Yeah I know, thankfully I managed to get 80 Evangels before they were all gone. I was just wondering what the price change had to be to appear on the chart, since that is a %400 change.
Cool, I used to follow the draft every week but I am afraid at some point I lapsed and haven't done it since. The discussion board for it used to be pretty crowded with various people's decklists many of which seemed insanely bad to me. I am not an ace drafter but it seems like the core set should be easy enough to get around in. Typically the simulation has one or two main colors to draft and the computer pickers really don't deviate much from their patterns. Interesting idea for an article.
@Anon, not surprising considering the new Allies coming out. White Allies in particularly look hot.
@hammy, "Wow that card is a limited beating!" That was my one and ONLY thought when I started reading your SotP. Oh! You want to play it constructed? Nice...not sure it is all that casual. Even at the very minimum of GG1 it gives a creature a counter. This is not a small thing, when you are struggling to remove someone's already tough Scute Mob, Scath Tiger, etc. Green beef is cheap enough that this card curves right in not just as a combat trick but removal proof in response to say a unkicked Lightning Burst. I smell Señor Stompy!
On a technical note: I am noticing your text intermittently changing font size without any real rhyme/reason to it. You probably have a missing tag somewhere in the html.
I'm not sure when you get your info and what the criteria is for appearing, but Kabira Evangel jumped from .10 to .50 in the past 2 days and is now impossible to find.
I'm "deluxeicoff" on MTGO...I won a lot with White Weenie. Benevolent Unicorns/Strands for combo, lots of problack goodies...and the new nuts: WARD OF LIGHTS - no joke, this thing can be played at instant speed, even on your opp's creatures (blink etc.,) Imagine playing with 8 bodyguards, as a big WW player, the only deck I fear is combo/grapeshot...I'll admit, if I don't draw unicorn...I'm toast.
Well Alex you've quelled this Troll,
welcome back to the land of all things pauper :)
Oh and to answer last week what is doing well and why will always be a in-demand item.
@ Paul. Classic pauper is probally about as casual as any serious tournament format is going to be barring the singleton formats. You could always try the PRE's they're usually pretty casual even for a "off format".
@ anon #1 :) If you're referring to nightsky deck then yes it's lacking(sorry alex cant come up with much nicer on that one). The MBC on the other hand is a pretty solid shell even if it is excessively redundant in some areas. And could easily post 4-2 or better in a PE
i'll be honest, ive played against WW a number of times with goblins. There is not much of a match up there. Maybe it was my opponent but i found it a rather easy match anyways.
If the new metagame messes with any deck, its white weenie. With goblins and random aggro on the downswing, black on the upswing, and a poor storm matchup, this deck is just not fast, disruoptive, or well positioned enough to compete.
The nightsky deck looks like fun, especially considering playing with the red menace has gotten shall we say...boring? Though i will ask about the lack of unmake...it seems like it would be good enough
Well honestly I have no intention of ever playing Zen block until the 3 sets are out and even then maybe not. On the other hand if I was this article seems to be a good start towards understanding the format. More detail on some other potential strategies would welcome if you delve into this further.
I started noticing dominant red decks in 100s about 4 months ago, right about the time of the league tourney sponsored by Tweaker over at mymtgo.com. Lougi had such a deck though I don't think it was goblins based. It was however clearing the field of all opposition if I remember correctly. Control is always a worry if you aren't running it yourself but goblins/redmenace is a far greater threat as it can roll you very quickly with a genju or bushwacker start.
That is one reason I stopped enjoying 100s in casual. Everyone and their brother were playing unfun decks that needed some presideboarding to survive. Since most games in Casual Play are just single games there is not time/room for sideboarding there.
Anyway nice article. Lots of pie charts but no pi?
Well, I would say that most of the match-ups in Zendikar Block are pretty close. With a good hand and good draws, any deck can beat any other deck. So if you have a string of bad hands and your opponent has a string of good hands, you're going to lose badly no matter what you're playing.
Having said that, how many lands are you running? Most of the WW decks I've looked at play 22 lands with 8 fetches in order to stop their curve around 3-4 lands. I added the Pledge as a way to recover from those hands where I would get 5-6 lands, and it has worked for me in the games I've tested it. Still, my testing is on the low side. I've only played about 10-15 2-man queues with this deck.
Against UW, Brave the Elements acts like a counterspell for Into the Roil and Journey to Nowhere, and occasionally it helps you squeak through those last few points of damage. Equipment is the key to winning that match-up. Brave the Elements allows you to equip a creature and then swing with it with counter back-up.
Yes, if they get their wraths in a timely manner, this match-up is a nightmare, but it can be won.
