The Truth Behind Alpha Investments and Rudy 

I have learned more about how finance works from Rudy than from anywhere else. Can’t complain about that.

When I started watching Rudy like five years ago, he was legit. The second he started becoming a market maker he started doing what was in the best interest of his family. Ethics went out the window

I dont get Rudy. On one hand he mentions that Amazon dumps MTG undercutting LGS yet he does the same with a monthly subscription model similar to Amazon (?)

I watched the video that was taken down. Rudy's issue with LSS was that they reprimanded him for undercutting the cost of Flesh & Blood on his Patreon. He said that now that they were bigger he was expecting them to pull him up on the behaviour. He then said that he would stop buying and selling FaB because he couldn't under-cost them to his Patreons. It was a really gross admission of taking advantage off smaller companies.

He just wanted to hurt LSS and Metazoo so he can pump one piece and sorcery and soon lorcona even though he talked so much s**t about it and was to cowardly to keep it up like a man instead hide behind a paywall 😂😂

I don't think he changed his opinion on grading. I believe this deals with perspective. From the perspective as a grading company, he would want to join as people would be grading to mark up the cards as they are now in slabs. It would be a solid source of revenue for Rudy. From the perspective of a single buyer, he definitely still stands on preferring to not buy graded cards due to the mark up. Contradictory due to wearing multiple hats, but that's the fact as he's a collector and a business owner.

Agreed. It's a little annoying how quickly he flipped on card grading ever since he bought majority of PCG. Most of his videos have some sort of plug for the company and it reeks of CEO founder hype talk

I used to like listening to rudy's longer videos, because he genuinely seemed like he wanted to teach people things. But then he totally boned all his patrons with his BS 700 dollar mystery boxes, and my affection totally died. To be clear, I have never been a patron, never bought a box, and never supported him financially. But watching people open those boxes was depressing. Rudy had a real opportunity to do something special for his loyal supporters and he gave them worthless garbage and his own promos that only have value because he manipulates the promos this way. This made it clear to me that he has zero care for his followers, and he truly is just a business trying to make money. His followers truly are timmys, and he literally calls them this to their face. And they give him theur money. It blows my mind how naive and unintelligent people are. Putting someone on a pedestal that sees them as piles of money.

The statement about One Piece was a big one on reprints I hope Bandai considers his input.🎉❤

If you dig back into the Ruby archives you will see that his view on grading evolved. The basis of A.I was to have a full graded set of Alpha 10s. His perspective changed based on repeated examples questionable outcomes. So he buys into a company to leverage a market shortfall.

You are a seer in the trading card game space. What else do you foresee for 2024?

will you do One piece in your patreon?

I've been watching Rudy since 2017 and a patron since 2019. I think some people take him too seriously. His channel is primarily an entertainment channel slanted toward the world of cardboard, so don't believe you're going to become a cardboard millionaire like him. As for his Patreon, I haven't bought anything in awhile, since I prefer set boosters to the draft boosters he offers. It's worth it for me purely for the entertainment value and his behind-the-scenes commentary. His stance on grading isn't as cut and dry as you make it sound. Especially in the early days he was heavily into BGS and PSA cards, but he's always said it's not worth the grading premium if you think you'll grade less than a 9. For rougher cards, the only real benefit is authenticity confirmation, and even that's debatable. My only real beef with Rudy is his channel inadvertently (or maybe intentionally!) encourages a substantial number of content creators to either credulously parrot his talking points (often without mentioning their sole source is Rudy) or make endless negative videos about him in a desperate attempt for views. I think this video is a mostly balanced take, however😉

When rudy complains about print runs, he doesn't actually want to sell less boxes, he wants no one else to get product so he can be the sole gatekeeper and charge what he wants.

Wait so the OP states he learned a lot from Rudy with respect to investing in MTG? Yet I see comments below from Rudy defenders that he is primarily an entertainment channel so all his investment advice in modern sealed was for entertainment purposes only? This argument reminds me of the cigarette manufacturers who slap a warning label on their product thinking it absolves them from advertising how cool smoking was. Yes, Rudy has always said his goal is to make money, but only recently has he finally come forward to say he is not here to help your community. That was his non-apology apology. Per the bankruptcy video of a former Rudy patron, Rudy burned a lot of patrons for his enrichment. The fact that his channel churns through patrons should be a red flag. The guy is rich enough.

