Thanks for your comment, but I have to disagree. You don't need a foil Force to play classic, but just a regular. Therefore, comparing foil cards isn't necessary.
I haven't played with or against Helvault in a draft but I'll give it a try next time I get the chance. The 7cc on the exile effect is something I thought would be too slow for a draft environment but I've been wrong plenty of times.
I took the Travel Prep. because I've never played Skeletal Grimace in a deck and while Brain Weevil is a card I love, I knew I would have another chance to grab one or two. I don't usually hate draft but I just couldn't pass one of the best cards for the best deck for nothing.
And no, I've never tried racing a Markov PAtrician with Skeletal Grimace. I imagine it wouldn't be too fun though.
You said -- I think we need to keep things in perspective regarding online prices as well. For instance, the most expensive card online right now is Force of Will at around $103. The most expensive paper card is an Alpha (Black Lotus) at around $4400 or Beta for about $3500.
This is not a valid comparison. Alpha + Beta Lotus are not the cheapest versions of Black Lotus, Unlimited is. The comparison would be more valid if you put Alpha Lotus next to Foil Force of Will... both are versions that command a premium.
Well as long as the day/time fit I'd be willing to help where I could.. I really think there should be more fans when it comes to these bigger deck formats and esp as singleton because you can get so much play out of the same deck.. 3-4 games and not the same thing twice
The problem is consistency. Many of the long standing PREs are successful because they have been running for a long period of time. If I can start a PRE at a consistant time, that is free to entry with real prizes, it will grow, even if it starts out in the 4-8 player range. If you build it they will come.
Now, I tried doing this before, but with a family, I can't be the only one hosting a tournament. I need more volunteers to run the PRE when I'm not available to do so. That's one thing I learned when I tried to run a PRE the last time.
Boros made it's 20th 4-0 appearance, and moved up to the "big boys" chart.
GW Stompy makes it to the lists.
Many Gifts Rock decks showing up in the SE's.
About the GP of Turin, I recommend to anyone wishing to visit the city to go to the Egyptian museum and especially the Film museum in the Mole Antonelliana, where _Kumagoro_ in the past has treated some small areas
100CS and Prism (or any big deck format) has always had big appeal to me so I love seeing someone talking about it again.. PREs seem the only way to get competitive play with these formats back, but even then I worry there wont be an interest
I also disagree with your guidelines on what to use Mental Misstep for. Countering Brainstorm in a wide variance format like Classic is most definitely correct. Do you want them to find answers or threats, then shuffle useless lands back into their deck for an effective Ancestral Recall? I sure don't. Brainstorm is 100% correct to counter most of the time.
"One nitpicking about the lists, since I see you take the time to eliminate the basic lands' links from the editor, and you put several pictures on them, meaning you want for them to look good. Then you should also reorder/regroup the cards, to present them in a less chaotic form. The random order doesn't help to understand what the deck is about. I, for one, use to list them in descending number of copies, then ascending casting cost order (and for the lands, fetches first, then non-basic fetchable lands, then other color-producing lands, then colorless-producing lands)."
That's a good call! I'll definitely keep that in mind for future use. I'm learning this stuff "on the the fly". :) You *CAN* teach an old dog new tricks...
Re: Trading
I agree with all your comments. Matching up BOTS and identifying arbitrage-like opportunities will require a lot of time and you will end up with credits on a range of different BOTS. This strategy can be beaten by any daytime job. But I think a daytime job would beat any money-making strategy on MTGO. The only positive thing with this strategy compared to the others is that it has very low risk. Once you have identified a high buy price from one BOT and a low selling price from another BOT, the only risk involved is essentially that the buying BOT is not willing to trade at the advertised price.