Also, if you are sideboarding in Luminarch's in this match-up, I can see how you might be low on early threats.
With Vampires, Brave the Elements once again acts as a one-mana counterspell on their removal. The key is to play out a 1-drop, equip him, and protect him with the elements. If you don't have a Duelist or Lynx in your opening hand, I would concider mulliganning. The 1-drops are that important.
I don't have much personal experience playing against Valakut. Most of my advice in the column for this match-up is based on theory and what I've read about the match-up. My guess once again is to try to fend off the Burst Lightnings with Brave the Elements when you can.
I'm definitely a numbers/spreadsheet type of person so I loved this article, I really appreciated the numbers on this and only wish you had the time to do similar break downs with other formats in the way you tackled WW, incredibly informative and all around a great read
I played the WW deck quite a bit. It seemed like Brave the Elements was terrible versus the three most popular decks: UW, Vamps, and Valakut. Also, you end up with draws where they kill your first 1-2 guys and you draw land, equipment, and Brave the Elements.
Versus Vamps they kill your 1 and 2 drops on T1 or T2 before you have mana up to counter spot removal. If you hold off casting them then you lose your aggressive start and die to Bloodwitches. Versus UW control it does nothing to stop a Day of Judgement and against a reasonably good opponent is a dead card. Finally, Valakut is a land, not a colored card. Because you dont have a threat and instead have Brave the Elements in hand then they get to Valakut going off before you kill them. In the mirror, yes, its very good. But thats about it.
I was actually taking them out for threats.
Dunno, mabye youve had better experiences with the card or Im playing it wrong? I guess I didnt have the same Main Deck either so mabye Ill set it up more similar to yours and see if it changes my mind.
RE: Skred...it seems like a sign that you cut it to one of. One ofs are great fun but usually pretty terrible unless you can guarantee their timely use. I don't know the format very well so I could be way off about Skred in general but you might be better off cutting it for consistency.
Doomhed - I've been enjoying the rot farm for that little extra land and the mana fixing. The deck likes more land to pull off all its tricks, but it's aggro so I had to keep the land count relatively low (though 22 is still pretty high for aggro). It's been working nicely so far. Dredging doesn't even always happen, I need a reason to do it.
I really like tuskers in TE control decks, but not here. I tried them out but the problem is each time it's in my hand there's tons of other threats I'd like to be dropping on the board instead.
Keep in mind this deck is aggro, not your traditional TE deck. It doesn't need TE to succeed and I don't want my gameplan to revolve around "getting better" once the enchantment lands on the board, because I really have no way of fetching the card and have to resort to topdecking without deck trimming or card draw. That's why cards like Rancor and Putrid Leech make the cut. They have no real synergy with TE, but they're just such strong beats that it would be weird not to include them.
If I was going for a TE deck then it would be control, I'd have a ton of deck trimming and land fixing with cards like greenseeker, sakura-tribe elder, and krosan tusker. If I was UB then I'd go with looters, deep analysis, mulldrifters and twisted abominations.
PDX0R - I like stinkweed for combating WW's flyers but ya, otherwise they're not very good. Brownscale actually serves a purpose against burn, goblins, and aggro in general so it's a much better choice. I'm leaving 2 in my SB.
I've basically given up on monoB. You get consistency but lose alot of powerful beatsticks. Trespasser isn't close to Wild Mongrel. I'm sure someone else can get better results than me with it, but for now I'm a bit stumped.
superdank - That was really the best goblin hand I could find. He never needed to mull. I'd say a great goblin hand is no mull, two lands, bushwhackers, as many 1cc 2/2's as possible, and 1of's for the utility creatures. He did that each game. First game he brings out an army of 2/2's and two bushwhackers with the right amount of land. Second game he has good land again and three bushwhackers. Third game he swung for 27 with a bushwhacker. He had lightning bolts in games one and three. There's really not much more insanity you can expect.
I've had a bunch of games where the goblin player was drawing sparksmiths and alot of burn (instead of an army of 2/2's). All that happens is he picks off more of my creatures until he goes down to a life total where he can no longer use the smith, I keep bringing my creatures back to the board, and the opponent concedes. They were far less scary than the match I wrote about. If you want more convincing though, feel free to hit me up online if you got a goblin deck. I always like more playtesting.
Generally I advocate Exclude over Remove Soul. My initial builds ran excludes instead of the souls, but the meta is currently fast and I want to raise the chances that I have a counter ready for turn 2. This also helps me stop a turn3 chittering rats when I'm on the draw. If the meta shifts back to midrange / control then I'll switch back to excludes.
