Quick prediction on the Naya Christmas event tomorrow: goblins, elemental-sligh, elves and cats are the "obvious" best tribes in these colors. So I foresee something with Punishing Fire wrecking the field, though the aggro decks might just run good all day and get there. Had a decent Naya Kavu list brewed but didn't want to buy the Groves for it since I may have to leave mid-tourney tomorrow (Christmas travel.)
BTW, Paul won my contest from two weeks ago, I have the prize (the set of Lightning Crafters) if you want to message me in MTGO to claim it. I added "Winter.Wolf" to buddies list.
Another bad decision from Wizards in a series of bad decisions. 6-pack phantom draft for 8 tix? And why would people throw their investments down the toilet, just like that? Doesn't Wizards know the massive amount of selfishness that factors into the game?
It seems increasingly clear that Wizards will make a decision and devise a rationale for their decision after they've made it. The explanations I've read from WotC employees show an out of touch, backwards attitude with respect to maximizing their profit.
When I play paper, I can buy a box of stuff from my favorite set, Kamigawa. It's expensive, but I can get it. If I want older cards with the magic online client, I had to track them down from a bot, who usually didn't carry more than 4 or 5 packs at a time. Then, if Wizards decided to hold sealed events for older sets like the Masques block, I would never know about it unless I physically went into the draft room and saw they were hosting it. The lack of communication made it very difficult to engage my resources effectively towards the experience I wished to have.
AJ Really does have encyclopedic knowledge but there are many of us out there who have a similarly large breadth of understanding. I stopped being surprised by the knowledge of some vets years ago. Many don't play the apocalypse but then again you never know.
I do agree that commander opens up possibilities if you aren't typically long on experimentation.
I think yours is the only article where I get excited by the warning that there is a wall of text. I know I'll have lots of interesting stuff to read. Thanks for keeping State of the Program going!
Most of the Commander regulars like to play off the wall good stuff to keep the format spicy.
Though, like any format allowing so many cards which might be banned elsewhere, it can be really degenerate sometimes.
That's one of the reasons I love running a deck past AJ the night before the event, if I have a hole in the deck I need to fill he has like 12 suggestions off the top of his head immediately. Some stuff is much harder to search for on Gatherer than it is to search for in the "AJ's Head" database, but alas he doesn't have an iPhone app for that :-)
1v1 commander is a very different world than multiplayer, and having the decks so creature-heavy will be unique. I have a couple options partially brewed up from last time we were planning this, hopefully I can fit it in between my holiday travelling to play the event. Even if not, that will be the first event for which I do my new deck tech series, and since I actually do know a bit about 1v1 commander archetypes from research into the format I did, should have a decent grasp on it even though it's not really my "home turf".
Yeah, didn't want to do too many exceptions. Even other cards of our banned list aren't going to do much in a Commander environment, but we just take it as it is and roll with that.
Hope building for this Commander experiment will get the tribal community to discover the format. Building for Commander is the ultimate MTG experience. You really use the WHOLE pool of cards (or 99% of it), and you keep finding powerful cards that all the other formats just forgot or dimissed. Here's an example: Do or Die. Who ever uses Do or Die? It's rarely seen in Commander even. But it's amazing, a big hit on the opponent board for 1B. Playing Commander you discover all kinds of stuff and realize that nobody (but possibly AJ) really knows all the many, many thousands of existing cards.
You only mentioned the Trifecta of Doom, but if you use the usual tribal wars restricted list for this, then SFM is banned off-tribe, correct? Kinda stinks for the Voltron decks if so, but I guess it's only one card out of 99.
Addendum: Wall is NOT banned for the Tribal Commander. Why did I even consider banning them? It's not that you can do Wall-Drazi in Commander. :) Commander Tribal Wall might actually be a cute deck.
Also: I'm developing a way to have "joined tribes" decks, to allow for smaller tribes to still be used (you need at the very least 17 members to reach 33 with 16 Changelings, but even in that case, you would need a 4-color Commander, and even if I'm going to give Karona or Child of Alara as catchall Commanders for lesser tribes, they're not thematically suitable for everything.) For instance, here's one: Politics & Thieves. Members: any Advisor or Rogue. Allowed Commanders: any Legendary Advisor. And another one on the same lines: Law & Order. Members: any Advisor or Soldier. Allowed Commanders: any Legendary Advisor. (Advisors are 22, but none of their legends would be able to command a full tribal deck, even using the available Changeling).
Stay tuned.
What's your strategy for selling your cards as far as selling to bots vs selling to users?
Do you sell to bots at wholesale prices or do you nickel and dime through the classifieds?