Re: Investing
The investing strategy I suggested is significantly different from that of MBreasley. If I had the skills to predict the “market”, I would of cause use them to make tix, but I don’t really pay any attention to the frontier of good and upcoming decks. I like the idea of you testing the strategies by tracking the prices on MTGOtraders.com. But I would never buy a foil Orim’s Chant from MTGOtraders.com as an investment, only for playing with it (consumption). What I meant was that you should buy it from a different BOT chain where the price had drifted to a lower price - well below the current MTGOtraders.com-price. If I could buy a foil Orim’s Chant for 47 tix with the current benchmark price being $70, then I would. But as you also state in the description of your experiment this kind of strategy is not the one you are testing. I guess that in order to test my strategy I would have to name an exact BOT and tell exactly which cards to buy from this BOT. And then you would have to actually buy the cards and wait for the price to trend back upwards to the MTGOtraders.com-price. If you do not buy then the price will not reverse. Hence, I can see why you probably do not want to test it. Like the other strategy I suggested this one also requires a lot of time - at least initially. It can take some effort to identify the right cards. In the end I don’t think it would beat flipping burgers. I use it because I have a lot of tix just sitting in my account and then I might as well put them in illiquid cards.
In the Eurodrive! final, I have to say that after the Chalice, Melira could still show up via Pod, of course. But I was hoping to disrupt sakerhet's play more than mine (for some reason, I was convinced his deck was more of a all-for-the-combo build, but now I see that there was Sun Titan and everything, and even some call I made myself, like Skinrender being better than both Nekrataal and Shriekmaw in the Eurodrive! meta).
All in all, the Pod is the most varied and fun tier-1 deck in the current format. It's the kind of combo decks I like, the ones that can perfectly win even not seeing the combo at all. And you play a lot of different cards and interact with the opponent at every step. Playing Hive Mind seems to be as much fun as doing accounting work. And I can't imagine how dull would be a Hive Mind mirror match.
One nitpicking about the lists, since I see you take the time to eliminate the basic lands' links from the editor, and you put several pictures on them, meaning you want for them to look good. Then you should also reorder/regroup the cards, to present them in a less chaotic form. The random order doesn't help to understand what the deck is about. I, for one, use to list them in descending number of copies, then ascending casting cost order (and for the lands, fetches first, then non-basic fetchable lands, then other color-producing lands, then colorless-producing lands).
I'm not sure this is a compliment to my writing or a diss lol. Either way, I'm glad you now envy the Mr. T Chia! I suppose since I got 5 fireballs the Chia must of pulled me through!
tho in the current classic meta i would say chains are jus as likely as groundseal/gorger/pox/tax/morphling all very fringe cards that a classic player should still b aware of what they do and how they work.
love the article!!!
OK, this was painful to watch (disclaimer: I did not have audio. I do see that you acknowledge that you made a bunch of mistakes here in the last pgh, which is good, but after the fact - if you don't make the mistakes in the first place, you'll win more often ;) ). I'm through match 1, and these are my observations:
Deckbuilding: Your RB build is better than your BW build by a decent margin. Markov Warlord is a bomb (better than all your white combined IMO - he just wins games, esp. when combined with your Aristocrats, and is good even on his own or w/ little creatures), and making your color choice based on a two-card combo, even in 30-card sealed, is risky at best.
Match 1:
Game 1:
Turn 2: crack Amulet instead of casting Bump so you're certain to cast Patrician turn 3.
Opp. turn 3: cast Shield after declaring blockers. If he has a Geistflame (or other removal) in response to your Shield, he gets in 3 free damage.
Turn 4: No need to play your land here
Turn 6: You aren't the beatdown. Don't attack here. You don't want to trade half of your Moan for the Rampager - the Rats are less valuable to you (1 power v. 4). This doesn't change if he has Geistflame - the 1 damage is nowhere near worth it.
Turn 9: You have outs. Flashback Bump; if you hit a land, you can Moan. If he cast a spell on his turn, you get to stop all his attacks (presumably); if he didn't, you still get to chump the Rampager and trade with the Vampire if he attacks with everything or just vamp/werewolf, kill Priest/chump Rampager if he attacks with those, or trade with the Rampager if he just attacks with it. This leaves you alive in every scenario. This also means you have further outs in every situation - a Gather, or further chump blockers into a Gather, in situation 1, 2, and 4 (Gather being very good in 4), or just Gather in situation 3. You have further outs into a 4-power dude, or chump blockers into a 4-power dude - these both mean you stabilize (at 1-2 life). You can still possibly kill him from there.
Game 2:
Sideboard: Good.