Skred used to be 4x, then 2x, and now 1x. It was 4x until I realized that firebolt was much stronger against goblins and MBCu, so it went down to 2 (mostly to kill razor golems and shades). Then I added an extra land to the deck and cut another skred. It's an oddball, but solid lategame removal. I dunno, should I cut it?
dredge i daresay should never have been allowed to tap dance on classic, yea sure it might win 80% of game ones, but know that almost every classic deck is running enough hate in the board it just flops around, also classic has adapted to the presence of dredge with things like
md helm/line in oath
helm/line decks
silver bullet hosers that can be tutored up in the md like, yixlid jailers, crypt, relic, wheel of sun and moon and trap.
however dredge is a hard deck to play correctly, and a player that actually fully understands how dredge wins and loses both g1 and sb games will have an advantage on almost any opponent. I have seen some sick dredge players just wipe the floor with turn 0 lotv and crypt.
I said WoTC cares about the participation of the FORMAT, not the prices of certain choice singles. If there are no or very little competitive options at a price that an acceptable community, WoTC cares. Tabernacle at $250 isn't stopping people from playing Legacy. And while you say locally X places are not working out, Standard participation online has never been bigger, despite Baneslayer's inflated price. So WoTC has nothing to worry about in that regard - they do care about the market - but only as it pertains to the pariticipation in the format, not that card X, Y, or Z that you really like is expensive.
If the price of online duals suddenly quadrupled, WOTC would probably care - The price of THOSE drastically affects the participation levels in Legacy. The price of Pernicious Deed or Orim's Chant would not.
But I'd like to take the time to break down your last paragraph:
"From the prospect of selling packs, it boggles the mind that WOTC does not put every set for sale in the store. There is no real reason as to why I can't buy invasion packs from the store. It costs WOTC nothing to post those. There is no real inventory and the cards are non-redeemable, so give me access to them.""
Yes, there is. Because if you didn't know that eventually they'd be removed from the store at some point, you'd probably have less of a rush to buy them. Believe it or not, WoTC was considering leaving MVW packs at the store for all time, but after almost 3 years of Mirage the results were conclusive - it didn't get them anything. Leaving packs up at the store is NOT a cooperative plan with focusing attention on cycling standard cards, nor is it commensurate at all with even a small part of the game remaining collectible.
There are costs associated with every option, not to mention the problems WoTC has already stated they have with new customers being overwhelmed by options at the store and then regretting purchases of packs for drafts which rarely or no longer fire - in fact, it's why they cut off sales of classic sets after just two weeks.
"Will it hurt the secondary market? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. You might see the price of Pernicious Deed drop a couple of tickets.... "
No, in practice it probably wouldn't hurt the value. But then, if the price is just a couple of tickets difference, why do you care to have Apocalypse packs back in the store? Just go buy Deeds - it will be be cheaper than buying packs.
"I haven't found a bot yet that is ready to sell Ravagers 4x for 1 ticket."
That's because they know there are people willing to pay more for them
Seriously - that last paragraph amounted to nothing more than "I want it cheaper - give it to me".
_______________________________________________
And you wonder why I said that i don't see a rush of people joining Legacy online. It's not cheap and it's not getting any cheaper.
It's just still cheaper than joining legacy in paper.
I think we're both arguing the same thing here, but I used a bad example. Yes, I forgot the duel lands are on the reserve list. I am not suggesting that WOTC reprint things off the reserved list. My arguement is about cost. Some competive cards simply cost too much for a new player to get into the format. MTGO is the perfect format to allow players to play formats they couldn't play in real life. If players had the ability to just go buy 9 or 10 packs of MED1, sure they probably wouldn't get the 4 FoW they need/want, but it would give them some cards they might need or could sell. I still don't have any Hymn to Tourachs since they cost $3.50. Not an overly expensive price, but still high enough to make me think about it and maybe devote my money to cards I can get more use out of (ie: can go in other decks). I agree with you a big community would be good, but it will never happen without access to fair prices and cards.
As for your arguement about Baneslayer. I don't want to bring up the whole mythic rare debate again. There are whole forums dedicated to that, but Rosewater explained how and why Mythics are distributed. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr334
As someone who spent 7 years working in a game store I can tell you, the mythic rares are very similar in distribution to Yugi Oh!. And, while it is not directly stated in his article, one can infer from the article as to why they added mythics. Mythics are designed to sell packs. Chase rares DO increase pack sales because of the notion that "I can't afford to buy a $25 Ajani Vegeant, but I do have $5 in my pocket and I could buy a pack and hope I get one." That logic seems flawed, but trust me, it works. If they were 1 in every 40, people wouldn't care about them and not be encouraged to buy packs. With 1 in 8, your chances are much better. If WOTC wasn't in the business to sell packs, they wouldn't sell packs at all.
