PucaTrade

From time to time players ask me if I use PucaTrade. I always said no because from what I heard it is something that could never suit my needs. PucaTrade is not the only place where you can trade online there is Magic Online Trade League, MTGSalvation but also Deckbox.org or Pojo Magic. Each site/forum has its upsides and downsides. You can of course you sites like eBay or MagicCardMarket but those are sites where you buy and sell which does not necessarily mean 'trade'. Other possibilities are social networks like Facebook or Twitter. It works fairly well if you have a list of conditions for your trades, otherwise it can be very time consuming and not efficient.

Since PucaTrade seems to be the trend nowadays I decided to give it a try. I do not write this as a user that has been trading on the site for a while but rather a new user. But still I can tell you a bit about PucaTrade.

I've read many articles saying that you can send a lot of bulk and then buy your revised dual lands or even a piece of Power. But the actual listings of these cards are very scarce and sending more bulk cards to a single recipient is rather tough using PucaTrade. So ignore articles like this and see what you can realistically get. If you send out EDH cards, you can easily get your hands on Standard and mid-value Modern cards. But even getting Modern staples might be difficult (or rather you will have to wait for quite a while) and I don't even speak about Legacy cards.

What is PucaTrade?

PucaTrade is an online trading service where you can exchange PucaPoints for physical or digital cards. You earn PucaPoints by sending cards to other members or buying the points from Puca (accepts PayPal).

How does it work?

After you create your profile you can create a have list and a want list. PucaTrade sets prices for everyone. So the cards on your list will have a price listed in PucaPoints. Then you can send cards to other users. You can see what people are looking for and match it with your have list (or use the search function to find something you have and want to ship). Then you just send the card to the member you chose. When they receive the package they will confirm it and you will earn puca points. Your cards from your want list will appear there as well so someone else can find you and send the cards to you if you have enough puca points to pay for it. If you are sending digital objects you will rather trade pucatrade bot and the other member will get it from the pucatrade bot.

What are the pros and cons of PucaTrade?

After I joined I realized pretty quickly that the site is ideal for trading standard staples and some medium value cards. I guess for those cards there is relatively high demand so the cards are traded often. Finding someone who is willing to send you Legacy staples will be much harder though. The same goes for bulk. Being able to send bulk cards in bigger numbers to a single person seems rather unfeasible.

There are no fees on puca trade. All you have to pay for is the shipping (if you both send and receive everyone will pay more or less the same for shipping). You can choose to ship to certain countries so that can reduce the shipping fees you will have to pay. Anyway you will have to see what is the lowest value you are willing to ship.

When you register, you can earn 350 points that you can immediately use. That's 3.5USD you got for free.

Since you do not need to price cards etc. you can save a lot of your time and do not need to stress over it in general (selling under price etc). It also means that after many lower value trades you can possible get the fetchland you always dreamed of (if you wait long enough for someone to send it to you). On the other hand this means that the site is not place for those who would like to profit on those trades (I don't say that this is a bad thing). This does not mean that you cannot gain by trading. In in person trading you usually profit by always taking some bulk cards etc. It can be done on PucaTrade to some extent too.

If a condition of a card is an issue you might not want to use PucaTrade. Sending cards in worse condition is more or less a no-go on this site. If you have free account you cannot send points to other members. This means that free account members cannot refund or pay extra points. If you have solver or gold account you can do that so trading played cards can be done relatively well.

When cards spike they become untradeable so members wouldn't need to cancel the trades because of price spike.

Happy trading!