He started selling out of print overstock and pushing 90 days post release sales ... until he caught up with printing and built his relationships with distributors ... now he sells at release day ... miss the old days hahahahahahahahha

Rudy and You are my 2 main people I watch for info and opinions.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm a long time Rudy Patreon. I like his videos (where he makes his real money). Rudy has been open about who he is. He tells you in the video he's a scumbag investor, but people think it's a joke. It's not. When people tell you who they are, BELIEVE THEM! I know what I get with him and I'm okay with that. If you don't like it don't buy from him. It truly is that easy.

It's hard to trust someone that makes a video about how lgs DONT want your graded cards just to buy pgc. It seems like he burned alot of people so this is his out for now until the hate over metazoo pump dies down but hey it not like this hasent happened with exidos and argent saga before hand and now sorcery is his golden child seems like a cycle at this point.

It's easy too scampi someone but it's hard to convince someone they are being scammed!

Great take on ol uncle Rudy. Ive always taken his opinion with a grain of salt but now its a cup of salt. Dont think hes a scammer but he, as you pointed out, is less independent than ever before.

He is a PRO scammer. Weak people believed his lies and got hosed.

Rudy hasn’t changed, he is genuinely an evil floppy taco investor and that’s what makes him unique

Im a fan of rudy. The metazoo pump and dumps are pretty gross to me, but other than that i find him entertaining. It is kind of mind blowing that he has managed to gather such a large following of people willing to invest so heavily.

I don't think Rudy is a scammer, but he certainly is not talking or creating content for the benefit of the audience. This is proven by how he hyped and pumped stupid products like Metazoo. Apart from his old video about "financial perspective" most of his videos are about clowning around and hyping products. When I watched a content creator talk about a product, I want them to be in it because they truly believe in the product. Not just because they have some insider benefits. That is why I like you talking about GA, or guys like Red zone rogue talked about FAB. You guys seems to really like and appreciate the products.

at boxing day my lgs got rid of its stock of metazoo 1$/booster so I bought 1 to see the quality of the cards. I found that it was quite close to the chaotic game cards released in 2006-2007

Been watching Rudy recently and I like the guy he's funny. But definitely get sleazy card salesman vibes

Lets go! I still love his content. He has his pros and cons.

I liked Rudy for the first 2 years of his channel but eventually the content got pretty repetitive. He is also why I never touched FaB… he was in so early with the financial side of things that it made people speculate more than a brand new game should have. I’m sure that speculation paid off for folks. But it didn’t pay off for the people that wanted to play the game.

bro predicted metazoo shutting down

You're misunderstanding the situation if you think Rudy doesn't make a ton of money from Patreon. No...he doesn't make money off the boxes. He doesn't care about making a margin off of the boxes as much as he is interested in keeping his subscription model going. Why would he need to profit 5% or 10% off a box of Magic when he gets an up front $15-$20 per month from all these suckers thinking they'll be able to flip the cards? Even 3-4 years ago he was making upwards of $250K a month from his Patreon subs alone. Any margin on top of the cards would be an ancillary benefit. He's just gotten greedier as time has gone on. Why do you think Netflix and Audible gives you 1 month free up front? They're not making any money off of that, they are losing money by using their streaming bandwidth and content fees...but long term as a subscriber you're just paying them every month whether you watch the content or not, that's how they make their money.

I just got called a Rudy Simp yesterday! Very cool. I think Rudy is very obviously in it for himself, which makes him come across more genuine to . He often says that he's not in it for the "community", but to make money for himself. If he wasn't as up front about that I wouldn't like him as much. There are often times though he's partial with the truth though. You can't say you're losing money on boxes when you're receiving monthly memberships to gain access to them. How often is he getting a subscription but not actually selling the boxes to people!?..and I know this for a fact cause I'm one of them! I love Rudy for the entertainment. If you take him any further than that, that's on you. I think people think I'm simping for taking his side over LSS with the recent drama. It just seems like LSS is a little sensitive when it comes to criticism. Great video, love your stuff too....oh god am I simping for SolarGames now!? Dammit.

Rudy does stuff like this for a reason. They reasons may suck, but can't blame a youtuber for youtubing

Couldn't agree more with damn near everything you said in this video.

Thanks for this

Ooooh 👀 let's hear it Mark

He’s a business man of course he’s going to change his mind based on the amount of money grading is making him.

