Everything you need to know about Steam cards

After searching about for a bit, I've noticed that it's hard to find all the information about steam cards, what they are, and how to use or trade for them in a single place. I've tried to compress everything into a simple "guide" that should answer most questions about Steam cards, and how to most efficiently go about them.

What are steam levels, and how do I gain them?

Gaining Steam levels is a way of upgrading your steam account though Steam cards, which gives you access to a larger friend list, more showcases on your steam profile, and shows that you’ve invested real money in your steam account and therefore giving you a higher credibility – taking a look at some of the high tier traders and resellers in various communities around steam, it’s not hard to find people that has several hundred steam levels for this reason.
To gain levels you need to redeem a full set of cards from a game that you haven’t already redeemed 5 sets from. The cap from any given game is 5 per, while steam sale sets can be redeemed unlimitedly, at generally a higher price than regular sets – useful for people that are very high level, and needs to redeem rare sets that are higher value than the price of a sale set, where these would be the best option.

How to get card drops

There are several ways to get card drops, and below I’ll mention most of them:

• Twice per year there’s a steam sale, where every card set you craft in this period will reward you with an additional Steam Sale card on top of the rewards you can see in the “Every set/badge craft gives you” section. One winter, and one summer sale, and during these periods there are usually some sort of event that rewards the participants with random Steam Sale cards as well.
  
• Most paid games on Steam has Steam cards associated with them. Every 30 minutes you play a game where you are eligible to be rewarded with Steam cards, you’ll get a card drop. To check if you’re eligible for drops in a given game, you can go to my badges and check under the different games if you’re eligible. An example of how it shows up:
  
  
  If you’ve heard the term idle cards this is also why people are doing it, by using a 3rd party programs you can trick Steam into thinking you’re playing various games and force these card drops, programs such as ArchiSteamFarm.
  
• Booster packs. For every game you own, you have a small chance of getting a booster pack drop, this drop is only available if you own the game and have already earned all your card drops from the game. As more members of the Steam community crafts more badges, these boosters will randomly drop to an eligible user. Increasing your steam level further increases this chance of happening to you. More levels = higher chance of getting booster pack drops.

A full set is a complete set of 5-15 cards, depending on what game you’re crafting from.

Rewards for spending card sets

Every set/badge craft gives you

• 1 random emoticon or background from the game you crafted
  
• 1 coupon for a random game
  
• 100 EXP

Level up rewards

• Every level increases your friend list cap by 5 (base = 250 friend slots, connecting Steam to Facebook = +50)
  
• At level 5, you're able to participate in events that grants Steam Trading Cards during sales
  
• Every 10 levels, you gain another Showcase spot
  
• Increased chance of Booster Pack drop (+20% chance for every 10 levels)

How can you gain sets?

There is a term called "1:1", which is referring to trading duplicate cards of the same set, for a card you need of the given set without getting fewer cards in return. An example of how this looks:

I’ll list a few of the ways this is done:

• Finding people that are looking to 1:1 somewhere, E.G Steam Trading Card forum. This is a very slow and tedious process, but it works for some people.
  
• SteamTradeMatcher is a website that allows you to connect with other people that are missing the cards you want to trade and offer the cards you need. Tedious at times, but far more efficient than regular 1:1’ing.
  
• SteamCardStore.com, with the click of a single button you’ll receive an offer for all the cards that we have available that suits the cards you need. It’ll never break any sets you already have and will in the worst case - that no sets can be created, attempt to equalize the number of duplicates you have. Super solid choice.

How do I buy/sell sets?

There are several ways of getting your hands on enough cards/sets to gain steam levels or trading your cards to sets as an alternative way to get sets, some of them are:

• Trading with other players, either trying to profit or 1:1’ing to complete your own sets.
  
• Buying/selling with bots. There are several card bots around, and most of them offer their complete sets for their CS:GO keys, TF2 keys, or Steam Gems, and vice versa.
  
• Using a site, such as SteamCardStore.com . The site is a collection of everything I’ve touched above. Buying & selling complete sets, buying individual cards in bulk, and completes your sets for you always resulting in the same or higher amount of sets via 1:1’ing.
  
• You can also turn your gems into boosters of games you already own, this is generally a very bad ROI, as the rate is about 200 gems -> 1 card, as boosters are 3 cards per pack, and the lowest gem price for a booster is about 600 gems. Granted, you have a chance at foil cards which can be worth a bunch with boosters, but they're so rare that it's simply not worth it.
  Sidenote: All cards can also be turned into gems, varying from 10-100 gems per card. In general this is also a poor conversion rate, as you can get way higher rates elsewhere, for example by trading with other people, or using sites such as SteamCardStore.com

Selling individual cards

If you’re not interested in gaining levels, the cards that you’ve gathered throughout the years via steam games, or other ways, they still hold value. They can be hard to get rid of, as most users of cards only care for complete sets.
However, SteamCardStore.com offers to buy all your cards at a reasonable price.

If you feel like there’s something I haven’t covered in this guide, feel free to comment down below and I’ll get back to you and/or update the guide accordingly. =)