However, I am confused about your arguement here. You claim WOTC cares about the price of singles, but then you say,
"But if the price of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is keeping a lot of people from playing Land.dec, that is NOT a problem for WoTC - either go find another competitive deck to play (of which there are many) or good for you for having a $250 card."
Which seems to fly in the face of your earlier statement that WOTC would have a problem with $250 Baneslayers. That quote say they wouldn't care. My arguement is that it SHOULD be a problem for WOTC. How do you encourage players to join a game when the barrier to entering the game is so high? I think ImpinAintEasy gave a great example. $1000 just to get started? That's crazy. Forget that we are Magic players and go ask a person off the street, "Hey you wanna play this game? It's really fun and will bring you a lifetime of pleasure. Oh, but I'm gonna need $1000 up front before you can even start to play."
As a matter of fact, it appears, whether they realize it or not, that WOTC is having a problem with expensive Baneslayers. There are 5 gamestores in my area and all of them have seen Standard participation drop off by over 50% in the past year to year and a half. When I ask players why, the answer I usually get is the cost (of cards)is too high. What could WOTC due about overly pricey Baneslayers? Not much. M10 has already come and gone. Their only real option would be to ban it. That would decrease the need for it instantly and might encourage more players to come back to the format. That would be the most ridiculous option (although they did it to skullclamp to get people to stop using it). Or maybe there will be cards in Worldwake that will be better than it so players put down there Baneslayers.
We can sit here and argue about where WOTC loyalties lie. We can say that they make magic cards to strengthen the game build better play environments. We can believe that their end goal is to create a fun game for players. But that would be a VERY naive way at looking at things. WOTC is a business and businesses are designed to make money. How does WOTC make money? Buy selling cards which they put into packs. At the end of the day it all comes down to selling packs. Yes, even legacy people buy new cards. Of course they do. If WOTC didn't design cards for legacy players that would be an entire market they would be losing out on.
From the prospect of selling packs, it boggles the mind that WOTC does not put every set for sale in the store. There is no real reason as to why I can't buy invasion packs from the store. It costs WOTC nothing to post those. There is no real inventory and the cards are non-redeemable, so give me access to them. Will it hurt the secondary market? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. You might see the price of Pernicious Deed drop a couple of tickets.... maybe. They have been running MD5 sealed and draft events lately and the prices of cards from those sets has not changed in a noticable way. I haven't found a bot yet that is ready to sell Ravagers 4x for 1 ticket. I keep hoping.
If you want to know what went wrong with MVW distribution, look no further than the fact you are trying to buy Mysitcal Tutors *now*. I had no problem buying them for $0.50 when they were in print. And I bought and sold a couple dozen back then. Mostly because no one wanted them except for the handful of us who actually played classic back then.
People didn't buy Classic sets because they don't think they'll ever need them - it's still going on today. There are many things "wrong" with the distribution of classic sets - mostly that the dreck in the sets far outweighs any cards that are useful in sets where they are still legal, which makes the few cards that are any good hard to get if they are rare. That's just supply and demand.
As for Portal cards being more difficult to find in paper than Exodus is online - that's probably very true. So? What's your point? That there are really hard to find paper cards?
I don't understand what point you are trying to make... are you just looking to complain that everything isn't readily available?
MED1 and Exodus are hard to find, but those sets aren't of the rarity that paper Portal is. Don't make a straw man. I could buy a digital FoW today, but a paper Imperial Recruiter is a tall order. His rarity is close to the P9.
I'm not arguing the supply issue because of price. I can afford the cards. I'm arguing the supply issue because I see a real supply issue. Digital cards should be and are cheaper because they're not reserved, there is no emotional attachment, and we're taking a risk on Wizards keeping the servers up. So out of thousands of cards, why are 10 or so select cards more expensive than their paper versions?
I'm about to go buy 3x Mystical Tutor. The Exiled version is a dollar cheaper than the Mirage version. I'm not complaining about the price - it's only $3! My issue is that something must be wrong with MVW and the way Wizards distributed it in order for the prices to be that way.
Wait for Extended season to end! We're in the middle of a period of high demand right now. Progenitus was 3.5 tix when Alara Reborn was new. All of those cards are Extended legal. This article is talking about cards that are specific to eternal formats.
i would have ended up with the Black white option (or, did) except I liked mine better with 4 doom blades. call me old fashioned.