To be fair, nothing is the same price it was a few years ago. So him raising prices makes sense. Great video!

Rudy completely changed the culture of MTG collecting. I got into magic on a whim in 2017, but wasn't really digging the ultra nerdy culture and such. Then I found Rudy and knew guys like me had a place in this game/hobby.

Hehe, indeed. That PCG deal shifted some perspective to him advertising their service. Is it bad? Dunno, I still don't bother much with grading. As Rudy often said, anything below a 9/10 is not worth the bonus in most cases (pun intended). One correction I gotta do: The draft boxes are still sold at $89 shipped to the US for several draft and one set box as well.

Good ol corporations being butt-hurt at people saying anything they don't like.

But... what of the tendies?

So Rudy should only charge what he pays for things... No profit at all. This is a very naive (at best) view.

How can you sit there and say he didn’t scam people when he sold metazoo boxes for $700 when they are now under $50? All of 2021 Rudy complained about scalpers ruining the hobby and here he is doing the exact same thing. He hurts the game when he sells boxes, undercuts stores, then provides no place for players to play the game. If I was a store, why would I carry product when it will just sit on shelves until the Amazon dump or the Rudy dump. Make it makes sense

Rudy will do whatever is in Rudy's best interest just like all of us. The difference is people like to listen when he says they should buy something but they won't listen when he clearly tells them he's going to make money off of them. I don't agree with 90% of what Rudy says but if you're responsible enough to watch his videos without your hand on your wallet, you'll get a ton of entertainment value out of him.

I think your assessment of Rudy on his approach to grading card is a bit unfair. There is no reason a person who dislike a certain thing cannot also like a business selling that thing. Much like even if Warren Buffet does not think Gold is a good investment, he will have no issue buying a gold mining company if he thinks it's a profitable business. If Warren Buffet thinks torys are a waste of money doesn't mean he cannot also like a toy company who sells toys for a profit. A personal opinion and a business assessment is not mutually exclusive. Rudy dislikes graded cards as a product and he likes grading company for its business model has absolutely nothing wrong with it. He also goes out of his way to say how he really have no passion for Pokemon and yet he can respect its market. This is much the same thing.

He still sells draft boxes at $89, which to my understanding, is probably some of the best pricing? Perhaps not for all of the sets if they tank on release or something. But in any case they're not $100+ as I believe you mentioned. I do agree that the collector box prices are kind of underwhelming some times. Especially with the first LOTR set - I think he sold them for like 395 when they were initially going crazy, and I have to imagine that it cost him far less than that to acquire. I don't have an issue with him trying to make money and sell into hype - I get it - but then why would I buy those from you when I could probably find that price elsewhere? Sometimes he does give pretty good prices but it seems you have to buy like 2 cases or something. I'm still a patron, but I do think a lot rides on how he is able to price the new Play boosters. I would guess that's going to be more expensive for everyone and I don't know what distribution pricing will be like, but I guess most stores will sell for like 150-160? So yea if he can get them closer to 120 or whatever distribution winds up being, I'd be okay with that. I think consolodating draft and set boosters might make the Play booster subject to more preorder hype and price spikes, so if he can offer them at a consistant price without upcharging due to hype, I'm good with that. But if he just does like, TCG Player price - 5% I don't think it's worth it anymore.

"Pokemon for adults..... who like fart jokes" WOOOOT, I'm in, I'll take two cases

I cant trust Rudy; whenever he opens packs or wholesales, he lies about what he opens. I saw him open "Circle of Protection: Green" and he said it was "Circle of Protection: Rudy" The dude straight up lied. Totally disappointed.

I just watch Rudy for Rudy. He is just a salesman. 😂

Regarding the grading stance flip: I don’t think that’s all true Mark, he was against, and still is against grading vintage mtg. He never really was against grading in general or grading other games. He was just saying as a vintage collectors he stopped buying graded cards since they don’t even grade well anyway

Let me first say I like Rudy in the space, he is fun to watch and does have some good info if you can parse it from the BS. However, Rudy's Grading company is worthless, we have had PCG here in australia for a while now, I saw an Underground Sea graded PCG 9.5 sell for less than an ungraded one, and that happened this week!

