Magic the gathering

$500 is a tight budget? The hell, what is considered an average priced deck?

Depends on the rarity of cards in the deck. Rarer cards can probably still go for hundreds.

It has been a long time since I've seriously played MTG, so I can't give any newer/recent examples, but I remember from my days of playing it that rare cards were worth A LOT.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/magic_sing...%20Edition

Older cards are completely banned from Competitive play to my knowledge, but that's just an example of what the rarest cards can be worth. Black Lotus is kind of a bad example, considering it has always been insanely rare and always been insanely expensive (even when it was usable).

Edit: Awww man, I just looked up Ancestral Recall. It's worth over a grand....and I used to have it. I wonder if it's still in my old decks somewhere, I'd sell that in a heartbeat.