It is true the addition of the Mythic rarity has skewed the percentages of what is considered a chase rare. Jace, the Mind Sculptor and the Titans are out of my budget, so I cannot even think of buying a playset of them. In fact, I think the secondary market charges $4.99 just for entertaining the idea of the purchase :P
What the Mythic rarity has done, as you point out in this article, is make many of the Rare cards more accessible. This is an enormous boon to casual players, and could positively affect the second Christmas wish: more casual players.
Draft/Sealed has lost it's luster since it is a crapshoot on what will be pulled. This may create an environment where fewer people draft. If fewer people draft, I would think fewer rares will be available, increasing their cost.
My Christmas wish would be more diversity in playable archetypes. During Ravnica/Time Spiral Standard, there were so many good decks I won't try to list them all. There were more cards in Standard, but the diversity was remarkable.
I agree with your assessment of the format. It is definitely a rock paper scissors. Red beats up on UW, UW has a favorable match up against MonoU, and MonoU has a favorable match up against red.
Now that being said, if blue has any sort of hiccup then red can beat them hugely. I find games that my opponent doesnt play a turn 3 architect, then red is the favored match up. Volition reins is a beating. Those are the two cards that really bother red.
I cant wait for when you bring WW or Infect to the DE.
WW has alot of game against UW. But is a monster underdog against red. Against monoU it is favored in the blue mages in hand.
Infect is even against the field. It doesnt have any major advantage or disadvanatge game one against the field. You know what beats infedt......tumble magnet and arc trail.
Re: Casual play. Amen. I often feel like I'm homeless because I don't really know where to play. I love cheesy combo decks that are too crappy for competitive Legacy/Classic, but that pretty much relegates me to cas/cas, which is a hostile world to my type of inclinations.
I agree 100% with the lack of uniformness. I just built a cheesy Riptide Shapeshifter deck that poops out an Emrakul. I played one game against a Grow deck and got stomped. I played against someone else and got chastised, blocked, and he disconnected. Apparently Emrakul isn't casual. Go figure. 10 years ago, he would have been incredibly casual. Anyway, there definitely needs to be a better way of recognizing what other people expect.
Dear Santa, if you're still around and haven't returned to the North Pole, here's my wish list for you to take a look:
1- Mr. Jahn asked for some more spare time and if it's possible I would like to get some too. I want to enjoy MTGO more than I do right now. Please? Pretty please?
2- Would you please help me to complete my MED dual lands collection? I missed some of them (well okay most of them) the first time, and now it seems like a good time to fill those holes in my virtual binder. Would you please help? How you ask? Oh, please make people draft the set a lot so that the singles prices will be "acceptable". Thank you in advance!
3- Would you please help me win all the PRE's I'm going to attend in the new year? Like giving me the perfect starting hand everytime and making the opponents mulligan to zero everytime!! No? Ah well, at least I tried...
4- How about making the new sets of 2011 awesome then? Please help those "poor souls" at WotC so that they make cards that I'll enjoy a lot. I'm not complaining, but things could be a lot better than they are right now. (Hint: Tell them to make more multicolor cards; I love'em!)
5- Speaking of multicolor cards, would you please talk to the people at WotC and tell them to give Kaleidoscope a second chance? Please tell them that the format could be alive again if it uses the Classic card pool instead of the very narrow Extended one. Yes? You'll talk to them? Oh that's great to hear!
I know this was a very personal and even selfish wish-list but all the other points have been covered in the article. Oh and please consider my 3rd wish again. No? Bah! Off to north pole you go then!
First: Cardbot doesn't do that at all, they are not nova at all, they change their sellprices manually, only their buyprices change automatically between a lowprice and a sellprice based on whether or not they need many.
SECOND: Cardbot IS mtgotraders IS cardhoarders IS marlonbot
They are all exactly the same.
Their prices are the same, they change simultaneously, they all use the same software. The owner of cardbot owns the software the other three use at a cost. mtgotraders doesn't even control their own buybot, its cardbuyingbot's bot with their brand name attatched.
They function the same way, have the same policies... they do everything the same. Also, they DON'T ban people, they add them to the bot's "blacklist" which causes them to be charged 10-25% extra for everything.
The number of people in those rooms when you checked was low for good reason.
1: Sealed Swiss is garbage
2: This weekend was all sorts of Christmas and junk
The draft room almost never has that few people in it, and Im surprised Sealed Swiss has double-digits in it. Things are below average atm, lots of people don't log into MTGO between opening presents and mixing up a fresh batch of egg nog. My favorite bot chain's owner says he did about 30% of his normal sales over the past 6 days - no direct relationship to people playing in queues but it's a sign.