Yeah I know, thankfully I managed to get 80 Evangels before they were all gone. I was just wondering what the price change had to be to appear on the chart, since that is a %400 change.
Cool, I used to follow the draft every week but I am afraid at some point I lapsed and haven't done it since. The discussion board for it used to be pretty crowded with various people's decklists many of which seemed insanely bad to me. I am not an ace drafter but it seems like the core set should be easy enough to get around in. Typically the simulation has one or two main colors to draft and the computer pickers really don't deviate much from their patterns. Interesting idea for an article.
@Anon, not surprising considering the new Allies coming out. White Allies in particularly look hot.
@hammy, "Wow that card is a limited beating!" That was my one and ONLY thought when I started reading your SotP. Oh! You want to play it constructed? Nice...not sure it is all that casual. Even at the very minimum of GG1 it gives a creature a counter. This is not a small thing, when you are struggling to remove someone's already tough Scute Mob, Scath Tiger, etc. Green beef is cheap enough that this card curves right in not just as a combat trick but removal proof in response to say a unkicked Lightning Burst. I smell Señor Stompy!
On a technical note: I am noticing your text intermittently changing font size without any real rhyme/reason to it. You probably have a missing tag somewhere in the html.
I'm not sure when you get your info and what the criteria is for appearing, but Kabira Evangel jumped from .10 to .50 in the past 2 days and is now impossible to find.
I'm "deluxeicoff" on MTGO...I won a lot with White Weenie. Benevolent Unicorns/Strands for combo, lots of problack goodies...and the new nuts: WARD OF LIGHTS - no joke, this thing can be played at instant speed, even on your opp's creatures (blink etc.,) Imagine playing with 8 bodyguards, as a big WW player, the only deck I fear is combo/grapeshot...I'll admit, if I don't draw unicorn...I'm toast.
Well Alex you've quelled this Troll,
welcome back to the land of all things pauper :)
Oh and to answer last week what is doing well and why will always be a in-demand item.
@ Paul. Classic pauper is probally about as casual as any serious tournament format is going to be barring the singleton formats. You could always try the PRE's they're usually pretty casual even for a "off format".
@ anon #1 :) If you're referring to nightsky deck then yes it's lacking(sorry alex cant come up with much nicer on that one). The MBC on the other hand is a pretty solid shell even if it is excessively redundant in some areas. And could easily post 4-2 or better in a PE
i'll be honest, ive played against WW a number of times with goblins. There is not much of a match up there. Maybe it was my opponent but i found it a rather easy match anyways.
If the new metagame messes with any deck, its white weenie. With goblins and random aggro on the downswing, black on the upswing, and a poor storm matchup, this deck is just not fast, disruoptive, or well positioned enough to compete.
The nightsky deck looks like fun, especially considering playing with the red menace has gotten shall we say...boring? Though i will ask about the lack of unmake...it seems like it would be good enough
Well honestly I have no intention of ever playing Zen block until the 3 sets are out and even then maybe not. On the other hand if I was this article seems to be a good start towards understanding the format. More detail on some other potential strategies would welcome if you delve into this further.
I started noticing dominant red decks in 100s about 4 months ago, right about the time of the league tourney sponsored by Tweaker over at mymtgo.com. Lougi had such a deck though I don't think it was goblins based. It was however clearing the field of all opposition if I remember correctly. Control is always a worry if you aren't running it yourself but goblins/redmenace is a far greater threat as it can roll you very quickly with a genju or bushwacker start.
That is one reason I stopped enjoying 100s in casual. Everyone and their brother were playing unfun decks that needed some presideboarding to survive. Since most games in Casual Play are just single games there is not time/room for sideboarding there.
Anyway nice article. Lots of pie charts but no pi?
An enjoyable read as always Alex. One of these days I may venture back into the pauper format though from what I have seen it is not very casual.
Well, I would say that most of the match-ups in Zendikar Block are pretty close. With a good hand and good draws, any deck can beat any other deck. So if you have a string of bad hands and your opponent has a string of good hands, you're going to lose badly no matter what you're playing.
Having said that, how many lands are you running? Most of the WW decks I've looked at play 22 lands with 8 fetches in order to stop their curve around 3-4 lands. I added the Pledge as a way to recover from those hands where I would get 5-6 lands, and it has worked for me in the games I've tested it. Still, my testing is on the low side. I've only played about 10-15 2-man queues with this deck.
Against UW, Brave the Elements acts like a counterspell for Into the Roil and Journey to Nowhere, and occasionally it helps you squeak through those last few points of damage. Equipment is the key to winning that match-up. Brave the Elements allows you to equip a creature and then swing with it with counter back-up.
