It's true that WOTC could schedule more classic DEs, but if they did and enough people hold your mindset, then of course there will always be a handful or more people who are never checking the schedule, or getting the cards thinking "it doesn't fire enough" when in fact if all those people did get the cards and check the schedule, it'd fire far more often.
It's the same terrible rationalization that drives me nuts when there are 8 people sitting in a classic queue and I KNOW there are 8 more sitting on the sidelines saying "I'll join it if it gets close" It's infuriating, really.
Appreciate the kinds words folks, Lord Erman is a great interviewee so plenty of material to work with. My hardest task aside from the questions was sifting through his answers because he is so prolific as a writer that he gave me essays for each question. :p
Another name for this kind of person might also be Magic Hero. LE is certainly one of mine.
Nicely done interview! Lord Erman's articles are among my favorites at Puremtgo. I've also bought a lot of cards because I saw something fun and thought "I have to try that out".
They really are great for those of us who are rubbish at limited and like dabbling in lots of formats. :)
I prefer Classic to a standard by a lot, and because of that it pains me to say that for a competitive player the price is not even close. The main reason is that Standard Daily Events actually fire. If you play a decent number events at all you can quickly pay off the couple hundred dollars for a deck with Daily Event winnings. With Classic only firing a few events a week (when not in winter celebration) it would be very long until you actually payed off the amount that the deck cost.
Great article! It was a blast to read. I always check out Rogue Play every week and getting to pick Erman's brain (through your excellent writing) was great!
As a Timmy/Johnny the biggest thing I learned from Rogue Play was to always think of your win condition. Just tat simple idea has made me a much better deck builder.
The cost on both sides would be higher. Jace was at least a two-of in several Classic builds back then, so we would be adding four Jace on the Standard side, and 2+ on Classic. And back then, Jace was around $100.
Thanks for comments fellows, I appreciate that you appreciate my efforts and that you enjoy hearing about the excellent legends who inhabit our beloved game.
@Lythand I hope to have Michelle Roberson as the interviewee for the next one so that will give you some female perspective into the game at least. My significant other does not really play though she understands the game mechanically. We stopped doing that when we stopped smoking and hanging out in coffee shops. Odd right? Well that is the way of progress. Since I sold my cards and started only playing online (nearly a decade ago) she lost interest.
Thanks TwoHands - appreciate you dropping in man. Sadly Dispatch is so darned good I felt I had to (I Love me some STP!!) Next time I will try and avoid this fate!!
i kno this is givin it away but i really only get the chance to play in thurs nights classic DE and thats not even every week.... But when i was tinkering with affinity I had found out mem jar wasnt restricted and 4 memjar in affinity seems like it could be really good! someone that gets to play on more DE's than I can should tinker with mem jar affinity!
I know alot of people build collections from Limited starts, so you not only get the chance of winning packs to go "infinite" but you add to your collection for minimal costs of entry into Standard Limited events, since Classic has very little if any Limited events it makes it nearly impossible to build a Classic collection from Limited events.
Great column, as always. However, taking your numbers and running them out a few years, I calculate that a new player choosing between formats would have to play for more than 5 years before Classic became more economical than Standard. Here are the calculations:
Year 1: Standard costs $774, Classic costs $2,312.
Year 3: Standard costs $774+$735 = $1,509, Classic costs $2,312+$153=$2,447.
Year 5: Standard costs $1,509+$735 = $2,244, Classic costs $2,447+$153=$2,600.
Obviously, this should be a yearly calculation, but the figures you gave were in terms of two-year increments. I'm ignoring the savings that Standard players can get by trading in their rotating cards, but I assume this is minimal, because only a very few cards have value after rotation. If we were to continue the calculation, we would break even somewhere around Year 6 or 7.
I don't know how long the average player stays competitive, but it can't be much more than 5 years, just due to the time commitment required. Therefore, I still feel that Standard is more economical for the average player than Classic. Plus, there are far more Standard events than Classic or Legacy events, so you get more value for the money you do spend if you play Standard.
You can now double queue with the same deck. That change came when they changed the back-end programming so that each card is not a unique digital object, or whatever it was they did.
I really like these articles. Gives you an idea of who your opponants really are outside of Magic.