Turn 1: Cast Quiver. You're going to be making dudes for a while here, and there's no need to be scared of Werewolves. You have Dead Weight if he hits a Rampager or if you need to keep some werewolves from flipping.
Turn 3: Again, cast Quiver. You're *not* casting two spells turn 4, so if he lets the wolves flip, w/e - he's only attacking for 1 on his turn (if anything). Also, save your Dead Weight for a possible Deserter/Rampager. Missing out on the damage is not a big deal (plus you can deal with the 1/1 later via Quiver).
Turn 4: Cast your bomb! Pressure is a good thing, plus you already saw the Terrors. You're immune to Geistflame since the Hermit is still around.
Turn 5: Equip the Quiver to the Hermit instead so you can get in with the Hound.
Turn 6: Cast Aristocrat -> Bump. No need to worry about Geistflame - you're immune (2 dudes) and if he doesn't notice the Cultist on upkeep in response to the Scourge transform trigger next turn you can get bonus damage by saccing the newly-human Hermit to the Aristocrat (making you immune to either half of Geistflame on your Aristocrat, even).
Turn 7: See turn 6.
Turn 8: See turn 7.
Game 3:
Turn 2: Cast Quiver. Assuming you hit a Mountain, you'll be casting spells for a while; if you don't, you're dead anyway.
Turn 4: Don't attack. You're not the beatdown.
Hope this helps. I don't mean anything personal, just trying to help.
@apaulogy - It's just a rumor that Intangible Virtue will be banned in block, based on the fact that the preview image for the announcement is that of Intangible Virtue. There's a big thread about it on MTG Salvation.
Thanks for your comment, but I have to disagree. You don't need a foil Force to play classic, but just a regular. Therefore, comparing foil cards isn't necessary.
Thanks for the promo codes Heath. I used #4 9FET7E4JJP3A. I'll be sure to take advantage of the wishlist feature, too!
-Paul
Thanks a lot for the comment.
I haven't played with or against Helvault in a draft but I'll give it a try next time I get the chance. The 7cc on the exile effect is something I thought would be too slow for a draft environment but I've been wrong plenty of times.
I took the Travel Prep. because I've never played Skeletal Grimace in a deck and while Brain Weevil is a card I love, I knew I would have another chance to grab one or two. I don't usually hate draft but I just couldn't pass one of the best cards for the best deck for nothing.
And no, I've never tried racing a Markov PAtrician with Skeletal Grimace. I imagine it wouldn't be too fun though.
You said -- I think we need to keep things in perspective regarding online prices as well. For instance, the most expensive card online right now is Force of Will at around $103. The most expensive paper card is an Alpha (Black Lotus) at around $4400 or Beta for about $3500.
This is not a valid comparison. Alpha + Beta Lotus are not the cheapest versions of Black Lotus, Unlimited is. The comparison would be more valid if you put Alpha Lotus next to Foil Force of Will... both are versions that command a premium.
Well as long as the day/time fit I'd be willing to help where I could.. I really think there should be more fans when it comes to these bigger deck formats and esp as singleton because you can get so much play out of the same deck.. 3-4 games and not the same thing twice
The problem is consistency. Many of the long standing PREs are successful because they have been running for a long period of time. If I can start a PRE at a consistant time, that is free to entry with real prizes, it will grow, even if it starts out in the 4-8 player range. If you build it they will come.
Now, I tried doing this before, but with a family, I can't be the only one hosting a tournament. I need more volunteers to run the PRE when I'm not available to do so. That's one thing I learned when I tried to run a PRE the last time.
Boros made it's 20th 4-0 appearance, and moved up to the "big boys" chart.
GW Stompy makes it to the lists.
Many Gifts Rock decks showing up in the SE's.
About the GP of Turin, I recommend to anyone wishing to visit the city to go to the Egyptian museum and especially the Film museum in the Mole Antonelliana, where _Kumagoro_ in the past has treated some small areas
100CS and Prism (or any big deck format) has always had big appeal to me so I love seeing someone talking about it again.. PREs seem the only way to get competitive play with these formats back, but even then I worry there wont be an interest
I also disagree with your guidelines on what to use Mental Misstep for. Countering Brainstorm in a wide variance format like Classic is most definitely correct. Do you want them to find answers or threats, then shuffle useless lands back into their deck for an effective Ancestral Recall? I sure don't. Brainstorm is 100% correct to counter most of the time.
