welcome back loyal listeners of the stacking slabs podcast to season five episode eleven of the wnba card podcast my name is caitlin i go by at coldlunchcards mostly on the instagram machine but you can find me on other corners of the internet as well and i'm so excited to continue bringing collector driven and community focused content wherever you guys are listening to us today today's episode is going to be a fun one as everybody knows this season has been focused on team collecting and we're trying to unlock new characters for you guys out there who are all focused on different teams this week we're talking all about the washington mystics we're talking with matthew from at dynasty sports cards we're gonna be talking all about the young core in the washington mystics team what seems to be a very popular young team a dark horse for the playoffs this year and just an exciting franchise all around let's let's get into it today matthew's joining us here matthew how are you doing today i am fantastic thank you for having me i'm excited and side note the mystics clinched their playoff spot so you're right on with that one awesome yeah we look forward to seeing them for sure i'm just super excited about today's episode i think last year i declared the mystics were one of my quote unquote league pass teams that kind of side allegiance just because of that young core of rookies that they had that have really transformed the mystics from being kind of a not not a not a super competitive team the past couple of years after their championship run into a team that's just super exciting so we're going to talk to matthew all about collecting the mystics the fandom of the mystics talk about cards everything we're here to talk about but before we get into that matthew for people who may not know who you are do you mind introducing yourself to the audience yeah obviously my name is matthew warner i'm a partner with dynasty sports cards you can find us on whatnot instagram tiktok ebay trying to expand on the loop app but we specialize in wnba only whether it's breaks singles consignment all the good stuff trying to have a one singular place where people can find what they're looking for no matter what it is high end low end middle ground just trying to provide a space for the collector you know where they know when they think wnba they think dynasty sports cards and we can we can find them what they want and have what they need so that's that's who i am and that's that's how i got into you know the quote unquote business side of it so awesome i think we'll get into more of what that business kinda means to you and how you got into it and and how it kind of changes your perspective on collecting but before we get into those topics i wanna start with the origin story of you could you kinda talk to us about how you got into cards or the hobby in the first place is this a newfound love or something you're returning to where did you start sure i mean as a kid growing up it was hey let's go to the local gas station right and grab a a pack of you know early nineties baseball cards and and look for ken griffey junior cards and stuff like that and you know as you grow and you get older you kinda you know you move away from that and the cards became less and less valuable in the mid to late nineties and then sometime in twenty fourteen i think i found you know sports cards again and i was doing you know mostly nfl breaks on what was then breakers dot tv so that goes back quite a ways i think it's still around but not very active so i did that for maybe a year or two and then again you know that the prices then just got too expensive and i was like i can't i can't compete and then one day i was on on whatnot and i was actually looking for sneakers because i'm a big sneaker head and stumbled across you know wnba cards and i was like i never knew that this was even a thing and this was you know right around the time that twenty twenty four select had just come out so not not that long ago but you know i i was just enamored i i coach girls' basketball at the high school level i've coached for years my daughter and and many others and so it was just kinda natural that i was drawn to it and just fell in love with the hobby again and and the chase and and everything that's involved and it's just kind of mushroomed and and grew from there but that's that was the start of my wnba collecting that's awesome when you talk about kind of like everything in the hobby something that comes up to me is these labels that we put on different people we say people are flippers we say people are pure collectors we say business owners you know there's all these different kinds of identities in collecting today what kind of contingents do you identify with specifically in the wnba space do you would you call yourself a a collector or yeah i would say i'm a collector for sure yeah you know if if i'm you know getting into a break i'm getting in to get you know my pc players i'm not concerned if i hit a big card of somebody else along the way so be it but i'm not out you know searching the you know the auction sites for steals and deals that i can then turn around and resell like a lot of our work is done in consignment on the single side so we're not buying and flipping anything we're just helping our you know our customers get some better return on their investment but for myself personally i'm a collector a hundred percent and that's sort of the vibe that i like to to treat the business side of things with is for the collector not necessarily for the flipper or the gambler although you know everybody's welcome but you know the idea was let's provide a space for those hardcore collectors like myself to come and find their their pc cards absolutely we always need more of that we always need more spaces where collectors feel welcomed and feel just like a part of a community and so one thing i want to talk to you about before we get into the mystics of it all because that's what we're here to talk about is the washington mystics is i want to zoom out and you kind of touched on this and some of your explanation of who you are and what you do on coaching women's basketball things like that but i've got a big question to kind of bring us deeper before we get into the mystics which is a lot of this podcast was created about that community about opening a space where collectors feel like they're part of something bigger and in the wnba space we know that that space historically has not been available or if it was it was a really niche community so i've asked every guest the same question and matthew i'd love to hear from you what does being a fan of women's sports and collecting women's sports cards mean to you i can remember a few years ago i when i was i was the head coach of a varsity girls basketball team and we went and i got to know the obviously the boys coach pretty well through that time and i said you know what we need to have like a night where we bring both teams together on the court and kinda introduce them to the fans and in the process of that you know have some competitions between the boys and the girls and you know they we did some shooting competitions and and some other things and just obviously having fun but after that night i remember telling the girls like what you just did because they were super competitive as far as against the boys i said what you did is just prove that girls' basketball