Hi there, how about instead of just building 5 dollars deck, add 5 dollars to this deck each week?
This way i believe that you can show to everyone how to move from just for fun to TP room, to TNMO and so on.
In this situation I don't mind a dead card if it means my opponent hasn't resolved the spell, and in terms of the Chaplain I dislike the requirement to have a substantial board presence as well as have my enchantment remover stick to the board for a turn before being able to do away with the potential threat.
Actually the only problem is, it is not properly visible, still enjoy playing. Please next time focus on zooming. And when we'll get to see next one, waiting eagerly.
I think the fact that this deck is stupid is obvious lol it is more consistent at a fast win then Storm and some lists run from 4 to 8 spells that keep an opponent from targeting.
I can forgive the Mayor when it flips for not costing me 1 life a turn, and providing me with a 3/3 Wolf each turn, but it can be frustrating when it flips in a position where I have substantial board presence.
The modified version of the deck already runs a playset of Hamlet Captain and it is indeed a solid card!
As Naturalize is in my sideboard, it will only be coming in in situations where I need to neutralize a specific game-breaking enchantment, for example Burning Vengeance. In this situation I don't mind a dead card if it means my opponent hasn't resolved the spell, and in terms of the Chaplain I dislike the requirement to have a substantial board presence as well as have my enchantment remover stick to the board for a turn before being able to do away with the potential threat.
You are 100% correct about Terrifying Presence, you'll have to forgive me if I do overlook certain cards, I'm still getting to grips with DKA and AVR having come back to the game recently!
Herald of War is another interesting choice, and certainly something to try in place of Geist-Honored Monk. Geist-Honored Monk seems to be too reliant on my board position to act a standalone top-of-curve threat and the Angel is certainly a prospect that needs answering! At $0.05 a piece I might have to pick some up!
Thanks for reading and making these points, I'll consider them and address any that prove beneficial in next week's article!
Haven't you got the same problem with mayor of averbrook as you do with cloistered youth? once it transforms (which your opponent can force sometimes, or which will just happen once you run out of gas) then it loses all synergy with the deck. What about Hamlet Captain? it's almost the same effect in an agressive human deck, all you lose is a little out of combat protection.
Terrifying presence looks better than moomist if you want a fog, not only does it avoid the nonbo with the mayor, but it actually lets you do some damage with one of your humans.
Would devout chaplain be better than naturalise? At least you've got a body if you draw it before your opponent gets any of the relevant targets out.
Other cards which might be good to use are travel preprataion (seems good in a GW deck) and herald of war (seems kind of nuts if you can get the mentor of the meek draw engine going).
Also if you're looking for other ultra budget block decks, mono red (sans bonfire unfortunately) can be REAL cheap.
First thing, thanks for reading and commenting! Your point about Avacyn's Pilgrim point was something I was going to address in my next article (which will now include both this deck's tournament performance, and a new $5 deck instead of just one of the two), after finding that Doomed Traveler doesn't perform as well as I'd hoped and my three-cost slot is now very relevant.
I hadn't however thought about the Doomsayer, not sure how I overlooked him as he seems really solid, especially in place of the Thraben Heretics which have proven to be duds. Strangleroot Geist and undying is nowhere near as prevalent as I assumed it would be. A 3/3 or 4/2 split of Doomsayer and Mentor with a playset of Avacyn's Pilgrim on one seems really solid!
Thanks for the advice and I hope you'll read again next week!
EDIT: I completely overlooked the suggestion of Deranged Outcast! I like the way he allows you to get value out of your other humans biting the dust, but the activation cost and single point of toughness puts me off.
I'm tempted to try him, but I prefer creatures to have at least 2 toughness in a format with Tragic Slip and Geistflame unless they have a substantial immediate benefit, for example a Mayor of Avabruck pumping your field even while it's summoning sick.
Yes, the situation where you sell stock for less than you paid for due to changed market demand/supply condition is an accounting or taxation loss. But it's a real (economic) profit because your alternative was simply not selling the stock. If you're never going to sell the product for an accounting profit, then whatever you can sell it for is real profit even if it's an accounting loss.
