our area for the foreseeable future. I wish I could playtest more, but it's almost a daunting endeavor simply because you never know what you're gonna play against in such a large field with a brand new set just released. I could test for hours and hours against the popular decks, get my siding strategies down perfectly and whatnot, only to get blind sided by a "random" deck and then get sacked by a sacky deck, virtually eliminating me from the tourney. This factor became very apparent when Carl got 2nd at the Sneak Peek tourney with Six Sams. Not to take anything away from Carl, but when people think of "sacky" deck, the top 3 basically consist of Sam, Darkworld, and Lightsworn. It sucks to know that at any given time, regardless of skill level, you can get sacked. Such is Yugioh.
It just goes to show that regardless of the state of the game, it's impossible to please everyone. When they reprint something, some people will bitch and some people will praise. When something gets rarity-bumped, some people will bitch and some people (profiteers) will praise. I guess you just have to take the beast for what it is, and for God's sake (side rant) people need to open their eyes in regards to patterns. I still see people holding onto freshly pulled Sneak Peek cards because of hype or whatever, when it isn't doing them any good but they refuse to trade it to someone that's only missing that 1 card to finish their deck. The old "I'm not sure why this is good, but I'm going to hold onto it because everyone seems to want it" line. Go ahead and keep your card bro, cuz in a week or two it's value is gonna drop. Happens all the time. Remember Tour Bus? I offered $50 for one when it was new-ish, but they held onto it cuz it was "70 on eBay". What's it at now - 10 to 15? Looks like you plussed hard there. It's the same damn story for new stuff that comes out - if you're not gonna build the damn deck, learn to let it go for a fair value. And trust me, if all you got is that 1 card for the decktype, chances are you aren't actually gonna go all out and pick everything else up especially when it's rarity bumped to shit, just to build it, and still be shitty anyway. I love Sneak Peeks! lol.
Side rant aside, I believe this YCS will be a big factor, in one way or another, for a lot of people when it comes to sticking out the rest of the format or not.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Small Update + What's Been Up
As usual, I apologize for not being able to make blog posts. A lot has been going on in terms of my daily responsibilities and keeping up with YGO at the same time. It's kind of a Catch-22 because I don't like making little insignificant posts, but I haven't had the time to construct a long one so I just haven't posted, if that makes sense. I miss making daily posts like when I first started the blog, but it just seems like there's less to talk about these days. The talk of the online YGO community is Kris Perovic's "State of the Game" article. I'd like to make a post discussing that directly, and when I have the time I'll also be making a "Dear Konami"-esque e-mail to send to Konami, the movement which was started by Allen Pennington on DGz.
Testing for YCS Seattle/Tacoma is starting to go underway, since it seems unlikely that it will be a Sealed event. I've been testing Chaos Dragon as an alternative to Wind-Ups, but I'm still unsure on the matter. I seem to draw and mill so poorly sometimes that I couldn't imagine myself trying to get through 9+ rounds with the deck successfully, so I dunno yet. I seem to mill Reborn, Heavy, BLS, and cards like that like it was going out of style lol. With the rarity-bumps of Mermail (Abysslinde = rare -> ultra, Abyss-Sphere = common(!) -> ultra(!), Megalo-abyss and Moulin-rouge = super -> secret (most likely?)), it seems impossible/too costly to go that route.
I didn't do decklists for Providence because Youtube had that covered very well this time. You should be able to find most of the top 32 by some simple searching.
Oh, on the local scene - Gamer's Haven will be starting Advanced tourneys on Saturdays starting this Saturday, at 2:30 pm. Please check the designated "Spokane YGO Tourney Schedule" tab/link at the top of the page for more info.
Random - it annoys the hell out of me when people ask "when/where are the tourneys?" when people know I run this blog plus I've mentioned that I specifically make and maintain a weekly schedule. Reminds me of LFN's post where he talked about people asking him rulings on DN when it's so simple to just look them up themselves when resources are so easily at one's disposal.