is just as exciting and just as good as boys' basketball and you just proved that to a whole new set of people and that's really what it is to me is just you know understanding that just because it's women playing the game doesn't mean that the game is less than it just means that the game is different yep and the game is is so much closer in the wnba to what the game was when i played basketball than the nba i don't i don't identify with nba basketball at all but women's basketball i can identify with you know traditional bigs and not everybody's jack and threes and you know so when it comes to the game itself you know it it's just so much more in line with what i know of basketball and then to to transition into the the hobby side you know to be a part of something that's growing so rapidly but yet still has so much room to grow it's exciting because you know the sky's the limit and we're just i feel like we're just you know scraping the tip of the iceberg and you know it's just gonna continue to grow and i'm glad to be a part of that i hope to be a part of that for a long time but that's what it means to me is just being part of something new and exciting and helping to boost you know a group of people who haven't had their due respect and their due you know admiration now for a while yeah well we could all get behind that i love that answer i love the twofold i think something that doesn't get talked about a lot when i ask people that question is the game you i mean like you're talking to somebody who i was a very mid level jv varsity player i wasn't very good but like that speaks to me is talking about like just the elements of women's basketball that do feel different the game on the court than men's basketball and i've heard a lot of people online talk about how that's kind of been what brings them into women's basketball it's just a different identity of the game and you know that's what we're all here to watch is some sports like that's what brings us all together here we like cards but what we're collecting on the card is the sports so i think that's just a really good call out matthew and i think i'm just excited to talk more to you more about you about or to you about the game and about the team so let's let's get into that we talked about who you are what your business is your journey kind of like your relationship with women's sports and i want to take all that and really zoom in on one specific part of your basketball fandom the washington mystics for anyone who might be newer to the to the league or unfamiliar with the team a little bit of background is the mystics have been in washington since the league's nineteen ninety eight season through an expansion draft they spent their early years kind of like searching for sustained success became a real contender in the late twenty ten's behind one of my favorite players elena delle don and finally broke through with her winning a championship in twenty nineteen today it's looking a little bit different they're building around an exciting young core with people like sonia citron kiki iriyafin and georgia amor and a new kind of brand of basketball a new coach too so with that kind of little bit of mystics lore as our backdrop matthew let's get into your relationship with the team was there a moment or a specific moment in time or memory where you remember kinda like pledging allegiance to the mystics what kinda pulled you to them so interestingly enough i at one point i was i was interviewing for a college coaching job and so i spent a lot of that and it coincidentally was like twenty nineteen to twenty twenty so i spent a lot of that twenty twenty season watching college women's college basketball and of course i was enamored and in love with sabrina inesku and sotto sabeli at oregon i yeah i i wanted to see that that ncaa tournament so bad so that while i always knew about the wnba i i never was really a follower you know it was just it's hard to find i didn't you know really search it out it was in the middle of the summer and having young kids i just never really spent the time finding it but once i actually had some time to sit down and watch games you know i fell in love with them and then followed them into the wnba and then that's when really my wnba fandom started and of course new york liberty i still have new york liberty t shirts and blankets from when they won their championship a couple years ago and all that but as far as the mystics go it starts with two words and those two words are georgia amor okay because i watched there is a girl who who played high school ball in our area in the league that i coach in and she went to virginia tech to play division one and so obviously i wanted to check-in and watch her games and see how she was doing and then i just saw this girl and i watched her all five years in college when she went to kentucky and i was just enamored like this girl's amazing you know and so talented and watching her and liz kitley and so when washington drafted them i was i was in i was i told my daughter i'm like we're getting you know we're gonna start with a seven game pass we're gonna go down we're gonna see georgia i'm all excited and then of course she gets injured before the first game last year and sits out but we still had our seven game pass so you know we went down and fell in love with the rest of the team as well and that's kinda what brought us to where we are so i'm i'm still a relatively young mystics fan in in the sense of how long i've been following them but definitely a hardcore diehard mystic fan at this point i love that and i love that it's georgia i also kinda had this affinity for georgia watching her at virginia tech and then transferring to kentucky just like a really really surprising output from such a small guard watching her play is just so fun so i completely understand kind of the the magnetism that you felt towards her and i'm it's so cool to hear i think recently we hear a lot of these stories where like players in in collegiate in the collegiate level attract wnba fans now it didn't used to always be that though it used to be like people would be fans of the collegiate athletes they'd transition to the wnba and they'd kinda get left behind the fans they didn't really transition with them they just stayed with the school these days it feels like that's a very common pipeline for people to become fans so i just i just love that and i love that you picked picked georgia and you ended up on a pretty fun team to watch for sure if you could speak to a little bit about what this team kind of gives you versus maybe some of your other fandoms if you're watching other sports or if you i mean you talk about your own teams that you're coaching what does kind of the mystics what separates the mystics for you oh they're just fun like they and and they don't quit i think they've had like five double digit comebacks this year they were down twenty against the wings and came back and won they just won the other night against portland down like fifteen in portland they they just keep fighting and and clawing and and they they do all the things that as a coach i always tried to implore you know my players to do like be gritty be be hard nosed dive on the ball find a way to win and they just like talent wise yeah they're definitely talented but i think they just kinda play with a a joy and sort of a not knowing any better mindset yeah that just makes them