But I absolutely agree you need to look to the long term - if this really is a temporary market condition then there's nothing irrational about holding onto stock in the expectation that prices will go back up (although I think you'd have to query why they would if supply has increased but there's no corresponding increase in demand - legacy's almost a dead format online, why wouldn't a supply increase lead to a permanent fall in the market price?). I was just responding in a general way to the comment that dealers will never price below their acquisition cost, which is wrong (as the extreme rancor example shows).
You didn't use Avacyn's Pilgrim's mana ability because you did not have enough 3-drops. It might change with the addition of the Mentor, and you definitely need that mana later as well, especially because of the Mentor. I can't really imagine how one could leave out the Pilgrim from a GW human deck.
Other cheap cards you should consider (although definitely not 4 of) are Thraben Doomsayer and Deranged Outcast.
I think players care more about the prices of cards they don't own than those they do, with the exception of standard cards that are rotating soon. Some players do watch that to find the right time to sell off and (if they want) re-buy for eternal or casual later. But most price talk I ever see is "why isn't this cheaper so I can buy it?" Of course we all have our limits for what we're willing to pay for something, and they vary wildly. But if there's a general sense that something is overpriced relative to the actual demand, I think that depresses interest in purchasing the card even if you DO have the budget for that card. I've brewed up Specter and Beast lists for tribal wars that I simply will not play because, despite being able to afford it in the abstract, I am averse to paying 5 tix each for Blazing Specter or 7+ for Spiritmonger. The fact that I might have a tougher time reselling those later than I might have reselling an in-demand staple is only part of the equation.
By and large, the expensive cards I do own are cards that I build decks with regularly and have no interest in selling unless I saw a chance to "sell short" take a profit and re-buy them in a couple months. So holding value in my collection isn't that big a deal to me. I wasn't bothered by the Tarmogoyf crash, for instance, because A) they're still more expensive then I bought them for, and most importantly B) I've put them in nearly every modern or legacy deck I build for almost two years now, I got my "money's worth" out of them already.
I suppose if I were to want to sell out of MTGO at some point, it would matter to me. But I'm much more likely to sell out of the paper game and keep playing MTGO if it ever came to that.
Your comparison is bad. You come in talking sunk costs, which dealers do not ignore (irrationally or not, they want to make their money back) then present an example of a new core set with an uncommon that was previously hard to get ahold of, trying to compare it to the rarity of an entire set that is only draftable for an additional 2 weeks?
I mean, I think longterm IPA prices will be driven down because of this, but to act like there is no chance that dealers just buy up the incoming IPA on the cheap, then price it back to near-2 weeks of drafting levels is naive. Also, in your example it's not $1000 profit worth of stock if you payed $1500 12 months ago... you own $1000 of that stock now, and you're looking at a long-term capital loss (in the US at least) of $500. There is no profit to talk about when you're taking a loss, which I would think someone lecturing on sunk costs would be aware of.
This is incorrect, buy costs are sunk and should be completely ignored in the seller's pricing decisions. If the market moves on past the buy price due to changed demand/supply factors, it's completely irrational and non-profit maximising to set a "floor" based on an historical, and sunk, cost. "There are no reasons to sell-off inventories." is incorrect, the cost is the opportunity cost of not selling that stock at the current market price, you're just throwing money away if you hold onto say $1000 profit worth of stock just because you happened to pay $1500 for that stock 12 months ago.
Don't believe me? Just ask yourself how many stores will be sticking with their 3tix+ price on rancors now that it's an M13 uncommon?
You have no idea how satisfying it is to come back to the game 2-3 years after working on that archetype for months with my clanmates and seeing articles about it.
I think there are a whole section of players who feel that paying money for a card game needs to be an investment or it isn't worth it. And to be fair the money values fluctuate up and down over time. Card values go in cycles and if you know why and how you can capitalize on these trends for value. Particularly if you don't care that you might not get the cards you're selling back again for a long time.
It may seem like a disconnect from a pure gamer's perspective but many people feel that putting money into a game without being able to retrieve it when needed is too risky and isn't good adult behavior. (IE: Games are for kids, silly rabbit!)
