Honestly, I think right now is the best place Obliterator has ever had in Std. With the rise of Zombies, Obliterator is a huge part of the sideboard plan against Wolf Run, Mono Red, or GR aggro.
I wasn't sure you were a newcomer indeed. I can't even say "maybe I wasn't around the other times", because I *always* am.
Anyway, that's still a good occasion to say: welcome to Tribal Apocalypse!
Also: Mystic decks are Human decks too, of course. But with Human being even bigger a tribe than Nomad (as in, the biggest of them all), that counts even less.
I don't think Obliterator had a deck before INS either. I am almost certain the price was driven nearly entirely by speculation. It may have been bought up more after it was played in a tournament placing deck 2(?) weeks ago, but it hasn't really made a showing since and people may be trying to dump them.
I tried out Phyrexian Obliterator in standard and went 0-3 before dropping. I had 3x Sword of War and Peace in the deck, but still couldn't win. The card might have been good before the Innistrad block, but now it's a bit too slow. It runs into Mana Leak or Dissipate, and it's generally just a bad idea. If your opponent has Wurmcoil Engine (which many decks do), they'll just eat the five and laugh at you. I really love mono-black, but Innistrad has not given it enough tools to be successful.
I think the general idea of testing the speculative predictions is good. You should consider 2 things.
1)
There can be a large bid-ask spread. An example could be the Tarmogoyf which is listed at $68.55 but the MTGOtraders-buyingbot is buying it for $59.76. Evaluating your strategy by just benchmarking to the MTGOtraders.com selling pricelist will bias your results towards larger profits. The bid-ask spread tends to be smaller on more popular cards and since you only plan on selling after a significant price increase that could reduce the bias. Nevertheless, the profits will be biased with the current experiment design. You could use a bid-ask spread around 10% on popular cards and 40-50% on non-popular cards.
2)
You plan on only selling “winners” and hold on to “losers” i.e. you only sell with a realized gain. I am not sure that is a rational strategy. You should consider also selling the losers at some point if you have a better use for the tix. For example if enough people comment to you that part of your card stock will not be a “winner” and you have a better investment option then liquidate your “loser” position, take the loss and reinvest.
PS: I suggested the foil Orim’s Chant… but you should definitely not buy it using your strategy. I made a (very) late comment on that last week.
Although my third outing into the realms of Tribal Apocalypse, since my other appearances both went a rather unremarkable 2-2 it's understandable no one noticed.
Way to challenge yourself with your first Elder Dragon build. I think Arcedes would be the hardest to build around.
Any deck that uses an Elder Dragon as a commander definitely wins on style points. I hope you get to my favorite, Chromium, soon. Although Nicol Bolas will be fun to read. Too bad you can't use the plainswalker version of him as your commander.
Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions. I would like to feature some matches but a few factors discouraged me for this first article. I hope to make many improvements moving forward and feedback is always appreciated.
Your evaluation of Cloudskate missed one very important detail. You can (and should) suspend it early. It is a card that comes in hasted whilst either bouncing an enter the battlefield trick or removing something (albeit temporarily) on your opponent's side of the board.
Also Angel of Despair is vindicate on a 5/5 stick. Unlike constructed where this card is almost always used in solar flare fashion (discarded then animated) you might actually find yourself sitting on mana hoping for such a top deck, late game.
On the subject of mana I wouldn't auto pick Jace 2.0 here. He is certainly worth thinking about and may be better than Bloodgift (for different reasons) but this means going 3 colors which IS why I wouldn't have gone with cloudskate either.
Scroll rack is 10x Better than Lake of the dead in your deck.
An addition comment concerning Slagstorm. This card is never a dead card since the modality means you can use it as a finisher if you never need it to clear the board (post combat for example since it maximizes their losses.) The real trouble with it is the double red in the cost which means it isn't really splashable. Color-fixing is often a problem in niche drafting so going 3-4 colors is very tricky at best. Since you were uncommitted with a single (1 mana) white spell, Slagstorm was perfectly reasonable. Particularly if you were passing a number of powerful weenies in the process.)
Overall your article is an interesting concept. I would have liked to see more on the trends (which you can find by doing dozens of such faux drafts) in drafting such a set rather than the specific bombs you were able to find. The point of cube is that the bomb to nonbomb ratio is extraordinarily high making signaling, color fixing, and sensible deck building a challenge when faced with the overwhelming desire to play said bombs.