And about the half a percent of this and that percent of the world is huge... I can only imagine how many people thought their new business couldn't fail because even if they only sold the new cleaverboot special to one out of every hundred thousand people (a really tiny percentile) they'd still make at least a quarter million dollars. Sure there are tons of people in the world - there is also a ton of stuff to be bought or played.
Hey, thanks for reading these past few weeks. You're right that Mox gets boarded out a lot, but I would board out Thopter in those situations too. I really just want to main deck 2 Brittle Effigy, but I'm just paranoid they will slow me down too much.
There are a few times I'm sorry for having 2 Koth in hand with no way of defending him against a bunch of creatures, but yeah, it's not very often. I think if I was going to play 4 Koth, I need more land. I forget what it is, but I think you need like 24-26 lands if you want to consistently hit 4 mana on Turn 4-5.
And yeah I think ppl. are tired of losing to Mutiny :) Kind of like how ppl. are just tired of losing to Arc Trail.
There is TNMO Standard this week. I will try at least 1 tournament without Moxes.
Good review, and thanks for pointing out Fire Tempest. As a bonus over Inferno it's Anarchist friendly. Sorry Magmasaur, you just don't make the cut anymore.
goflmbo!! (Giggling on the floor, laughing my buttocks off) @ Hasran Ogress... at least 20! :D Anyway fun look at the set. I think there are likely some less exciting cards that may become staples in the format or at least well considered inclusions. Ith's deck looks pretty unfun. I am surprised he isn't getting auto concessions. But then I guess people are so relieved to not have to face Emrakul.dec anymore they are practically giddy with brave resilience against lesser evils.
Did you notice that you board out mox opal 5 of 7 times you went to your side 15? Cut the opal for 1 ornithopter, again. You did not played it a single time in the tourney ( if did not miss it somewhere). Besides the extra evasive damage with bushwhacker it can defend koth for 0, and i am sure you have noticed how important is to defend the planeswalker the first turn he comes into play.
Also, i suggest to cut 1 mark of mutiny in the sideboard, which is ony useful against titans but grave and avenger of zendikar (which i find a lot) and go for the 4th koth in the sb, just to make sure you draw it 1 or 2 turn earlier ;)
Who's sorry of having 2 koth in hand in the current meta?
So imho:
MB: -1 mox opal. + 1 ornithopter
SB: -1 mark of mutiny. +1 koth of the hammer
So thank you for writing. I have just came back to magic after almost 4-5 years and reinserted to standard with this deck.
I even have the feeling that i am going to write something too!!
Xaos - No 4 color legends. I think I read somewhere that they have a very difficult time designing those type of cards, as can be seen by the Nephilim in Rav block. So I'm guessing that we aren't going to be seeing any 4 color legends any time soon.
Lythand - Yeah, the deck is sneaky at first because it uses Patron and not another scary commander like Teferi. And a lot of the cards don't seem extremely scary on their own. But the deck has a lot of synergy and lots of ways to win. He beat my Karn deck more than a few times I think.
I played his deck. I thought it could get out of hand and tried to point that put to everyone at the table so they would gang up on him. I didn't know it was him though.
Agreed. Solid play with some luck to get there. Kind of reminds me of Gimli's article in a way. When you open 3 packs worth of cards and can't even sell 'em for 1 tix, it makes winning those 8 packs a must.
Being a bit of the obsessive compulsive myself I really appreciate the completion of the commander color combination quest, I guess there aren't any 4 color legends for 4 more possible decks? If not I suppose that's something wizards aught to remedy at some point. In any case that's a great reference for any commander deck builder, great that you've thrown that up.
P.S. Although I didn't know it at the time, my loss in Round 3 came at the hands of none other than Carlos Romao, former World Champion, and this year's Magic Online Championship Series winner.
I didn't know that I'd be facing so many big name pros in the DEs!
P.P.S. During the conclusion of this article, I was also thinking "Bolt Slinger" deck and not Premium Series Fire and Lightning, which is not worth as much as its Legacy counterpart. However, foil Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are sweet. And foil Figure of Destiny is a nice prize for sure! A playset of those and I would probably hop into some Extended queues.
I'll re-read just to make sure, but I think I only do what your saying in Game 1, where it is virtually impossible to know what you're up against until you at least see a land drop, or you attack them with Goblin Guide and peak at the top of their library. Thus, I think I only do it in the first game to simulate live-play conditions.