so fun to watch because they shouldn't be doing half the things they're doing you know they they just they shouldn't and their coach he's just you know he's having a ball he's i see their postgame locker rooms where he's just running around acting like an idiot and i love it and so it's just it's just so fun to watch them play with joy and and not just be out there you know kinda going through the motions being a robot and earning a paycheck they're just they always they just they're a real fun group to be around and as we've gotten you know this year we've transitioned to a full season pass you know as far as tickets go so we see them all the time they're just super down to earth super nice women we had to meet the team the other night and they all were just so gracious with their time and you know do above and beyond i mean i sonia needs to learn how to say no every now and then because like she sits and signs for like forty five minutes at the meet and greet and it's like you've signed for these people every night at every game you you know you could say no to a couple of them and nobody would care like nobody would be offended but but they're all just phenomenal they're they're really great i think they're still the youngest team in the league or at least at one point they were and i think you can feel that kind of energy of maybe people have lower expectations for us because of our age and our inexperience but we're gonna fight and we're gonna try our best i think that comes through the screen when i watch them they're one of my favorite teams to watch outside of my minnesota lynx i i think watching the mystics especially under this new leadership has been super fun and i want to ask you a question that i ask every guest on this season which is that if you had to try to decide to pick three words that kind of capture the essence of the franchise specifically right now how would you explain the mystics in three words or less i would use energetic k i would use gritty yep and i would use joyful that's a pretty good formula like if you've got those three things i don't know what else you can ask for both as a a coach but also as a fan so i i agree with you i think the mystics have an interesting identity that they're building over there it feels different it feels different than other teams and maybe it is that youthful aspect but it i i completely agree with the three that you gave one hundred percent i have one more kind of like rapid fire question for you that we ask which is that you know we talk a lot about looking back i mean obviously you're a little bit newer to the mystic so you might have a different view on this but we talk about greatness a lot we talk about different players that come from franchises that played super well and i'm curious if you had to carve out a mount rushmore for the washington mystics so four players that kinda are the pinnacle of success for the mystics who are you putting up there as of today obviously i think the first one would be elena delle don right you can't make up mount rushmore pretty much anything i don't think without having her on there nikki mccray i know they're they're still you know relatively young but obviously sonia is well on the way they're they're chiseling the stone i think as as we speak and then trying to think of her name we just they just gave us a bobblehead and i forget monique oh monique i'm sorry no keep going keep going i i forget her last name but it's she's got it and i've and i'm ashamed because i was there and that's okay but they all i mean there's been so many obviously you can't you can't name them all but those those are the ones that you know mean i mean when i think mystics even though again i'm a newer fan it's elena delle adon sure like that's just that's just where it kinda starts for me when when you mention that i think that her kind of bringing the championship to the mystics and she was also one of the only players i think her and fi that have had a fifty forty ninety season which to me like you could say that stat but it doesn't i think it's just like so impressive it's just like one of the most impressive statistics of all time i think deladon is one of those players in our hobby that isn't quite respected which brings me to my next question for you which is we have this concept of the disrespect index this idea that players perform really well on the court but the hobby our hobby doesn't necessarily translate that on the court play into market prices would you pick elena delle don as your highest scoring on the on the disrespect index and if not who are you choosing i wouldn't because i think i think in her time you know had the hype been what it is now that her prices would have been that's a good point through the roof but i'll give you mine even though it's probably gonna hurt me because everybody was gonna wanna run out and buy her but my most disrespected right now is shakira austin oh yeah i mean you can pick her up for pennies on the dollar in in breaks or singles and it it hurts my heart because she's so fantastic and she would definitely be my most disrespected on the on the list right now well i have to call out that two episodes ago i think on the la sparks episode somebody else mentioned shakira austin as just being a player that is completely disrespected in the hobby so i think people are starting to pick up but yeah her her play it just doesn't make sense in terms of prices especially i will have to say like post her joining unrivaled and like directly learning from fi on the owls and then competing in the one on one tournament i thought like her game improved like tenfold after that and she's become a dominant force in the post who makes like good decisions which i think in post players i i'm speaking as somebody who is not a post so it's easy for me to say it's so frustrating sometimes just the decision making under the hoop she's that's good she has good instincts and watching her grow and succeed has been so much fun and i would love for her to get more kind of respect in the hobby but it sounds like maybe people are catching on but but i don't know and and you wanna talk about somebody that probably like you know how certain players you see them on court and you think they're gonna be a certain way yeah she's like you see her and you think oh my goodness like she's yelling and and you know getting a crowd you know nothing makes the crowd in that arena cheer louder than a shaquira austin block a block and she just starts yelling at the you know but you meet her off the court and she is just so calm and so like down to earth like you would not put the two together like if you saw a picture like you just wouldn't you wouldn't relate the two so she's probably even a little bit under or misunderstood off the court as well because of the you know her intensity on the court is so so strong yeah for sure that's awesome i kinda wanna transition away from like we just talked about the mystics as its franchise and move into the cards of it all and i think that like the intersection of fandom and the hobby is really a part that i want to lean into here and at some point you know being a fan turns into actually collecting their cards you have to you have to like the player and then you have to go out and spend hard earned cash on them and i wanna talk about that kind of like evolution for you what did kind of the beginning of your mystics collection look like was