In the end it would have been cool to see a final draft where you faced human opponents in the choices since Bots while invariably not the worst possible pickers (weighted heuristics taken into account) tend to not see the big picture.
I thought this two-parter was a nice insight into how I can help to fix my tilt at the moment. I especially appreciated the link to muscle memory since I had a similar problem when I stopped playing my sport due to injuries.
Since I don't really have a place to post such a list of weaknesses, I hope nobody minds if I just drop it here:
Switching into autopilot in a match (due to work and lack of focus, busy mind etc.).
Poor mulligan decisions (due to me not looking at hands properly, planning far ahead, learning in advance)
Terrible sideboarding decisions.
Regarding the latter, I'm not sure what I should do about it. Are there any articles that, in the general case, help me construct a sideboard for a deck as well as choosing what to board in for a specific matchup?
Thanks for the article, hope MPDC is going well for you.
I don't really understand your last sentence. People ARE willing to invest in the future. But that has nothing to do with the poor appeal of trading with humans (which is something I didn't even consider, and all in all should be avoided if not with your closest friends - at best, it's a waste of time, like you said; at worst, it's very dangerous). Even with its small scale, this is a proper market. Trying and trading with random humans rather than bots (and I mean with that the professional or at least semi-professional retailers) is like trying and buying your new computer from a guy standing at the corner of the street rather than at an electronic store.
I know that MTG was born with the idea of "exchanging cards with friends", like sport trade cards from when we were 8-year old, but that's entirely in the past now, the game and the secondary market outgrew that completely.
Ok, so, another "trick": the entries in the list look better if they are all aligned, so I shrink the font of the long names (Urborg, Tomb of Yagwmoth I'm looking at you!) in order to have them all stay in one line.
As for the basic lands, I keep them as a link because I like better the visual consistency, but I understand why you choose to not do that (nobody would ever click on "Forest" to see what that card is and how much it costs! :)
Also: typically the latest set (and Exodus, for some reason) has to be linked by hand, and the editor will put the unknown cards in the "Other Spells" section. The card count has to be reworked manually too. (Moreso, the editor files Dryad Arbor among the creatures rather than the lands, and I disagree)
B&R update: wow, it looks like WotC shared my own irritation with ISD block constructed. There was ONE deck (in TWO flavors). It was an utterly unplayable format, with not even some room for rogue play.
I don't usually understand the interventions on singleton formats though. Like, I know why some cards are banned in Commander and not in 100cs, but not vice versa. (I was also wondering: does the paper Commander ban list include the Power 9 too? I'm so use of the online list that I never thought of that, even if some of them don't have the same impact on Commander that they have on regular formats).
OK. But you can proxy in paper as well. So if you want to get technical, the cost for Power is effectively zero for many events.
Compared to FoW online, where you can't proxy at all.
The overreaching point is that the most expensive Eternal staple cards online are nowhere near as expensive as the most expensive staples in paper.
I see what you're saying, but either way its still 500 vs. 100 and that's just for one piece of power. The point was that it is much cheaper to play online and will continue to be cheaper by a large amount even if current staples rise dramatically when power comes online. Power won't be 500 when it comes online, otherwise what's the point, ppl will just continue playing paper.
1. Welcome to Puremtgo (this looks like it's your first article)
2. Thanks for the large font for us old folk with poor eyes.
3. You certainly seem to have done your homework. I love the analysis and direct discussion about SB plans. You look like you have a good feel for the deck and can be well positioned for the metagame (you know...for the 7 hours it looks like this before it adjusts.)
4. Nice graphics.
5. I look forward to your upcoming video article.
All in all, great first outing! I look forward to more of your work.
Honestly, I think right now is the best place Obliterator has ever had in Std. With the rise of Zombies, Obliterator is a huge part of the sideboard plan against Wolf Run, Mono Red, or GR aggro.
I wasn't sure you were a newcomer indeed. I can't even say "maybe I wasn't around the other times", because I *always* am.
Anyway, that's still a good occasion to say: welcome to Tribal Apocalypse!
Also: Mystic decks are Human decks too, of course. But with Human being even bigger a tribe than Nomad (as in, the biggest of them all), that counts even less.