I am somewhere in between. I started collecting betas before they were super hot and for a while I held on to a decent sized collection of them but at some point I needed money for bills more than I needed to have them and I wasn't playing with them anyway so I sold them. I also sold many of the other cards I had in paper at the same time because Magic had temporarily ceased being fun for me. (This is cyclical for me.)
Now I play online and I tend to hold on to low ticket value cards but if I have a high ticket value card and it suddenly doubles in price I am going to be hard pressed not to sell it. With a far from complete collection I am often exchanging cards and changing deck lists to maximize my overall fun.
There's something odd here. Players seem more concerned with the monetary value of their cards than anything else. I'm not sure if I get it. Doesn't everyone realize that the cards themselves mostly go down over time?
the priest could be a decent trade for the missionary because, as you said, there are often times where it would be a better choice... I can see the need for a stronger beat in this deck, but the point was just to pack it with as much lifegain as I could and see if that was enough to win.. there are several choices to really beef it up, but I don't think crusher would be one because of its cost
Interesting draft and very good to see how I can improve my play in particular... or pit falls to avoid! ;-)
I agree about the zooming on each card... However I don't think getting a friend to help with the commentary is a good idea. Some people frown on this as it could be unfair to have 2 players vs an opponent... also although unlikely, it is not worth risking your MTGO account if someone reports you.
Hey thanks for the videos, I enjoy watching these older draft formats. If you do another one, can you start off with a quick primer? I'm guessing that most people don't know much about this format; I certainly don't. Also, can you make a point of zooming in on each card in your colors during the draft segment? Those of us who are interested can pause the video and read the cards. And the play mistakes you made are typical of playing with unfamiliar cards, especially on MTGO, learning what it means by "first target" vs "second target" and so forth. You still managed to win, so good job there ;) Also, on some sites people post videos with more than one person commenting, and they're quite engaging. I might recommend getting one of your friends to come over and do a video with you; they will help catch some of these stupid mistakes too.
I built the deck and it's really fun to play, regularly sitting on 40+ life is pretty crazy. The value you get out of cloudshift in the deck is really nice and seraph is a beating for a lot of decks. The games do tend to go a long time though! I've also had a couple of people drop after the first game in a match so I'm guessing it's not so fun to play against (esp for mono red :).
On some of the card choices, would you think suture priest is better than lone missionary? i thought the missionary would be a good cloudpost target, but it turns out there's always a better choice, whether it's resetting riftwatcher or protecting seraph of dawn (and getting more sanctuary lifegain in the process). The priest seems to have the potential to give an almost equivalent amount of lifegain over the course of the match (subject to removal), as well as being the nuts vs storm and doing good damage in any creature matchup. Also I've found a couple of matchups (WW with their own lifegain, MBC) where I really wanted a late game finisher, especially if they've got a kor skyfisher out that can brick your attacks. So for this, I've included a singleton guardian of the guildpack and another in the sideboard. I considered Ulamog's crusher, but I figure that guardian at least has a chance of staying on the board vs capsize (dunno if the post matchup is just unwinaable though) so I've gone with that. Games go long and you cycle a lot, so a singleton finisher is ok I think.
As for the sideboard, currently running something like:
4x Rune of Protection: green
3x Divine Offering (more flavour than optimal!)
2x Holy Light
1x Guardian of the Guildpact
1x Oblivion ring
4x Squadron Hawks (give more aggro options vs stall games like WW, MBC, post)
If I was going to put any money into the deck, I guess I could replace the hawks with standard bearers - 8 near autowin cards vs infect should make the matchup winnable I think.
Oh, and sylvok lifestaff is another pauper life gain card that sees a decent amount of play in various sideboards.
Hi there, how about instead of just building 5 dollars deck, add 5 dollars to this deck each week?
This way i believe that you can show to everyone how to move from just for fun to TP room, to TNMO and so on.
In this situation I don't mind a dead card if it means my opponent hasn't resolved the spell, and in terms of the Chaplain I dislike the requirement to have a substantial board presence as well as have my enchantment remover stick to the board for a turn before being able to do away with the potential threat.