it georgia amor one hundred percent focus or where did it kinda like start well anybody that was around last year over christmas time knows that we had some some illnesses in our family and so we weren't able to really put up and decorate our christmas tree and so i chose to decorate it myself with don russ georgia amor base cards so and we we put some pictures out for for those who who know and you know we topped it off with a gold georgia auto and you know it was the star and so it was just fun you know and and again we were going through some hard times as a family and so it was just a good laugh and and you know trying to be as cheerful as we could in that season of life but yeah i mean it started with a couple georgia you know college autos and you know kind of again once we got to know more about the others and you know then you fall in love with sonia and kiki and you know shakira she's my wife's favorite player hands down she loves her blocks and when she i i forget who we were playing and we were at the game and she swatted somebody out of bounds and my wife says that's my favorite player you know and so of course i gotta start collecting her now for of course my wife you know i can't i can't let her go and and so you know then it it just kinda morphed and now it's you know it's mostly those four georgia kiki shakira and sonia you know there's not really you know many more right now that have cards because most of them are rookies but yeah it'll it'll be it'll be cody and lauren betts and all them come you know a couple weeks when when we get new product that's exciting i i wanna kinda ask about your collecting approach and strategy obviously you talk about a team and now we're getting into kind of like core players that define that team in your fandom but in terms of the cards themselves what are you kind of looking for are you a quantity person just let me take one of everything please off the menu or are you looking for specific qualities in a card that kinda makes it into your pc yeah i think definitely early on it was give me everything it was give me anything and everything that was that was georgia and then of course the others but interestingly enough i obviously i collected sabrina and sartu first and i kind of you know sabrina especially her prices are just for rookie stuff especially is just so outrageous that it became okay maybe i just focus on a few nice pieces instead of everything i can find and so i've kinda tried to transition that into you know these other current players to where it's like alright i've i don't need one of every base card i don't need a silver of everything you know just give me some nice pieces some nice low numbered stuff some nice autos especially rookie stuff you know because you know that's that's where the money is if you wanna look at it from that side of things but yeah just let me get some nice stuff and and try to have sort of a you know a nice mix of mid i i refuse to spend outrageous money on cards as far as for myself because you know that's just not in my nature i'm not a gambler so you know it's like i'll i'll try to hit things out of a break for you know cheaper even if it costs me more in the long run which is kind of a stupid strategy too i guess but you know we all have our own our own ways but i i would definitely consider it that i i would rather have a few nice pieces than to have just one of anything and everything yeah for sure i think that evolution is a common story told by many collectors is at first we kind of take anything we drink from the fire hose so to say and at some point we begin to figure out what meets our expectations or put these rules on our cards is it meet a certain type of threshold that we're we're willing to enter this into our collection and then i think we kinda zoom out and we think about our collection as a whole and i'd like to ask you when you zoom out and you look at your kind of like collection do you think of your mystics pc as sort of this curation do you think of it as a story or is it just like cool things that you're trying to accumulate over time what is that kind of like zoom out look like to you yeah i think i think i look at it i mean i think the cards are art you know and and they're art pieces that you own and so for me i don't know how many of the cards i'll actually keep forever yeah because there always comes a point where i feel like okay i've enjoyed this card you know and now it's time for somebody else to enjoy it and so then i wanna pass that on to somebody else i have a a georgia amor one zero one auto from don russ and i'm at the point now where i'm like you you know what i've had it now for about a year or whatever the time frame is and there's other georgia collectors out there that are looking for it maybe it's time for me to just let it go and move on and let them enjoy it now for a little bit which i guess is kinda like art i mean i know there's collectors there too but for the most part it's like well i've had this painting in my house for a while let me you know let me swap it out for something else and and chase you know something else or look for something new so i i kinda see it that way i guess i guess i would be a curator as opposed to a storyteller in my in my collecting yeah i think that approach is something that is not easy to kinda like stumble into you have to be very intentional about it when i think about cards that that meet that criteria for me in my head the way that i think about it is sort of as like a rental like it's like okay i have enjoyed it for a year or two and now i don't enjoy it as much as i used to but i know that somebody else will let me get rid of it and if i take a loss that's the cost of the rental and if i don't that's the that's the kind of like profit that i'm just making on on just time and and luck most of the time so i think that's an interesting interesting way to go about it another part that i wanna ask you about your pc is this idea of prioritization we talked about this how you started off kinda like with a big c and then you shrunk it to figure out do certain mystics players kinda rank over one another or do you try to evenly distribute against those mostly those four players that you mentioned before i mean i buy a lot of georgia and shakira because they're cheap yeah obviously sonia is ridiculously hard to to come by especially at you know a decent price my daughter is a really big kiki collector okay and so you know i'll i'll buy her for for my daughter but i guess if i did prioritize it would be georgia just because that's the one that kinda brought me here yeah obviously money wise i'd rather prioritize sonia yeah because she's probably got the most upside but you know georgia's coming around she's starting to play well so maybe her she'll get some more love here but i would definitely if if i had to choose i guess i i would still go with georgia just because she's again the one who kinda got me into this to begin with and you know got me into the mystics in general so have to keep her at the top for sure i understand completely i i i think it's also like you've got a lot of good players over there to choose from and they they all come from a similar era so their cards are coming from similar sets they might not be the same year but a lot of them they are like they are from the same class are you only really collecting that era of the mystics or are you collecting maybe previous eras