Some rares really are irredeemable. Do you need 4x Goblin King from each set it was ever printed in? No. The same fate applies to every rare with reprints, including the playable cards.
Even with cards that are never reprinted, I personally can only cope with a few current competitive decks at once. It's not cost that limits me, it's time and energy. I'm seriously never going to want to buy every rare from even one set on the premise that I might somehow make time to use them.
So that's human nature and the supply mechanism both working against demand and residual value. I think the collectaholics are going to have to settle for collections as an end in themselves, and accept that 90% of it will never have any monetary value.
Super article. I would personally have liked to see a stock list. If not a fully pimped version. Just to give new players a jumping off point. well thought out article and nicely written.
I playtested a similar build some months ago. I found against PE calibre decks it just did not cut it. Its a fun deck and id recommend it for the TP/casual rooms. But if you turn up to a PE with this you wont be making T8. Nice article nevertheless.
Hi, thanks for the comment. Looking at it closer, that does seem like a horrible idea. I look forward to actually getting the cards on MODO and being able to experiment with them. If the deck leans more towards faeries, Nightshade Stinger would be ok, but I think Knucklebone Witch would be coming back, as well as a few copies of Facevaulter. What to take out, What to take out. It will all shake out once Morningtide appears. Would you like a follow up article, to see where it goes?
Oh wow, I had no clue that you were going to display my opinions so prominantly. I had figured you would have just used the information to suppliment your own views. I sincerely apologize to all of your readers for the lack of detail and refinement in my portion of the article.
I think Wizard's business model is flawed. VERY few can support a competitive online and a physical collection (much less, even one of the two). This means that I and others like me have to choose, and it makes no sense to choose online over physical unless you live a long way away from any Magic community. If you plan to go anywhere up the competitive latter, you're going to have to get the physical set (although I'm sure pros will say you need both).
Since I can't get both sets, and I'm not a professional, I have to think of the long term value of my investment. Now, IF Wizards were to lower the price of a physical pack to $1, and drop the "gold-standard", and vigorously support the online tournament scene, I would probably not play in real life much at all. I would probably spend more on Magic.
The "Virtual Simulation of the Real Life Experience" model just doesn't work. You still need to have monetary incentive/cost or you'll end up with a crappy scene like the old E-League.
I think one reason why there's so much supply is because of players like me. I play online from time to time spending about 50-100$ per month buying packs and tix and playing in drafts. I slowly build up sets, using /auction to sell my excess and buying 15-25 cent filler rares from bots with the proceeds. The aim is that my phyical long-term value from redeemed sets should sort of offset the ridicuolous amount of $$$ (relatively) I spent playing online. Then I end up with random uselessness like 6 Tidal Krakens which stay in the online.
1. Take away the gold standard
2. Lower the price of an online pack
3. Support the online tournament scene to a much greater extent (online grand prixs, mega-rare prize avatars, Power 9 Challenge, quirky format tourneys, random Chaos drafts, etc. etc. etc..
I think Wizard's business model is flawed. VERY few can support a competitive online and a physical collection (much less, even one of the two). This means that I and others like me have to choose, and it makes no sense to choose online over physical unless you live a long way away from any Magic community. If you plan to go anywhere up the competitive latter, you're going to have to get the physical set (although I'm sure pros will say you need both).
Since I can't get both sets, and I'm not a professional, I have to think of the long term value of my investment. Now, IF Wizards were to lower the price of a physical pack to $1, and drop the "gold-standard", and vigorously support the online tournament scene, I would probably not play in real life much at all. I would probably spend more on Magic.
The "Virtual Simulation of the Real Life Experience" model just doesn't work. You still need to have monetary incentive/cost or you'll end up with a crappy scene like the old E-League.
I think one reason why there's so much supply is because of players like me. I play online from time to time spending about 50-100$ per month buying packs and tix and playing in drafts. I slowly build up sets, using /auction to sell my excess and buying 15-25 cent filler rares from bots with the proceeds. The aim is that my phyical long-term value from redeemed sets should sort of offset the ridicuolous amount of $$$ (relatively) I spent playing online. Then I end up with random uselessness like 6 Tidal Krakens which stay in the online.
1. Take away the gold standard
2. Lower the price of an online pack
3. Support the online tournament scene to a much greater extent (online grand prixs, mega-rare prize avatars, Power 9 Challenge, quirky format tourneys, random Chaos drafts, etc. etc. etc..
I think Wizard's business model is flawed. VERY few can support a competitive online and a physical collection (much less, even one of the two). This means that I and others like me have to choose, and it makes no sense to choose online over physical unless you live a long way away from any Magic community. If you plan to go anywhere up the competitive latter, you're going to have to get the physical set (although I'm sure pros will say you need both).