IAS Coaching in Chandigarh
Actually the only problem is, it is not properly visible, still enjoy playing. Please next time focus on zooming. And when we'll get to see next one, waiting eagerly.
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I think the fact that this deck is stupid is obvious lol it is more consistent at a fast win then Storm and some lists run from 4 to 8 spells that keep an opponent from targeting.
write essay
I can forgive the Mayor when it flips for not costing me 1 life a turn, and providing me with a 3/3 Wolf each turn, but it can be frustrating when it flips in a position where I have substantial board presence.
The modified version of the deck already runs a playset of Hamlet Captain and it is indeed a solid card!
As Naturalize is in my sideboard, it will only be coming in in situations where I need to neutralize a specific game-breaking enchantment, for example Burning Vengeance. In this situation I don't mind a dead card if it means my opponent hasn't resolved the spell, and in terms of the Chaplain I dislike the requirement to have a substantial board presence as well as have my enchantment remover stick to the board for a turn before being able to do away with the potential threat.
You are 100% correct about Terrifying Presence, you'll have to forgive me if I do overlook certain cards, I'm still getting to grips with DKA and AVR having come back to the game recently!
Herald of War is another interesting choice, and certainly something to try in place of Geist-Honored Monk. Geist-Honored Monk seems to be too reliant on my board position to act a standalone top-of-curve threat and the Angel is certainly a prospect that needs answering! At $0.05 a piece I might have to pick some up!
Thanks for reading and making these points, I'll consider them and address any that prove beneficial in next week's article!
Haven't you got the same problem with mayor of averbrook as you do with cloistered youth? once it transforms (which your opponent can force sometimes, or which will just happen once you run out of gas) then it loses all synergy with the deck. What about Hamlet Captain? it's almost the same effect in an agressive human deck, all you lose is a little out of combat protection.
Terrifying presence looks better than moomist if you want a fog, not only does it avoid the nonbo with the mayor, but it actually lets you do some damage with one of your humans.
Would devout chaplain be better than naturalise? At least you've got a body if you draw it before your opponent gets any of the relevant targets out.
Other cards which might be good to use are travel preprataion (seems good in a GW deck) and herald of war (seems kind of nuts if you can get the mentor of the meek draw engine going).
Also if you're looking for other ultra budget block decks, mono red (sans bonfire unfortunately) can be REAL cheap.
First thing, thanks for reading and commenting! Your point about Avacyn's Pilgrim point was something I was going to address in my next article (which will now include both this deck's tournament performance, and a new $5 deck instead of just one of the two), after finding that Doomed Traveler doesn't perform as well as I'd hoped and my three-cost slot is now very relevant.
I hadn't however thought about the Doomsayer, not sure how I overlooked him as he seems really solid, especially in place of the Thraben Heretics which have proven to be duds. Strangleroot Geist and undying is nowhere near as prevalent as I assumed it would be. A 3/3 or 4/2 split of Doomsayer and Mentor with a playset of Avacyn's Pilgrim on one seems really solid!
Thanks for the advice and I hope you'll read again next week!
EDIT: I completely overlooked the suggestion of Deranged Outcast! I like the way he allows you to get value out of your other humans biting the dust, but the activation cost and single point of toughness puts me off.
I'm tempted to try him, but I prefer creatures to have at least 2 toughness in a format with Tragic Slip and Geistflame unless they have a substantial immediate benefit, for example a Mayor of Avabruck pumping your field even while it's summoning sick.
This is why economists don't like accountants :).
Yes, the situation where you sell stock for less than you paid for due to changed market demand/supply condition is an accounting or taxation loss. But it's a real (economic) profit because your alternative was simply not selling the stock. If you're never going to sell the product for an accounting profit, then whatever you can sell it for is real profit even if it's an accounting loss.
But I absolutely agree you need to look to the long term - if this really is a temporary market condition then there's nothing irrational about holding onto stock in the expectation that prices will go back up (although I think you'd have to query why they would if supply has increased but there's no corresponding increase in demand - legacy's almost a dead format online, why wouldn't a supply increase lead to a permanent fall in the market price?). I was just responding in a general way to the comment that dealers will never price below their acquisition cost, which is wrong (as the extreme rancor example shows).