that came before this that maybe you weren't there when you were to watch them but you're interested in them no i think i mean most of it or all of my collection at this point is you know twenty twenty two or above you know you got shakira's rookie year is twenty twenty two so i got anything twenty twenty two and above if if i went back before twenty twenty two it would be back to like sabrina sabrina you know i i would love to get some you know some deladon stuff but again i i don't really connect with that just because of the the timing but yeah you know we know that she's obviously a big part of of their history and their story we've you know seen her in met her at games and and and whatnot but you know i think for me it's all about where we are now and you know the players that we go you know pay money to watch every night we wanna we wanna collect them and you know be able to display a little mural if you will of of mystics stuff over here on the on the shelf i completely understand i i think i talked about this on one of our previous episodes but this concept of like being in person really fuels a collection i think people underestimate the power of going to games and seeing these things in person especially the wnba because of the atmosphere of these arenas just feel different than maybe some other fandoms that people are a part of so i think that's really i i think it makes sense that if you're there obviously you want to prioritize and collect the players that are on the court that you're seeing with your eyes not the players that came ten twenty years before so yeah that makes makes good sense with at least in in washington i mean the arena only holds like forty three hundred people and so it's it's very you know intimate yeah if you will there you know you get you do get quite a bit of interaction with the team and with the players and so that just makes you relate even more and then obviously you know you you kinda develop even more of a connection of like i really wanna get this player you know i i really wanna get you know start collecting this one or that one versus you know you go to an nfl game or something where you're up in the nosebleeds and you don't have any interaction you just see a little helmet running around the field or something you know whereas as here like you know we we interact with the the players and you know they tell us because we sit like right near the the mystic's bench like on the corner actually right by the tunnel and they'll tell us like we can hear you guys we can hear you cheering and and yelling certain things out in the stands so you know it just it kind of it encourages you to just continue to support and you know and then through support obviously you know you have your hobby in your collection that you you know you wanna grow as well yeah for sure speaking of building and growing your collection i'm curious if you could tell the audience kinda like what you would consider your best mystics cards that you currently have and then maybe what mystics cards are missing that you're like damn i really would would like that one yeah so the best one that i have is probably the georgia one zero one at least okay my personal the black laser auto oh awesome yeah it it's it's really sweet we my daughter has a kiki gold vinyl all star from select and she's actually just completed the whole rainbow of that card wow so that's that's probably her crown jewel would be that whole set we've got some pretty nice sonia pieces some one and one you know patch autos and and things like that we've got the downtowns from sonya and kiki we're trying to like match up the two of them you know get each one's kaboom each one's downtown each one this each one that we also have a cherry blossom sonia variation so that's that's pretty sweet too yeah and then and then an fotl georgia from one and one out of five so those are those are some of the highlights i guess of the of the collection you know i never even thought about this till right now which makes me feel silly but the cherry blossoms must be like of particular demand for mystics fans because of their like prevalence in dc in in when they bloom right like this has to be like a probably a parallel that means more to mystics fans than say to a minnesota lynx fan that we don't have any of that i i never even thought about that before it very well could i'm not from dc we live about an hour and a half north in pennsylvania okay okay so to me it doesn't but perhaps to those who live in the dc area the metro area i know that they're really hard to find because there's none available like i have i have somebody who keeps trying to get mine off of me because they can't find it anywhere and i'm like i don't know if i wanna get rid of it although they're offering a really good deal you know so who knows maybe i won't have it much longer i don't know but yeah it's a good point maybe for somebody who lives in that area they they they do want them more yeah it could be the the mystics team parallel is actually just the cherry blossoms maybe we'll see that grow in popularity alright i wanna ask you this fun kinda like hypothetical scenario if a new mystics collector came to you and was like hey i'm new to the wnba collecting i have been watching the mystics for a while now and i want to dip my toes in i've got a healthy budget of say five hundred dollars and i want a nice mystics collection what kind of advice would you tell them about where to start are there specific cards that you think are must have to be represented in a mystics collection or what kind of advice would you give them if you don't have a sonia citron card in your collection i don't know why you'd call yourself a mystic fan right so i would definitely tell you to go out and get some sort of decently numbered you know sonia even if it's you know one ninety nine ninety nine something like that you know go get yourself like a a red prism or or something you know along those lines at least and then if you know you got a little money left over you're gonna you know you're gonna wanna get some kiki you gotta have a little kiki and you know her stuff's a little less expensive so you could probably get you know get yourself a gold you know or something like that so i'd tell you to start with those two and then i would say go get a shakira austin autograph from don russ because that's the only product that she's ever signed in so i would say go get yourself one of those because they're hard to hit they're only redemptions and it's the only time she's ever signed on a card i did not know that this okay so you definitely have to if you're a new mystics collector and you're secure austin fan you don't have many choices this is what you have to do so that's that's a good piece of advice matthew i i like that kind of like starting off i i think it's an interesting way to kind of frame the idea of core mystics card collecting like what what it could look like if you frame it as like you have say five hundred dollar budget so that's a good place to start if you guys are mystics fans and you're looking for somewhere to start it sounds like that's a good place you know i we've talked now a lot about your your pc how you've built it the cards in it the cards that you hope to add to it but i kinda wanna shift to the team as it is today because we're you're collecting this era of mystics kinda like as it happens i wanna talk to you about the current