*Snap*! Of course.
I don't think Obliterator had a deck before INS either. I am almost certain the price was driven nearly entirely by speculation. It may have been bought up more after it was played in a tournament placing deck 2(?) weeks ago, but it hasn't really made a showing since and people may be trying to dump them.
I tried out Phyrexian Obliterator in standard and went 0-3 before dropping. I had 3x Sword of War and Peace in the deck, but still couldn't win. The card might have been good before the Innistrad block, but now it's a bit too slow. It runs into Mana Leak or Dissipate, and it's generally just a bad idea. If your opponent has Wurmcoil Engine (which many decks do), they'll just eat the five and laugh at you. I really love mono-black, but Innistrad has not given it enough tools to be successful.
Re: Experiment Design
I think the general idea of testing the speculative predictions is good. You should consider 2 things.
1)
There can be a large bid-ask spread. An example could be the Tarmogoyf which is listed at $68.55 but the MTGOtraders-buyingbot is buying it for $59.76. Evaluating your strategy by just benchmarking to the MTGOtraders.com selling pricelist will bias your results towards larger profits. The bid-ask spread tends to be smaller on more popular cards and since you only plan on selling after a significant price increase that could reduce the bias. Nevertheless, the profits will be biased with the current experiment design. You could use a bid-ask spread around 10% on popular cards and 40-50% on non-popular cards.
2)
You plan on only selling “winners” and hold on to “losers” i.e. you only sell with a realized gain. I am not sure that is a rational strategy. You should consider also selling the losers at some point if you have a better use for the tix. For example if enough people comment to you that part of your card stock will not be a “winner” and you have a better investment option then liquidate your “loser” position, take the loss and reinvest.
PS: I suggested the foil Orim’s Chant… but you should definitely not buy it using your strategy. I made a (very) late comment on that last week.
Although my third outing into the realms of Tribal Apocalypse, since my other appearances both went a rather unremarkable 2-2 it's understandable no one noticed.
I had a partner but he was discouraged by some rants vs his past decks and so I will definitely not be there tomorrow.
IN RE the knights in white satin subtlety: Crusading Knights become insanely huge with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out.
Thanks guys. Glad you've found it helpful.
Way to challenge yourself with your first Elder Dragon build. I think Arcedes would be the hardest to build around.
Any deck that uses an Elder Dragon as a commander definitely wins on style points. I hope you get to my favorite, Chromium, soon. Although Nicol Bolas will be fun to read. Too bad you can't use the plainswalker version of him as your commander.
I said you Monday on MPDC. I really like your article, i can see myself on some topics that you speak about.
Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions. I would like to feature some matches but a few factors discouraged me for this first article. I hope to make many improvements moving forward and feedback is always appreciated.
Woot! Thanks for the shout out! Nice article length wise and blog-type detaling day to day changes makes for a great read
Welcome to PureMTGO.
Your evaluation of Cloudskate missed one very important detail. You can (and should) suspend it early. It is a card that comes in hasted whilst either bouncing an enter the battlefield trick or removing something (albeit temporarily) on your opponent's side of the board.
Also Angel of Despair is vindicate on a 5/5 stick. Unlike constructed where this card is almost always used in solar flare fashion (discarded then animated) you might actually find yourself sitting on mana hoping for such a top deck, late game.
On the subject of mana I wouldn't auto pick Jace 2.0 here. He is certainly worth thinking about and may be better than Bloodgift (for different reasons) but this means going 3 colors which IS why I wouldn't have gone with cloudskate either.
Scroll rack is 10x Better than Lake of the dead in your deck.
An addition comment concerning Slagstorm. This card is never a dead card since the modality means you can use it as a finisher if you never need it to clear the board (post combat for example since it maximizes their losses.) The real trouble with it is the double red in the cost which means it isn't really splashable. Color-fixing is often a problem in niche drafting so going 3-4 colors is very tricky at best. Since you were uncommitted with a single (1 mana) white spell, Slagstorm was perfectly reasonable. Particularly if you were passing a number of powerful weenies in the process.)
Overall your article is an interesting concept. I would have liked to see more on the trends (which you can find by doing dozens of such faux drafts) in drafting such a set rather than the specific bombs you were able to find. The point of cube is that the bomb to nonbomb ratio is extraordinarily high making signaling, color fixing, and sensible deck building a challenge when faced with the overwhelming desire to play said bombs.
