Cool Stuff Inc & Non Basic Land May 13, 2010
Posted by Norm in Casual.Tags: Cool Stuff Inc, non basic land
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Last week I contacted by a representative from CoolStuffInc.com letting me know that they would like to give me a gift. Just for being so cool, how about that. Not exactly. In return for a blog post they would send me a gift certificate so I could review their shopping experience. Since I don’t run any ads on the site and this blog is currently 100% hobby I’m grateful for the chance to help the online Magic community out with a few perks here and there.
My gift certificate was for $30 and while I couldn’t pick up Jace or Baneslayer Angel (ya I checked just in case) I mulled over what to purchase. I didn’t have any card in particular on my buy list so it gave me a good chance to poke around the store and see what they have.
Shopping Experience
Cool Stuff Inc like most stores has everything that you would come to expect from an online retailer and more. The more is what was interesting. You can find all the unique collectable stuff that is sometimes hard to find in local shops: Duel decks, play mats, Fat Packs, and even From the Vault releases. You can pre order just about everything that has been announced by wizards including, as of right now, Scars of Morrodin and Archenemy. And finally they offer different types of card lots. Like 10 rares and a play mat, grab bags, and starter collections which I would recommend to a new player who wants to just pickup some lots. I know when I started I bought some random crap because I didn’t know where to look.
My Only Criticism
My experience was positive, from landing on the homepage to check out. They had all the cards in stock that I wanted to get (I’ll get to that in a second) and their advanced search tool works really well. However I found the site really hard to navigate, especially since I am a first time customer. They offer so much stuff their navigation is confusing. Since I was just browsing around and wasn’t searching for specific cards I didn’t always find the links to where I wanted to go. Maybe it is the designer in me that feels this is a negative but I can imagine how someone could get lost in the sub pages. Once I spent some time on the site I was able get oriented, but I shouldn’t have to think about navigation as a user. I think Star City Games has the same user interface problems. But enough on that lets get to what I bought and why.
My Land Project
I haven’t talked about this before but this seems like a good opportunity. Sometime in 2009 I started to pickup nonbasic land. Trading for an odd piece here and there, bumming them out of peoples old school collections, and not really with any sense of purpose just the collector in me. Eventually I had enough cards to start a land binder which is when I decided to try and collect one of every nonbasic land. I’m going for play sets where I can get them but I’ve currently got a healthy amount that has a 1 inch binder full of pages. I don’t know how close I am to the goal, but I’ll count it up and give an update in a future post.
Most of what I have is commons because they are obviously the easiest to pickup. As I was browsing Cool Stuff Inc I figured why not take this chance to pickup some rare land that I’d otherwise have a harder time finding.
What Did I End Up Buying?
Going for quantity rather than quality I bought 22 cards. Here is the list:
4 – Gargoyle Castle (Magic 2010) at $.49 each
2 – Sunpetal Grove (Magic 2010) at $6.25 each
1 – Ancient Ziggurat (Conflux) at $1.25 each
1 – Contested Cliffs (Onslaught) at $.99 each
1 – Darkwater Catacombs (Odyssey) at $2.49 each
1 – Deserted Temple (Odyssey) at $1.99 each
1 – Forsaken City (Planeshift) at $.75 each
1 – Wintermoon Mesa (Prophecy) at $.49 each
1 – Shivan Gorge (Urzas Saga) at $.75 each
1 – Caldera Lake (Tempest) at $.75 each
1 – Winding Canyons (Weatherlight) at $.75 each
1 – Griffin Canyon (Visions) at $.75 each
1 – Teferi’s Isle (Mirage) at $.99 each
1 – Balduvian Trading Post (Alliances) at $.99 each
1 – Heart of Yavimaya (Alliances) at $.75 each
1 – Soldevi Excavations (Alliances) at $.65 each
1 – Halls of Mist (Ice Age) at $.49 each
1 – Safe Haven (The Dark) at $.40 each
I grabbed the Sunpetal Groves because I needed them for my play set. Otherwise I am really happy with the additions to my collection. One thing I learned is that there are a lot of really interesting abilities on some of the older lands. Since I’m relatively new to Magic I never played or saw some of those cards before.
Anyway big thanks to Cool Stuff Inc for the hookup. I hope you guys take a minute to drop by and see what they have. And if anyone wants to contribute to my land project feel free to ship me some cards.
Casual Magic 
Oh yeah, Cool Stuff Inc is good for cards. Like the 4 for 1 pricing on commons.
However, on pure price alone, individual sellers on Cardshark,com beat the living shit out of CoolStuff’s prices.
I know they don’t offer “$30 gift certificates” and stuff and aren’t mentioned in the “cool/bribed” kids’ blogs. But, yeah. Cardshark>CoolStuff.
Just sayin’
I do most of my shopping on Coolstuffinc because of their discount program. I am up into like 10% off of singles which is awesome. I have been buying from there almost exclusively for 3 years to build up my rating. Do I get a $30 gift card for spending a grand total of $1,232.71 (not including shipping) on their site? I get 10% off singles, and 3% off general products. It is a nice perk, but if I am buying sleeves, I save a minute amount. I want stuff for shopping there exclusively. I sometimes even throw a bunch of stuff in my cart, and even with my discount it will be higher than some other sites. Of course I support my go to site, but is it worth it? It isn’t looking like it now that I examine it.
That is a really interesting point. Might be an option for stores to give more to loyal customers.
I’ve recently started picking up MTG cards via CoolStuffInc.com. I love the selection, and the ability to pick up loads of miscellaneous cards (I’ve recently been purchases loads of tokens), plus the ability to pre-oder for pending releases. One other thing I love is that they offer really cheap shipping for single cards (sending them via 1st Class mail). I wouldn’t send a single $100 card through the mail, but it has been great for what I’ve been doing.
That said, I’ll also say that navigation could be improved. In particular, I’d like the option to supress all “Out of Stock” results. Some people may want to see everything they have, and the prices they went for, but, personally, I just want to see cards I can buy today.