"One nitpicking about the lists, since I see you take the time to eliminate the basic lands' links from the editor, and you put several pictures on them, meaning you want for them to look good. Then you should also reorder/regroup the cards, to present them in a less chaotic form. The random order doesn't help to understand what the deck is about. I, for one, use to list them in descending number of copies, then ascending casting cost order (and for the lands, fetches first, then non-basic fetchable lands, then other color-producing lands, then colorless-producing lands)."
That's a good call! I'll definitely keep that in mind for future use. I'm learning this stuff "on the the fly". :) You *CAN* teach an old dog new tricks...
PS - I'm so pleased with the B&R list update!
http://community.wizards.com/magiconline/blog/2012/03/19/magic_online_br...
Re: Trading
I agree with all your comments. Matching up BOTS and identifying arbitrage-like opportunities will require a lot of time and you will end up with credits on a range of different BOTS. This strategy can be beaten by any daytime job. But I think a daytime job would beat any money-making strategy on MTGO. The only positive thing with this strategy compared to the others is that it has very low risk. Once you have identified a high buy price from one BOT and a low selling price from another BOT, the only risk involved is essentially that the buying BOT is not willing to trade at the advertised price.
Re: Investing
The investing strategy I suggested is significantly different from that of MBreasley. If I had the skills to predict the “market”, I would of cause use them to make tix, but I don’t really pay any attention to the frontier of good and upcoming decks. I like the idea of you testing the strategies by tracking the prices on MTGOtraders.com. But I would never buy a foil Orim’s Chant from MTGOtraders.com as an investment, only for playing with it (consumption). What I meant was that you should buy it from a different BOT chain where the price had drifted to a lower price - well below the current MTGOtraders.com-price. If I could buy a foil Orim’s Chant for 47 tix with the current benchmark price being $70, then I would. But as you also state in the description of your experiment this kind of strategy is not the one you are testing. I guess that in order to test my strategy I would have to name an exact BOT and tell exactly which cards to buy from this BOT. And then you would have to actually buy the cards and wait for the price to trend back upwards to the MTGOtraders.com-price. If you do not buy then the price will not reverse. Hence, I can see why you probably do not want to test it. Like the other strategy I suggested this one also requires a lot of time - at least initially. It can take some effort to identify the right cards. In the end I don’t think it would beat flipping burgers. I use it because I have a lot of tix just sitting in my account and then I might as well put them in illiquid cards.
PS: Sorry about the (sic) bonds you quoted :-)
In the Eurodrive! final, I have to say that after the Chalice, Melira could still show up via Pod, of course. But I was hoping to disrupt sakerhet's play more than mine (for some reason, I was convinced his deck was more of a all-for-the-combo build, but now I see that there was Sun Titan and everything, and even some call I made myself, like Skinrender being better than both Nekrataal and Shriekmaw in the Eurodrive! meta).
All in all, the Pod is the most varied and fun tier-1 deck in the current format. It's the kind of combo decks I like, the ones that can perfectly win even not seeing the combo at all. And you play a lot of different cards and interact with the opponent at every step. Playing Hive Mind seems to be as much fun as doing accounting work. And I can't imagine how dull would be a Hive Mind mirror match.
One nitpicking about the lists, since I see you take the time to eliminate the basic lands' links from the editor, and you put several pictures on them, meaning you want for them to look good. Then you should also reorder/regroup the cards, to present them in a less chaotic form. The random order doesn't help to understand what the deck is about. I, for one, use to list them in descending number of copies, then ascending casting cost order (and for the lands, fetches first, then non-basic fetchable lands, then other color-producing lands, then colorless-producing lands).
Thanks for the comments. I'll take a look at the videos again and see what you mean.
52 to be exact.
They are crazy expensive but, keep in mind all duals were reprinted and at one time the online price was much higher.
the duals are what surprised me... wow lands are insane in paper....