In the end it would have been cool to see a final draft where you faced human opponents in the choices since Bots while invariably not the worst possible pickers (weighted heuristics taken into account) tend to not see the big picture.
Thanks for writing, keep on doing it.
Speaking of the intro, I don't think the MTGOTraders paypal discount is 8% anymore. I think it's 5% now.
I thought this two-parter was a nice insight into how I can help to fix my tilt at the moment. I especially appreciated the link to muscle memory since I had a similar problem when I stopped playing my sport due to injuries.
Since I don't really have a place to post such a list of weaknesses, I hope nobody minds if I just drop it here:
Switching into autopilot in a match (due to work and lack of focus, busy mind etc.).
Poor mulligan decisions (due to me not looking at hands properly, planning far ahead, learning in advance)
Terrible sideboarding decisions.
Regarding the latter, I'm not sure what I should do about it. Are there any articles that, in the general case, help me construct a sideboard for a deck as well as choosing what to board in for a specific matchup?
Thanks for the article, hope MPDC is going well for you.
I don't really understand your last sentence. People ARE willing to invest in the future. But that has nothing to do with the poor appeal of trading with humans (which is something I didn't even consider, and all in all should be avoided if not with your closest friends - at best, it's a waste of time, like you said; at worst, it's very dangerous). Even with its small scale, this is a proper market. Trying and trading with random humans rather than bots (and I mean with that the professional or at least semi-professional retailers) is like trying and buying your new computer from a guy standing at the corner of the street rather than at an electronic store.
I know that MTG was born with the idea of "exchanging cards with friends", like sport trade cards from when we were 8-year old, but that's entirely in the past now, the game and the secondary market outgrew that completely.
Ok, so, another "trick": the entries in the list look better if they are all aligned, so I shrink the font of the long names (Urborg, Tomb of Yagwmoth I'm looking at you!) in order to have them all stay in one line.
As for the basic lands, I keep them as a link because I like better the visual consistency, but I understand why you choose to not do that (nobody would ever click on "Forest" to see what that card is and how much it costs! :)
Also: typically the latest set (and Exodus, for some reason) has to be linked by hand, and the editor will put the unknown cards in the "Other Spells" section. The card count has to be reworked manually too. (Moreso, the editor files Dryad Arbor among the creatures rather than the lands, and I disagree)
B&R update: wow, it looks like WotC shared my own irritation with ISD block constructed. There was ONE deck (in TWO flavors). It was an utterly unplayable format, with not even some room for rogue play.
I don't usually understand the interventions on singleton formats though. Like, I know why some cards are banned in Commander and not in 100cs, but not vice versa. (I was also wondering: does the paper Commander ban list include the Power 9 too? I'm so use of the online list that I never thought of that, even if some of them don't have the same impact on Commander that they have on regular formats).
Yeah, I don't feel the urge to go to Turin because I basically worked there for a couple years. :)
OK. But you can proxy in paper as well. So if you want to get technical, the cost for Power is effectively zero for many events.
Compared to FoW online, where you can't proxy at all.
The overreaching point is that the most expensive Eternal staple cards online are nowhere near as expensive as the most expensive staples in paper.
I see what you're saying, but either way its still 500 vs. 100 and that's just for one piece of power. The point was that it is much cheaper to play online and will continue to be cheaper by a large amount even if current staples rise dramatically when power comes online. Power won't be 500 when it comes online, otherwise what's the point, ppl will just continue playing paper.
You're a good guy, Heath.
you dont need a alpha/beta lotus either. a 500+ unlimted one works fine.
his point is that
Regular online Fow =unlimited lotus
Foil online fow = alpha beta lotus
Echo what Keya said + maybe think about Ghost Quarter as a sideboard option should your problem decks (UB control and RG-WRun) start showing up.
1. Welcome to Puremtgo (this looks like it's your first article)
2. Thanks for the large font for us old folk with poor eyes.
3. You certainly seem to have done your homework. I love the analysis and direct discussion about SB plans. You look like you have a good feel for the deck and can be well positioned for the metagame (you know...for the 7 hours it looks like this before it adjusts.)
4. Nice graphics.
5. I look forward to your upcoming video article.
All in all, great first outing! I look forward to more of your work.