What I'd like to know is how to sell some of my higher end stuff that doesn't see any play ie: Foil Skaab Ruinator, Foil Grimoir of the Dead, Foil Tree of Redemption, Foil Tibalt, etc. Usually after I log in and before I jump into queus, I tend to throw up an ad trying to sell some of that stuff at a ticket or 2 below retail. Generally I'll get a quick turnover if the card is relevant to the meta, but if it isn't, like the cards stated above, the ad can sit there forever without even a nibble. I know these cards have good value because of the redeemers, but am I wasting my time trying to sell these to real people or should I just suck it up and sell to the bots?
Your reflections upon why a prediction did or did not work out are something I would really like to read.
Your inventory value estimate could just be a single number with some words on the overall trend. Fx the value is down right now but the investments are longer term , or the value is up primarily driven by these cards.... etc
Thanks for the feedback. I'm happy to start each article with a inventory and table that reflects 'if I sold it today' what the profit/loss would be to track progress. I do plan to liquidate in large chunks (so, most of the ISD at the same time), but probably not the entire collection, so I can see your point. I also intend to reflect on specific cards around when I sell to see if I can identify what led me astray so as to not repeat the pitfall.
I think that it is a nice feature that you do not calculate profits before you realize the return. In this way you get to use actual prices and not some made up bid-ask spread.
However it makes it very hard to assess your performance. Has your portfolio gained in value or lost in value? We cannot tell? More importantly, will we ever be able to tell? Not unless you liquidate it all at once. And I guess you do not plan to do that? Realizing a little profit by selling a little part of your portfolio 6 months from now does not really convey any information about your collective strategy or card picks. How do you plan on evaluating your investment strategy? How can we see if it is a success or a failure?
I think you need to provide an estimated inventory value along with your realized profit or we will never get an idea on overall performance. Not being able to assess performance makes the coming articles less interesting.
I was drinking whiskey vs. Tommy, so that one is a bit more entertaining than... most I'd say. Not sure. Can't wait for next CL!
(Note that at 9:52 of my match, I could've cast Glen Elendra instead of Venser and probably saved Game 1. My logic was to hopefully set him back tempo-wise AND kill an unflipped attacking Delver with Venser, but he flipped the 3rd Delver, making my Venser decision worse. Had I cast Glen Elendra instead, I was also worried about a land and Sower taking it out and winning the game. Truth is that a Glen Elendra would've traded for a flipped Delver AND stayed to block a Vend Clique. And he didn't seem to have a Sower or the necessary land, so my -- I suppose -- riskier play was worse even after I drew the Trinket Mage to find EExplosives. Sad, but this is what happens when you bring alcohol to the table.)
Thanks, especially for pointing out the introduction of merfolk to the Ravnica storyline. I usually follow the story pieces, so I'm surprised I missed that. This might be one clear example of how following the storyline might help speculation... we'll see if it pans out for card value.
I'm not really much of an investor myself but I do find the MTGO market to be quite interesting and speculating is always fun. Have to say your logic on investments seem pretty sound.
Just a note on your comments on Master of the Pearl Trident. There are Merfolk in Ravnica, which is one of the big developments in Ravnica since the last story. The Simic Guild is now led by a Merfolk, Zegana, and presumably we'll see some interesting new Merfolk cards coming in Gatecrash. Provided Gatecrash delivers Master of the Pearl Trident is definitely a strong speculative investment.
I look forward to the results of your investment project.
Darksteel Colossus was on the list when it still contained Flash. After I removed that I cut all the high cmc stuff. If you have a Darksteel Colossus, you can obviously add it instead of Myr Battlesphere. I personally like Myr Battlesphere a little better because it leaves behind tokens and feels not that unfair. Even without the colossus, most games where I resolved Tinker on turn 3 resulted in an instant concession, so YMMV.
I had no idea how cheap the Inkwell Leviathan had gotten after Wizards gifted all those Premium Deck Series: Graveborn. This would have indeed been a worthy addition and is one I will keep in mind for future decks. ^^°
That one game where you came back from 3 life against 27 was intense! I was watching it and thinking "Dear God, how is he gonna get outta this one?" But you pulled victory from the jaws of defeat against one of the best decks in the meta. Proves that your Grixis Zombies idea has some legs.
Great listen glad to have a weekly YSO! I stood little chance in my game guys - game 1 Thorme turn 1 dropped metalworker, I had no revoker and he won with staff turn 2. Game 2 I had revoker and held it to see what he would drop turn 1, unfortunately he got the god draw and turn 1 vault/key'd me. So it goes!!!
