Hey guys, lately i was wondering about trading cards, i googled a lot and searched steam FAQs and discussions (and even sg discussions) but i couldn't get all the answers entirely and some were just too outdated.
So my questions are:

  1. Do you keep cards and craft badges to get higher level or you don't care about that at all? After reaching level 20 and realizing i have nothing interesting to put on display on steam profile and i have no clue how to make sexy profiles like you guys do, i'm thinking it's pointless.

  2. Do you sell all cards and everything in your inventory just to get wallet cash for more games?

  3. If you do, do you use that chrome extension that allows you to sell more things at once ? I tried it yesterday and right away i saw card with price 0.14 cents having option to be quick sold for 0.13 cents. I know it's one cent loss but if it happens with more cards it's already some precious cents i could use on some bad dlc's.

  4. Do you use idlemaster ? That's one thing i can't wrap my head around. Somebody told me i should discard it lately, and all forum post about it are several years old, i went to site to check it only to find out that guy who created it no longer operate/supports it. And when i downloaded it, it wants my login crenendials for my steam acount and i don't think that's good thing if originals creators have no hand in it anymore.

7 years ago*

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Maybe try bullet points to make it easier to address, but there's quite a few discussion on those questions you can find with the search box.

  1. If you don't care about level benefits, sell them
  2. Mostly, I keep some emotes and backgrounds I like. You can also spend the $ on other items and trade those for games, like CS:GO keys. Also some people trade games for cards.
  3. Yes, Steam Inventory Helper, but not for the quick selling button. If you want to take your time and look at the trends, then you can put it lower than the lowest price or insta-sell if you don't see it selling at base price, but consider your time more valuable than 1 cent.
  4. Use ASF
7 years ago*
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  • I crafted cards to get to a higher level to unlock showcases and for the increased booster pack drop rate as an extra bonus. When I unlocked the showcases I wanted, at around level 100-ish, it doesn't become worth it anymore unless you really like having a high number on your level.
  • I keep a bunch of cheap cards to trade for bundle/free games in case I need some fast trading currency, and sold most of the spare cards that have decent value (after the usual 0.02 fee is deducted). I kept those cards that can be used on TremorGames and those I had already collected in a set but simply didn't craft, in case I want to craft them someday or help a friend gain some levels early on.
  • I use Steam Inventory Helper to sell cards in bulk, but I manually check the price of every single card to ensure that the automated process doesn't rob me of a few cents because of poor estimates. You can change the configuration so that quick sell matches lowest price on market and not 0.01 less, by the way. However, this could still screw up if the majority is selling at 0.01 higher and there happens to be one person currently lowballing the market with one card. Hence the manual check.
  • Always used IdleMaster and it's still working well. Necessary when you have tons of games, and despite all the praise for ASF, I've tried getting into it twice and found it incredibly complicated to set up, plus it doesn't allow for simply idling while you do other things on the same account, without having to set up external accounts.
7 years ago
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  • Yeah, booster packs i forgot about those. I got one yesterday after reaching 20th level. So i should propably get more levels to get more booster packs.

  • Well i have only 835 games but like 470 have trading cards and i didn't played more than 90% of them, so i guess that's few cards to get. But can i put my account name and password in that program without worries ?

7 years ago
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You should always be cautious when a third party program asks you for credentials, but I've used it for years now and nobody ever reported having any issues with it, plus if you have Steam authenticator enabled you can be fairly sure your account is safe regardless. I'm sure it doesn't do anything shady with your info or someone would have discovered it years ago since it's been around for so long.
The most important thing is to keep all your games idled as soon as possible because you only become eligible for pack drops for that game once the cards are unlocked. So it's better to have all your games unlocked early, even if you do plan to play them at a later time. Having lots of games with potential drops increases your global drop rate chance since they're tied to the crafting done for that game. Levels matter less, hence my suggestion that once you've unlocked enough showcases, you shouldn't bother to level up anymore.

7 years ago
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Thanks for information. I decided to try it out. It's running now (437 games left and 1618 cards). Btw do you personaly play games/use steam while it's running ? I read most people said it's okay but i really don't want to get banned for something like that.

7 years ago
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It is highly recommended not to play VAC Enabled games, or any kind of multiplayer for that matter. But it has never been proven that Idle Master caused any ban. You should be safe to play any single player or non-Steam game but it might reduce drop rate time because essentially you will be having multiple Steam games open.
There is a bug with the Steam card drop rates at the moment that makes it so that cards often drop immediately when you open a game, so you can exploit it by quickly switching games (using the 'Next' button on Idle Master) every few seconds and get your drops much quicker. However, it seems to be very random how it works for everyone. Sometimes I can get 20-30 drops in a few minutes by doing this, then I have to idle normally for a long time before I can reproduce the glitch. (This bug is safe to exploit, as far as I know.)

7 years ago
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Yep, i can confirm that kind off works. I got 5 cards right away but not anymore.
Edit: so it appears i just have to wait bit longer, few minutes and then try next, then ill get card

7 years ago*
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Yeah, booster packs i forgot about those. I got one yesterday after reaching 20th level. So i should propably get more levels to get more booster packs.

While there is an increased chance to get booster packs with higher steam levels, it's toatally not worth it to level your account for that purpose. Levelling takes more and more badges, the higher you go and the impact is on boosters is very small. There's a much higher impact on booster pack drops simply by which games you own. Booster packs drop as the community crafts badges, higher Steam levels get slightly more, but you also need to own those games where lots of folks tend to craft badges - which is usually very cheap games, where it's easy to craft badges. I have two accounts, this one and another one mainly for card farming, where I activate every free or cheap game I can get only for the cards. I get like a dozen times more boosters on the farming account than I get on this one, where I only have registered those games I really intend to play.

7 years ago
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Higher levels give only marginally better chances. Your amount of eligible games influence booster drop rates by several orders of magnitude more.

7 years ago
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1: Crafting badges is for ppl who care about steam level ... i dont :)

2: anything thats worth more than 7 cents yeah pretty much gets either sold or traded for games .

3: i use enchanced steam and yeah depending on cards i do tend to use the quick sell option saving myself some time making the listing ... but not often :)

4: yeah i actually still use idlemaster , and the thing is working perfectly fine ...i tried asf , i still have it ... i just dont really like it ... duno why .
Idlemaster is working perfectly fine still so i dont see a point to moving away from it ...yet

7 years ago
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Thanks i followed your tip and sold everything over 7 cents, i guess ill be getting some dlc's or maybe some cheap games from my wishlist.

7 years ago
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  1. I did that up to about level 50, then when they started requiring the Steam mobile authenticator, I stopped.
  2. I used to sell some cards, and buy/craft others, but when they started requiring the Steam mobile authenticator, I stopped.
  3. No, even when I was buying and selling cards.
  4. Have never used IdleMaster or ArchiSteamFarm, and don't plan to.
7 years ago
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If you do, do you use that chrome extension that allows you to sell more things at once ?

This is a violation of Steam TOS so you may risk getting banned for using such tool.

You may not use Cheats, automation software (bots), mods, hacks, or any other unauthorized third-party software, to modify or automate any Subscription Marketplace process.

An example of a Subscription Marketplace is the Steam Community Market.

7 years ago
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  1. Yes. I craft the level 5 badge of all games I finished. Foil as well, if the price is reasonable.
  2. I sell or crush most emotes and backgrounds.
  3. Yes. It'd take forever without it.
  4. No, I use ASF.
7 years ago
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