Yes, if they get their wraths in a timely manner, this match-up is a nightmare, but it can be won.
Also, if you are sideboarding in Luminarch's in this match-up, I can see how you might be low on early threats.
With Vampires, Brave the Elements once again acts as a one-mana counterspell on their removal. The key is to play out a 1-drop, equip him, and protect him with the elements. If you don't have a Duelist or Lynx in your opening hand, I would concider mulliganning. The 1-drops are that important.
I don't have much personal experience playing against Valakut. Most of my advice in the column for this match-up is based on theory and what I've read about the match-up. My guess once again is to try to fend off the Burst Lightnings with Brave the Elements when you can.
Hope this helps...
I'm definitely a numbers/spreadsheet type of person so I loved this article, I really appreciated the numbers on this and only wish you had the time to do similar break downs with other formats in the way you tackled WW, incredibly informative and all around a great read
Ah these sure bring back memories :)
Thanks!
I played the WW deck quite a bit. It seemed like Brave the Elements was terrible versus the three most popular decks: UW, Vamps, and Valakut. Also, you end up with draws where they kill your first 1-2 guys and you draw land, equipment, and Brave the Elements.
Versus Vamps they kill your 1 and 2 drops on T1 or T2 before you have mana up to counter spot removal. If you hold off casting them then you lose your aggressive start and die to Bloodwitches. Versus UW control it does nothing to stop a Day of Judgement and against a reasonably good opponent is a dead card. Finally, Valakut is a land, not a colored card. Because you dont have a threat and instead have Brave the Elements in hand then they get to Valakut going off before you kill them. In the mirror, yes, its very good. But thats about it.
I was actually taking them out for threats.
Dunno, mabye youve had better experiences with the card or Im playing it wrong? I guess I didnt have the same Main Deck either so mabye Ill set it up more similar to yours and see if it changes my mind.
-M
RE: Skred...it seems like a sign that you cut it to one of. One ofs are great fun but usually pretty terrible unless you can guarantee their timely use. I don't know the format very well so I could be way off about Skred in general but you might be better off cutting it for consistency.
Doomhed - I've been enjoying the rot farm for that little extra land and the mana fixing. The deck likes more land to pull off all its tricks, but it's aggro so I had to keep the land count relatively low (though 22 is still pretty high for aggro). It's been working nicely so far. Dredging doesn't even always happen, I need a reason to do it.
I really like tuskers in TE control decks, but not here. I tried them out but the problem is each time it's in my hand there's tons of other threats I'd like to be dropping on the board instead.
Keep in mind this deck is aggro, not your traditional TE deck. It doesn't need TE to succeed and I don't want my gameplan to revolve around "getting better" once the enchantment lands on the board, because I really have no way of fetching the card and have to resort to topdecking without deck trimming or card draw. That's why cards like Rancor and Putrid Leech make the cut. They have no real synergy with TE, but they're just such strong beats that it would be weird not to include them.
If I was going for a TE deck then it would be control, I'd have a ton of deck trimming and land fixing with cards like greenseeker, sakura-tribe elder, and krosan tusker. If I was UB then I'd go with looters, deep analysis, mulldrifters and twisted abominations.
PDX0R - I like stinkweed for combating WW's flyers but ya, otherwise they're not very good. Brownscale actually serves a purpose against burn, goblins, and aggro in general so it's a much better choice. I'm leaving 2 in my SB.
I've basically given up on monoB. You get consistency but lose alot of powerful beatsticks. Trespasser isn't close to Wild Mongrel. I'm sure someone else can get better results than me with it, but for now I'm a bit stumped.
superdank - That was really the best goblin hand I could find. He never needed to mull. I'd say a great goblin hand is no mull, two lands, bushwhackers, as many 1cc 2/2's as possible, and 1of's for the utility creatures. He did that each game. First game he brings out an army of 2/2's and two bushwhackers with the right amount of land. Second game he has good land again and three bushwhackers. Third game he swung for 27 with a bushwhacker. He had lightning bolts in games one and three. There's really not much more insanity you can expect.
I've had a bunch of games where the goblin player was drawing sparksmiths and alot of burn (instead of an army of 2/2's). All that happens is he picks off more of my creatures until he goes down to a life total where he can no longer use the smith, I keep bringing my creatures back to the board, and the opponent concedes. They were far less scary than the match I wrote about. If you want more convincing though, feel free to hit me up online if you got a goblin deck. I always like more playtesting.
Generally I advocate Exclude over Remove Soul. My initial builds ran excludes instead of the souls, but the meta is currently fast and I want to raise the chances that I have a counter ready for turn 2. This also helps me stop a turn3 chittering rats when I'm on the draw. If the meta shifts back to midrange / control then I'll switch back to excludes.
