For your information: Just because of these One Double O articles I started playing singleton, something which I never had in mind. So keep up the good work.
As for the article, I think the "tutors" section could have been detailed a little bit more. Yes there are some obvious ones such as Mystical Tutor or Enlightened Tutor but there are also others that come in different shapes.
For example Sphinx's Herald is also a tutor. A very limited one but it is one nevertheless. Or my personal favorite, the transmute mechanic from Ravnica's Dimir Guild also works as a tutor. You can play the card called Dizzy Spell if you think it's the best action or you can transmute it and get your Orim's Chant!
Is anyone else having a hard time logging into the Forums. I am supposed to Judge this months Custom cards but I have not been able to log in, get my password reset, request my password, or even register a new account since the site was down over the holidays.
I would really like to judge so if one of the Judges can give me an external email I will just send you my scores and comments. Sorry about this. I have been trying each day to log in.
I liked this article a ton, especially the way you connected EDH to the 100 card singleton format. You are correct about the length of games, they oftentimes reach the 2 hour mark. If you have the time, a defensive strategy like the one you discussed will generally lead to wins. Additional EDH content is always appreciated!
OOP boosters are available through dealers, just like in paper. All those packs you are buying after they go OOP in paper were bought by the stores before they went offsale. Digital is no different.
I'm not even a dealer and I have enough OTJ and MDF to run a full draft pod of each.
This was a very well written article. I really liked how you went over some of the intracacies of singleton/EDH play. I plan on pointing new EDH deck builders toward this article.
Sometimes, going to war with the army you have is a good thing. The creatures in this deck don't have a lot of toughness, but they don't need it! With cards like Dark Banishing and Diabolic Edict destroying your opponent's creatures and cards like Duct Crawler and Dauthi Marauder stopping them from blocking, your high octane monsters can attack unopposed. And when they do, bad things start to happen.
Great article but I honestly dont see necro getting restricted. It has yet to prove to be too much for the current meta. Even with the inclusion of mox diamond there still would be no reason to restrict. Although at some point it may get restricted it does not warrant it yet.
I was aiming for a relatively low curve, consistency, and something the available lands could support. Foul Imp would be great, but given the building constraints, Death Stroke seemed necessary, and Dauthi Slayer was a definite. So I kept it to those two for the only cards with two of any mana in their casting cost. For this reason, Flowstone shambler and Craven Giant made the cut, because they're relatively solid options, and work well with fling.
Fling and Mogg Bombers made were the theme cards, and provide a backbone of sorts allowing for some great synergy. You can swing with a shadow creature, Pump it with seething anger or Blood Frenzy, fling it, and trigger a bomber. Similarly you can swing in with a furnace spirit and fling it. Disturbed burial provides a quick way to grab Mogg Fanatic, Mogg Bomber or other creatures, and combos with Tortured Existence to repeatedly recur creatures.
Shock, Kindle, and Death Stroke make for a cheap removal suite, and a little burn.
The general game plan is to swing in with shadow creatures, drop some bombers and flunkies, pump and fling guys for a pretty fast kill.
ATTITUDE: This deck is based around the everlasting recursion of Tortured Existence. There are a bunch of combos in the deck, but the big 3 cards are Mulch (putting creatures in the Graveyard) + Tortured Existence (to turn any creature in your hand into anything that's been "milled") + Gravedigger (also to get back a card, and gain advantage you can use forever). You can play a Spike creature, move all his +1/+1 counters onto another creature, and then bring him back to make any creature as big as you want! Supporting this theme are other cards to give +1/+1 counters, and evasion creatures to deserve them.
ATTITUDE: Endangered Armodon is a powerful card that deserves a home. But you must be at least this tall to take him for a ride. Hence a deck with big tough creatures, and enough mana left over for big tough spells with buyback. And plenty of tricks along the way. In addition to buyback there are draw spells and cantrips to keep things busy. It plays comparable to Ramp Decks of various eras, with early-to-late flexibility via Buyback.