team and one that seems to be super popular these days what kinda makes this group this roster different you touched on the energy you touched on like the the youthful part of it the age the newness what kinda makes it its own thing on the court it it seems as though from at least you know outsider perspective that they're all playing for each other and you know i've always said that the best teams that i've ever coached weren't the most talented they were the ones that cared enough to play harder for their teammate those are when you get to that point you know when you're playing for something other than yourself i think that's when a team really can can grow and be at their best and it seems as though you know they're all seem excited for their their teammates' successes you know it doesn't appear that there's a whole lot of selfishness outside of the normal i wish i could play i mean everybody wants to play competitiveness but you know it seems like they're all there for each other they're all got each other's backs they're all pulling for each other and you know are they're in it for something other than their own interest and i think that's kind of one of the the factors in it you know i mean we saw from the fever last year you know with you're out you're a superstar and you're throwing out a bunch of bodies just trying to make it through and you see how they came together and they were seconds away from the right and it wasn't because they were more talented because nobody else wanted these players where's arie macdonald nowadays right odyssey sims is on the bench in in dallas like there it wasn't because of talent but it was because you could see watching them like there was something bigger than themselves they knew they were up against the wall and they just decided look we're gonna dig in together and we're gonna fight and we're just gonna play as hard as we can for each other and i think that's what you see with the mystics and i think that that kinda gives them you know a little bit of an edge plus the fact that there's no expectation really i mean they were picked to finish like fourteenth or thirteenth in the league this year nobody was penciling them in at six or seven or eight so you know no stress go out and play house money yeah for sure you talk about those expectations and this is something i wanna ask you about is how do you as a fan how would you kinda like rate the success of where the team is today they as of today or as of this week they clinched they're gonna be in the playoffs by the time this episode comes out i'm not exactly sure where we'll be but like how do you feel as a fan that they're kind of like really delivering they're they're delivering yeah over their promises i suppose yeah i mean they're ahead of schedule for sure right they they're supposed to be young and inexperienced and have to figure things out and and you know here you are you know on the verge of going to the playoffs and basically with a bunch of second year players and rookies yeah you know you got laney hamilton you got anya and you got benijah and that's really all your experience yeah but yet here you are you know fighting they could finish anywhere as high as i think the four seed at this point so they're definitely ahead of schedule and it's gonna be fun to see how it continues because they get a bunch of i think they have four draft picks again this year in the first so like they're just gonna continue to stack talent while you know these players are gaining all this experience yeah and so it's it's just gonna be interesting to see what they do with all of that who they bring back who they don't but right now who cares about that man we're just enjoying the ride and get to the playoffs you know and who knows what can happen they've proven they can beat any team they they i think for a while i don't know if they still are but for a while they were the only team that have beaten all of the playoff teams this year so we'll see who knows yeah it's an exciting team to watch and it feels like their front office like management in terms of hitting on draft picks just seems to be one after the another picking the right player to fit into the scheme that they're playing it doesn't feel like there's been i'm sure there are but like it doesn't feel like there's been many oh my god why did we pass up on this person why didn't we do this it's like the people that they're choosing are really integrating well to the team so i think the future of the mystics is really a promising one especially because of the youth the way that contracts works i think that's just in a great spot what do you kinda see the future of the mystics looking like from your perspective yeah i mean that's that's an interesting question because if you you know if you listen to the the fan base they've missed on ninety percent of their draft picks because all of the gms online all know better than the coach you know georgia needs to be benched rory harmon should be the starting point guard lucy olsen should play every night you know and and look i get it we're you know it's easy to coach from you know from home facts but the fact of the matter is he sees all these players every day at practice and and he knows what he wants out of his team and we don't but as far as your your question goes you know it's obviously they're gonna build around sonia right like no matter what it doesn't matter really who they have to to let go in order to make that work when her time comes to get paid they need to pay her they need to have her around and kinda fit everything else around that whether that's whether they look at that as sonia and kiki or if they just want you know hey it's sonia and then make everything else fit who knows but obviously with the salary cap now they i think they're in a great spot to be able to keep both if not you know all three if you count georgia you know around and kind of build build with them as they're gaining all of this experience i mean for all intents and purposes georgia's still a rookie yeah you know so she is coming off a knee injury so i think you give her another another year she's gonna be just fine she's starting to hit her groove you know but i think the future's it's gonna be interesting like i said they've got a ton of draft picks they got the sky's first round pick which could be number one the sky is handing out yeah they're just changing sheldon like alright thanks you know it's no wonder you're down there where you are every year but i mean that could be that could be the number one pick it could be one or two somewhere in that range based on the odds so you're gonna throw this team with all this talent and youth another top three pick even okay we're gonna have our pick between hidalgo juju and whomever else like i guess we'll take that you know i don't know that's that's it's gonna be interesting to see how they fit in you know what what's position they go for because again everybody thinks they need to have a new point guard and so it's gotta be hannah and yeah who knows who knows i mean coaches are odd i know this from being one like the biggest thing that you need to have between your players and you as a coach is trust and it doesn't matter how talented you are it doesn't matter what you can do on the court if the coach doesn't trust you it's irrelevant and coach obviously trusts who he has on the court now he's had the same five in the lineup all year and