This week, I come directly from the source at Grand Prix: Indianapolis. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jon Medina for an interview regarding floor trading and his transition from player to trader, and now, to the retail side. Owner of LegitMTG, Jon has been a fundamental part of the financial Magic community and a large part of the reason that people, including me, have come from being a floor grinder to a writer and public figure. Financial Magic is now mainstream, and we have Jon to thank for a lot of that. I will talk a little bit about this weekend at the Grand Prix later in the article, but for now, I want to delve right into the interview with the man, the myth, the legend . . . Jon Medina!

What made you decide to get into trading over playing Magic? Was there a particular event or happening that caused this?

How important do you think it is to not only be a trader, but also a player, in order to stay up with trends and call shots?

Being a player doesn’t do much for trends unless you’re a certain kind of player. The guy who’s been grinding mono-red every FNM since the dawn of time will probably not be in tune with the progression of the rest of the metagame. Players who research the metagame can often see pricing trends before they hit.

For example, when I was playing two to three times a week, my finger was on the pulse of pricings. I knew that Sword of War and Peace was going to rise in addition to Runechanter's Pike and Ratchet Bomb. On the Eh Team before the Pro Tour, I even talked about Drogskol Captain Spirits before it was a deck. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back here; I’m just giving examples of how playing allowed me to invest in some areas that others might not have seen.

To branch off from the first question, once you began trading over playing, what was the turning point to cause you to look into the retail side?

It’s hard to locate a turning point; it was more of a natural progression. Once I started trading, it became apparent that I was going to need an outlet for all the cards I was picking up. I started selling on magictraders.com, and I did a lot of networking. As my stock and my reputation grew, the opportunity for going retail started to make more sense. The fact that people have had a chance to know me through Twitter and my GatheringMagic and SCG columns is a big benefit that other retail start-ups don’t have. It makes sense to leverage this to launch my new project.

Tell us a little bit about your business: What are your goals and aspirations for LegitMTG?

It’s tough to summarize this. I’m not looking to take over the world. I just want to offer a good customer experience with better prices than the big sites. Before I became a trader, I had to buy singles, and it was always a conundrum. I could either order from a big site and overpay or order from an unknown dealer (who is not as well stocked) and wonder what kind of service I was going to receive. Lately, I’ve been hearing an outcry from savvy players who try to buy cards that are rising in price, only to have their orders canceled by scummy dealers. I know that we can do better than that as a community. With LegitMTG, I want to fill the role of the small to midsized dealer, but instead of being scummy or incompetent, I want to be awesome.

As far as the content side goes, I’ve always secretly wanted to be a content provider in the Magic community. I tried to do it with my old blog, and it was a bust. LegitMTG gives me an outlet in that sense, and I’ve been having a blast working with my team to build something new and exciting.

I typically don’t rate things on the levels of easy or hard. Everything is easy, but certain things take more time and practice than other things. Getting into retail was much more work than I expected. Instead of being a trader and a writer, I’m wearing a lot of different hats—from bookkeeper to card sorter. There are a lot of little things that I didn’t consider before jumping into business, but I have a good team to work through these things.

I’ve always been a jumper. I prefer to jump into things and adapt to situations on the fly. In short, I was the first kid to jump off the merry-go-round at the highest speed. Other kids plotted for the perfect time and perfect speed, and though I might have skinned my knee a few times, I was back on the playground with an ice cream cone in time to watch the other kids agonize over jumping.

When you first started trading, did you ever think it would go this far for you? How far do you see it going now that you have the knowledge and experience in the business?

I never expected to have the impact that I have, but I don’t see my “accomplishments” as anything special. I’m grateful for my place in the Magic community, but to say that “I’ve come far” is a bit gratuitous. Other people have done much more for the game and the community than I have. I hope that my knowledge and experience will allow me to build a successful business (LegitMTG), and I plan to keep trying to pass that knowledge and experience on.

What has been the most helpful or most important event to bring you to where you are now?

There are many different things that led to me being here. If I had to pick one thing, it would be the opportunity to write the Pack to Power series on GatheringMagic. Without that, I don’t think that people could have come to know me as they do now.