Testing for YCS Seattle/Tacoma is starting to go underway, since it seems unlikely that it will be a Sealed event. I've been testing Chaos Dragon as an alternative to Wind-Ups, but I'm still unsure on the matter. I seem to draw and mill so poorly sometimes that I couldn't imagine myself trying to get through 9+ rounds with the deck successfully, so I dunno yet. I seem to mill Reborn, Heavy, BLS, and cards like that like it was going out of style lol. With the rarity-bumps of Mermail (Abysslinde = rare -> ultra, Abyss-Sphere = common(!) -> ultra(!), Megalo-abyss and Moulin-rouge = super -> secret (most likely?)), it seems impossible/too costly to go that route.
I didn't do decklists for Providence because Youtube had that covered very well this time. You should be able to find most of the top 32 by some simple searching.
Oh, on the local scene - Gamer's Haven will be starting Advanced tourneys on Saturdays starting this Saturday, at 2:30 pm. Please check the designated "Spokane YGO Tourney Schedule" tab/link at the top of the page for more info.
Random - it annoys the hell out of me when people ask "when/where are the tourneys?" when people know I run this blog plus I've mentioned that I specifically make and maintain a weekly schedule. Reminds me of LFN's post where he talked about people asking him rulings on DN when it's so simple to just look them up themselves when resources are so easily at one's disposal.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Testing with Mermails
The past few weeks I've been trying to set myself up for the release of Abyss Rising by learning what the good Mermail and Atlantean cards do. I must admit that Dueling Days' post helped a lot! I've been picking up random stuff like Undines, and even a set of German Super Deep Sea Divas. I got to test with Vampire last night, with basically no idea what I was doing besides reading the aforementioned post. In just an hour I was doing some pretty sick things and had a pretty decent grasp of the deck. I can't wait to see what kind of Water exclusives we get for this archetype to be top tier (hopefully not broken, but top tier) and see what the TCG version of the deck may evolve into.
One thing that I'd like to note though, is that it didn't seem necessarily busted even though the deck does do pretty sick things. Getting a +2 off an Undine summon is pretty sweet. It sort of felt like Inzektors with more search capability, boss monsters, but fewer pops. Like I've mentioned before, decks nowadays need to do at least something busted to be competitive. You can see this with the decline of Heroes; they never really did anything busted even though it's still a good deck.
Testing with this deck is particularly important since ABYR will be legal for YCS Seattle. It makes it less than ideal when there's a product release and then a YCS like a week later. I would expect the field to largely be what it is currently, but it will be annoying having to play against new Prophecy and Madolche cards if you have no idea what they do. Not much you can do besides testing with the good ol' DN I suppose lol.
One thing that I'd like to note though, is that it didn't seem necessarily busted even though the deck does do pretty sick things. Getting a +2 off an Undine summon is pretty sweet. It sort of felt like Inzektors with more search capability, boss monsters, but fewer pops. Like I've mentioned before, decks nowadays need to do at least something busted to be competitive. You can see this with the decline of Heroes; they never really did anything busted even though it's still a good deck.
Testing with this deck is particularly important since ABYR will be legal for YCS Seattle. It makes it less than ideal when there's a product release and then a YCS like a week later. I would expect the field to largely be what it is currently, but it will be annoying having to play against new Prophecy and Madolche cards if you have no idea what they do. Not much you can do besides testing with the good ol' DN I suppose lol.
Monday, October 8, 2012
eBay Revisited
Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote an article/post about eBay and its basic flaws. I considered this my first "substantial" post, in that I presented a fairly good analysis of the state of eBay, what was wrong with it, and things they could do to fix it. A year has passed, and although things have changed for the better, some things haven't changed at all or have gotten worse. I wanted to highlight some of these things in a follow-up article! I will talk about things in parallel with my old article, for a clear "then-and-now" approach to this.