Skred used to be 4x, then 2x, and now 1x. It was 4x until I realized that firebolt was much stronger against goblins and MBCu, so it went down to 2 (mostly to kill razor golems and shades). Then I added an extra land to the deck and cut another skred. It's an oddball, but solid lategame removal. I dunno, should I cut it?
dredge i daresay should never have been allowed to tap dance on classic, yea sure it might win 80% of game ones, but know that almost every classic deck is running enough hate in the board it just flops around, also classic has adapted to the presence of dredge with things like
md helm/line in oath
helm/line decks
silver bullet hosers that can be tutored up in the md like, yixlid jailers, crypt, relic, wheel of sun and moon and trap.
however dredge is a hard deck to play correctly, and a player that actually fully understands how dredge wins and loses both g1 and sb games will have an advantage on almost any opponent. I have seen some sick dredge players just wipe the floor with turn 0 lotv and crypt.
I am using Excel from Office 2003.
I said WoTC cares about the participation of the FORMAT, not the prices of certain choice singles. If there are no or very little competitive options at a price that an acceptable community, WoTC cares. Tabernacle at $250 isn't stopping people from playing Legacy. And while you say locally X places are not working out, Standard participation online has never been bigger, despite Baneslayer's inflated price. So WoTC has nothing to worry about in that regard - they do care about the market - but only as it pertains to the pariticipation in the format, not that card X, Y, or Z that you really like is expensive.
If the price of online duals suddenly quadrupled, WOTC would probably care - The price of THOSE drastically affects the participation levels in Legacy. The price of Pernicious Deed or Orim's Chant would not.
But I'd like to take the time to break down your last paragraph:
"From the prospect of selling packs, it boggles the mind that WOTC does not put every set for sale in the store. There is no real reason as to why I can't buy invasion packs from the store. It costs WOTC nothing to post those. There is no real inventory and the cards are non-redeemable, so give me access to them.""
Yes, there is. Because if you didn't know that eventually they'd be removed from the store at some point, you'd probably have less of a rush to buy them. Believe it or not, WoTC was considering leaving MVW packs at the store for all time, but after almost 3 years of Mirage the results were conclusive - it didn't get them anything. Leaving packs up at the store is NOT a cooperative plan with focusing attention on cycling standard cards, nor is it commensurate at all with even a small part of the game remaining collectible.
There are costs associated with every option, not to mention the problems WoTC has already stated they have with new customers being overwhelmed by options at the store and then regretting purchases of packs for drafts which rarely or no longer fire - in fact, it's why they cut off sales of classic sets after just two weeks.
"Will it hurt the secondary market? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. You might see the price of Pernicious Deed drop a couple of tickets.... "
No, in practice it probably wouldn't hurt the value. But then, if the price is just a couple of tickets difference, why do you care to have Apocalypse packs back in the store? Just go buy Deeds - it will be be cheaper than buying packs.
"I haven't found a bot yet that is ready to sell Ravagers 4x for 1 ticket."
That's because they know there are people willing to pay more for them
Seriously - that last paragraph amounted to nothing more than "I want it cheaper - give it to me".
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And you wonder why I said that i don't see a rush of people joining Legacy online. It's not cheap and it's not getting any cheaper.
It's just still cheaper than joining legacy in paper.
I think we're both arguing the same thing here, but I used a bad example. Yes, I forgot the duel lands are on the reserve list. I am not suggesting that WOTC reprint things off the reserved list. My arguement is about cost. Some competive cards simply cost too much for a new player to get into the format. MTGO is the perfect format to allow players to play formats they couldn't play in real life. If players had the ability to just go buy 9 or 10 packs of MED1, sure they probably wouldn't get the 4 FoW they need/want, but it would give them some cards they might need or could sell. I still don't have any Hymn to Tourachs since they cost $3.50. Not an overly expensive price, but still high enough to make me think about it and maybe devote my money to cards I can get more use out of (ie: can go in other decks). I agree with you a big community would be good, but it will never happen without access to fair prices and cards.
As for your arguement about Baneslayer. I don't want to bring up the whole mythic rare debate again. There are whole forums dedicated to that, but Rosewater explained how and why Mythics are distributed. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr334
As someone who spent 7 years working in a game store I can tell you, the mythic rares are very similar in distribution to Yugi Oh!. And, while it is not directly stated in his article, one can infer from the article as to why they added mythics. Mythics are designed to sell packs. Chase rares DO increase pack sales because of the notion that "I can't afford to buy a $25 Ajani Vegeant, but I do have $5 in my pocket and I could buy a pack and hope I get one." That logic seems flawed, but trust me, it works. If they were 1 in every 40, people wouldn't care about them and not be encouraged to buy packs. With 1 in 8, your chances are much better. If WOTC wasn't in the business to sell packs, they wouldn't sell packs at all.