"All players who qualify for the Season Preliminaries or Season Finals will automatically receive a copy of that season's promo card awarded"
If you have the 15 QPs, you get one - flat out. I think that's one thousand right there. I mean, who wouldn't try to qualify for a FoW promo? More than for hermit druid! Could even be more
Then, for all the qualifiers, which one would think would be anyone who has 15 QP but less than 35 QP, or more than 50QP. Anyone in this group has nothing to lose by not joining at least one - and that's usually a big group. All they need is a Legacy deck and the time to play.
If only I could come up with a secure and trustworthy card-borrowing service, I bet money could be made getting legacy decks into the hands of MOCs qualifiers :)
Thanks for your thoughts on the question. Goblins and Elves are relatively unique in having enough redundancy in lords to overcome a little early spot removal. Merfolk have a ton of lords too, but it doesn't seem to help them power through removal, it takes too long to re-build momentum for them -- certainly doesn't help when one of the lords makes you embarassingly pump mana into it. Most of the "weenies supported by lords" tribes don't have that luxury of redundance though, which is why I liked seeing the occasional lightning greaves or brave the elements or whatever in a list if your lords were critical.
If you're not swarm aggro, if you're putting more than one or two mana into deploying bigger threats that you need to live and to close the game reasonably fast -- the midrange decks over the years with their Spiritmongers and Tombstalkers -- playing around the popular spot removal seems more valuable though. The fact of a pro-white guy with 4 or greater toughness living through the 5 most popular removal spells still seems like something that has been underutilized in the format.
I'm with you about Consuming Vapors, and I'd say that ROE gave us two of the most underrated yet awesome black answers ever in that and Consume the Meek. I exterminated many an Elf, Goblin, Merfolk, or Kithkin deck with Consume the Meek (possibly with a little help from a Jet Medallion) right when they thought they had won and unloaded their entire hand with gusto. Even better considering that, given my usual style of play, my creatures of choice are often CMC 4. Plus, it's a sweeper that you can find with Mystical Teachings.
Great read as usual. I'm always checking the site on Fridays in anticipation of this article.
Quick prediction on the Naya Christmas event tomorrow: goblins, elemental-sligh, elves and cats are the "obvious" best tribes in these colors. So I foresee something with Punishing Fire wrecking the field, though the aggro decks might just run good all day and get there. Had a decent Naya Kavu list brewed but didn't want to buy the Groves for it since I may have to leave mid-tourney tomorrow (Christmas travel.)
BTW, Paul won my contest from two weeks ago, I have the prize (the set of Lightning Crafters) if you want to message me in MTGO to claim it. I added "Winter.Wolf" to buddies list.
Another bad decision from Wizards in a series of bad decisions. 6-pack phantom draft for 8 tix? And why would people throw their investments down the toilet, just like that? Doesn't Wizards know the massive amount of selfishness that factors into the game?
It seems increasingly clear that Wizards will make a decision and devise a rationale for their decision after they've made it. The explanations I've read from WotC employees show an out of touch, backwards attitude with respect to maximizing their profit.
When I play paper, I can buy a box of stuff from my favorite set, Kamigawa. It's expensive, but I can get it. If I want older cards with the magic online client, I had to track them down from a bot, who usually didn't carry more than 4 or 5 packs at a time. Then, if Wizards decided to hold sealed events for older sets like the Masques block, I would never know about it unless I physically went into the draft room and saw they were hosting it. The lack of communication made it very difficult to engage my resources effectively towards the experience I wished to have.
AJ Really does have encyclopedic knowledge but there are many of us out there who have a similarly large breadth of understanding. I stopped being surprised by the knowledge of some vets years ago. Many don't play the apocalypse but then again you never know.
I do agree that commander opens up possibilities if you aren't typically long on experimentation.
I think yours is the only article where I get excited by the warning that there is a wall of text. I know I'll have lots of interesting stuff to read. Thanks for keeping State of the Program going!
Most of the Commander regulars like to play off the wall good stuff to keep the format spicy.
Though, like any format allowing so many cards which might be banned elsewhere, it can be really degenerate sometimes.
That's one of the reasons I love running a deck past AJ the night before the event, if I have a hole in the deck I need to fill he has like 12 suggestions off the top of his head immediately. Some stuff is much harder to search for on Gatherer than it is to search for in the "AJ's Head" database, but alas he doesn't have an iPhone app for that :-)
1v1 commander is a very different world than multiplayer, and having the decks so creature-heavy will be unique. I have a couple options partially brewed up from last time we were planning this, hopefully I can fit it in between my holiday travelling to play the event. Even if not, that will be the first event for which I do my new deck tech series, and since I actually do know a bit about 1v1 commander archetypes from research into the format I did, should have a decent grasp on it even though it's not really my "home turf".