Fees
My first major topic was fees; final value fees were roughly 9% back then, and according to the fees page now, they would be 11%, assuming YGO cards would not fall under the categories of electronics, clothing/shoes, or books/music/movies/games. So we have seen a slight increase, but luckily we have gotten something in return in the form of 50 free auction-style listings per month. This has personally helped me a lot since I don't have to pay insertion fees for those 50 items, and about 50-60 auctions per month is about how much I sell. Once you have exceeded the free 50, then you are forced to pay the standard insertion rates. Using a fixed-price listing is still expensive, so I just avoid that altogether. Unfortunately shipping prices have also increased with USPS, but I have found the beauty of using eBay's auto-generated shipping labels which saves quite a bit of money, and you also get to avoid having to stand in line at the post office! The post office I go to is almost always busy, and the workers there are incredibly slow. I always feel like a douchebag when I go in with a bag of packages to send out, place the packages on the side-table, and walk out. Everyone looks at me with that "why the f does that guy just get to drop off his stuff?" look lol. I wish I had been using the shipping label maker all this time - over the years I could've saved a lot of time and money!
In terms of PayPal fees, I actually didn't talk about that in my article from last year. Currently they are 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, on the assumption that you aren't receiving any kind of discount. So taking the previous percentage of eBay fees, and considering PayPal's fee, that's basically 14% in fees. You also have to factor in shipping for the raw materials (envelope, tape, etc) plus the actual cost. It adds up! That's why when I sell in person, I'm willing to sell at 85-87% of eBay prices. It's a deal for my buyer, and it saves me the time of packaging and listing the item, and the worry of hoping that the buyer doesn't decide to screw me over.
Delivery Confirmation/"I Didn't Get my Item" *wink wink*
In my previous article, I gave a few examples of how I was screwed over on eBay and the strategies that people use to "get something for nothing." All in all these strategies still exist and basically nothing has been done to mitigate them. Between 'Item Not Received' (INR) and 'Item Not as Described' (IND) cases, buyers are pretty much covered in regards to how they want to screw a seller over. If the seller doesn't send with Delivery Confirmation, file INR and boom, get your money back. If you simply don't want the item anymore (or because of reprint screw), file IND, claim it wasn't in mint condition as described in the auction (even if it was and still is when you return it), and boom, get your money back. You don't even need to pay return shipping since eBay will generate a pre-paid shipping label for you! Due to all of these shenanigans, I vowed to myself that I would no longer sell singles on eBay - not for me, not for my team, no one. I've broken this a couple of times (with a lot of apprehension), but for the most part I do not sell singles on there anymore. I've noticed there are far fewer sellers that offer international shipping now, which is a shame but buying internationally was almost a guarantee to get your money back because no one really wanted to use or charge for a Registered Mail equivalent. And on top of all this (holy cow there's more?), eBay has its "wonderful" return policy.
The Return Policy
Back in March eBay sent out a newsletter about their new return policy in which buyers have a 14-day time frame in which they can file an official returns claim and send the purchased item back to the seller for their money back. I wrote about it here. Sellers have the option of accepting returns or not, but this is moot because even if they don't "accept returns", by using IND as previously mentioned, if you want to return your item, you can and you will get your money back. All along I have said that budget should no longer be an issue, as long as you have the initial amount to cover the cost the card(s) in question. What I mean is, if you want to play Geargia with 3 Gigant X's at your next regional or YCS or whatever, there is nothing stopping you from buying the cards on eBay, then filing a return once the event is over to get your money back. I have yet to file a return or have one filed on me, but from what I have gathered the process seems rather simple. I have told people "don't let budget stop you from running what you want to run (at the YCS)". There is literally no point in hindering oneself in terms of card pool when virtually unlimited access is at one's disposal. I don't think anyone on the team besides me and Roy have a functional PayPal account for what ever reason, but that's why I'm here and the service I can gladly provide.