Tricks and Removal (11)
2 Mind Games
1 Provoke
1 Leap
1 Mana Leak
1 Twitch*
1 Time Ebb*
1 Shadow Rift*
1 Capsize*
1 Power Sink*
1 Elvish Fury*
Land (24)
14 Forest
9 Island
-------------
STATISTICS:
Mana curve:
1: 5
2: 8
3: 8
4: 9 (11 with buyback on Mind Games)
5: 4 (5 with buyback on Elvish Fury)
6: 0 (1 with buyback on Capsize)
7: 1
X: 1
Cards from Stronghold: 24
Cards from Tempest: 12 (excluding land)
"If you simply must draft, stick to the 4322 queues"
However, despite mentioning swiss Sealed, you don't mention swiss Drafts (3-2-1). This seems much more appropriate for new players, as they get to play all three rounds, and so can learn from the experience of 3 matches even if they win no prize. Also, they can lose match 1 and still go on to win 1 or 2 boosters.
I believe you also get a promo for going 3-0 though I haven't found confirmation of that.
I think it is a very interesting article for all the classic players : a fine list of the main decks actualy perfomant in classic, and it looks good.
Take care & go on ! :)
PS : maybe you should also mention the "Intuition Loam" deck (usualy piloted by propelsis9). This version was really performant during last PEs .It is a nice mix between thresh & landstill with tarmo/enforcer as finisher and tutored by intuition/loam (http://www.classicquarter.com/decks/deckview.asp?DecklistID=734)
Hi guys! My name is Dave Meeson and I write the budget column at Star City Games. I got my Magical start with Tempest and have very fond memories of the Tempest and Stronghold precon decks. I hope my decks do the originals justice!
The first deck is designed to exploit Youthful Knight and the other first strikers around at the time:
Thanks to the guys here at PureMTGO for hosting this challenge; it was a lot of fun to think about. My column on these decks will appear at SCG on Tuesday!
This deck is R/B and is based around cheap creatures with various drawbacks and fling. The name references the rats from lab rats and how they are "comsumed" and "flung" with cards like cannibalize and fling.
This deck is R/B and is based around cheap creatures with various drawbacks and fling. The name references the rats from lab rats and how they are "comsumed" and "flung" with cards like cannibalize and fling.
This is a Green/Blue Deck that features large creatures and spells designed to get them through. It has some early game in the form of Skyshroud Ranger and Horned Turtle, then moves on to drop the fat like the massive 6/6 Rootbreaker Wurm and the Mighty Spike Colony. When it comes down to slowing your opponents down and clearing the path for your fatties there is plenty of choice! Tidal wave and Time Ebb temporarily set back your opponents creatures and Leap sends them right over their heads!
Im not really sure the lack of FoW in the Merfolk deck list is justifiable...you seemed to speak of it as though it were a conscious design choice and I just can't see any way that is the case. Its probably just because he does not have FoW....I'm about 99% certain those 4 force spikes should be forces.
The two articles format was a little annoying to me (back and forth thingy), so I like this better. That is especially true if you're reading the article several weeks late so you don't have to hunt for two articles.
Still, I see no reason why not do a Flores-esque data presentation plotting Top 8 dots and coloring "blue envelopes". What would that look like for 2009 data? How many 'points' has each deck won?
In the comments you mentioned how there are millions of duals. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Alpha + Beta = 4300 of each rare (1100 + 3200)
Unlimited = 18500 of each rare
Revised = 289,000 of each rare
So 310,700 Volcanic Islands were printed in English. I'll consider the FBB copies a bonus, although they might be as significant as the Revised printings. Now how are we doing online? If I'm doing this right then 22,800 Black Lotuses were printed. How many digital Chants are there? We probably have more Chants than we have Null Rods, too. And if I'm wrong about that, I'll eat my hat if there are more digital duals today than paper ones.