You didn't use Avacyn's Pilgrim's mana ability because you did not have enough 3-drops. It might change with the addition of the Mentor, and you definitely need that mana later as well, especially because of the Mentor. I can't really imagine how one could leave out the Pilgrim from a GW human deck.
Other cheap cards you should consider (although definitely not 4 of) are Thraben Doomsayer and Deranged Outcast.
A wise person said to me many moons ago:
A good rare creature will be expensive while it is in standard, then drop in price. A good rare land will hold its value or go up in price.
(This was in the days of 3rd Ed.)
I think players care more about the prices of cards they don't own than those they do, with the exception of standard cards that are rotating soon. Some players do watch that to find the right time to sell off and (if they want) re-buy for eternal or casual later. But most price talk I ever see is "why isn't this cheaper so I can buy it?" Of course we all have our limits for what we're willing to pay for something, and they vary wildly. But if there's a general sense that something is overpriced relative to the actual demand, I think that depresses interest in purchasing the card even if you DO have the budget for that card. I've brewed up Specter and Beast lists for tribal wars that I simply will not play because, despite being able to afford it in the abstract, I am averse to paying 5 tix each for Blazing Specter or 7+ for Spiritmonger. The fact that I might have a tougher time reselling those later than I might have reselling an in-demand staple is only part of the equation.
By and large, the expensive cards I do own are cards that I build decks with regularly and have no interest in selling unless I saw a chance to "sell short" take a profit and re-buy them in a couple months. So holding value in my collection isn't that big a deal to me. I wasn't bothered by the Tarmogoyf crash, for instance, because A) they're still more expensive then I bought them for, and most importantly B) I've put them in nearly every modern or legacy deck I build for almost two years now, I got my "money's worth" out of them already.
I suppose if I were to want to sell out of MTGO at some point, it would matter to me. But I'm much more likely to sell out of the paper game and keep playing MTGO if it ever came to that.
Your comparison is bad. You come in talking sunk costs, which dealers do not ignore (irrationally or not, they want to make their money back) then present an example of a new core set with an uncommon that was previously hard to get ahold of, trying to compare it to the rarity of an entire set that is only draftable for an additional 2 weeks?
I mean, I think longterm IPA prices will be driven down because of this, but to act like there is no chance that dealers just buy up the incoming IPA on the cheap, then price it back to near-2 weeks of drafting levels is naive. Also, in your example it's not $1000 profit worth of stock if you payed $1500 12 months ago... you own $1000 of that stock now, and you're looking at a long-term capital loss (in the US at least) of $500. There is no profit to talk about when you're taking a loss, which I would think someone lecturing on sunk costs would be aware of.
This is incorrect, buy costs are sunk and should be completely ignored in the seller's pricing decisions. If the market moves on past the buy price due to changed demand/supply factors, it's completely irrational and non-profit maximising to set a "floor" based on an historical, and sunk, cost. "There are no reasons to sell-off inventories." is incorrect, the cost is the opportunity cost of not selling that stock at the current market price, you're just throwing money away if you hold onto say $1000 profit worth of stock just because you happened to pay $1500 for that stock 12 months ago.
Don't believe me? Just ask yourself how many stores will be sticking with their 3tix+ price on rancors now that it's an M13 uncommon?
You have no idea how satisfying it is to come back to the game 2-3 years after working on that archetype for months with my clanmates and seeing articles about it.
I take magma burst over terminate when I'm playing Red Black. Kind of missed that in pack 2, pick 1. You didn't even read the card.
I think there are a whole section of players who feel that paying money for a card game needs to be an investment or it isn't worth it. And to be fair the money values fluctuate up and down over time. Card values go in cycles and if you know why and how you can capitalize on these trends for value. Particularly if you don't care that you might not get the cards you're selling back again for a long time.
It may seem like a disconnect from a pure gamer's perspective but many people feel that putting money into a game without being able to retrieve it when needed is too risky and isn't good adult behavior. (IE: Games are for kids, silly rabbit!)