What would be interesting, an article with the wife or significant other who plays Magic. Aaron Forsythe's wife wrote a good article about Wives of Magic. Interviewing one of them would be interesting.
it's always really hard to enter a format regardless. There is always a barrier of entry to any format.
For example, my collection is set up pretty well for Commander (I have 1 ofs, of most dual lands and "good stuff") but since GP SLC will be Standard I had to buy in for Standard, and it is difficult to just jump in to a format when the rest of the cards you own aren't even close to being good in the format.
The best advice I can give to players is, look at one or two formats you'd like to play long term and work towards getting cards for those formats.
I'm actually likely to jump back into Classic at some point, but I got to position myself to get a "good deck" first, then more staples second.
I believe that the Shocklands will get reprinted either in the Coreset or next years large expansion. I also think Tarmo will be a judge foil this year.
Definitely agree with your final comment on draft three, Z - I facepalmed when you took Master's Call over Septic Rats, thinking "He's going to try to run the Dispatch!" /itsatrap.jpg
Great article as always Pete
I would be interesting to see the comparison a few months back when big Jace was still legal in standard as I'm sure the costs of the initial buy in would be a little closer together.
Hi Pete, thanks for the great article this week. You might want to recheck the price on Whiffy's Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I didn't add it up myself, but just the 4 LED's cost far more than the price listed. It would seem $1256 would be more accurate.
I just need to to be able to moan about the facebook comments change. You're joining a long list of sites that are blocked by my work firewall, so I can neither read or post anything from facebook. In any case, I just don't trust facebook's owners not to use their people tracking system to my disadvantage.
It doesn't. Aluren is just one of those pet decks that Legacy players cling to. It's at best the 5th best combo deck in Legacy right behind ADN, Belcher, TES (Past in Flames), Grindstone and Dream Halls, yea I said Dream Halls, deal with it 80)
It's true that WOTC could schedule more classic DEs, but if they did and enough people hold your mindset, then of course there will always be a handful or more people who are never checking the schedule, or getting the cards thinking "it doesn't fire enough" when in fact if all those people did get the cards and check the schedule, it'd fire far more often.
It's the same terrible rationalization that drives me nuts when there are 8 people sitting in a classic queue and I KNOW there are 8 more sitting on the sidelines saying "I'll join it if it gets close" It's infuriating, really.
Appreciate the kinds words folks, Lord Erman is a great interviewee so plenty of material to work with. My hardest task aside from the questions was sifting through his answers because he is so prolific as a writer that he gave me essays for each question. :p
Another name for this kind of person might also be Magic Hero. LE is certainly one of mine.
Nicely done interview! Lord Erman's articles are among my favorites at Puremtgo. I've also bought a lot of cards because I saw something fun and thought "I have to try that out".
They really are great for those of us who are rubbish at limited and like dabbling in lots of formats. :)
I prefer Classic to a standard by a lot, and because of that it pains me to say that for a competitive player the price is not even close. The main reason is that Standard Daily Events actually fire. If you play a decent number events at all you can quickly pay off the couple hundred dollars for a deck with Daily Event winnings. With Classic only firing a few events a week (when not in winter celebration) it would be very long until you actually payed off the amount that the deck cost.
Great article! It was a blast to read. I always check out Rogue Play every week and getting to pick Erman's brain (through your excellent writing) was great!
As a Timmy/Johnny the biggest thing I learned from Rogue Play was to always think of your win condition. Just tat simple idea has made me a much better deck builder.
This wasn't an interview, it was poetry!
Thanks for this, to both of you. And all hail the non-American players!
(Damn, I've 3 unfinished articles to submit! I have to get back in the game)
The cost on both sides would be higher. Jace was at least a two-of in several Classic builds back then, so we would be adding four Jace on the Standard side, and 2+ on Classic. And back then, Jace was around $100.
Cards go up and down. It was $150 in the spring of 2010.
If Legacy continues to be uncool, its price may drop.
At the rate FOW is climbing in price Im never gonna be a serious classic player. I dunno, not like I COULDNT afford it, just painful.
Thanks for comments fellows, I appreciate that you appreciate my efforts and that you enjoy hearing about the excellent legends who inhabit our beloved game.
@Lythand I hope to have Michelle Roberson as the interviewee for the next one so that will give you some female perspective into the game at least. My significant other does not really play though she understands the game mechanically. We stopped doing that when we stopped smoking and hanging out in coffee shops. Odd right? Well that is the way of progress. Since I sold my cards and started only playing online (nearly a decade ago) she lost interest.