Where do you see yourself in terms of Magic in five years?

I know you have a wife back home. How does she adjust to you being gone a lot and busy with not only Magic, but with a full-time job as well? Do you have any words of advice to those of us looking to chase the dream with families of our own?

The biggest advice that I can offer is to put your family first. This game and its community is an awesome force, and it can demand a lot of you. It’s important to keep your priorities straight and value your family over Magic. My wife has veto power over any Magic-related activity, and sometimes she loves me too much to hit that button—this is when I have to man up and do it for her.

Of, course I can only speak from where I am in life. For some people, Magic is their job and is their family—there’s no shame in embracing that if that’s where you are.

What do you have to say about all the naysayers who talk about financial Magic being a negative for the community?

Magic finance is a byproduct of the existence of a secondary market. The only way to eliminate Magic finance is to eliminate that market. This is not only impossible, but it’s also undesirable. The fact that people’s collections are worth money is very important for the survival of the game. The secondary market is part of what legitimizes Magic as a way to make a living. It’s easy to complain about “getting ripped off in a trade,” but there is a lot that Magic finance brings to the table.

Magic finance is not a problem for the community—douche bags are the problem for the community. The people who use Magic finance as a weapon instead of as a platform for commerce are the issues. The scam artists and the thieves make Magic finance an issue—not the grinders who are working for their money.

Bazaar Trader[/cardimg]I’ve been impressed by the fervor and dedication of Magic players. I’ve also been touched by what I’ve seen the community do to help a fellow player, but the thing that I love the most is that ninety percent of Magic players are smart asses. I’ve been a joker for most of my life, so I thoroughly enjoy the trolling and light-hearted atmosphere that comes with the Magic community.

If you had to sum up your wealth of knowledge in three sentences, what would they be?

There are no shortcuts; put the work in.

Value the needs of others.

There’s always someone better than you.

Anything else you would like to say to the community, or are there any shout outs you would like to give to anyone in particular?

I’ve received a lot of support in my writing endeavors and in this new business venture, so I’d like to thank the community at large for supporting me. Beyond that, I’ll shout out to all the value traders and my business partner JR Wade.

Is there anything else you want included—plugs for LegitMTG or anything?

I want to plug our store http://store.legitmtg.com. We’ve been working hard and updating the inventory over the last month. I’d like for people to check that out, and I’d also like for them to check out the content side of www.legitmtg.com. I’m interested in feedback on both fronts.

Before we part, I want to ask one last thing: If you had to list the top eight floor traders (in no particular order), who would they be? Would you be willing to, in the future, have a gentleman's competition to pit them against each other for bragging rights?

Noah Winston

Ogre

Rob Highlader

Ryan Bushard

Mark Sun

Chas Andres

Jonathan Medina

Ben Bleiweiss (honorary inclusion)

Yeah, I’d be happy to get beat up by these guys.

Well, there you have it—from the source himself for financial Magic-turned-entrepreneur. I want to thank Jon again for giving me some time for this interview from his busy schedule—juggling business and family.

Before I bid you adieu this week, I want to cover some of the cards that have been super-hot this weekend at the Grand Prix.

The first major player we have all known about but that has finally increased in price is Scavenging Ooze. This weekend, dealers were selling them as high as $40 and still moving them consistently. Though I don’t believe this is a real price—and more of a weekend spike—I could easily see the card settle around $30 for the time being, with almost no ceiling once the Commander decks are no longer available.

Dream Halls had a solid showing during the Grand Prix and is certainly a sleeper to watch out for. By time this article airs, I would not be surprised to see the price double from the current $3. The combo has been around for a while now, but with the resurgence of burn and dredge decks, it may be the right time to move on Dream Halls and its counterpart Conflux!

Join me next week as I talk more financial Magic and get more details on price changes from Grand Prix: Nashville! I can’t wait to get some more of these interviews done over the next few weeks, gathering all the good stuff when it comes to anything and everything in the world of Magic. I will also have more information involving my podcast with Marcel from Monday Night Magic and Corbin Holser from QuietSpeculation. Check out the site at brainstormbrewery.com for more information!

Ryan Bushard

@CryppleCommand