The problem as I see it isn't with rare cards. I proudly own a bunch of rare crap (and 1 small piece of power) in real life. I love that the cards hold their value. The problem I see is that cards online are being taken away from us. Back to Revised again. There were not 300,000 Volcanic Islands in 1995. Despite the famous Revised shortage there were plenty of uncracked Revised packs out there. I bet several thousand duals didn't enter circulation until after 1995. Online this kind of post-OOP correction cannot happen because WotC destroys the unsold boosters. In paper I can buy Time Spiral, Fifth Dawn, and 9E no problem. And I can either have a really crazy draft or crack them all and add to my extended collection. But online we feel threatened because the end of a set means THE END OF ALL CARDS.
And thank you for the expected value of cracking a pack.
* Besides Black Knight from MED1 going into 11E. And promos. And Tundra being the lone dual in MED7.
Hi Whiffy,
Thanks for taking the time to drop in. I dont follow your logic on painter completely. Epic Painter does not run Moon effects and had a brief spell of success also I have been running a new techy deck I call Chanting Stone (white deck with main Orims Chant and Abeyances with a bomberman and a Painter Stone Kill. The first few weeks with the deck were very successful and profitable but the last batch of 20+ 2 Mans have been less so. The reason is not because my opponents are mono colour (this fact is pretty irrelevant too me) the problem has been the increased play of Nul Rod (worse than pithing needle to my deck) pithing needle itself and the singleton Blessing in some side boards. Whilst I agree that Mono colour decks is a massive reason not to play the MonoRed Painter deck I think other issues are hosing the alternative deck builds.
Yes I think the removal of the 10 ten and adding it to this article is the way forward - although it looks like the editor disagrees :-(
As for the pictures I was playing around trying to see what was possible. Will keep experimenting :_)
Great article as always, very informative.
For your information: Just because of these One Double O articles I started playing singleton, something which I never had in mind. So keep up the good work.
As for the article, I think the "tutors" section could have been detailed a little bit more. Yes there are some obvious ones such as Mystical Tutor or Enlightened Tutor but there are also others that come in different shapes.
For example Sphinx's Herald is also a tutor. A very limited one but it is one nevertheless. Or my personal favorite, the transmute mechanic from Ravnica's Dimir Guild also works as a tutor. You can play the card called Dizzy Spell if you think it's the best action or you can transmute it and get your Orim's Chant!
Just thought I'd metion these.
LE
All entries were due in about 8 hours ago! Thanks to everyone who entered!
Is anyone else having a hard time logging into the Forums. I am supposed to Judge this months Custom cards but I have not been able to log in, get my password reset, request my password, or even register a new account since the site was down over the holidays.
I would really like to judge so if one of the Judges can give me an external email I will just send you my scores and comments. Sorry about this. I have been trying each day to log in.
I liked this article a ton, especially the way you connected EDH to the 100 card singleton format. You are correct about the length of games, they oftentimes reach the 2 hour mark. If you have the time, a defensive strategy like the one you discussed will generally lead to wins. Additional EDH content is always appreciated!
OOP boosters are available through dealers, just like in paper. All those packs you are buying after they go OOP in paper were bought by the stores before they went offsale. Digital is no different.
I'm not even a dealer and I have enough OTJ and MDF to run a full draft pod of each.
This was a very well written article. I really liked how you went over some of the intracacies of singleton/EDH play. I plan on pointing new EDH deck builders toward this article.
MTGO name: Wildcat612
Deck Name: Desperate Measures
Sometimes, going to war with the army you have is a good thing. The creatures in this deck don't have a lot of toughness, but they don't need it! With cards like Dark Banishing and Diabolic Edict destroying your opponent's creatures and cards like Duct Crawler and Dauthi Marauder stopping them from blocking, your high octane monsters can attack unopposed. And when they do, bad things start to happen.