you know he's gonna ride with it because of that that trust factor so we'll see what what they think they need for next year but i think they need some shooting they still need some you know they need a sniper they need a sharpshooter i don't know if you get that in the draft you try and get that in free agency but that's what that's really the only thing that's holding them back i mean onion wherry is doing well for what you know but she i think early on she kinda played outside of herself a little bit and you know had that thirty piece at one point in the season and you know it was really like oh my gosh and then it's kinda come back down to like the ten point range you know about where you would expect it so i don't know a a shooter would definitely be helpful somebody that can consistently knock down an open three yeah is definitely is definitely on the radar too i don't think they need another big unless they don't resign shakira yeah because she's on a a one year deal but everybody else is rookie contracts so like you're good you know yeah it really feels like a a good position to be in it almost feels like you have all these choices it's just about making them now it's not like you're cornered as a mystics fan or a mystics the mystics gm it's like you have this huge buffet of options of what to do and it feels like you can't go wrong i i have high expectations for the mystics moving forward because of everything that you just touched on and more i think that it's a really fun exciting franchise and when i think of the mystics and the way that they're positioned i'm also like curious how that'll trickle into the card market because when you have say a class like sonia kiki etcetera all coming in at the same time wearing the same jerseys next year you have the potential of a top three pick it's like prices of these teams whether you're in a break or in buying singles continue to go up and so it's gonna be interesting to see how mystics fans kind of deal with that because it's a blessing and a curse right now it's like you have all these young superstars who are still building they're winning but they're not necessarily like you know one hundred percent locked for the championship but at the same time growing expectations year after year translates to higher prices and that could be something that's not easy to deal with as a collector yeah so that's that's just kinda like my take on on the mystics yeah and then you know you have these players from you know the rookies from this year like i said i mean we're gonna have lauren betts who you know obviously are she she's had her struggles right adjusting but you know you she's got that thing you can't teach which is size you know she's always gonna be big she's always gonna be long can see over the top of the defense for sure and but i think the one that everybody's gonna be chasing is cody mcmahon she's just a ball of energy i love that every every time she every time she comes on the court you know it's it's ridiculous but you know so you'll have at least those two you know that everybody will be kinda kinda going after and you know it'll be interesting to see how that kinda defines the market of of the mystics this coming card season if you will you know with with don russ getting ready to come out you know i mean lauren betts have a downtown in in donruss so that'll be interesting with the you know the the gold downtown chase yeah but then it'll also have you know sonia will have a a downtown as well in that so you know how are how are people gonna go after that in the market you know it's the the first gold downtowns that we've had those would be crazy i think yeah i think i think the chase of those is gonna be pretty big especially with a player like olivia miles i know in there i mean just the the prices of her things already is just astronomical and i pity you as a link stand to have to try and figure out how to afford you know hope you can refinance your home or something to be able to get into a break you know for an opportunity to get her no literally it's gonna be crazy i i'm i'm super curious to see how that plays out it's it's always interesting when cards come out later than maybe collectors want them to i think with topps and other lanes such as the nfl they just released their topps flagship product for the first time it's the first time we're getting nfl product before the season starts with those rookies it feels like with panini where we're at with wnba we we will not be expecting that anytime soon it's almost like we're a year behind all the time so those prospecting the idea of maybe speculating on young rookies and how they're going to play isn't necessarily even an option for wnba collectors so it's an interesting market to see unfold in real time one hundred percent especially when you factor in the breaking of it all and just how that plays out you add speculation plus a little bit of fun gambling equals a lot of unknowns because i mean to that point olivia miles in the preseason or before the preseason even she would have been sought after but not not not like she is now i think you know the kind of consensus was okay give me fud give me bets give me some you know like it would have been like four of them that everybody would have kind of been like okay i'm taking my chance on this one right and and then now being that it's so late you know but they keep trying i mean every year it's supposed to come out in july and every year it gets pushed it gets pushed back eventually they'll get one to come out in you know before the playoffs but you know now we'll just get them all stacked up on top of us again all winter long and hopefully next year they'll try again one hundred percent we can only hope we'll manifest that well i kinda wanna segue us into my personal favorite segment that we do on each episode of season five which is called the personal grail i ask each guest to kind of look through their pc take inventory look at what they've got and pick one out that really represents their team fandom and so i wanna talk to you about that i know you sent me over a picture of what you chose and i'm excited to hear you talk about it kinda do you mind sharing with the audience which card you picked maybe the story behind it and why this is the one that you chose as your personal grail yeah i mean it's not the flashiest of cards right and i'm sure you're kinda even like why out of all the ones you told me you have did you pick that one and it's because of the story so it is a pink laser sonya citroen auto from don russ numbered out of twenty five and the reason that i chose that one is because it represents everything about the hobby for me it was a card that my daughter and i hit out of a personal box that we ripped in our basement together and it was obviously the the one player that we both collect obsessively and so it just really encapsulated everything about the journey that i've had through the hobby and through the fandom to this point it's something you know this business that that we have is something that started out as my daughter and i just having fun on whatnot and then selling a few singles and then you know here we are two years later you know with the the business and being you know the only full time wnba stream on whatnot you know so that card really was at the start of it all and you know it's something that you know with with my daughter and i always that card will never