the problem I have with a lot of people is they ASSUME that classic is a format that costs a lot of money.. but in reality it isn't... not when compared to other "time" based formats.
I assume that most players are getting into magic for the "long term" so while it may be a high barrier for entry now.. later on it isn't. MTGO is a lot different from paper.. online I only need 4 (or in some cases 1) of any given card and they are good in all my decks.. thats no so in the paper world.. although.. in the paper world you get discounts based on condition (like if you can deal with beat up duals you can get them MUCH MUCH cheaper then good looking duals)
I'm not saying that classic isn't expensive.. it is by its nature.. i was just saying that there are alternatives to the high priced cards and decks out there....
the truth of the matter is NO ONE knows what will happen when extended rotates.. it could just mean that there is a small influx of players and it could mean bargain prices for IPA era cards.. or it could be the complete opposite there is NO comparable event that has happened in MTGO history. so i'm holding my judgement for that day.
Multiplayer hurts.. if anyone has read my past articles knows that is where the "meat and potatoes" of my magic playing is spent... hopefully V3 has better dual core support as my computer currently cannot run V2 (just got a new comp)
I haven't played it, but I've played against it in testing, and in association with Rogue Elephant, it seemed pretty strong. Opponent would seemingly blow their load with a Rogue Elephant or two, along with some elves, then drop the Wurm and come right back with 4+ mana available and pump spells in hand to finish me off around turn 5-6 pretty easily.
I'd be really bummed out if Classic becomes just an online version of Type 1, with decks averaging 1500$.
Not gonna happen ? Think again, more players getting into the game + extended rotating in September will spike the demand for Classic staples. If the supply doesn't increase in relation to the demand, inflation ensues.
Please, don't let this happen. Learn from past mistakes. In 1994 no one would've believed you if you told them "in 5 years the price of a Black Lotus will have quadrupled", but it did.
Sorry, forgot to put the disclaimer at the top. PDC is an online community of competitive all commons Magic. Information can be found at PDCMagic.com and people are always hanging around in the "/join pdc" room.
i feel your pain, i love multi. i just recently learned about leagues and was waiting for mourningtide to play in my first one,well until i read the blog. But wizards has made us wait for so long for the big V3 release that we are almost half excited for them to release a not up to standard fully done product. But still the promises of stability, got to see it to believe it, brings us hope. oh and i love the crown, makes you look more, ah kingly
I love how a deck that started off as a fun side project I built to destress has turned into one of the top decks in PDC:). Shame I'm not around to pilot it anymore really. Incidentally I'm really not sold on harvest wurm in the deck atall, but I'v only tested it a couple of times, would someone with more experience mind sharing their feelings about it?
Thanks for the downgrade to v3! Server down meant games down. V3 means leagues/multiplayer permanently down until they put it up. When they want to put stuff up, they take forever if you look back into history. We have this trophy case of nothing even if we do win premier events. That has not been put up since the beginning of time. =(
I too must admit to being disappointed by this, but not surprised. It was said a long time ago on the message board (back when everyone assumed we would not live to see V3 actually happen) that leagues were not on the vital list of must haves for the system to be ready for V3, but would be added as quickly as possible thereafter.
I am a limited player mostly, I like Drafts, and I like Leagues.... I don't enjoy constructed nearly so much these days as I did when I was 16-17 getting into Magic for the first time back in the old days when the Dark was new, because at that time the truly nasty cards were being banned, so even starting from scratch we were able to come up with a good deck that could compete. Online I started with the Tenth edition release, which means I am still having trouble having the cards to compete (though this is getting better)
Tidal Kraken has been a Monster in the past, but Kraken is an acceptable creature type again nowadays. Whilst in 8th Edition it was a monster, currently, it's a Kraken, having been updated during the Grand Creature Type Update. Always be careful looking at the type lines of offline cards, as they're not the best indicators of what the creature may have been errataed to.
no matter what, thier is no crapy magic card. if a person thinks any one magic card(s) are crapy then they need to relook at the card or rethink thier outlook on deck building. every card can be useful.
example: i walked into a card shop and i had asked the person behind the counter for 4x norin the weary, and 4x saltskitters. his reply to me was "what would u need with those cards, thier no good and cant be used but in only casual decks, and that even if u find a way to use them". i told him that they were a key card in my deck, a turny deck that whipes most decks away, and it happens to be that those two cards norin and saltskitter paired with pandimonium are 85% of the time, the game winning cards.