Intangible Virtue and Lingering Souls are banned in block.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/187a
I'm surprised so many cards are cheaper in paper. I thought it would only be a handful.
haha yep content was awesome as always, but for whatever reason the Mr. T chia cracked me up
I'm not sure this is a compliment to my writing or a diss lol. Either way, I'm glad you now envy the Mr. T Chia! I suppose since I got 5 fireballs the Chia must of pulled me through!
I saw it finally...I have also read some stuff on Twitter.
IDK, it seems like a possibility but it also seems a little preemptive...
tho in the current classic meta i would say chains are jus as likely as groundseal/gorger/pox/tax/morphling all very fringe cards that a classic player should still b aware of what they do and how they work.
love the article!!!
OK, this was painful to watch (disclaimer: I did not have audio. I do see that you acknowledge that you made a bunch of mistakes here in the last pgh, which is good, but after the fact - if you don't make the mistakes in the first place, you'll win more often ;) ). I'm through match 1, and these are my observations:
Deckbuilding: Your RB build is better than your BW build by a decent margin. Markov Warlord is a bomb (better than all your white combined IMO - he just wins games, esp. when combined with your Aristocrats, and is good even on his own or w/ little creatures), and making your color choice based on a two-card combo, even in 30-card sealed, is risky at best.
Match 1:
Game 1:
Turn 2: crack Amulet instead of casting Bump so you're certain to cast Patrician turn 3.
Opp. turn 3: cast Shield after declaring blockers. If he has a Geistflame (or other removal) in response to your Shield, he gets in 3 free damage.
Turn 4: No need to play your land here
Turn 6: You aren't the beatdown. Don't attack here. You don't want to trade half of your Moan for the Rampager - the Rats are less valuable to you (1 power v. 4). This doesn't change if he has Geistflame - the 1 damage is nowhere near worth it.
Turn 9: You have outs. Flashback Bump; if you hit a land, you can Moan. If he cast a spell on his turn, you get to stop all his attacks (presumably); if he didn't, you still get to chump the Rampager and trade with the Vampire if he attacks with everything or just vamp/werewolf, kill Priest/chump Rampager if he attacks with those, or trade with the Rampager if he just attacks with it. This leaves you alive in every scenario. This also means you have further outs in every situation - a Gather, or further chump blockers into a Gather, in situation 1, 2, and 4 (Gather being very good in 4), or just Gather in situation 3. You have further outs into a 4-power dude, or chump blockers into a 4-power dude - these both mean you stabilize (at 1-2 life). You can still possibly kill him from there.
Game 2:
Sideboard: Good.
Turn 1: Cast Quiver. You're going to be making dudes for a while here, and there's no need to be scared of Werewolves. You have Dead Weight if he hits a Rampager or if you need to keep some werewolves from flipping.
Turn 3: Again, cast Quiver. You're *not* casting two spells turn 4, so if he lets the wolves flip, w/e - he's only attacking for 1 on his turn (if anything). Also, save your Dead Weight for a possible Deserter/Rampager. Missing out on the damage is not a big deal (plus you can deal with the 1/1 later via Quiver).
Turn 4: Cast your bomb! Pressure is a good thing, plus you already saw the Terrors. You're immune to Geistflame since the Hermit is still around.
Turn 5: Equip the Quiver to the Hermit instead so you can get in with the Hound.
Turn 6: Cast Aristocrat -> Bump. No need to worry about Geistflame - you're immune (2 dudes) and if he doesn't notice the Cultist on upkeep in response to the Scourge transform trigger next turn you can get bonus damage by saccing the newly-human Hermit to the Aristocrat (making you immune to either half of Geistflame on your Aristocrat, even).
Turn 7: See turn 6.
Turn 8: See turn 7.
Game 3:
Turn 2: Cast Quiver. Assuming you hit a Mountain, you'll be casting spells for a while; if you don't, you're dead anyway.
Turn 4: Don't attack. You're not the beatdown.
Hope this helps. I don't mean anything personal, just trying to help.
@apaulogy - It's just a rumor that Intangible Virtue will be banned in block, based on the fact that the preview image for the announcement is that of Intangible Virtue. There's a big thread about it on MTG Salvation.