The “T” in TCG stands for Trading, of course, and it’s a popular pastime among Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG players. It’s also a good way to turn the cards you don’t want into cards that you need, but if you don’t make some preparations beforehand and exercise some caution during your trades, you might not end up on a positive side of the deal. If you like to trade and want to prevent yourself from making bad ones, then you’ll find some good advice in today’s article. I’m going to break it up between things you should do before you head off to trade, and things you should do while engaged in trading. We might as well start it off with the advance preparation!

Before You Trade

Get your cards sorted and arranged.

You’ll make better trades if people can see what you have, and when you yourself know what you have. (I was really surprised to see what I actually owned, once everything was taken out of the boxes I’d been dropping my cards into—two ultimate rare Treeborn Frog cards? Who knew?!) Binders are good for trades because they allow you to arrange and display the cards in whatever layout system works for you. People will be more interested in your cards when it’s easy to page through what you have to offer. You might like to sort them by set, then type of card, with the ultimate rares and the newer sets near the front of your binder. Or you might like some other system that works better for you. However you choose to sort them, however, put the cards you know people are going to want where they can see them!

Know what your cards are worth before you try to trade them.

If you don’t know what your cards are worth, you are going to have a very difficult time making an equitable trade. While some traders might tell you, “Oh, I can’t do that. Your card is worth about five times more than the one you want from me. I’d be ripping you off,” others won’t bother to mention it. On the other hand, if you attempt to offer a relatively worthless card for one that is highly valued, some traders will pick up their binder and refuse to deal with you any further. You need to know what to ask for and what to offer in return when you’re trading, so keep up on what cards are worth—especially the more inherently valuable ones like ultimate rares, ultra or supers, or highly playable rares and commons. Also, don’t only learn the values of the cards you have to offer—know what the cards you are looking for are worth, too.

Different people set different values on cards—start by looking at what the cards are actually selling for. Not just in your local shop, either—the card that sits in the glass case with a $60 price tag on it might actually be selling for closer to $30 in a more active market. Online auction sites are generally a good gauge of a card’s actual value—look at a month or so of closed auctions to get an idea of what they ended up selling for. Don’t rely on a single source, like a published price guide or your local shop. Look at a variety of guidelines and set your values accordingly.

You should also take into consideration the playability of the cards. If a certain deck has become popular, the cards in it are going to increase in perceived value. If a card has been placed on the Forbidden list, the value will usually go down. Knowing what cards are actually worth will save you from making a lot of bad trades—you can’t always take the word of your trading partners when they assure you they’re offering a card worth $50 in exchange for your card that is worth only $10.

Whenever possible, know about the people you are trading with.

This is tougher to do at a large event like a Shonen Jump Championship or a Regional that you’ve traveled to. However, if you know that certain people are constantly bragging about how they ripped off so-and-so in a trade, think twice before you trade with them. If someone has a reputation for theft, you might not want to offer him or her a look at your binder. Learn whom you can and cannot trust.

Learn how to spot fake cards.

You should know what to look for to spot a fake before you head out to trade. Some fakes are blatantly obvious, but some are really pretty good, and since you can’t use a fake card in a sanctioned event, you don’t want to end up trading something good for something useless. I wrote an article on recognizing counterfeit cards a few years ago*, so you can review that if you need a refresher course.

All right, you’re ready to head out and make some trades. Make it easy on yourself and consider the following:

While You’re Trading

Keep your cards secure and under your eye while you’re trading.

This can be very difficult when everyone is passing around binders, but the more people who show up wanting to look through your stuff, the greater your risk of losing a card or two . . . or an entire binder. And it’s not always going to be theft—anyone who was at Worlds in 2006 knows there was an absolutely insane amount of trading going on in the lobby of the hotel, and binders were misplaced. If there’s a lot going on and you have multiple binders, one might get set aside and left behind. I’ve seen it happen before.

Trade with one person at a time.

It’s easier to keep track of what’s going on when you’re dealing with one person at a time. The last thing you all need is to suddenly realize there are five piles of cards pulled out of binders spread all over the table, and no one is really clear on who owns what. If you’re an absolute trading pro, I suppose you can trade with several people at once with no problems, but to me it looks like a chaotic pile of trouble waiting to happen. I only ever deal with one person at a time.

Examine the cards that are being offered before you agree to complete the trade.