my point im trying to make is every card can be deadly, wether it be a rare, common, or uncommon, it doesnt matter. aslong as the person who building the deck is got a open mind and yes im goin to sterotype, smart and has intellgence than no card wotc makes is not crap. as far as the market goes im glad i can pick 5 for 1 tix or 128 commons for 1 tix becasue it gives me a chance to prove to people, to take those so called crap rares and whip peoples butts with them. i like the market the way it is. ive spent just under 10 bucks if not half of that to make my red, green, white turny deck. it pretty muchs trumps most standard and extended decks online adn in actuall decks. the only cards that cost me sumthing online was the 4 timbermares, 4 pandimoniums. cards u call crap like dustelementals, and whitemane lions all play a key role in my deck. so for some like ur selves to come out ur mouth (not tryin to be rude) and say theres a problem with teh market adn theres a lot of crap rares, u guys need to rethink ur out look on deck building.
so again if sumone says or makes those comments, they dont have an open mind and they only rely on cards that people made popular, and keep in mind that the only reason those cards are popular is because people made those cards work great with outhers or built really good decks around them.
I am a limited player, i love to draft, play on legues and i don´t have time to sit 5~6 hours to join a Premier Event. So I end up selling my cards to refil my tix, or boosters when i am on a bad shape. I wished that cards were more pricey, but i can´t complain either, doran were 3 tix at the begining of the lorwyn, and now it at almost 9. Teg in the other hand just sinked. Well, is this the excess of cards fault´s? No it is our fault! We keep playing with the same cards, wizards has built an huge effort to create the tier 2 enviroment, so we can see cards with the price floating, Aeon Chron from .25 to 6, or tarmogoyf from 1.1 to 30.
The redemption issue has a impact on the price, i agree with that, the bot commerce has an impact, but who says which cards are expensive or ubber cheap are the players.
Oh, no! That is a shame. I have to admit I (obviously) haven't been paying any attention to the V3 blogs, but are there really no leagues for an unspecified time? That is all I play, as I am only a month or two past being a "never played before" beginner. Bummer.
I intend to fix part of the problem regarding junk cards....
I will remove junk commons from the pool by simply not reselling/trading them, as they were useless in the first place.
My Alternate Account (Commons Bin) is being set up on the buyers board as a bot that will accept ANYTHING - and today after i have tagged all the junk commons i never use, i will post them there as well.
(Sorry, for now this is a yatbot and is a bit slow)
Unfortunately, I can't set up an Official bot that gives rebates.
If the service becomes popular I may post a board where frequent donators can take spare cards. This all depends on the quality of donations, of course. (once again i will not repost junk)
This bot will run on ONLY donations and will operate ONLY as long as the service is popular.
Since I am a player, and I built this free service beacuse i hate sorting past them myself, I WILL NOT RESELL JUNK!!
(not like anyone wants to buy 30 Grey Ogres anyways)
This will be an interesting pet project - I am doing this partially to prove that there are cards that are fuctionally useless, and therefore worthless because nobody will buy them even for .01 or less.
This bot is currently on my main pc, so it will not be available 24/7 yet. Once i get one more copy of xp, bot will go full time.
If this works out well, I may eventually put up a bot where all the junk is free to players. (At least I won't be ripping off the noobs)
If you have any feedback, or ideas as to how to make this service better, drop me a line.
If you use this bot and like it please tell others,as I will not advertise it.
Manual junk/donations of 32 cards or less can be made to kaiwoklaw, if I am around.
The reason I played sand golems and not dodecapods is smallpox.
If you have no creature in play and you opponent plays smallpox - you first discard the dodecapod and then you sacrifice it.
on the other hand, if you had sand golem in you hand, it comes back to life at the end of turn, as he never hit the ground till the smallpox resolved and the turn is over.
other then that, as I said , nice artical - I liked it :)
The only thing about this I see, is that in your last part. Tidal Kraken's creature type is actually "Monster" not "Kraken". Though it's weird, you would have to have another 4 changelings in deck in order to have a tribal legal Kraken deck. Good article otherwise, I don't play much tribal myself, but odd tribes could be fun.
Pushing constructed play will only help the prices of the cards that see constructed play - which is a very small subsection of cards. Since the ratio of Jank/Playable is so high (see MaRo's design articles if you want an explanation why), pushing sacntioned constructed play will not have any effect on the bottom end of the market, which comprises way more of the market than the mid-top end.
From my pow you are playing far to many pin point removel spells. You got a gerneral that gives life AND you got 40 allready - so you can proberly get to your mass removel spells - which I would then up a bit (kitar's wrath, damnation eg.).