Yeah, didn't want to do too many exceptions. Even other cards of our banned list aren't going to do much in a Commander environment, but we just take it as it is and roll with that.
Hope building for this Commander experiment will get the tribal community to discover the format. Building for Commander is the ultimate MTG experience. You really use the WHOLE pool of cards (or 99% of it), and you keep finding powerful cards that all the other formats just forgot or dimissed. Here's an example: Do or Die. Who ever uses Do or Die? It's rarely seen in Commander even. But it's amazing, a big hit on the opponent board for 1B. Playing Commander you discover all kinds of stuff and realize that nobody (but possibly AJ) really knows all the many, many thousands of existing cards.
You only mentioned the Trifecta of Doom, but if you use the usual tribal wars restricted list for this, then SFM is banned off-tribe, correct? Kinda stinks for the Voltron decks if so, but I guess it's only one card out of 99.
Addendum: Wall is NOT banned for the Tribal Commander. Why did I even consider banning them? It's not that you can do Wall-Drazi in Commander. :) Commander Tribal Wall might actually be a cute deck.
Also: I'm developing a way to have "joined tribes" decks, to allow for smaller tribes to still be used (you need at the very least 17 members to reach 33 with 16 Changelings, but even in that case, you would need a 4-color Commander, and even if I'm going to give Karona or Child of Alara as catchall Commanders for lesser tribes, they're not thematically suitable for everything.) For instance, here's one: Politics & Thieves. Members: any Advisor or Rogue. Allowed Commanders: any Legendary Advisor. And another one on the same lines: Law & Order. Members: any Advisor or Soldier. Allowed Commanders: any Legendary Advisor. (Advisors are 22, but none of their legends would be able to command a full tribal deck, even using the available Changeling).
Stay tuned.
What's your strategy for selling your cards as far as selling to bots vs selling to users?
Do you sell to bots at wholesale prices or do you nickel and dime through the classifieds?
What I'd like to know is how to sell some of my higher end stuff that doesn't see any play ie: Foil Skaab Ruinator, Foil Grimoir of the Dead, Foil Tree of Redemption, Foil Tibalt, etc. Usually after I log in and before I jump into queus, I tend to throw up an ad trying to sell some of that stuff at a ticket or 2 below retail. Generally I'll get a quick turnover if the card is relevant to the meta, but if it isn't, like the cards stated above, the ad can sit there forever without even a nibble. I know these cards have good value because of the redeemers, but am I wasting my time trying to sell these to real people or should I just suck it up and sell to the bots?
Your reflections upon why a prediction did or did not work out are something I would really like to read.
Your inventory value estimate could just be a single number with some words on the overall trend. Fx the value is down right now but the investments are longer term , or the value is up primarily driven by these cards.... etc
Thanks for the feedback. I'm happy to start each article with a inventory and table that reflects 'if I sold it today' what the profit/loss would be to track progress. I do plan to liquidate in large chunks (so, most of the ISD at the same time), but probably not the entire collection, so I can see your point. I also intend to reflect on specific cards around when I sell to see if I can identify what led me astray so as to not repeat the pitfall.
I think that it is a nice feature that you do not calculate profits before you realize the return. In this way you get to use actual prices and not some made up bid-ask spread.
However it makes it very hard to assess your performance. Has your portfolio gained in value or lost in value? We cannot tell? More importantly, will we ever be able to tell? Not unless you liquidate it all at once. And I guess you do not plan to do that? Realizing a little profit by selling a little part of your portfolio 6 months from now does not really convey any information about your collective strategy or card picks. How do you plan on evaluating your investment strategy? How can we see if it is a success or a failure?
I think you need to provide an estimated inventory value along with your realized profit or we will never get an idea on overall performance. Not being able to assess performance makes the coming articles less interesting.
Sickening Dreams is quite good.I am amazed by the work and phenomenal changes also..
horseback riding Mexico
Going to listen to cast in a minute, but all my matches, including the last one vs. TommyTopDecker are visible here in case anyone's interested: http://www.mtgoacademy.com/planetwalls-classic-league-2012-13-qt-2-matches/
I was drinking whiskey vs. Tommy, so that one is a bit more entertaining than... most I'd say. Not sure. Can't wait for next CL!
