Thanks to @DaveSchrec and @PucaTrade my Modern Masters cube is almost ready to draft. Thanks again! pic.twitter.com/XY5KKRRHUm — Nathan Hennessey (@NEHennessey) December 20, 2013

.@PucaTrade - helping EDH players be jerks the world around… (Thanks) pic.twitter.com/cyPMbkNMdL — Jeff Woods (@r4wk5t4r) December 18, 2013

What are we doing? PucaTrade Week 19 of 52:

I just ordered tons of PucaTrade merch this week. It was super exciting stuff. We have buttons, tokens, sleeves, and playmats all en route as we speak. The image files look fantastic, and I can’t wait to see it all in the real. Once production of all that stuff was under way, I got to focus on my favorite PucaTrade pastime - User Experience design for the next version of the site. Here’s a mockup of what the “My Offers” page (previously the HaveList) will look like: Should be sweet! I can’t tell you guys how excited I am for this shit to be real. WootWoot!

What are we doing? #PucaTrade Week 19 of 52:

This was a fantastic week for PucaTrade. I had a chance to order the Inkwell Looters format-buttons from Purebuttons.com and submitted the final proof of our card-sleeves to Legion. They’re gonna look great, and I can’t wait to start rocking both. I also had a chance to make it to GP Portland to meet a fantastic guy named Charles Webber. He’s a veteran of web-project management, avid Magic the Gathering player, and he loves PucaTrade. He has graciously offered to oversee the production of all the great features we’ve been raving about, and manage the process of turning these conceptual dreams into code. Between games of the tournament, we hashed out a fantastic plan for 2013 and can’t wait to get cracking. This is a huge step for PucaTrade, and we’re so excited to have Charles on board. I also had an opportunity to talk with Zac Hill about all the ways that cards currently move from owner to owner in the Magic community. He and I spoke at length about the effects of unbalanced exchange (unfair trades) in the secondary MtG market, and were able to come to this understanding: Magic the Gathering players come from all over the place, from all walks of life. This is great because it gives us opportunities to broaden our cultural horizons, but can also foster some unfortunate dynamics between strangers. Imagine yourself in a trade between you and your friends, or even the acquaintances that you see regularly at your local game store. How do you conduct yourself in this trade? Now imagine yourself in a trade with a stranger that you’ve never met and will likely never see again. How do you conduct yourself differently in these two situations? Regardless of what you answered, the reality is that a disparity exists here. We may be allured by the ritz of “Pack to Power” value trading, but in that seduction we neglect the untold story in that quest for financial gain. Can it not be said that every increase to your card-pool’s total value represents the loss of someone else’s? What would the Pack to Power quest look like if you were required to state imbalances in trade value before completing every trade? It would change the game. From a conceptual standpoint, most traders agree that they’re entitled to a fair trade. What happens in the moment when they realize that they just lost $10-$50 worth of card-value due to their own unfortunate lack of knowledge? Would they feel cheated? How does this impact the way they will interact with the next Magic trader that they meet? Or even the next player they sit across from? At the GP this weekend, I spoke with many players who had concerns about the increased prevalence of value-trading in the MtG community, and its impacts on the community at large. Although I originally made PucaTrade as a convenience-service (while acknowledging the benefits of a system that leveled the playing field for traders), I’m starting to realize that PucaTrade may have larger implications and benefits to the way Magic players perceive one another. I hope to explore these ideas further, and encourage you to reach out to me with comments, questions, or feedback of any kind. As always, Drive a Tranquil Bargain.

PucaTrade Review:

I have to admit, @PucaTrade sounds pretty awesome, even though I haven’t traded cards in years. Really cool idea.

via Twitter: Luis Scott Vargas via Twitter Reply to LSV here!

For the week ending 1/26/2013,

441 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Chains of Mephistopoheles, Dark Confidant, Maze of Ith x2, Wasteland, Intuition, Scavenging Ooze, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Sliver Legion, Bonfire of the Damned, Thragtusk x2, Rofellos, Cruel Tutor, Aether Vial, Sensei’s Divining Top, Deathrite Shaman, Restoration Angel x2, Engineered Explosives, Temple Garden, Elesh Norn, Liliana of the Dark Realms x2, Griselbrand, and a boatload of Relentless Rats. Additionally, 47 new PucaTraders joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

What are we doing? #PucaTrade Week 5 of 52:

PucaTrade went through a slight change of plans this week. An incredibly brilliant advisor of mine from Seattle turned me on to Kickstarter. I had always known that Kickstarter existed, but it never felt like a perfect fit for PucaTrade because we’ve never previously had a dire need for capital. One of the great things about PucaTrade has been the relatively small amount of overhead in requires (server costs and domain hosting), but this situation is changing a bit. PucaTrade needs to evolve. Quickly. It’s no longer a site that should evolve at the slow (albeit steady) pace that it has been plodding along at since April. I want personal profile spaces, visible want lists, support for condition, a messaging system, and support for foils! I want support for foreign languages, vacation mode, feedback ratings, a visually appealing Send page, and archived price data for Pro members. I want 2-factor authentication so that credits (PucaPoints) can be given freely to new members just for signing up, or completing their fist trade, or leaving their first feedback, or contributing their first post in the forum, or inviting a friend. I want all this and much, much more, and it turns out that all this requires capital. So I spent the week researching Kickstarter. It seems like an incredibly rad way for PucaTrade to get the boost it needs right now, to immediately finance the production of all the things I listed above. It was a powerful week. By whatever means necessary, it’s my promise to you all that I won’t stop working my ass off until all the features I listed above have been developed for you (and probably won’t stop even then). Until next week, Happy Trading!

For the week ending 1/19/2013,

469 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Eureka, Wasteland, Scavenging Ooze, Bonfire of the Damned, Survival of the Fittest, Sublime Archangel, Thragtusk, Gifts Ungiven, Verdant Catacombs x2, Sliver Legion, Aether Vial x4, Aluren, Marsh Flats x2, Sphinx’s Revelation, Deathrite Shaman x2, Kiki-Jiki, Deathbringer Liege, Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, Wurmcoil Engine, Overgrown Tomb, and Pygmy Hippo (I love that guy). Additionally, 18 new PucaTraders joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

What are we doing? #PucaTrade Week 4 of 52:

This week, PucaTrade welcomes a new member of Team Puca: Dan Miller aka Sonwithagun on PucaTrade. Besides being a rad guy in general, Miller’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met—a pretty great dude to have on the team. He’s offered to help out with the case resolution process, so if anything goes wrong with one of your trades, he’ll likely be the guy that gets in touch. The best part about this is that it’s already freeing up more time for me to work on improvements to the site. I had an awesome brainstorming session with our new Designer, and we put together some great rough drafts of the next version of PucaTrade. In particular, we really made some awesome progress with the “Send a Card” screen. Our goal is to make the act of sending cards be a mostly visual experience (read: “The Grid” has gotta go). We think displaying cards in clusters (or packages) will be a really superior way to manage your potential trades. Brain Chambers is workin’ on some shiny new mockups now. Hopefully we’ll have something slick to show you next week. Until then, be nice to The Grid. He’s ugly, but loyal.

For the week ending 1/12/2013,

401 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Vendilion Clique x2, City of Traitors x2, Vindicate x2, Grim Monolith, Sphinx’s Revelation, Hallowed Fountain, Volrath’s Stronghold, Restoration Angel x2, Bitterblossom, Cryptic Command, Arid Mesa x2, Sword of War and Peace, Elspeth, Knight Errant, Entreat the Angels, Thragtusk, Aether Vial, Deathrite Shaman, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Marsh Flats, Mox Opal, Enlightened Tutor, Tooth and Nail, Demonic Tutor x2, Academy Ruins, Ancient Tomb, Terminus, Overgrown Tomb, Blood Crypt, Liliana of the Dark Realms, and Lich’s Mirror (yes really). Additionally, 23 new PucaTraders joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

What are we doing? #PucaTrade Week 3 of 52:

I returned from vacation this week, and when I landed in Oakland I hit the ground running. I blasted through 342 e-mails on Tuesday, and was able schedule a meeting with Justin Johnson and Nathan Ross, the founders of LateLabs. LateLabs is an amazing concept: “CrowdCoding: We trade awesome code for equity.” Pretty self-explanatory, right? This seems like a perfect fit for PucaTrade. They’re awesome dudes, and we all left the meeting feeling pretty optimistic about the next steps. If things continue to go as planned, this has awesome implications for PucaTrade. An elite team of 3 or 4 developers will agree to bust out some new features for us, under my direction and with the programming linguistic support of a friend of mine named Topher White (since I know almost nothing about writing code). So I spent much of the week designing the new PucaTrade, and I’m really excited for what’s next. It really helped to utilize all of the comments and feedback we’ve received so far, and the next batch of updates are gonna be rad, rad, rad. Last week, someone asked me specifically what we had in mind for the new year. PucaTrade’s New Year resolutions are simply this: To exit Beta. With that comes a slick, understandable User Interface, support for Foils, condition, Non-English support, a feedback system, and more control for you around who sends you cards. This is just the beginning, but I can’t give up all my secrets. Happy Trading!