Since I can't get both sets, and I'm not a professional, I have to think of the long term value of my investment. Now, IF Wizards were to lower the price of a physical pack to $1, and drop the "gold-standard", and vigorously support the online tournament scene, I would probably not play in real life much at all. I would probably spend more on Magic.
The "Virtual Simulation of the Real Life Experience" model just doesn't work. You still need to have monetary incentive/cost or you'll end up with a crappy scene like the old E-League.
I think one reason why there's so much supply is because of players like me. I play online from time to time spending about 50-100$ per month buying packs and tix and playing in drafts. I slowly build up sets, using /auction to sell my excess and buying 15-25 cent filler rares from bots with the proceeds. The aim is that my phyical long-term value from redeemed sets should sort of offset the ridicuolous amount of $$$ (relatively) I spent playing online. Then I end up with random uselessness like 6 Tidal Krakens which stay in the online.
1. Take away the gold standard
2. Lower the price of an online pack
3. Support the online tournament scene to a much greater extent (online grand prixs, mega-rare prize avatars, Power 9 Challenge, quirky format tourneys, random Chaos drafts, etc. etc. etc..
Thanks.. I guess usually the best time to buy cards are when they rotate out of standard. Prices usually fall then and stabilize in like after a month of rotation. It's best not to buy cards that have suddenly spiked in their prices because the spike is usually caused by others also wanting to pick them up immediately in fear of a permanent price hike. You're right about the extended season. I think that cards in extended have the largest change in prices. If you are the type of player, like me, who likes to make new decks that are similar to those that suddenly pop out at the pro tour, you should keep you eyes glued to the coverage. Usually, the very techy cards will be revealed mid coverage and the bots do not react immediately. So once you get hold of information, strike while the iron is hot. Cards like Grand arbiter augustin IV or ichorid didn't have time to react and they could be gotten cheap. Once the news went out, the prices jumped at least 3 times. o_0
Every so often, I have found people selling complete sets, especially out-of-standard sets, for reasonable prices. I once bought an every-Onslaught-common set, plus some extras, for $1, and bought a complete set of 7th edition for $80 or so. If you are looking for cards for singelton decks, a complete set can be a great investment. Look for the ones with good lands first: Seventh has painlands and City of Brass, Onslaught has fetchlands, Ravnica block sets have new duals.
I'm currently a pauper player, as it's the only community of competitive magic I've found that meets my budget requirements. However, I'd be all over this format if it ever came to fruitiion. The only change I would make would be to put a limit on the total value of the deck in addition to a card value cap. For example, limit each deck to being worth no more than $20, and no card worth more than $2. Granted, this is from my personal perspective as a player (and admitted cheapskate): I'm unsure whether this would hurt (by limiting the amount players will spend on a deck) or help (by increasing the value cap on individual cards) dealers.
As the poster above mentioned, enforcement could be an issue. I think he touched on the idea solution, being one where players enter their deck into some third party software which tests decklists for legality. Banned lists could be generated every week (or other interval) by a bot which crawls popular sites for recent card prices.
Great article! Your idea has some merit, but I think I may have a better one (Though, yours is probablly easier to implement).
This is a problem I have been pondering over for a while. This evolved into MountainProud's "Badges Idea", it's on the official MTGO forums if you want to take a look. Basically, an XBox Live-type system. The whole blueprints haven't been developed, but the basic idea is there- reward players for accomplishing certain tasks and let players be able to flaunt their "badges" to other players. This gives "casual" an edge- no prizes are really at stake, but players have an incentive to try something new.
So, if you win a certain amount of games with "Eater of Worlds", you get an Eater of Worlds badge. Likewise, play a certain amount of games with a given tribe, and earn that badge as well. This would require complex alogorithms and planning in order to work (And automatching to boot), but it's an idea with so much merit, and it would help to increase interest and longetiviity in the game as a whole.
I like the idea, but the fact that the format is self-limiting means that there is a ceiling to how far the prices of any given card can rise and if I'm a dealer I'd rather figure out a way to allow the prices to keep going up. Also, the metagame for such a format would be a mess -- say some version of your Words of Wind deck becomes very successful and Words rises in value to whatever the cap is. Then I have to stop playing that deck because Words is too expensive so I find another deck. But Words price falls in a few weeks since it's not legal in the only format it's any good in, so now the deck is back again. This would happen with all the top tier decks, right? This seems like a mess to me.
