Like a lot of you I started playing Magic when Unlimited came out. Had tons of dual lands, power 9, all that jazz.

When I graduated college and got married, I ended up selling tons of it to pay off debt and start a life.

Fast forward to early 2000's when Time Spiral and Mirrodin blocks came out. I bought several boxes and got back into it with some friends.
Continued playing for several years up until Innistrad. Then it seemed like a bubble hit Magic again, prices started doubling, and all of a sudden I had some cards that were Modern legal that were worth a *ton* more than I paid.

So I cashed out most of my Modern decks and staples and bought like 3 pinball machines. LOL. Magic bought my Demo Man. Magic bought my Doctor Who. Magic bought my Earthshaker. Plus various parts and arcade related stuff (like my Robotron).

I continue to sell off more and more on eBay and tcgplayer buylists in order to fund additional pinball purchases.
Getting near the end of the cards that sell for money, so I can't do this much anymore, but it was great to convert cards into pinball machines.

Magic is a great game and fun to play with friends. And it definitely fed my "gotta collect everything" itch. But pinball is more rewarding and fun.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks,
Steven

Yeah, it's really crazy. And even though I've sold off the current Magic staples, I still follow the scene. I still have tons of cards that aren't worth anything yet... but who knows, maybe someday they will?

That was the best part of Magic to me. Looking through all the card interactions and coming up with new decks with some new combo as a theme. I still kinda miss it.

Yeah, it's pretty insane.

That a look at this site that tracks the metagame and prices for completed decks: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#paper

It costs something between $700-$1000 to buy a competitive Modern legal deck if you wanted to just buy it outright.

And many of those staple cards don't translate between decks, so you need 3-5 of them (completed decks) before you have a good enough collection of staples to be able to put together anything you want. Gets pricy quickly.