Star System
My biggest gripes about the star system was the inability to give fractions of stars and "buyer bias". If I wanted to give a seller a 4 because I considered them "above average", I could, but due to the high demands that eBay poses on seller performance, this would have been considered a "bad" rating for them. Fast forward to now, and all this is largely unchanged. eBay doesn't explicitly state a minimum rating, but looking at their performance standards page, it is easy enough to infer that you have very little room for error. I believe a 4.8 out of 5 is still considered the baseline minimum and you still have no ability to give fractions of stars. Luckily some of the "auto-5-star-rating" things I talked about last year have been implemented. I have noticed this when leaving feedback for other sellers - in some instances I can't enter anything for a particular rating and the seller will automatically get 5 stars for it. At the very least, it has become a little easier to maintain a good rating! There is still a valid amount of bias though - one buyer gave me neutral feedback on an item, because the item came 1 day after the shipping estimate date that eBay automatically generated based on the sale date. I thought that it was pretty ridiculous, but nothing I can do about that. The system in general has seen some improvements, but there is still more to be desired.
Non-Paying Winners
While I didn't talk about this last year, I have seen that this has become a growing problem over the past few months. For what ever reason, I had a period of time where only about 1 out of 4 people would actually pay for the item that they purchased. Usually it's people that recently joined eBay and/or have very low feedback scores that didn't pay. The punishment for this is basically non-existent; get a "strike" or whatever but as far as I know these have very little significance. Having people not pay for an item doesn't exactly cost me money, but it is annoying, takes time, and you don't get the "free 50 listing" aspect of it back- you use it, you've used it. Doesn't matter if they don't pay. This is why I've changed my auctions to require immediate payment when a user uses Buy-It-Now. I have far fewer issues with non-paying winners now. It sucks because I know some people may be interested in an item and they legitimately are waiting for funds to transfer so they miss out, but unfortunately that's what eBay has come to.
For the most part, eBay is still largely the same (at least in my view). Like I said last year, "it is a free-haven for rippers and buyers". This still holds, and may be even more problematic simply because of the return policy. Whenever there's an issue, in the large majority of cases, the buyer will always win. If you sell on eBay, protect yourself as much as possible but know that if the buyer wants to screw with you, they very easily can. In my opinion selling in person at a discounted rate will always be the best method of sale, followed by selling to sites like Troll and ARG.
Fees
My first major topic was fees; final value fees were roughly 9% back then, and according to the fees page now, they would be 11%, assuming YGO cards would not fall under the categories of electronics, clothing/shoes, or books/music/movies/games. So we have seen a slight increase, but luckily we have gotten something in return in the form of 50 free auction-style listings per month. This has personally helped me a lot since I don't have to pay insertion fees for those 50 items, and about 50-60 auctions per month is about how much I sell. Once you have exceeded the free 50, then you are forced to pay the standard insertion rates. Using a fixed-price listing is still expensive, so I just avoid that altogether. Unfortunately shipping prices have also increased with USPS, but I have found the beauty of using eBay's auto-generated shipping labels which saves quite a bit of money, and you also get to avoid having to stand in line at the post office! The post office I go to is almost always busy, and the workers there are incredibly slow. I always feel like a douchebag when I go in with a bag of packages to send out, place the packages on the side-table, and walk out. Everyone looks at me with that "why the f does that guy just get to drop off his stuff?" look lol. I wish I had been using the shipping label maker all this time - over the years I could've saved a lot of time and money!
In terms of PayPal fees, I actually didn't talk about that in my article from last year. Currently they are 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction, on the assumption that you aren't receiving any kind of discount. So taking the previous percentage of eBay fees, and considering PayPal's fee, that's basically 14% in fees. You also have to factor in shipping for the raw materials (envelope, tape, etc) plus the actual cost. It adds up! That's why when I sell in person, I'm willing to sell at 85-87% of eBay prices. It's a deal for my buyer, and it saves me the time of packaging and listing the item, and the worry of hoping that the buyer doesn't decide to screw me over.