And as you state in the article, enforcment is a serious sticking point. I suppose it might be possible to self-police if the playgroup was small enough, but of course you want a decent number of people playing to format to drive up the cost of cards. I can see two features that would make this possible: 1. some kind of third party deck check (allowing the online organizer to spot check lists during matches), or 2. customizable ban lists (organizer creates a file containing the B&R list and all players load this on their client somehow, server could just make sure both players are using same custom file when setting up the game so the real deck restrictions could be done client-side).
I think this article was a good start on how to work on your collection for Singleton. One thing I wish it had was a little more advice on when to buy what. For instance right now is a bad time to buy ONS sac lands because they have gone up in price thanks to Extended season. Same goes for Chrome Mox, Shackles, etc.
Right now I would stay away from expensive Ext cards which will go down in two months or so. Card from before MD5 will go down even more this Fall though that is kinda far off.
That is the reason set reviews are hit and miss. My metagame is much more different than yours, but in the right one, the archer is insane! I undervalued the archer based on what I personally see on MTGO, and what I see in my own real life metagame. Am I off, more than likely yes, and I can see it going into the board to combat the Fae as well.
In my local metagame, 3 of the top 4 spots in a recent 24-person Standard tourney were fairy decks. Though the archer might not be a main-deck play in an elf deck, I think it may be a very solid 4-of in the sideboard.
Now with, Oona's Blackguard and Bitterblossom, I fear the fairy assault is just beginning....
Overall not bad. I am glad to have read yours. others I can't say I finished because I felt they were so far off. Someo of your star ratings I must say I disagreed with, but nothing major just 1-2 here and there which is all a matter of how I feel the rating is. 2 star to me could be the same as 3 star to u. Good job.
excellent article.. god i wish i could play in these classic tourneys.. heh i know i would have so much fun..
i love landstill its one of my favorite decks i'm glad to see it have a good day.. I also like that B/W deck.. anyways. liked the morningtide card reviews also
This isn't really going to work.
Some rares really are irredeemable. Do you need 4x Goblin King from each set it was ever printed in? No. The same fate applies to every rare with reprints, including the playable cards.
Even with cards that are never reprinted, I personally can only cope with a few current competitive decks at once. It's not cost that limits me, it's time and energy. I'm seriously never going to want to buy every rare from even one set on the premise that I might somehow make time to use them.
So that's human nature and the supply mechanism both working against demand and residual value. I think the collectaholics are going to have to settle for collections as an end in themselves, and accept that 90% of it will never have any monetary value.
Also a very similar deck was recently covered in another article on Puremtgo by tarmotog. So this is not really anything new for the readers
Super article. I would personally have liked to see a stock list. If not a fully pimped version. Just to give new players a jumping off point. well thought out article and nicely written.
I thought you did a really good job explaining why you thought these cards were going to played FutExt
I playtested a similar build some months ago. I found against PE calibre decks it just did not cut it. Its a fun deck and id recommend it for the TP/casual rooms. But if you turn up to a PE with this you wont be making T8. Nice article nevertheless.
Hi, thanks for the comment. Looking at it closer, that does seem like a horrible idea. I look forward to actually getting the cards on MODO and being able to experiment with them. If the deck leans more towards faeries, Nightshade Stinger would be ok, but I think Knucklebone Witch would be coming back, as well as a few copies of Facevaulter. What to take out, What to take out. It will all shake out once Morningtide appears. Would you like a follow up article, to see where it goes?
No, seriously, I am REALLY sorry for the way this looks. You have my reassurance that I will not make such a mistake again.
Oh wow, I had no clue that you were going to display my opinions so prominantly. I had figured you would have just used the information to suppliment your own views. I sincerely apologize to all of your readers for the lack of detail and refinement in my portion of the article.
Dealers need a way to short the market, hedge their inventory risk so to speak.
kept giving me errors
I think Wizard's business model is flawed. VERY few can support a competitive online and a physical collection (much less, even one of the two). This means that I and others like me have to choose, and it makes no sense to choose online over physical unless you live a long way away from any Magic community. If you plan to go anywhere up the competitive latter, you're going to have to get the physical set (although I'm sure pros will say you need both).
Since I can't get both sets, and I'm not a professional, I have to think of the long term value of my investment. Now, IF Wizards were to lower the price of a physical pack to $1, and drop the "gold-standard", and vigorously support the online tournament scene, I would probably not play in real life much at all. I would probably spend more on Magic.
The "Virtual Simulation of the Real Life Experience" model just doesn't work. You still need to have monetary incentive/cost or you'll end up with a crappy scene like the old E-League.