Don’t just flip through a binder, grab something and do the deal. Check out the cards you’re trading for—with the owner’s permission, take them out of the binder and look at them carefully. If absolute mint condition is important to you, check out the edges and backs, and look for scratches. If you’re only planning to play with them, you should still ensure the card is in playable condition. Damaged cards are not worth as much as mint—a little wear isn’t bad if you’re just planning to play it, but a seriously damaged card isn’t worth as much as one in top condition. Take it into account when you’re figuring out the deal. If someone refuses to let you examine the condition of a card, you might want to think twice about the trade.

Do your part, though: make sure your hands are clean when you’re looking at someone else’s cards, and handle them carefully. Do this so the owner can see you, since you don’t want to be accused of stealing a card or damaging it to decrease the value. Require the same of anyone who wants to look at your cards.

Don’t drag judges into your trades.

We’re not supposed to get involved in trades, and being a judge doesn’t automatically make you any more qualified to assess the value of a card than the next person. Parents who don’t know much about the value of their children’s cards really seem to like asking the judges to help mediate the trades, but this really isn’t appropriate. Most judges will stop a blatantly unfair trade if they see one, but we can’t provide a guarantee of fairness and shouldn’t get put in the position where it’s expected. It’s a rotten position to put a judge in—if the trade goes sour, the judge gets blamed. You should manage your own trades.

Know who you’re trading with.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to know everyone at a large event, but keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to what is going on around you with other traders. If you see someone make a really bad trade, remember the person they traded with and exercise more caution if you decide to deal with that individual. Some traders make it easy—I’m not sure what obliges many card rip-off artists to go around bragging about the fact that they make outrageously unbalanced trades, but just as nature has granted the rattlesnake an audio alert, the boastful ripper has been similarly equipped. Consider it fair warning—it’s on your head if you get taken too.

Check the authenticity of the cards.

Again, make sure you’re trading for real cards. If you know how to spot a fake, you’re much less likely to fall victim to fraud. While few people offer fake cards knowingly, there are plenty of younger or inexperienced players who unwittingly own counterfeit cards and will try to trade them with others.

Don’t yield to pressure.

You don’t have to trade a card just because someone else wants you to. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to trade—I hardly ever deal with trading. If I want a particular card, I usually send someone else out to get it for me. You should be able to stick up for yourself, and recognize and turn down a bad trade if one comes your way. If you’ve got a bad feeling about a trade that’s being offered you or the person who wants to trade, go ahead and decline.

There are a lot of different kinds of trading pressure. There are the traders who figure you don’t know what cards are worth, and they can make an unbalanced trade with you. I’ve made no secret about my adoration for Ultimate Tyranno, and I have had people try and offer me one in exchange for one of my Cyber Dragon cards. Nice try, but love isn’t that blind. I like Cyber Dragon too, you know.

You’ll also encounter traders who have something you really want and know they have something you really want, and will try and take advantage of that fact. Everyone wants to get the best part of a bargain, so be alert for gouging! If you stand up on a chair at a Shonen Jump and scream out “I desperately need a Super-Conductor Tyranno because without it, my guaranteed-to-Top-8 deck is incomplete, and I will be forced to take a scrub!!!” it’s likely that any offers you get will be rather steep. Use some discretion when you’re looking for specific cards!

Then there’s that particularly vexing high-pressure trader that really, really wants something you have, and has absolutely nothing to offer in return—and cannot seem to accept “no thanks” as an answer. This has happened to me a lot, especially with children (and parents) who think that because someone else has something they do not, that person is somehow obligated to make things “fair” by trading it. This can be really frustrating to deal with, and sometimes all you can do is say, “Sorry, there’s really nothing I need,” close your binder, and walk away.

Don’t bring cards you don’t want to trade.

Some people like to keep all their cards together, but if you have playsets and the like that you really do not want to trade, don’t put them in with your trade stuff. It saves you from having to constantly say, “No, I’m not trading that,” “No, I’m not trading that,” “Look, I’m still not trading that!” and reduces your chances of accidentally trading off something you didn’t intend to part with.

One last big important reminder for everyone—playing for cards and trading for cash (except to legitimate on-site dealers) is forbidden at just about any premiere event. Even if no announcement is made on the subject, just assume that is the case. Don’t do either of those things, because if you get caught, you’ll probably get sent out of the event, and a really irate PTO might ban you from future events.

Okay, I trust that from here on out that I will hear a lot fewer, “I got ripped so bad in a trade” lamentations from players at any given event, right? There are so many large events now, and a lot of trading to do at them. You don’t want to let one bad experience ruin anything for you, so apply what’s useful in this article to your trading habits, and avoid the bad end of a trade. It’s a sad, sad place to be.

*Good heavens, it’s been three years already?