leave you know that doesn't matter where sonia goes doesn't matter what happens with the rest of her career we're gonna keep that card because that card just encapsulates our entire hobby experience to this point that's so awesome that's like the kind of story you hope when you hear about people talk about grael is that it has that kind of story associated with it do you mind kinda like taking us inside that moment when you guys were ripping in the basement what that kinda felt like did you two look at each other and you're like holy shit we did it you're like oh shit it it was exactly it i mean obviously you know with with all of those products there's always a trigger right there's always one auto that means okay there's gonna be a big auto coming okay because so in like last year or in twenty twenty four i guess it was if you got a shea petty auto out of prism you were gonna get a caitlin clark auto right like everybody knew that that was the trigger or whatever i it was or select i'm sorry in select it was shay petty and so i forget who the trigger was but when we saw it we knew like okay this is gonna be a good auto it's gonna be a rookie it's probably gonna be paige it's gonna be sonia or it's gonna be dom you know because it was just whoever the trigger was and when you know with don russ the first five or six cards are facing upright and then the auto is always backwards and so we pulled the card off the top we saw that it was sonia and that it was an auto and we're like oh shit like okay yay we got a base auto you know like that's awesome we still we'll take it well then we flipped it over and saw that it was the pink out of twenty five and so that just made it that much sweeter because it was you know it was just a moment where you know again at certain points in life things mean more than others because we were going through a lot of stuff with our family again at that point so it was just a really cool moment to to be able to share i mean my daughter is not young you know she's not a little girl she's she's in her mid twenties so you know it's just still something that that's cool to have and be able to do with her on a daily basis and she's one of our breakers that runs every day you know full time and you know it's just cool a cool start to our journey on this you know business venture and and being able to to do it together is really special that's so awesome i i think like the the power of cards really can't be underestimated like that moment like you said maybe it was a a sense of like relief from what was going on in the real world it was a sense of connection between a father and daughter who are doing something taking a risk and doing it together i think to have that all those emotions that are so difficult to put into words and to capture a card can just represent that it can do it and it doesn't have to say anything it can just be that and i think that card perfectly represents that so matthew thank you for sharing that story that's an awesome grail that i hope never leaves your collection and that you look about look back at twenty years from now or whenever and you can still recall that same memory i think that's that's awesome for sure that's what the hobby is all about right one hundred percent well before i let you go i kinda wanna give you the floor to mention anything that maybe we didn't get to that you wanted to talk about and then tell everybody where they can find you if they're interested in breaking or just hearing more about your collection maybe they're interested in that amor black black one and one auto where they can find you online sure i mean we've said a lot so i don't know that there's any more that needs to be said as far as my fandom or my collection or anything but you can find us on whatnot dynasty underscore sports cards and dynasty sports cards underscore so we have two channels on there we run wnba every day all day breaks singles we run consignment so if you have wnba cards that you need to sell and you don't really feel like doing a whatnot show or listen to them on ebay or whatever you can certainly go on our instagram which is at at dynasty sports cards underscore and send us a message we'll be happy to to send you over some information on that but you know we we take pride in being the only full time wnba stream and we're here for the hobby and for the community of wnba collectors we're not running around chasing the next dollar bill in the next new product that comes out in another sport like we're here we're grinding every day waiting for these products to come from panini so we can help you guys get them you know and we we try to really pride ourselves on being there for the collector and and being and being part of it not just the person who you know sits behind the screen saying you know hey getting our breaks getting our breaks like we're we're in everybody's shows we're buying from as many people as we can we're we're a part of it we're making trades we're you know we're trying to be a part of the community as as opposed to a shadowy figure that sits in the background collecting you know money or something like that like we really are one of you know the community that just enjoys the hobby as much as everybody else so that's kinda where we are and where we came from and what the you know what the hobby means to us is we just wanna share that with everybody else for sure well if you guys wanna find matthew he's at dynasty sports cards like he said and before we kinda round out today's episode every episode ends the same way if somebody's listening and they're trying to figure out which wnba team to watch to be a fan of and to ultimately collect matthew if you could make the pitch on behalf of the mystics fandom as to why the mystics are the team they should choose well i used to be a car salesman so this should be this should be a nice throwback to those days right no i mean they're look they're they're the youngest they're the most exciting team in the wnba right now they've got the absolute highest ceiling of any of any team in my opinion they're they're young and energetic and best of all they're they just don't care they're just gonna go out and they're just gonna fight and why wouldn't you wanna be a part of that right why wouldn't you wanna be a part of a a team that's the underdog damn near every time they go on the court but yet all they seem to do is come away with a w it's exciting it's fun and you know best of all they they all are are good people and you know they all they care about their fans and who doesn't want that as a as a fan of a team is to know that the players appreciate you they see you they hear you they're willing to to communicate that and to be you know interactive with you as a fan it's it's just phenomenal i i i would have never imagined that you could find that in a professional sports world mhmm but but we have it so grateful for it and come be a mystic fan man it's only gonna get better well you heard it here i think that's a pretty convincing pitch the mystics are a fun team to watch matthew i could hear your enthusiasm and your passion for the fandom throughout today's episode so thank you so much for joining the wmba card podcast like we said you guys can find matthew at dynasty sports card on instagram whatnot other channels but thank you again i really appreciated it and thank you to the listeners for listening today we'll be back next week with another episode