Example, I receive the following Game 1, Match 1:
3 Land, Koth, Staggershock, Bolt, Chimeric
When I write the match up, of course I know what I'm playing against. I even started listing what I'm playing against at around Article 2 in the series. But in live play, this is an awkward hand in the first game. You will likely lose against half the metagame (Valakut or Control), and you have to consider a mulligan.
However, if I knew I was playing against Aggro, I would likely keep. This hand can probably get there against Boros and WW Quest, as long as they don't draw Quest. And it is digital gold against B/R Vamps. If I knew I was playing that match up, I would probably snap keep, as you are pretty much guaranteed to win outside of mana screw/flood no matter what spells you draw. Thus if I was matched up against Vamps, and I mulliganed the first hand, I'd have to blame it on not knowing, otherwise I would have an easy keep.
Hi. I think I led with the deck list in the first article after about a paragraph or two. But yeah, I think in the past few, I have started with lengthier intros. While regular readers might not have as much of a problem because I only usually change a few cards each week, someone reading for the first time might have never seen the deck list.
I think in the future I will list deck first then explain changes. Thanks for the tip and thanks for reading.
Thanks for nice article.
Did not like only one thing: you always pointed out, that you do not know what deck you are playing against, while deciding about keeping hand / first turn play. Are you too lazy to open replay of last round and be sure, what deck you are playing against?
For future writing it would be easier for the reader, if you start with the decklist. Scrolling several pages is quite annoying just to find out what deck is in question.
Ah true on the FoF - I've been on the flip side of that. For whatever reason it resets the split and you have to choose a second time. It's easy to click through since it's unexpected though.
Glad to hear the safe bets paid off! I know it doesn't hit some of the biggest movers, but I knew those Alara cards couldn't stay that low for very long! I think in the next few weeks I'll have earned back the cost of the rest of my collection, which I'm super-happy with - this is a pretty hard game to land cash-neutral on!
Why would you not main deck precursors? If Red doesn't maindeck shatter, monoblue has no answer, and U/W only has 2-3 revoke and one usually hits a mana myr. I'm not sure about it just yet. Big Red is great in the 2 man events, I haven't ran it in any dailies yet but I plan too. The power level of turn 3 koth is too much to ignore.
It is true the addition of the Mythic rarity has skewed the percentages of what is considered a chase rare. Jace, the Mind Sculptor and the Titans are out of my budget, so I cannot even think of buying a playset of them. In fact, I think the secondary market charges $4.99 just for entertaining the idea of the purchase :P
What the Mythic rarity has done, as you point out in this article, is make many of the Rare cards more accessible. This is an enormous boon to casual players, and could positively affect the second Christmas wish: more casual players.
Draft/Sealed has lost it's luster since it is a crapshoot on what will be pulled. This may create an environment where fewer people draft. If fewer people draft, I would think fewer rares will be available, increasing their cost.
My Christmas wish would be more diversity in playable archetypes. During Ravnica/Time Spiral Standard, there were so many good decks I won't try to list them all. There were more cards in Standard, but the diversity was remarkable.
I agree with your assessment of the format. It is definitely a rock paper scissors. Red beats up on UW, UW has a favorable match up against MonoU, and MonoU has a favorable match up against red.
Now that being said, if blue has any sort of hiccup then red can beat them hugely. I find games that my opponent doesnt play a turn 3 architect, then red is the favored match up. Volition reins is a beating. Those are the two cards that really bother red.
I cant wait for when you bring WW or Infect to the DE.
WW has alot of game against UW. But is a monster underdog against red. Against monoU it is favored in the blue mages in hand.
Infect is even against the field. It doesnt have any major advantage or disadvanatge game one against the field. You know what beats infedt......tumble magnet and arc trail.
Keep up the good work
Re: Casual play. Amen. I often feel like I'm homeless because I don't really know where to play. I love cheesy combo decks that are too crappy for competitive Legacy/Classic, but that pretty much relegates me to cas/cas, which is a hostile world to my type of inclinations.
I agree 100% with the lack of uniformness. I just built a cheesy Riptide Shapeshifter deck that poops out an Emrakul. I played one game against a Grow deck and got stomped. I played against someone else and got chastised, blocked, and he disconnected. Apparently Emrakul isn't casual. Go figure. 10 years ago, he would have been incredibly casual. Anyway, there definitely needs to be a better way of recognizing what other people expect.
Dear Santa, if you're still around and haven't returned to the North Pole, here's my wish list for you to take a look:
1- Mr. Jahn asked for some more spare time and if it's possible I would like to get some too. I want to enjoy MTGO more than I do right now. Please? Pretty please?
2- Would you please help me to complete my MED dual lands collection? I missed some of them (well okay most of them) the first time, and now it seems like a good time to fill those holes in my virtual binder. Would you please help? How you ask? Oh, please make people draft the set a lot so that the singles prices will be "acceptable". Thank you in advance!
