Trading cards and gems

[Devsman]

I'm confused here.

So you can turn your trading cards into gems, then turn your gems into booster backs, which are just collections of trading cards?

Why not just keep the cards?

[sfnhltb]

Because you can get different cards that you want instead of the cards you have that you presumably don't want. It isn't a very good exchange though - cards gained from booster packs cost between 133 and 400 gems per card, whereas you get something like 5-30 per card you convert into gems (more for foils in some cases I guess), but it is an alternative if you don't want to use the market or take the time to find someone to trade with.

[J4MESOX4D]

I once converted a couple of £0.03p trading cards into gems to give me enough for a booster pack of a different game and I then landed a foil in that pack and made £4. Typically it is not viable to change cads into gems because of the low amount in return compared to wallet funds but major event backgrounds and emotes are usually worth 100 each and those are definitely worth converting.

[Anonymous Helper]

Originally posted by sfnhltb:

more for foils in some cases I guess

Gem value of foil card is 10 times the normal card gem value so if normal trading card of the game converts to 10 gems, foil for that game converts to 100.

Trading card gem value can range from 1 to 33 (highest and lowest I've seen).

[taki]

bad trade: emoticons / backgrounds / cards -> gems -> booster packs
good trade: tf2 keys -> gems -> booster packs