Thanks TwoHands - appreciate you dropping in man. Sadly Dispatch is so darned good I felt I had to (I Love me some STP!!) Next time I will try and avoid this fate!!
Best,
Z
I always look forward to these interviews: Something a bit different, an insight into our fellow players. Excellently done once again.
i kno this is givin it away but i really only get the chance to play in thurs nights classic DE and thats not even every week.... But when i was tinkering with affinity I had found out mem jar wasnt restricted and 4 memjar in affinity seems like it could be really good! someone that gets to play on more DE's than I can should tinker with mem jar affinity!
great stuff
always loved LE's articles and had the pleasure of some killer games against him in BYOS so it was a very interesting read imo
def appreciate the time took for laying this all out as well
I know alot of people build collections from Limited starts, so you not only get the chance of winning packs to go "infinite" but you add to your collection for minimal costs of entry into Standard Limited events, since Classic has very little if any Limited events it makes it nearly impossible to build a Classic collection from Limited events.
Great column, as always. However, taking your numbers and running them out a few years, I calculate that a new player choosing between formats would have to play for more than 5 years before Classic became more economical than Standard. Here are the calculations:
Year 1: Standard costs $774, Classic costs $2,312.
Year 3: Standard costs $774+$735 = $1,509, Classic costs $2,312+$153=$2,447.
Year 5: Standard costs $1,509+$735 = $2,244, Classic costs $2,447+$153=$2,600.
Obviously, this should be a yearly calculation, but the figures you gave were in terms of two-year increments. I'm ignoring the savings that Standard players can get by trading in their rotating cards, but I assume this is minimal, because only a very few cards have value after rotation. If we were to continue the calculation, we would break even somewhere around Year 6 or 7.
I don't know how long the average player stays competitive, but it can't be much more than 5 years, just due to the time commitment required. Therefore, I still feel that Standard is more economical for the average player than Classic. Plus, there are far more Standard events than Classic or Legacy events, so you get more value for the money you do spend if you play Standard.
You can now double queue with the same deck. That change came when they changed the back-end programming so that each card is not a unique digital object, or whatever it was they did.
I really like these articles. Gives you an idea of who your opponants really are outside of Magic.
What would be interesting, an article with the wife or significant other who plays Magic. Aaron Forsythe's wife wrote a good article about Wives of Magic. Interviewing one of them would be interesting.
it's always really hard to enter a format regardless. There is always a barrier of entry to any format.
For example, my collection is set up pretty well for Commander (I have 1 ofs, of most dual lands and "good stuff") but since GP SLC will be Standard I had to buy in for Standard, and it is difficult to just jump in to a format when the rest of the cards you own aren't even close to being good in the format.
The best advice I can give to players is, look at one or two formats you'd like to play long term and work towards getting cards for those formats.
I'm actually likely to jump back into Classic at some point, but I got to position myself to get a "good deck" first, then more staples second.
I believe that the Shocklands will get reprinted either in the Coreset or next years large expansion. I also think Tarmo will be a judge foil this year.
Oath dosent eat Shops alive, but Affinty and most Delver Decks do, thats the Reason for Shops not being a Part of the Meta atm.
Definitely agree with your final comment on draft three, Z - I facepalmed when you took Master's Call over Septic Rats, thinking "He's going to try to run the Dispatch!" /itsatrap.jpg
Great article as always Pete
I would be interesting to see the comparison a few months back when big Jace was still legal in standard as I'm sure the costs of the initial buy in would be a little closer together.
Hi Pete, thanks for the great article this week. You might want to recheck the price on Whiffy's Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I didn't add it up myself, but just the 4 LED's cost far more than the price listed. It would seem $1256 would be more accurate.
I just need to to be able to moan about the facebook comments change. You're joining a long list of sites that are blocked by my work firewall, so I can neither read or post anything from facebook. In any case, I just don't trust facebook's owners not to use their people tracking system to my disadvantage.
It doesn't. Aluren is just one of those pet decks that Legacy players cling to. It's at best the 5th best combo deck in Legacy right behind ADN, Belcher, TES (Past in Flames), Grindstone and Dream Halls, yea I said Dream Halls, deal with it 80)