Personly I would toy around with a bit more karoo lands - eg. the GB and so on (it helps abit for wayfarer and let you cheat slightly on land count) and Thawing Glaciers - free card draw (Glaciers + karoo lands = mana accel + card draw which isn't that bad either).
And yes I would agree that a good EDH deck will try to do something broken (usually its one of a subcatagory of cards + general = some wierd combo - eg. Jhorio + mass remove every thing (there are 4 or so in red and proberly some fetch in blue - eg. gifts) + some expensiv win con (eg. dragon storm or some random dragon or something else))
Boring?? Hardly! I enjoyed this article quite a bit. I am planning on getting into classic on MTGO and was amazed to find this and classic Quarter websites. Problem being I need lots of the classic cards still, but I got the time and money to invest so if you got extras I am looking at playing bomberman since I have been rocking a similar deck in Vintage to win 1 mox and 2 cash prizes. Good stuff and PLEASE keep it up.
- Why do you have to draft with the rejected packs at all ? That creates more problems than it solves. Just submit your packs, let people draft whatever format they want and only give them the price packs but not the drafted cards.
- Wizards should push Constructed formats more. Does not really matter which, as you will get ripple effects either way. Bonus potential for pushing whacky formats like "everyone plays with their opponent's deck", but the problem will still be that not too many would be interested to play those. So just push Constructed in general and hope that it inspires casuals/newbies to try to play/break Vizzerdrix and Co.
Bridge from Below. Forced Fruition. Shattering Spree with Mycosynth Lattice. Heck, I could go on for a while - but you get the idea.
Really, I'm getting tired of the unfun decks on the web. It's basically a crock to even start a game most of the time; I've gone to playing some counterspells and I've only resisted that for about ten years. :) I'm almost to the point where I'm only interested in playing tournaments.
the problem I have with a lot of people is they ASSUME that classic is a format that costs a lot of money.. but in reality it isn't... not when compared to other "time" based formats.
I assume that most players are getting into magic for the "long term" so while it may be a high barrier for entry now.. later on it isn't. MTGO is a lot different from paper.. online I only need 4 (or in some cases 1) of any given card and they are good in all my decks.. thats no so in the paper world.. although.. in the paper world you get discounts based on condition (like if you can deal with beat up duals you can get them MUCH MUCH cheaper then good looking duals)
I'm not saying that classic isn't expensive.. it is by its nature.. i was just saying that there are alternatives to the high priced cards and decks out there....
the truth of the matter is NO ONE knows what will happen when extended rotates.. it could just mean that there is a small influx of players and it could mean bargain prices for IPA era cards.. or it could be the complete opposite there is NO comparable event that has happened in MTGO history. so i'm holding my judgement for that day.
Multiplayer hurts.. if anyone has read my past articles knows that is where the "meat and potatoes" of my magic playing is spent... hopefully V3 has better dual core support as my computer currently cannot run V2 (just got a new comp)
Trinket Mage is in the sideboard but mentioning it seems kinda silly. Isn't the Living Wish toolbox what makes the deck?
"Next Level Blue: Pat Chapins Blue Green Counterbalance deck. It's unreal. Lots of synergy, and has a Trinket Mage toolbox."
Are people running that? Not in Chapins orginal or updated lists. Wondering if everyone is running Trinket or just a few people.
I haven't played it, but I've played against it in testing, and in association with Rogue Elephant, it seemed pretty strong. Opponent would seemingly blow their load with a Rogue Elephant or two, along with some elves, then drop the Wurm and come right back with 4+ mana available and pump spells in hand to finish me off around turn 5-6 pretty easily.
I'd be really bummed out if Classic becomes just an online version of Type 1, with decks averaging 1500$.
Not gonna happen ? Think again, more players getting into the game + extended rotating in September will spike the demand for Classic staples. If the supply doesn't increase in relation to the demand, inflation ensues.
Please, don't let this happen. Learn from past mistakes. In 1994 no one would've believed you if you told them "in 5 years the price of a Black Lotus will have quadrupled", but it did.
Sorry, forgot to put the disclaimer at the top. PDC is an online community of competitive all commons Magic. Information can be found at PDCMagic.com and people are always hanging around in the "/join pdc" room.