3- Would you please help me win all the PRE's I'm going to attend in the new year? Like giving me the perfect starting hand everytime and making the opponents mulligan to zero everytime!! No? Ah well, at least I tried...
4- How about making the new sets of 2011 awesome then? Please help those "poor souls" at WotC so that they make cards that I'll enjoy a lot. I'm not complaining, but things could be a lot better than they are right now. (Hint: Tell them to make more multicolor cards; I love'em!)
5- Speaking of multicolor cards, would you please talk to the people at WotC and tell them to give Kaleidoscope a second chance? Please tell them that the format could be alive again if it uses the Classic card pool instead of the very narrow Extended one. Yes? You'll talk to them? Oh that's great to hear!
I know this was a very personal and even selfish wish-list but all the other points have been covered in the article. Oh and please consider my 3rd wish again. No? Bah! Off to north pole you go then!
LE
First: Cardbot doesn't do that at all, they are not nova at all, they change their sellprices manually, only their buyprices change automatically between a lowprice and a sellprice based on whether or not they need many.
SECOND: Cardbot IS mtgotraders IS cardhoarders IS marlonbot
They are all exactly the same.
Their prices are the same, they change simultaneously, they all use the same software. The owner of cardbot owns the software the other three use at a cost. mtgotraders doesn't even control their own buybot, its cardbuyingbot's bot with their brand name attatched.
They function the same way, have the same policies... they do everything the same. Also, they DON'T ban people, they add them to the bot's "blacklist" which causes them to be charged 10-25% extra for everything.
The number of people in those rooms when you checked was low for good reason.
1: Sealed Swiss is garbage
2: This weekend was all sorts of Christmas and junk
The draft room almost never has that few people in it, and Im surprised Sealed Swiss has double-digits in it. Things are below average atm, lots of people don't log into MTGO between opening presents and mixing up a fresh batch of egg nog. My favorite bot chain's owner says he did about 30% of his normal sales over the past 6 days - no direct relationship to people playing in queues but it's a sign.
And about the half a percent of this and that percent of the world is huge... I can only imagine how many people thought their new business couldn't fail because even if they only sold the new cleaverboot special to one out of every hundred thousand people (a really tiny percentile) they'd still make at least a quarter million dollars. Sure there are tons of people in the world - there is also a ton of stuff to be bought or played.
Hey, thanks for reading these past few weeks. You're right that Mox gets boarded out a lot, but I would board out Thopter in those situations too. I really just want to main deck 2 Brittle Effigy, but I'm just paranoid they will slow me down too much.
There are a few times I'm sorry for having 2 Koth in hand with no way of defending him against a bunch of creatures, but yeah, it's not very often. I think if I was going to play 4 Koth, I need more land. I forget what it is, but I think you need like 24-26 lands if you want to consistently hit 4 mana on Turn 4-5.
And yeah I think ppl. are tired of losing to Mutiny :) Kind of like how ppl. are just tired of losing to Arc Trail.
There is TNMO Standard this week. I will try at least 1 tournament without Moxes.
Good review, and thanks for pointing out Fire Tempest. As a bonus over Inferno it's Anarchist friendly. Sorry Magmasaur, you just don't make the cut anymore.
goflmbo!! (Giggling on the floor, laughing my buttocks off) @ Hasran Ogress... at least 20! :D Anyway fun look at the set. I think there are likely some less exciting cards that may become staples in the format or at least well considered inclusions. Ith's deck looks pretty unfun. I am surprised he isn't getting auto concessions. But then I guess people are so relieved to not have to face Emrakul.dec anymore they are practically giddy with brave resilience against lesser evils.
Hi brandon, nice close up.
Did you notice that you board out mox opal 5 of 7 times you went to your side 15? Cut the opal for 1 ornithopter, again. You did not played it a single time in the tourney ( if did not miss it somewhere). Besides the extra evasive damage with bushwhacker it can defend koth for 0, and i am sure you have noticed how important is to defend the planeswalker the first turn he comes into play.
Also, i suggest to cut 1 mark of mutiny in the sideboard, which is ony useful against titans but grave and avenger of zendikar (which i find a lot) and go for the 4th koth in the sb, just to make sure you draw it 1 or 2 turn earlier ;)
Who's sorry of having 2 koth in hand in the current meta?
So imho:
MB: -1 mox opal. + 1 ornithopter
SB: -1 mark of mutiny. +1 koth of the hammer
So thank you for writing. I have just came back to magic after almost 4-5 years and reinserted to standard with this deck.