Rudy made that video private for patrons only. So if you want to see it, become a patron.

nobody had to buy the 6.9 kits I didn't

« I live in california.. i pay 10% taxe.. its pretty insane » .. LOOOL … try canada.. were getting buttfocked with a small 15% taxes

Rudy has been entertainment to me since Day 1. Having his cheap mtg options available was just a bonus, if willing to take the risk. Always will be a fun chapter for me, and love to flex the t-shirts at the LGS.

Didn't he bent the knee he was talking about the fab product hes selling

It doest cost $2 to make a candy bar either. Rudy is for making money. Hes said this a thousand times. This is a big nothing burger.

rudy pump and dump scam guy who rips people off on there collections

Big Rudy fan myself. I finally after 4 years got in on the $15 Patrion ❤ it's always been full!

Pcg not s c g

You ever rolled a blunt Mark?

Huh? His draft boosters are 89 9:23

10% tax :) be happy you dont live in Europe I get 21% +10% for non EU products

I could be wrong because I've only been a Rudy Patron for like, a year and half and following his videos for maybe 2, but I've watched a lot of his backlog of videos and I don't know that I ever got the impression that he felt like card grading was 100% a scam without exception. What I can remember of his stance was that basically anything under a 9 wasn't worth being in a slab because the raw card might be more valuable. For example, if you have a card that looks really great (no blemishes, good centering, corners, etc etc), then it might be worth grading, or if you got a pack fresh vintage card with good centering...I feel like he wouldn't have an issue with that. But if it has any centering issues or blemishes, it's probably better to keep it raw. Now, I'm not sure but I think that's in relation to vintage MTG more specifically but I could be wrong - I'm not sure that he commented much on grading other games or even newer MTG. I also think that he often directed most of his ire at the wave of small grading companies that seemed to pop up in the 2020/2021 boom, probably because they didn't have the same credentials and brand trust as Becket or PSA. So I'm not sure that he unilaterally disliked grading companies. As far as him buying a controlling interest in one of those smaller companies, my understanding is that he was going to be fairly involved in guiding the quality of the service. So if you have issues with the way cards are graded and you have the ability to buy into one and apply your standards to it, that doesn't seem that hypocritical to me. Again, I could be wrong about all this but that's just the impression I got from what I remeber seeing.

Rudy is a heehaw magnet

rudy bought lower then your lgs. thats a bad idea for a game you should play.

Meh

I respect your content. However, Rudy has LIED to his customers and he has a lot of deception. I don't support his Pump and Dump, I respect he is taking care of his family. I also take care of my family, I don't lie to my customers to maximize my profits. Him speculating something will do well, I don't hold it against when he speculates something will go high in value when it doesn't. But his showing fake values is absolutely disgusting.

Rudy doesn't make videos about other creators...just saying

Shocking a guy who has skin in the game is looking out for his best interest.

Wth are you running a game store? With your analyses you can make $250k a year easely!

I just want cheap cardboard sealed boxes at the end of the day because its a game... and it's just cardboard with ink on it. Not precious metals.

I’ve been a patreon of rudy for 5 years… I pay for the entertainment … I buy stuff every once in a while…but his channel and patreon is way fun

Rudy is disliked because he and his exclusive group of whales manipulate the markets for personal gain, not to actually advance the playability of the game for the entire community.

FOLKS! People just hate on Rudy. he is no better or worse than your average business man. You seize opportunities when you see them. You take advantage of situations when you can. He doesn't do anything malicious to anyone. People are free to make their own decisions at the end of the day. People hate on Rudy for the same reason anyone would hate on anybody....He's got it going on, and you don't...plain and simple. Human nature to hate on success.

RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!

Idk, but this reeks of you just being out for views, interpreting stuff into what he says and does. Leaves a bad taste.

Too many plebs, normies and Timmies that don't understand economics 101! Get rekt! Oh, buy Bitcoin!

Rudy is hated because he actually did what we all dreamed of doing one day going to our LGS as kids. Jealousy is sin folks

This video was NOT...Classy

Alpha investments is just that. Content creator who got some notoriety now pumps and dumps products. Isn't RU-vid social media all about maintaining viewers and sponsorships. His popularity got tons of sellers offering him collections at bottom basement prices. He has tens of millions $$$ in singles and box he has accumulated over the years. Lets be honest he is a businessman and a opportunist. Don't get me wrong Rudy offer some good content but as of recent its "all" business.

GA Card Quality