-Alex
Fine article Alex,
I am curious as to what you feel your matchups look like in the current metagame, namely against Black based removal (MBC or RnR) and MUC?
i feel your pain, i love multi. i just recently learned about leagues and was waiting for mourningtide to play in my first one,well until i read the blog. But wizards has made us wait for so long for the big V3 release that we are almost half excited for them to release a not up to standard fully done product. But still the promises of stability, got to see it to believe it, brings us hope. oh and i love the crown, makes you look more, ah kingly
Sorry new guy but whats PDC mean?
I love how a deck that started off as a fun side project I built to destress has turned into one of the top decks in PDC:). Shame I'm not around to pilot it anymore really. Incidentally I'm really not sold on harvest wurm in the deck atall, but I'v only tested it a couple of times, would someone with more experience mind sharing their feelings about it?
Thanks for the downgrade to v3! Server down meant games down. V3 means leagues/multiplayer permanently down until they put it up. When they want to put stuff up, they take forever if you look back into history. We have this trophy case of nothing even if we do win premier events. That has not been put up since the beginning of time. =(
I too must admit to being disappointed by this, but not surprised. It was said a long time ago on the message board (back when everyone assumed we would not live to see V3 actually happen) that leagues were not on the vital list of must haves for the system to be ready for V3, but would be added as quickly as possible thereafter.
I am a limited player mostly, I like Drafts, and I like Leagues.... I don't enjoy constructed nearly so much these days as I did when I was 16-17 getting into Magic for the first time back in the old days when the Dark was new, because at that time the truly nasty cards were being banned, so even starting from scratch we were able to come up with a good deck that could compete. Online I started with the Tenth edition release, which means I am still having trouble having the cards to compete (though this is getting better)
Tidal Kraken has been a Monster in the past, but Kraken is an acceptable creature type again nowadays. Whilst in 8th Edition it was a monster, currently, it's a Kraken, having been updated during the Grand Creature Type Update. Always be careful looking at the type lines of offline cards, as they're not the best indicators of what the creature may have been errataed to.
no matter what, thier is no crapy magic card. if a person thinks any one magic card(s) are crapy then they need to relook at the card or rethink thier outlook on deck building. every card can be useful.
example: i walked into a card shop and i had asked the person behind the counter for 4x norin the weary, and 4x saltskitters. his reply to me was "what would u need with those cards, thier no good and cant be used but in only casual decks, and that even if u find a way to use them". i told him that they were a key card in my deck, a turny deck that whipes most decks away, and it happens to be that those two cards norin and saltskitter paired with pandimonium are 85% of the time, the game winning cards.
my point im trying to make is every card can be deadly, wether it be a rare, common, or uncommon, it doesnt matter. aslong as the person who building the deck is got a open mind and yes im goin to sterotype, smart and has intellgence than no card wotc makes is not crap. as far as the market goes im glad i can pick 5 for 1 tix or 128 commons for 1 tix becasue it gives me a chance to prove to people, to take those so called crap rares and whip peoples butts with them. i like the market the way it is. ive spent just under 10 bucks if not half of that to make my red, green, white turny deck. it pretty muchs trumps most standard and extended decks online adn in actuall decks. the only cards that cost me sumthing online was the 4 timbermares, 4 pandimoniums. cards u call crap like dustelementals, and whitemane lions all play a key role in my deck. so for some like ur selves to come out ur mouth (not tryin to be rude) and say theres a problem with teh market adn theres a lot of crap rares, u guys need to rethink ur out look on deck building.
so again if sumone says or makes those comments, they dont have an open mind and they only rely on cards that people made popular, and keep in mind that the only reason those cards are popular is because people made those cards work great with outhers or built really good decks around them.
I am a limited player, i love to draft, play on legues and i don´t have time to sit 5~6 hours to join a Premier Event. So I end up selling my cards to refil my tix, or boosters when i am on a bad shape. I wished that cards were more pricey, but i can´t complain either, doran were 3 tix at the begining of the lorwyn, and now it at almost 9. Teg in the other hand just sinked. Well, is this the excess of cards fault´s? No it is our fault! We keep playing with the same cards, wizards has built an huge effort to create the tier 2 enviroment, so we can see cards with the price floating, Aeon Chron from .25 to 6, or tarmogoyf from 1.1 to 30.
The redemption issue has a impact on the price, i agree with that, the bot commerce has an impact, but who says which cards are expensive or ubber cheap are the players.
Oh, no! That is a shame. I have to admit I (obviously) haven't been paying any attention to the V3 blogs, but are there really no leagues for an unspecified time? That is all I play, as I am only a month or two past being a "never played before" beginner. Bummer.
I intend to fix part of the problem regarding junk cards....
I will remove junk commons from the pool by simply not reselling/trading them, as they were useless in the first place.