3x Lightning Elemental
1x Servant of Volrath
1x Flowstone Giant
2x Dauthi Marauder
1x Endless Scream
1x Crown of Flame
1x Dark Banishing
2x Diabolic Edict
1x Lowland Giant
1x Rolling Thunder
2x Craven Giant
2x Duct Crawler
2x Dungeon Shade
2x Fling
2x Flowstone Shambler
1x Lab Rats
2x Furnace Spirit
1x Seething Anger
3x Serpent Warrior
1x Shock
1x Tortured Existence
1x Torment
1x Foul Imp
1x Mogg Fanatic
15x Mountain
9x Swamp
Entries close in about 26 hours for this great contest! Make sure you have your deck submitted before 9am PST tomorrow!
Great article but I honestly dont see necro getting restricted. It has yet to prove to be too much for the current meta. Even with the inclusion of mox diamond there still would be no reason to restrict. Although at some point it may get restricted it does not warrant it yet.
MTGO Username: Kawachi
// NAME: Bombing Raid
// Lands
12 [TE] Swamp (1)
12 [TE] Mountain (1)
// Creatures
2 [SH] Furnace Spirit
3 [SH] Mogg Bombers
2 [SH] Mogg Flunkies
2 [SH] Craven Giant
2 [SH] Flowstone Shambler
2 [TE] Gravedigger
2 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
2 [TE] Dauthi Slayer
2 [TE] Dauthi Horror
// Spells
2 [SH] Death Stroke
2 [SH] Shock
2 [SH] Tortured Existence
3 [SH] Fling
2 [SH] Seething Anger
2 [TE] Disturbed Burial
2 [TE] Blood Frenzy
2 [TE] Kindle
I was aiming for a relatively low curve, consistency, and something the available lands could support. Foul Imp would be great, but given the building constraints, Death Stroke seemed necessary, and Dauthi Slayer was a definite. So I kept it to those two for the only cards with two of any mana in their casting cost. For this reason, Flowstone shambler and Craven Giant made the cut, because they're relatively solid options, and work well with fling.
Fling and Mogg Bombers made were the theme cards, and provide a backbone of sorts allowing for some great synergy. You can swing with a shadow creature, Pump it with seething anger or Blood Frenzy, fling it, and trigger a bomber. Similarly you can swing in with a furnace spirit and fling it. Disturbed burial provides a quick way to grab Mogg Fanatic, Mogg Bomber or other creatures, and combos with Tortured Existence to repeatedly recur creatures.
Shock, Kindle, and Death Stroke make for a cheap removal suite, and a little burn.
The general game plan is to swing in with shadow creatures, drop some bombers and flunkies, pump and fling guys for a pretty fast kill.
TENTATIVE TITLE: Growing Pains
ATTITUDE: This deck is based around the everlasting recursion of Tortured Existence. There are a bunch of combos in the deck, but the big 3 cards are Mulch (putting creatures in the Graveyard) + Tortured Existence (to turn any creature in your hand into anything that's been "milled") + Gravedigger (also to get back a card, and gain advantage you can use forever). You can play a Spike creature, move all his +1/+1 counters onto another creature, and then bring him back to make any creature as big as you want! Supporting this theme are other cards to give +1/+1 counters, and evasion creatures to deserve them.
DECKLIST:
Enchantments (3):
3 Tortured Existence
Creatures(22):
3 Gravedigger*
2 Spike Colony
2 Spike Worker
1 Spike Drone*
1 Skyshroud Ranger*
2 Morgue Thrull
2 Dauthi Horror*
1 Dungeon Shade
2 Lowland Basilisk
1 Coiled Tinviper
2 Rabid Rats
2 Skyshroud Archer
1 Seeker of Skybreak*
Spells (13):
3 Mulch
1 Disturbed Burial*
1 Sadistic Glee*
2 Provoke
1 Cannibalize
2 Death Stroke
1 Diabolic Edict*
1 Dark Banishing*
1 Coersion*
Land (22):
9 Forest
12 Swamp
------------------
STATISTICS:
Mana Curve:
1: 8
2: 15
3: 9
4: 4
5: 2 (3 with Buyback on Disturbed Burial)
Cards from Stronghold: 24
Cards from Tempest: 14 (exlcuding land)
COMBOS:
* Mulch / Morgue Thrull + Tortured Existence / Gravedigger / Disturbed Burial for choice of creatures
* Spike Colony / Spike Worker / Spike Drone + Tortured Existence / Gravedigger / Disturbed Burial for recurred +1/+1
* Spike Colony / Spike Worker / Spike Drone + Dauthi Horror / Dungeon Shade for large evasive creature
* Spike Colony / Spike Worker / Spike Drone + Sadistic Glee to grow a creature as you kill your own spike.