I even have the feeling that i am going to write something too!!
Cheers!!
I was hoping that survival would be banned. I want one for Commander but wasn't going to pay the 55 dollar price.
I need Prismatic omens next. Hope they drop back down.
Xaos - No 4 color legends. I think I read somewhere that they have a very difficult time designing those type of cards, as can be seen by the Nephilim in Rav block. So I'm guessing that we aren't going to be seeing any 4 color legends any time soon.
Lythand - Yeah, the deck is sneaky at first because it uses Patron and not another scary commander like Teferi. And a lot of the cards don't seem extremely scary on their own. But the deck has a lot of synergy and lots of ways to win. He beat my Karn deck more than a few times I think.
That was awesome.
I played his deck. I thought it could get out of hand and tried to point that put to everyone at the table so they would gang up on him. I didn't know it was him though.
Agreed. Solid play with some luck to get there. Kind of reminds me of Gimli's article in a way. When you open 3 packs worth of cards and can't even sell 'em for 1 tix, it makes winning those 8 packs a must.
Btw, is splitting the 8-4 still common?
Yes! A third match!
Nice draft, congrats. =)
Being a bit of the obsessive compulsive myself I really appreciate the completion of the commander color combination quest, I guess there aren't any 4 color legends for 4 more possible decks? If not I suppose that's something wizards aught to remedy at some point. In any case that's a great reference for any commander deck builder, great that you've thrown that up.
Cheers,
X-
P.S. Although I didn't know it at the time, my loss in Round 3 came at the hands of none other than Carlos Romao, former World Champion, and this year's Magic Online Championship Series winner.
I didn't know that I'd be facing so many big name pros in the DEs!
P.P.S. During the conclusion of this article, I was also thinking "Bolt Slinger" deck and not Premium Series Fire and Lightning, which is not worth as much as its Legacy counterpart. However, foil Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are sweet. And foil Figure of Destiny is a nice prize for sure! A playset of those and I would probably hop into some Extended queues.
I'll re-read just to make sure, but I think I only do what your saying in Game 1, where it is virtually impossible to know what you're up against until you at least see a land drop, or you attack them with Goblin Guide and peak at the top of their library. Thus, I think I only do it in the first game to simulate live-play conditions.
Example, I receive the following Game 1, Match 1:
3 Land, Koth, Staggershock, Bolt, Chimeric
When I write the match up, of course I know what I'm playing against. I even started listing what I'm playing against at around Article 2 in the series. But in live play, this is an awkward hand in the first game. You will likely lose against half the metagame (Valakut or Control), and you have to consider a mulligan.
However, if I knew I was playing against Aggro, I would likely keep. This hand can probably get there against Boros and WW Quest, as long as they don't draw Quest. And it is digital gold against B/R Vamps. If I knew I was playing that match up, I would probably snap keep, as you are pretty much guaranteed to win outside of mana screw/flood no matter what spells you draw. Thus if I was matched up against Vamps, and I mulliganed the first hand, I'd have to blame it on not knowing, otherwise I would have an easy keep.
Thanks for the props. I appreciate it.
Hi. I think I led with the deck list in the first article after about a paragraph or two. But yeah, I think in the past few, I have started with lengthier intros. While regular readers might not have as much of a problem because I only usually change a few cards each week, someone reading for the first time might have never seen the deck list.
I think in the future I will list deck first then explain changes. Thanks for the tip and thanks for reading.
Thanks for nice article.
Did not like only one thing: you always pointed out, that you do not know what deck you are playing against, while deciding about keeping hand / first turn play. Are you too lazy to open replay of last round and be sure, what deck you are playing against?
For future writing it would be easier for the reader, if you start with the decklist. Scrolling several pages is quite annoying just to find out what deck is in question.
Ah true on the FoF - I've been on the flip side of that. For whatever reason it resets the split and you have to choose a second time. It's easy to click through since it's unexpected though.
Glad to hear the safe bets paid off! I know it doesn't hit some of the biggest movers, but I knew those Alara cards couldn't stay that low for very long! I think in the next few weeks I'll have earned back the cost of the rest of my collection, which I'm super-happy with - this is a pretty hard game to land cash-neutral on!
Those look like fun decks to play! I love token decks, probably going to make some new ones for Standard soon.
Why would you not main deck precursors? If Red doesn't maindeck shatter, monoblue has no answer, and U/W only has 2-3 revoke and one usually hits a mana myr. I'm not sure about it just yet. Big Red is great in the 2 man events, I haven't ran it in any dailies yet but I plan too. The power level of turn 3 koth is too much to ignore.