However, I am confused about your arguement here. You claim WOTC cares about the price of singles, but then you say,
"But if the price of The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is keeping a lot of people from playing Land.dec, that is NOT a problem for WoTC - either go find another competitive deck to play (of which there are many) or good for you for having a $250 card."
Which seems to fly in the face of your earlier statement that WOTC would have a problem with $250 Baneslayers. That quote say they wouldn't care. My arguement is that it SHOULD be a problem for WOTC. How do you encourage players to join a game when the barrier to entering the game is so high? I think ImpinAintEasy gave a great example. $1000 just to get started? That's crazy. Forget that we are Magic players and go ask a person off the street, "Hey you wanna play this game? It's really fun and will bring you a lifetime of pleasure. Oh, but I'm gonna need $1000 up front before you can even start to play."
As a matter of fact, it appears, whether they realize it or not, that WOTC is having a problem with expensive Baneslayers. There are 5 gamestores in my area and all of them have seen Standard participation drop off by over 50% in the past year to year and a half. When I ask players why, the answer I usually get is the cost (of cards)is too high. What could WOTC due about overly pricey Baneslayers? Not much. M10 has already come and gone. Their only real option would be to ban it. That would decrease the need for it instantly and might encourage more players to come back to the format. That would be the most ridiculous option (although they did it to skullclamp to get people to stop using it). Or maybe there will be cards in Worldwake that will be better than it so players put down there Baneslayers.
We can sit here and argue about where WOTC loyalties lie. We can say that they make magic cards to strengthen the game build better play environments. We can believe that their end goal is to create a fun game for players. But that would be a VERY naive way at looking at things. WOTC is a business and businesses are designed to make money. How does WOTC make money? Buy selling cards which they put into packs. At the end of the day it all comes down to selling packs. Yes, even legacy people buy new cards. Of course they do. If WOTC didn't design cards for legacy players that would be an entire market they would be losing out on.
From the prospect of selling packs, it boggles the mind that WOTC does not put every set for sale in the store. There is no real reason as to why I can't buy invasion packs from the store. It costs WOTC nothing to post those. There is no real inventory and the cards are non-redeemable, so give me access to them. Will it hurt the secondary market? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. You might see the price of Pernicious Deed drop a couple of tickets.... maybe. They have been running MD5 sealed and draft events lately and the prices of cards from those sets has not changed in a noticable way. I haven't found a bot yet that is ready to sell Ravagers 4x for 1 ticket. I keep hoping.
If you want to know what went wrong with MVW distribution, look no further than the fact you are trying to buy Mysitcal Tutors *now*. I had no problem buying them for $0.50 when they were in print. And I bought and sold a couple dozen back then. Mostly because no one wanted them except for the handful of us who actually played classic back then.
People didn't buy Classic sets because they don't think they'll ever need them - it's still going on today. There are many things "wrong" with the distribution of classic sets - mostly that the dreck in the sets far outweighs any cards that are useful in sets where they are still legal, which makes the few cards that are any good hard to get if they are rare. That's just supply and demand.
As for Portal cards being more difficult to find in paper than Exodus is online - that's probably very true. So? What's your point? That there are really hard to find paper cards?
I don't understand what point you are trying to make... are you just looking to complain that everything isn't readily available?
MED1 and Exodus are hard to find, but those sets aren't of the rarity that paper Portal is. Don't make a straw man. I could buy a digital FoW today, but a paper Imperial Recruiter is a tall order. His rarity is close to the P9.
I'm not arguing the supply issue because of price. I can afford the cards. I'm arguing the supply issue because I see a real supply issue. Digital cards should be and are cheaper because they're not reserved, there is no emotional attachment, and we're taking a risk on Wizards keeping the servers up. So out of thousands of cards, why are 10 or so select cards more expensive than their paper versions?
I'm about to go buy 3x Mystical Tutor. The Exiled version is a dollar cheaper than the Mirage version. I'm not complaining about the price - it's only $3! My issue is that something must be wrong with MVW and the way Wizards distributed it in order for the prices to be that way.
Wait for Extended season to end! We're in the middle of a period of high demand right now. Progenitus was 3.5 tix when Alara Reborn was new. All of those cards are Extended legal. This article is talking about cards that are specific to eternal formats.