* Mulch + Skyshroud Archer to play lands faster
* Provoke + Rabid Rats to make disadvantageous blocks. (+ Seeker of Skybreak if it's tapped)
MTGO User name: Amar
TENTATIVE TITLE: Go Big or Go Home
ATTITUDE: Endangered Armodon is a powerful card that deserves a home. But you must be at least this tall to take him for a ride. Hence a deck with big tough creatures, and enough mana left over for big tough spells with buyback. And plenty of tricks along the way. In addition to buyback there are draw spells and cantrips to keep things busy. It plays comparable to Ramp Decks of various eras, with early-to-late flexibility via Buyback.
Creatures (17):
3 Endangered Armodon
2 Skyshroud Troopers
2 Spined Wurm
3 Lowland Basilisk
1 Hammerhead Shark
1 Dream Prowler
1 Rootbreaker Wurm*
1 Canopy Spider*
1 Skyshroud Troll*
2 Trained Armodon*
Drawing and Accleration (8)
3 Mulch
2 Overgrowth
2 Sift
1 Dream Cache*
Tricks and Removal (11)
2 Mind Games
1 Provoke
1 Leap
1 Mana Leak
1 Twitch*
1 Time Ebb*
1 Shadow Rift*
1 Capsize*
1 Power Sink*
1 Elvish Fury*
Land (24)
14 Forest
9 Island
-------------
STATISTICS:
Mana curve:
1: 5
2: 8
3: 8
4: 9 (11 with buyback on Mind Games)
5: 4 (5 with buyback on Elvish Fury)
6: 0 (1 with buyback on Capsize)
7: 1
X: 1
Cards from Stronghold: 24
Cards from Tempest: 12 (excluding land)
COMBOS:
Dream Cache + Mulch
2 Overgrowth + Twitch
Lowland Basilisk + Capsize
MTGO User Name: Amar
Hi
In your article you say to beginners:
"If you simply must draft, stick to the 4322 queues"
However, despite mentioning swiss Sealed, you don't mention swiss Drafts (3-2-1). This seems much more appropriate for new players, as they get to play all three rounds, and so can learn from the experience of 3 matches even if they win no prize. Also, they can lose match 1 and still go on to win 1 or 2 boosters.
I believe you also get a promo for going 3-0 though I haven't found confirmation of that.
Just thought I'd mention it. :-)
Good work mr Hammer !
I think it is a very interesting article for all the classic players : a fine list of the main decks actualy perfomant in classic, and it looks good.
Take care & go on ! :)
PS : maybe you should also mention the "Intuition Loam" deck (usualy piloted by propelsis9). This version was really performant during last PEs .It is a nice mix between thresh & landstill with tarmo/enforcer as finisher and tutored by intuition/loam (http://www.classicquarter.com/decks/deckview.asp?DecklistID=734)
Yeah, but it's been working out for you. Can't argue that.
Hi guys! My name is Dave Meeson and I write the budget column at Star City Games. I got my Magical start with Tempest and have very fond memories of the Tempest and Stronghold precon decks. I hope my decks do the originals justice!