(Note that at 9:52 of my match, I could've cast Glen Elendra instead of Venser and probably saved Game 1. My logic was to hopefully set him back tempo-wise AND kill an unflipped attacking Delver with Venser, but he flipped the 3rd Delver, making my Venser decision worse. Had I cast Glen Elendra instead, I was also worried about a land and Sower taking it out and winning the game. Truth is that a Glen Elendra would've traded for a flipped Delver AND stayed to block a Vend Clique. And he didn't seem to have a Sower or the necessary land, so my -- I suppose -- riskier play was worse even after I drew the Trinket Mage to find EExplosives. Sad, but this is what happens when you bring alcohol to the table.)
Thanks, especially for pointing out the introduction of merfolk to the Ravnica storyline. I usually follow the story pieces, so I'm surprised I missed that. This might be one clear example of how following the storyline might help speculation... we'll see if it pans out for card value.
Interesting article!
I'm not really much of an investor myself but I do find the MTGO market to be quite interesting and speculating is always fun. Have to say your logic on investments seem pretty sound.
Just a note on your comments on Master of the Pearl Trident. There are Merfolk in Ravnica, which is one of the big developments in Ravnica since the last story. The Simic Guild is now led by a Merfolk, Zegana, and presumably we'll see some interesting new Merfolk cards coming in Gatecrash. Provided Gatecrash delivers Master of the Pearl Trident is definitely a strong speculative investment.
I look forward to the results of your investment project.
Thanks for your comment. Two very good points!
Darksteel Colossus was on the list when it still contained Flash. After I removed that I cut all the high cmc stuff. If you have a Darksteel Colossus, you can obviously add it instead of Myr Battlesphere. I personally like Myr Battlesphere a little better because it leaves behind tokens and feels not that unfair. Even without the colossus, most games where I resolved Tinker on turn 3 resulted in an instant concession, so YMMV.
I had no idea how cheap the Inkwell Leviathan had gotten after Wizards gifted all those Premium Deck Series: Graveborn. This would have indeed been a worthy addition and is one I will keep in mind for future decks. ^^°
That one game where you came back from 3 life against 27 was intense! I was watching it and thinking "Dear God, how is he gonna get outta this one?" But you pulled victory from the jaws of defeat against one of the best decks in the meta. Proves that your Grixis Zombies idea has some legs.
Great listen glad to have a weekly YSO! I stood little chance in my game guys - game 1 Thorme turn 1 dropped metalworker, I had no revoker and he won with staff turn 2. Game 2 I had revoker and held it to see what he would drop turn 1, unfortunately he got the god draw and turn 1 vault/key'd me. So it goes!!!
No way to try and work it in? I mean, it USED to be the best tinker target.
Also Inkwell Leviathan is ridiculous for Tinker. Maybe better in a deck without a lot of protection.
I think the number for # of Force will probably surpass 1000.
For reference: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/121...
"All players who qualify for the Season Preliminaries or Season Finals will automatically receive a copy of that season's promo card awarded"
If you have the 15 QPs, you get one - flat out. I think that's one thousand right there. I mean, who wouldn't try to qualify for a FoW promo? More than for hermit druid! Could even be more
Then, for all the qualifiers, which one would think would be anyone who has 15 QP but less than 35 QP, or more than 50QP. Anyone in this group has nothing to lose by not joining at least one - and that's usually a big group. All they need is a Legacy deck and the time to play.
If only I could come up with a secure and trustworthy card-borrowing service, I bet money could be made getting legacy decks into the hands of MOCs qualifiers :)
Thanks for your thoughts on the question. Goblins and Elves are relatively unique in having enough redundancy in lords to overcome a little early spot removal. Merfolk have a ton of lords too, but it doesn't seem to help them power through removal, it takes too long to re-build momentum for them -- certainly doesn't help when one of the lords makes you embarassingly pump mana into it. Most of the "weenies supported by lords" tribes don't have that luxury of redundance though, which is why I liked seeing the occasional lightning greaves or brave the elements or whatever in a list if your lords were critical.
If you're not swarm aggro, if you're putting more than one or two mana into deploying bigger threats that you need to live and to close the game reasonably fast -- the midrange decks over the years with their Spiritmongers and Tombstalkers -- playing around the popular spot removal seems more valuable though. The fact of a pro-white guy with 4 or greater toughness living through the 5 most popular removal spells still seems like something that has been underutilized in the format.
I'm with you about Consuming Vapors, and I'd say that ROE gave us two of the most underrated yet awesome black answers ever in that and Consume the Meek. I exterminated many an Elf, Goblin, Merfolk, or Kithkin deck with Consume the Meek (possibly with a little help from a Jet Medallion) right when they thought they had won and unloaded their entire hand with gusto. Even better considering that, given my usual style of play, my creatures of choice are often CMC 4. Plus, it's a sweeper that you can find with Mystical Teachings.