I am somewhere in between. I started collecting betas before they were super hot and for a while I held on to a decent sized collection of them but at some point I needed money for bills more than I needed to have them and I wasn't playing with them anyway so I sold them. I also sold many of the other cards I had in paper at the same time because Magic had temporarily ceased being fun for me. (This is cyclical for me.)
Now I play online and I tend to hold on to low ticket value cards but if I have a high ticket value card and it suddenly doubles in price I am going to be hard pressed not to sell it. With a far from complete collection I am often exchanging cards and changing deck lists to maximize my overall fun.
Hope this helps explain it for you.
There's something odd here. Players seem more concerned with the monetary value of their cards than anything else. I'm not sure if I get it. Doesn't everyone realize that the cards themselves mostly go down over time?
Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll try to give all of these a shot!
glad you're enjoying it!
the priest could be a decent trade for the missionary because, as you said, there are often times where it would be a better choice... I can see the need for a stronger beat in this deck, but the point was just to pack it with as much lifegain as I could and see if that was enough to win.. there are several choices to really beef it up, but I don't think crusher would be one because of its cost
Glad you enjoy them, and thanks for the suggestions. Next time I do older draft formats, I'll try to make them a bit more didatic, with more zooming.
Interesting draft and very good to see how I can improve my play in particular... or pit falls to avoid! ;-)
I agree about the zooming on each card... However I don't think getting a friend to help with the commentary is a good idea. Some people frown on this as it could be unfair to have 2 players vs an opponent... also although unlikely, it is not worth risking your MTGO account if someone reports you.
Also to the comment above, have you seen this article?
http://puremtgo.com/articles/ars-arcanum-ipa-draft-and-avr-sealed
It gave a pretty good primer.
Hey thanks for the videos, I enjoy watching these older draft formats. If you do another one, can you start off with a quick primer? I'm guessing that most people don't know much about this format; I certainly don't. Also, can you make a point of zooming in on each card in your colors during the draft segment? Those of us who are interested can pause the video and read the cards. And the play mistakes you made are typical of playing with unfamiliar cards, especially on MTGO, learning what it means by "first target" vs "second target" and so forth. You still managed to win, so good job there ;) Also, on some sites people post videos with more than one person commenting, and they're quite engaging. I might recommend getting one of your friends to come over and do a video with you; they will help catch some of these stupid mistakes too.
I built the deck and it's really fun to play, regularly sitting on 40+ life is pretty crazy. The value you get out of cloudshift in the deck is really nice and seraph is a beating for a lot of decks. The games do tend to go a long time though! I've also had a couple of people drop after the first game in a match so I'm guessing it's not so fun to play against (esp for mono red :).
On some of the card choices, would you think suture priest is better than lone missionary? i thought the missionary would be a good cloudpost target, but it turns out there's always a better choice, whether it's resetting riftwatcher or protecting seraph of dawn (and getting more sanctuary lifegain in the process). The priest seems to have the potential to give an almost equivalent amount of lifegain over the course of the match (subject to removal), as well as being the nuts vs storm and doing good damage in any creature matchup. Also I've found a couple of matchups (WW with their own lifegain, MBC) where I really wanted a late game finisher, especially if they've got a kor skyfisher out that can brick your attacks. So for this, I've included a singleton guardian of the guildpack and another in the sideboard. I considered Ulamog's crusher, but I figure that guardian at least has a chance of staying on the board vs capsize (dunno if the post matchup is just unwinaable though) so I've gone with that. Games go long and you cycle a lot, so a singleton finisher is ok I think.
As for the sideboard, currently running something like:
4x Rune of Protection: green
3x Divine Offering (more flavour than optimal!)
2x Holy Light
1x Guardian of the Guildpact
1x Oblivion ring
4x Squadron Hawks (give more aggro options vs stall games like WW, MBC, post)
If I was going to put any money into the deck, I guess I could replace the hawks with standard bearers - 8 near autowin cards vs infect should make the matchup winnable I think.
Oh, and sylvok lifestaff is another pauper life gain card that sees a decent amount of play in various sideboards.
What is the best combination of card games should I use in my deck to assure my bet?
FXDD
What a hiatus. I’m pleased you’re back posting your drafts! Keep it up!