Delivery Confirmation/"I Didn't Get my Item" *wink wink*
In my previous article, I gave a few examples of how I was screwed over on eBay and the strategies that people use to "get something for nothing." All in all these strategies still exist and basically nothing has been done to mitigate them. Between 'Item Not Received' (INR) and 'Item Not as Described' (IND) cases, buyers are pretty much covered in regards to how they want to screw a seller over. If the seller doesn't send with Delivery Confirmation, file INR and boom, get your money back. If you simply don't want the item anymore (or because of reprint screw), file IND, claim it wasn't in mint condition as described in the auction (even if it was and still is when you return it), and boom, get your money back. You don't even need to pay return shipping since eBay will generate a pre-paid shipping label for you! Due to all of these shenanigans, I vowed to myself that I would no longer sell singles on eBay - not for me, not for my team, no one. I've broken this a couple of times (with a lot of apprehension), but for the most part I do not sell singles on there anymore. I've noticed there are far fewer sellers that offer international shipping now, which is a shame but buying internationally was almost a guarantee to get your money back because no one really wanted to use or charge for a Registered Mail equivalent. And on top of all this (holy cow there's more?), eBay has its "wonderful" return policy.
The Return Policy
Back in March eBay sent out a newsletter about their new return policy in which buyers have a 14-day time frame in which they can file an official returns claim and send the purchased item back to the seller for their money back. I wrote about it here. Sellers have the option of accepting returns or not, but this is moot because even if they don't "accept returns", by using IND as previously mentioned, if you want to return your item, you can and you will get your money back. All along I have said that budget should no longer be an issue, as long as you have the initial amount to cover the cost the card(s) in question. What I mean is, if you want to play Geargia with 3 Gigant X's at your next regional or YCS or whatever, there is nothing stopping you from buying the cards on eBay, then filing a return once the event is over to get your money back. I have yet to file a return or have one filed on me, but from what I have gathered the process seems rather simple. I have told people "don't let budget stop you from running what you want to run (at the YCS)". There is literally no point in hindering oneself in terms of card pool when virtually unlimited access is at one's disposal. I don't think anyone on the team besides me and Roy have a functional PayPal account for what ever reason, but that's why I'm here and the service I can gladly provide.
Star System
My biggest gripes about the star system was the inability to give fractions of stars and "buyer bias". If I wanted to give a seller a 4 because I considered them "above average", I could, but due to the high demands that eBay poses on seller performance, this would have been considered a "bad" rating for them. Fast forward to now, and all this is largely unchanged. eBay doesn't explicitly state a minimum rating, but looking at their performance standards page, it is easy enough to infer that you have very little room for error. I believe a 4.8 out of 5 is still considered the baseline minimum and you still have no ability to give fractions of stars. Luckily some of the "auto-5-star-rating" things I talked about last year have been implemented. I have noticed this when leaving feedback for other sellers - in some instances I can't enter anything for a particular rating and the seller will automatically get 5 stars for it. At the very least, it has become a little easier to maintain a good rating! There is still a valid amount of bias though - one buyer gave me neutral feedback on an item, because the item came 1 day after the shipping estimate date that eBay automatically generated based on the sale date. I thought that it was pretty ridiculous, but nothing I can do about that. The system in general has seen some improvements, but there is still more to be desired.
Non-Paying Winners
While I didn't talk about this last year, I have seen that this has become a growing problem over the past few months. For what ever reason, I had a period of time where only about 1 out of 4 people would actually pay for the item that they purchased. Usually it's people that recently joined eBay and/or have very low feedback scores that didn't pay. The punishment for this is basically non-existent; get a "strike" or whatever but as far as I know these have very little significance. Having people not pay for an item doesn't exactly cost me money, but it is annoying, takes time, and you don't get the "free 50 listing" aspect of it back- you use it, you've used it. Doesn't matter if they don't pay. This is why I've changed my auctions to require immediate payment when a user uses Buy-It-Now. I have far fewer issues with non-paying winners now. It sucks because I know some people may be interested in an item and they legitimately are waiting for funds to transfer so they miss out, but unfortunately that's what eBay has come to.
For the most part, eBay is still largely the same (at least in my view). Like I said last year, "it is a free-haven for rippers and buyers". This still holds, and may be even more problematic simply because of the return policy. Whenever there's an issue, in the large majority of cases, the buyer will always win. If you sell on eBay, protect yourself as much as possible but know that if the buyer wants to screw with you, they very easily can. In my opinion selling in person at a discounted rate will always be the best method of sale, followed by selling to sites like Troll and ARG.
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