I think one reason why there's so much supply is because of players like me. I play online from time to time spending about 50-100$ per month buying packs and tix and playing in drafts. I slowly build up sets, using /auction to sell my excess and buying 15-25 cent filler rares from bots with the proceeds. The aim is that my phyical long-term value from redeemed sets should sort of offset the ridicuolous amount of $$$ (relatively) I spent playing online. Then I end up with random uselessness like 6 Tidal Krakens which stay in the online.
1. Take away the gold standard
2. Lower the price of an online pack
3. Support the online tournament scene to a much greater extent (online grand prixs, mega-rare prize avatars, Power 9 Challenge, quirky format tourneys, random Chaos drafts, etc. etc. etc..
Better business model!
I think Wizard's business model is flawed. VERY few can support a competitive online and a physical collection (much less, even one of the two). This means that I and others like me have to choose, and it makes no sense to choose online over physical unless you live a long way away from any Magic community. If you plan to go anywhere up the competitive latter, you're going to have to get the physical set (although I'm sure pros will say you need both).
Since I can't get both sets, and I'm not a professional, I have to think of the long term value of my investment. Now, IF Wizards were to lower the price of a physical pack to $1, and drop the "gold-standard", and vigorously support the online tournament scene, I would probably not play in real life much at all. I would probably spend more on Magic.
The "Virtual Simulation of the Real Life Experience" model just doesn't work. You still need to have monetary incentive/cost or you'll end up with a crappy scene like the old E-League.
I think one reason why there's so much supply is because of players like me. I play online from time to time spending about 50-100$ per month buying packs and tix and playing in drafts. I slowly build up sets, using /auction to sell my excess and buying 15-25 cent filler rares from bots with the proceeds. The aim is that my phyical long-term value from redeemed sets should sort of offset the ridicuolous amount of $$$ (relatively) I spent playing online. Then I end up with random uselessness like 6 Tidal Krakens which stay in the online.
1. Take away the gold standard
2. Lower the price of an online pack
3. Support the online tournament scene to a much greater extent (online grand prixs, mega-rare prize avatars, Power 9 Challenge, quirky format tourneys, random Chaos drafts, etc. etc. etc..
Better business model!
I think Wizard's business model is flawed. VERY few can support a competitive online and a physical collection (much less, even one of the two). This means that I and others like me have to choose, and it makes no sense to choose online over physical unless you live a long way away from any Magic community. If you plan to go anywhere up the competitive latter, you're going to have to get the physical set (although I'm sure pros will say you need both).
Since I can't get both sets, and I'm not a professional, I have to think of the long term value of my investment. Now, IF Wizards were to lower the price of a physical pack to $1, and drop the "gold-standard", and vigorously support the online tournament scene, I would probably not play in real life much at all. I would probably spend more on Magic.
The "Virtual Simulation of the Real Life Experience" model just doesn't work. You still need to have monetary incentive/cost or you'll end up with a crappy scene like the old E-League.
I think one reason why there's so much supply is because of players like me. I play online from time to time spending about 50-100$ per month buying packs and tix and playing in drafts. I slowly build up sets, using /auction to sell my excess and buying 15-25 cent filler rares from bots with the proceeds. The aim is that my phyical long-term value from redeemed sets should sort of offset the ridicuolous amount of $$$ (relatively) I spent playing online. Then I end up with random uselessness like 6 Tidal Krakens which stay in the online.
1. Take away the gold standard
2. Lower the price of an online pack
3. Support the online tournament scene to a much greater extent (online grand prixs, mega-rare prize avatars, Power 9 Challenge, quirky format tourneys, random Chaos drafts, etc. etc. etc..
Better business model!
Thanks.. I guess usually the best time to buy cards are when they rotate out of standard. Prices usually fall then and stabilize in like after a month of rotation. It's best not to buy cards that have suddenly spiked in their prices because the spike is usually caused by others also wanting to pick them up immediately in fear of a permanent price hike. You're right about the extended season. I think that cards in extended have the largest change in prices. If you are the type of player, like me, who likes to make new decks that are similar to those that suddenly pop out at the pro tour, you should keep you eyes glued to the coverage. Usually, the very techy cards will be revealed mid coverage and the bots do not react immediately. So once you get hold of information, strike while the iron is hot. Cards like Grand arbiter augustin IV or ichorid didn't have time to react and they could be gotten cheap. Once the news went out, the prices jumped at least 3 times. o_0
Every so often, I have found people selling complete sets, especially out-of-standard sets, for reasonable prices. I once bought an every-Onslaught-common set, plus some extras, for $1, and bought a complete set of 7th edition for $80 or so. If you are looking for cards for singelton decks, a complete set can be a great investment. Look for the ones with good lands first: Seventh has painlands and City of Brass, Onslaught has fetchlands, Ravnica block sets have new duals.