The first deck is designed to exploit Youthful Knight and the other first strikers around at the time:
3 Youthful Knight
2 Sandstone Warrior (Tempest)
2 Advance Scout (Tempest)
2 Mogg Fanatic (Tempest)
2 Duct Crawler
2 Flowstone Shambler
2 Venerable Monk
2 Mogg Flunkies
1 Coiled Tinviper (Tempest)
1 Soltari Lancer (Tempest)
3 Kindle
3 Seething Anger
2 Shock
2 Smite
2 Conviction
2 Crown of Flames
1 Flowstone Blade
1 Rolling Thunder (Tempest)
1 Shatter (Tempest)
1 Giant Strength (Tempest)
13 Mountain
10 Plains
The second is to try and get as much use out of Overgrowth:
3 Spined Wurm
2 Rootbreaker Wurm (T)
2 Skyshroud Troopers
2 Endangered Armodon
2 Serpent Warrior
2 Spike Colony
2 Canopy Spider (T)
1 Skyshroud Troll (T)
1 Lowland Basilisk
1 Dungeon Shade
3 Overgrowth
3 Lab Rats
2 Rampant Growth (T)
2 Evincar’s Justice (T)
2 Death Stroke
2 Diabolic Edict (T)
2 Provoke
1 Cannibalize
1 Elvish Fury (T)
1 Natural Spring (T)
13 Forest
10 Swamp
Thanks to the guys here at PureMTGO for hosting this challenge; it was a lot of fun to think about. My column on these decks will appear at SCG on Tuesday!
Deck name: Vermin Food Fight
MTGO Username: BOBtheRock
Email: asteinfeld@wsu.edu
This deck is R/B and is based around cheap creatures with various drawbacks and fling. The name references the rats from lab rats and how they are "comsumed" and "flung" with cards like cannibalize and fling.
Lands
11 Mountain
12 Swamp
Creatures
2 Foul Imp
2 Mogg Raider*
2 Flowstone Giant*
2 Lowland Giant*
2 Gravedigger*
2 Serpent Warrior
2 Dungeon Shade
2 Mogg Fanatic*
1 Mogg Flunkies
2 Mogg Conscripts*
3 Mogg Bombers
Spells
2 Lab Rats
2 Spinal Graft*
3 Shock
3 Fling
1 Cannibalize
1 Brush With Death
1 Evincar's Justice*
2 Death Stroke
Note: sorry for posting twice, I am not familiar with the message board format for this site and do not know how to edit my post.
Deck name: Vermin Food Fight
This deck is R/B and is based around cheap creatures with various drawbacks and fling. The name references the rats from lab rats and how they are "comsumed" and "flung" with cards like cannibalize and fling.
Lands
11 Mountain
12 Swamp
Creatures
2 Foul Imp
2 Mogg Raider*
2 Flowstone Giant*
2 Lowland Giant*
2 Gravedigger*
2 Serpent Warrior
2 Dungeon Shade
2 Mogg Fanatic*
1 Mogg Flunkies
2 Mogg Conscripts*
3 Mogg Bombers
Spells
2 Lab Rats
2 Spinal Graft*
3 Shock
3 Fling
1 Cannibalize*
1 Brush With Death
1 Evincar's Justice*
2 Death Stroke
MTGO Name: Zouily
This is a Green/Blue Deck that features large creatures and spells designed to get them through. It has some early game in the form of Skyshroud Ranger and Horned Turtle, then moves on to drop the fat like the massive 6/6 Rootbreaker Wurm and the Mighty Spike Colony. When it comes down to slowing your opponents down and clearing the path for your fatties there is plenty of choice! Tidal wave and Time Ebb temporarily set back your opponents creatures and Leap sends them right over their heads!
3 Skyshroud Ranger (Te)
1 Cloud Spirit
2 Horned Turtle (Te)
2 Spike Worker
1 Trained Armodon (Te)
2 Endangered Armodon
2 Skyshroud Trooper
2 Spike Colony
3 Spined Wurm
1 Sea Monster (Te)
2 Rootbreaker Wurm (Te)
1 Elvish Fury (Te)
3 Leap
1 Comtempt
1 Volrath's Curse (Te)
2 Mana Leak
2 Tidal Surge
1 Mind Games
1 Capsize (Te)
2 Time Ebb (Te)
1 Sift
13 Forest
11 Island
BU Aggro/Control deck
-- 21 Black cards
2 Brush with Death
2 Cannibalize
2 Dark Banishing (T)
2 Death Stroke
2 Dungeon Shade
2 Foul Imp
2 Gravedigger (T)
2 Marsh Lurker (T)
2 Serpent Warrior
1 Diabolic Edict (T)
1 Tortured Existence
1 Evincar's Justice (T)
-- 16 Blue cards
3 Cloud Spirit
3 Time Ebb (T)
2 Wind Drake (T)
2 Spindrift Drake
2 Mana Leak
2 Tidal Surge
1 Rootwater Hunter (T)
1 Contempt
-- 23 Lands
14 Swamp
9 Island
yea fow should be in merfolk i wont play 80$ tho
Im not really sure the lack of FoW in the Merfolk deck list is justifiable...you seemed to speak of it as though it were a conscious design choice and I just can't see any way that is the case. Its probably just because he does not have FoW....I'm about 99% certain those 4 force spikes should be forces.
The two articles format was a little annoying to me (back and forth thingy), so I like this better. That is especially true if you're reading the article several weeks late so you don't have to hunt for two articles.
Still, I see no reason why not do a Flores-esque data presentation plotting Top 8 dots and coloring "blue envelopes". What would that look like for 2009 data? How many 'points' has each deck won?
In the comments you mentioned how there are millions of duals. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Alpha + Beta = 4300 of each rare (1100 + 3200)
Unlimited = 18500 of each rare
Revised = 289,000 of each rare
So 310,700 Volcanic Islands were printed in English. I'll consider the FBB copies a bonus, although they might be as significant as the Revised printings. Now how are we doing online? If I'm doing this right then 22,800 Black Lotuses were printed. How many digital Chants are there? We probably have more Chants than we have Null Rods, too. And if I'm wrong about that, I'll eat my hat if there are more digital duals today than paper ones.
The problem as I see it isn't with rare cards. I proudly own a bunch of rare crap (and 1 small piece of power) in real life. I love that the cards hold their value. The problem I see is that cards online are being taken away from us. Back to Revised again. There were not 300,000 Volcanic Islands in 1995. Despite the famous Revised shortage there were plenty of uncracked Revised packs out there. I bet several thousand duals didn't enter circulation until after 1995. Online this kind of post-OOP correction cannot happen because WotC destroys the unsold boosters. In paper I can buy Time Spiral, Fifth Dawn, and 9E no problem. And I can either have a really crazy draft or crack them all and add to my extended collection. But online we feel threatened because the end of a set means THE END OF ALL CARDS.
And thank you for the expected value of cracking a pack.
* Besides Black Knight from MED1 going into 11E. And promos. And Tundra being the lone dual in MED7.
Hi Whiffy,
Thanks for taking the time to drop in. I dont follow your logic on painter completely. Epic Painter does not run Moon effects and had a brief spell of success also I have been running a new techy deck I call Chanting Stone (white deck with main Orims Chant and Abeyances with a bomberman and a Painter Stone Kill. The first few weeks with the deck were very successful and profitable but the last batch of 20+ 2 Mans have been less so. The reason is not because my opponents are mono colour (this fact is pretty irrelevant too me) the problem has been the increased play of Nul Rod (worse than pithing needle to my deck) pithing needle itself and the singleton Blessing in some side boards. Whilst I agree that Mono colour decks is a massive reason not to play the MonoRed Painter deck I think other issues are hosing the alternative deck builds.
Yes I think the removal of the 10 ten and adding it to this article is the way forward - although it looks like the editor disagrees :-(
As for the pictures I was playing around trying to see what was possible. Will keep experimenting :_)