My Alternate Account (Commons Bin) is being set up on the buyers board as a bot that will accept ANYTHING - and today after i have tagged all the junk commons i never use, i will post them there as well.
(Sorry, for now this is a yatbot and is a bit slow)
Unfortunately, I can't set up an Official bot that gives rebates.
If the service becomes popular I may post a board where frequent donators can take spare cards. This all depends on the quality of donations, of course. (once again i will not repost junk)
This bot will run on ONLY donations and will operate ONLY as long as the service is popular.
Since I am a player, and I built this free service beacuse i hate sorting past them myself, I WILL NOT RESELL JUNK!!
(not like anyone wants to buy 30 Grey Ogres anyways)
This will be an interesting pet project - I am doing this partially to prove that there are cards that are fuctionally useless, and therefore worthless because nobody will buy them even for .01 or less.
This bot is currently on my main pc, so it will not be available 24/7 yet. Once i get one more copy of xp, bot will go full time.
If this works out well, I may eventually put up a bot where all the junk is free to players. (At least I won't be ripping off the noobs)
If you have any feedback, or ideas as to how to make this service better, drop me a line.
If you use this bot and like it please tell others,as I will not advertise it.
Manual junk/donations of 32 cards or less can be made to kaiwoklaw, if I am around.
Happy Easy Building!
Thank you guys for your kind words. I missed the interaction with Smallpox, very nice. Cyrrix, keep reading and I'll keep writing. Thanks again!
nice artical - I liked it - very informetive
The reason I played sand golems and not dodecapods is smallpox.
If you have no creature in play and you opponent plays smallpox - you first discard the dodecapod and then you sacrifice it.
on the other hand, if you had sand golem in you hand, it comes back to life at the end of turn, as he never hit the ground till the smallpox resolved and the turn is over.
other then that, as I said , nice artical - I liked it :)
The only thing about this I see, is that in your last part. Tidal Kraken's creature type is actually "Monster" not "Kraken". Though it's weird, you would have to have another 4 changelings in deck in order to have a tribal legal Kraken deck. Good article otherwise, I don't play much tribal myself, but odd tribes could be fun.
Pushing constructed play will only help the prices of the cards that see constructed play - which is a very small subsection of cards. Since the ratio of Jank/Playable is so high (see MaRo's design articles if you want an explanation why), pushing sacntioned constructed play will not have any effect on the bottom end of the market, which comprises way more of the market than the mid-top end.
From my pow you are playing far to many pin point removel spells. You got a gerneral that gives life AND you got 40 allready - so you can proberly get to your mass removel spells - which I would then up a bit (kitar's wrath, damnation eg.).
Personly I would toy around with a bit more karoo lands - eg. the GB and so on (it helps abit for wayfarer and let you cheat slightly on land count) and Thawing Glaciers - free card draw (Glaciers + karoo lands = mana accel + card draw which isn't that bad either).
And yes I would agree that a good EDH deck will try to do something broken (usually its one of a subcatagory of cards + general = some wierd combo - eg. Jhorio + mass remove every thing (there are 4 or so in red and proberly some fetch in blue - eg. gifts) + some expensiv win con (eg. dragon storm or some random dragon or something else))
Boring?? Hardly! I enjoyed this article quite a bit. I am planning on getting into classic on MTGO and was amazed to find this and classic Quarter websites. Problem being I need lots of the classic cards still, but I got the time and money to invest so if you got extras I am looking at playing bomberman since I have been rocking a similar deck in Vintage to win 1 mox and 2 cash prizes. Good stuff and PLEASE keep it up.
Cyrrix_chipset everywhere on the net
- Why do you have to draft with the rejected packs at all ? That creates more problems than it solves. Just submit your packs, let people draft whatever format they want and only give them the price packs but not the drafted cards.
- Wizards should push Constructed formats more. Does not really matter which, as you will get ripple effects either way. Bonus potential for pushing whacky formats like "everyone plays with their opponent's deck", but the problem will still be that not too many would be interested to play those. So just push Constructed in general and hope that it inspires casuals/newbies to try to play/break Vizzerdrix and Co.
Bridge from Below. Forced Fruition. Shattering Spree with Mycosynth Lattice. Heck, I could go on for a while - but you get the idea.
Really, I'm getting tired of the unfun decks on the web. It's basically a crock to even start a game most of the time; I've gone to playing some counterspells and I've only resisted that for about ten years. :) I'm almost to the point where I'm only interested in playing tournaments.