I'm currently a pauper player, as it's the only community of competitive magic I've found that meets my budget requirements. However, I'd be all over this format if it ever came to fruitiion. The only change I would make would be to put a limit on the total value of the deck in addition to a card value cap. For example, limit each deck to being worth no more than $20, and no card worth more than $2. Granted, this is from my personal perspective as a player (and admitted cheapskate): I'm unsure whether this would hurt (by limiting the amount players will spend on a deck) or help (by increasing the value cap on individual cards) dealers.
As the poster above mentioned, enforcement could be an issue. I think he touched on the idea solution, being one where players enter their deck into some third party software which tests decklists for legality. Banned lists could be generated every week (or other interval) by a bot which crawls popular sites for recent card prices.
Running 4 Auntie's Snitch with only 4 1-drops seems horrible. If you're going for prowl-2, I'd think you'd want at least 8 1cc creatures.
Great article! Your idea has some merit, but I think I may have a better one (Though, yours is probablly easier to implement).
This is a problem I have been pondering over for a while. This evolved into MountainProud's "Badges Idea", it's on the official MTGO forums if you want to take a look. Basically, an XBox Live-type system. The whole blueprints haven't been developed, but the basic idea is there- reward players for accomplishing certain tasks and let players be able to flaunt their "badges" to other players. This gives "casual" an edge- no prizes are really at stake, but players have an incentive to try something new.
So, if you win a certain amount of games with "Eater of Worlds", you get an Eater of Worlds badge. Likewise, play a certain amount of games with a given tribe, and earn that badge as well. This would require complex alogorithms and planning in order to work (And automatching to boot), but it's an idea with so much merit, and it would help to increase interest and longetiviity in the game as a whole.
I like the idea, but the fact that the format is self-limiting means that there is a ceiling to how far the prices of any given card can rise and if I'm a dealer I'd rather figure out a way to allow the prices to keep going up. Also, the metagame for such a format would be a mess -- say some version of your Words of Wind deck becomes very successful and Words rises in value to whatever the cap is. Then I have to stop playing that deck because Words is too expensive so I find another deck. But Words price falls in a few weeks since it's not legal in the only format it's any good in, so now the deck is back again. This would happen with all the top tier decks, right? This seems like a mess to me.
And as you state in the article, enforcment is a serious sticking point. I suppose it might be possible to self-police if the playgroup was small enough, but of course you want a decent number of people playing to format to drive up the cost of cards. I can see two features that would make this possible: 1. some kind of third party deck check (allowing the online organizer to spot check lists during matches), or 2. customizable ban lists (organizer creates a file containing the B&R list and all players load this on their client somehow, server could just make sure both players are using same custom file when setting up the game so the real deck restrictions could be done client-side).
I think this article was a good start on how to work on your collection for Singleton. One thing I wish it had was a little more advice on when to buy what. For instance right now is a bad time to buy ONS sac lands because they have gone up in price thanks to Extended season. Same goes for Chrome Mox, Shackles, etc.
Right now I would stay away from expensive Ext cards which will go down in two months or so. Card from before MD5 will go down even more this Fall though that is kinda far off.
But good stuff keep up the Singleton articles!
Heh.
That is the reason set reviews are hit and miss. My metagame is much more different than yours, but in the right one, the archer is insane! I undervalued the archer based on what I personally see on MTGO, and what I see in my own real life metagame. Am I off, more than likely yes, and I can see it going into the board to combat the Fae as well.
In my local metagame, 3 of the top 4 spots in a recent 24-person Standard tourney were fairy decks. Though the archer might not be a main-deck play in an elf deck, I think it may be a very solid 4-of in the sideboard.
Now with, Oona's Blackguard and Bitterblossom, I fear the fairy assault is just beginning....
Overall not bad. I am glad to have read yours. others I can't say I finished because I felt they were so far off. Someo of your star ratings I must say I disagreed with, but nothing major just 1-2 here and there which is all a matter of how I feel the rating is. 2 star to me could be the same as 3 star to u. Good job.
A very good read, one of the best (if not the best) State of the Program articles. Keep up the good work!
excellent article.. god i wish i could play in these classic tourneys.. heh i know i would have so much fun..
i love landstill its one of my favorite decks i'm glad to see it have a good day.. I also like that B/W deck.. anyways. liked the morningtide card reviews also