This is a fun toy. Thanks, pucatrade.

evil-interfacey-screen:

For the week ending 1/05/2013,

283 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Dark Confidant, Bonfire of the Damned, Vendilion Clique, Mox Opal x2, Thragtusk, Cryptic Command, Phyrexian Tower, Arid Mesa, Grove of the Burnwillows x2, Woodfall Primus, Deathrite Shaman, Sol Ring, Sword of War and Peace, Knight of the Reliquary, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Karmic Guide, Avacyn, Mycosynth Golem and Warren Weirding (yes really). Additionally, 16 new PucaTraders joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

For the week ending 12/29/2012,

303 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Lion’s Eye Diamond, Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Dark Confidant, Sliver Queen, Liliana of the Veil, Huntmaster of the Fells x2, Jace, Architect of Thought x2, Kokusho, Sword of Feast and Famine, All is Dust, Overgrown Tomb, Replenish, Sylvan Library, Fusterstorm, Horizon Canopy, Vesuva x3, Stomping Ground, Deathrite Shaman x2, Ancient Tomb, Verdant Catacombs, Chalice of the Void x2, Wheel of Fortune, Scapeshift, Steam Vents x2, Blood Crypt, and Tobias Andrion (yes really). Additionally, 19 new PucaTraders joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

What are we doing? #PucaTrade Week 2 of 52:

Let’s call this last week a “PucaTrade Brainstorming Session.” Ok, fine. I was on holiday vacation. BUT— I did think about PucaTrade a lot. A new year always serves as a call for reflection on progress made, and an opportunity for consideration of future goals. My goal is to make PucaTrade the ultimate trading website. We’ve just about exhausted the progress we can make with a couple guys coding in their respective basements. Slow (if steady) progress would be a disservice to the 1,300 people who are now trading Magic the Gathering cards on PucaTrade and want it to be the best it can be. My feeling is that it’s time for radical improvement, and radical growth. This requires a dedicated labor force working roughly 40 hours each week (read: this requires money). Fortunately, I live in Silicon Valley, and there’s a thriving culture of net-based entrepreneurship here, along with a ton of financial support for people trying to breathe life into great ideas. So I begin walking down the road towards investment, always with images of the penultimate version of PucaTrade behind my mind’s eye; two roads overlapping in pursuit of more trades and a better trading experience for you, every time you visit the site. If that sounds overly dramatic, it’s not. This is my dream—dreams get to be dramatic. I hope you enjoy the site.

For the week ending 12/22/2012,

432 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Savannah, Taiga, Survival of the Fittest, Vampiric Tutor, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad x2, Cavern of Souls, Pernicious Deed, Mox Opal, Arid Mesa, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Verdant Catacombs, Restoration Angel, Stomping Ground, Mirari’s Wake, Vesuva x2, Second Sunrise, Clifftop Retreat, Goblin Welder x3, Deathbringer Liege, Marsh Flats, Terminus, Elesh Norn, Horizon Canopy, Sylvan Library x2, Replenish, Sword of Feast and Famine, Maelstrom Pulse, Flusterstrom, Mycosynth Golem, and Dust Corona (yes really). Additionally, 39 new PucaTraders joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

PucaTrade Review:

For the week ending 9/29/2012, 230 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Scrubland, Thoughseize x2, Vedalken Shackles x2, Liliana of the Veil, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Misty Rainforest, Aether Vial, Karn Liberated, Sensei’s Divining Top, Linvala, Keeper of the Silence, Arid Mea x2, Restoration Angel, Avacyn, Verdant Catacombs x2, Isolated Chapel, Sulfur Falls, Demonic Tutor, Cruel Tutor, Primeval Titan, and Seafarer’s Quay (yes really). Additionally, 40 new Members joined our ever-growing community of traders. Welcome!

via Twitter:

PucaTrade Review:

For the week ending 9/22/2012, 393 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Taiga, Scrubland, Windswept Heath, Mutavault, Liliana of the Veil, Pact of Negation x2, Linvala, Keeper of the Silence, Scalding Tarn, Life from the Loam, Snapcaster Mage x2, Baleful Strix, Restoration Angel, Arid Mesa x3, Overgrown Tomb, Thragtusk, Woodland Cemetery, and Gorilla Chieftain (yes really). Additionally, 55 new Members joined our ever-growing community.

via Twitter:

PucaTrade Review:

For the week ending 9/15/2012, 442 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Badlands, Temporal Manipulation, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Entreat the Angels, Cavern of Souls x3, Falkenrath Aristocrat x4, Humility, Woodland Cemetery x4, Wurmcoil Engine, Scalding Tarn, Liliana of the Dark Realms, Snapcaster Mage x4, and Glasses of Urza (yes really). Additionally, 96 new Members joined our ever-growing community. Welcome!

via Twitter:

PucaTrade Review:

For the week ending 9/08/2012, 195 trades were completed on #PucaTrade. Among these were Flooded Strand, Scavenging Ooze, Sword of Feast and Famine, Intuition, Noble Hierarch, Restoration Angel x3, Temple Garden, Mox Opal, Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Cavern of Souls, BitterBlossom, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Serra’s Sanctum, Grove of the Burnwillows, Thragtusk, and Boggart Shenanigans. Additionally, 115 new Members joined our ever-growing community. Welcome!

via Twitter: