http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php Go to that site, put in your decklist stuff, hit source on the puremtgo.com article writer, copy the source code from jam's site and paste it into the pure writer. After that hit source again, and the box should come up. Hope that helps!
It does. Unless you have done some sort of MTGO testing to prove it, the people at the SCG 5k playing the deck were saying you just need to stack the triggers correctly. I'm just assuming the person that made top 8 at the scg5k legacy open had checked the ruling before then. I'm pretty sure he said the card was errataed
Hey Clannie interesting read. I wonder why the cards still don't link up properly. (I used gatherer to link my article's card images where they were broken but it seems like by now they should be up and running.) Argentum Armor seems like a fixed Conscription. How did you like playing with it? Did you find any situations where it was a dead card or just bad? I can see getting it attached to an evader is the way to go with it but what if you draw it instead? (Or Teferi forfend, draw both.) All in all an interesting idea. 49th is not bad. In the next build is there any room for DoJ?
Only you can speak to your ethics/motives. But I will just point out that manipulating someone into agreeing with you does not make you right. :) Not saying you are wrong...just food for thought. There is a group of people in this world who deliberately and with forethought use verbal language and sound and body language to get what they want regardless of the cost to others. Are you one of those? If not kudos on being lucky.
Good fun write up. As someone who exclusively plays online (wish I had the time to play IRL), it's great to experience events vicariously through this sort of article.
Slightly surprised to see so many Valakuts in the top 8, and not more Jace.
Do you find 22 lands to be enough in your deck? I know you have 8 creatures that can be cast for free, but still, looks a little risk to me.
Sword and Body and Mind is starting to look better with green becoming so dominant.
I did lose money, via traveling and using time that I could have actually been trading from my personal collection to trade for Pack to Power. Not to mention all the time it took to actually assemble each weeks adventure into an article.
I did this knowingly, because I felt like it was something the magic community needed to see. I'm not a value monger like some may think, if I was I would have just kept all my trade advice to myself and use my time making money.
I know what it takes to be a successful trader and I will tell anyone who asks. Some people don't like what that looks like, but it's the truth. I didn't create capitalism. lol
@Pete
I didnt tell him that they dropped. I made an offer based on the market and demand for the cards. I gave him a reason for my valuation. It was enough for him.
I stand by my reasoning. I'm not going to take Shock lands at "full price" just because online retailers don't want to lower their prices.
People don't typically trade for shock lands at full price because they only see play in EDH. So, obviously I'm not going to take them at full price and risk losing value.
You might notice that I didn't place a gun to this guy's head but instead I explained why I was offering the value that I did. It's no secret that the shock duals were priced higher at certain dealers. The fact that my trade partner was hesitant shows that he knew about the pricing discrepancy but my reasoning was enough for him to let them go at a cheaper price.
Keep in mind that my trade partner was not a dealer, so he has no way to get "full price" for his shock lands. Let's be sensible here.
Fact: Shock Lands are in low demand.
This effects alot of things, including the price that dealers will pay.
My trade partner has the opportunity to gain value (cards that he wanted) out of cards that he didn't want. He could have gone to the dealers but he probably wouldn't have got a better deal.
So, I'm sleazy because I offered my trade partner a service? Am I sleazy for hookin' him up with cards that he can use in decks?
There was nothing shady going on here, I didn't lie to the guy about what the cards were worth. I simply gave him my offer and my reasoning.
Is there something wrong with that? He didn't have a problem with it, so I'm not sure why you do. :)
This line of thinking, reductio ad absurdum, would have to conclude that any middleman is being unethical. And there certainly are people who subscribe to that view, but I put no stock in it.
The flaw is in treating any item as if it has a single value. To use your donuts example from the comments above, what's the value of those donuts you purchased? The temptation is to say $2.55. But that's not the value, it's merely the equilibrium price. If the value was $2.55, then you wouldn't care if you bought them or not and the shop wouldn't care if they sold them or not. But that's clearly not true. You value the donuts more than $2.55, or you wouldn't have bothered to go there. And they value the donuts less than $2.55, or they wouldn't have bothered to sell them. Such is always the case: for the buyer, item value >= price. For the seller, item value <= price. Both gain from the exchange, both walk away happy they profited from it.
This is why Capitalism works. (And somewhat ironically, it's the reason Sales Tax is possible. If the donuts were worth exactly $2.55, no one would buy them because once you add the tax they're not worth it.)
So this completely holds true in card trading. If I have a Jace but want to build Valakut Ramp and need two Titans, and you have Titans but need a Jace, then we both benefit from the exchange regardless of what other people say they think each is "worth". The fact is that other people aren't there offering the exchange and their theoretical "price" is worthless compared to the actual utility of the trade in front of me.
Now when you involve deceit it's an easy case, but also an unrelated one. Yes it's wrong to lie about what a dual land is worth in order to take it in trade. But wouldn't it also be wrong to lie just because you think it's funny to confuse him? Harm is still harm whether the perpetrator benefits from it or not. So if you want to reference lying to criticize some documented articles that's fine, but don't blame the trading.
Yes people tend to set aside something to buy a few cards at least. Also dealers crack enough to get play sets of every rare so they become available to players fairly quickly.
I actually had to go and read that trade...but to sit there and convince someone there cards where worth over 50% less than what they were just makes you a piece of shit.
"The tough part of this trade was valuing the Shock dauls. I put the Watery Grave at $5 the Steam Vents at $3 and the Temple Garden at $2. He was very resistant but I told him that they were not in Extended and that they have been doomed to the depths of 100 card EDH decks. He obliged and this was the full trade:
My (10.24)
Vendilion Clique 8.99
Lodestone Golem 1.25
I was talking about ethics in general. However, if you insist on dealing with the specifics of your trading.
I looked at a couple pack for power articles. Take trade 72, for example. You tell the guy that shocklands have dropped massively in value, and that the value of the lands are about 40% of the values you show deriving the net for the trade.
I'm glad that you have moral values that align with your spiritual beliefs. However, I read a lot of history, and I have to note that Cotton Mather, Jim Jones and Thomas de Torqumada would also make that same claim.
I have no problem with making money off cards that rise in price. I do have problems with misrepresenting the value of something solely to make a profit.
Stock market investments - long term at least - are not the same as what you are doing in the pack to power series. I think that's closer to the corporate raider model of T. Boone Pickens and the like, from the late 80's.
I'm always astonished at how quickly a new set becomes used in MTGO. Scars was released monday evening for purchase, and playing in the casual room you already see many decks with their full sets of Scars rares and the most recent builds from the tournament scene. I usually build my set up from drafting since it's so much cheaper than cracking packs. Where do all these cards come from so quickly? In real life there's a big discount for buying boxes, so I can understand that, but in MTGO there is no bulk purchas discount. Do many people just crack open lots of packs, or set aside a certain amount of $ for buying cards from dealers?
Sorry, that whole comment was a bit off point for this article, but it's on my mind, and was provoked by the 4 necrotic oozes.
People playing in classic in MTGO should always include a bit of graveyard hate in their decks; what harm is there including a 1 cost artifact that you can cycle away if your opponent isn't playing with their graveyard? Graveyard combo decks are common enough that you really need to think about dealing with them when putting your deck together. This is a nice example of one.
well yea that was lots of fun i gotta keep going even tho i am sure i will lose. since i am not very good but anyway when is the article thats gonna be about well my general greatness:P gonna be writtne curse my impatient nature. anyhow i am working on a permission type contorl deck or trying to anyway. any thoughts on a way to make it work would be appreciated i guess now when imake a deck i have to wonder if ti can beat gobs. (the answer is almost always NOOO) lulz
I am not sure the donut reference applies in this situation. Products at grocery stores often have predetermined prices, people don't in their trade binders.
For instance, you see a package of white powdered donuts for $2.55, but you also see chocolate covered donuts priced at $2.55. You wouldn't go to the counter and tell them you are willing to pay $3.55 for the chocolate covered donuts because you "really" need them.
That is exactly what players do in trades. They often times willingly take losses to get the exact card they need to complete said deck. One of the reason is because they lack delayed gratification. They need the card now and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. With a little patience they could easily buy it at market price and not take a loss. Also paper trading is far more difficult because it might involve driving.
You simply can't put an exact price tag on cards like you can donuts because the personal value is higher to different people.
And to be honest, no offense to Mr. Medina, although I found his journey and articles enjoying to read, the truth is in the end he probably lost money.
It took him like 4 months approx to complete the journey, who knows how many hours only to really make $360. He could of just as easily got a part time job, made 5 or 10 times that and bought several pieces of power. If we really want a lesson in economics, I think getting a job might be a better discussion to start with 80)
Fun toolbox type of combo. That is precisely the sort of deck I imagined for Necrotic Ooze. Perhaps not the exact card list but pretty predictable based on my love of rec sur style decks. I do find Fauna Shaman works nicely with Ooze but I can see why you went with an infinite mana combo. Not something I would do probably but looks fun and deadly. Poor guy in the middle with poison deck. No chance at all there.
I had a match yesterday and my op cast Loaming Shaman after I buried alive my guys. :/ The shaman was just in there to help his own combo (to keep him from decking himself via self milling.)
It's easy to make mistakes with the price lists, 3 borderposts are 3c, the other 2 are 8c, while playtesting my deck I had just assumed they where all 3c, in the last 5 min had to change it, grrr.
from how you described your win/loss' in the article, your record was 4-3-1 not 4-1-3
I see they've errata'd it from the original card. My mistake.
I see what you did there. lol
http://jamuraa.com/pure/deck_new.php Go to that site, put in your decklist stuff, hit source on the puremtgo.com article writer, copy the source code from jam's site and paste it into the pure writer. After that hit source again, and the box should come up. Hope that helps!
It does. Unless you have done some sort of MTGO testing to prove it, the people at the SCG 5k playing the deck were saying you just need to stack the triggers correctly. I'm just assuming the person that made top 8 at the scg5k legacy open had checked the ruling before then. I'm pretty sure he said the card was errataed
Im writing a standard article. Since Im new to this writing thing. I was wondering how do you get the neat little decklist box?
Thanks
Steve
Double post.
Hey Clannie interesting read. I wonder why the cards still don't link up properly. (I used gatherer to link my article's card images where they were broken but it seems like by now they should be up and running.) Argentum Armor seems like a fixed Conscription. How did you like playing with it? Did you find any situations where it was a dead card or just bad? I can see getting it attached to an evader is the way to go with it but what if you draw it instead? (Or Teferi forfend, draw both.) All in all an interesting idea. 49th is not bad. In the next build is there any room for DoJ?
Only you can speak to your ethics/motives. But I will just point out that manipulating someone into agreeing with you does not make you right. :) Not saying you are wrong...just food for thought. There is a group of people in this world who deliberately and with forethought use verbal language and sound and body language to get what they want regardless of the cost to others. Are you one of those? If not kudos on being lucky.
Good fun write up. As someone who exclusively plays online (wish I had the time to play IRL), it's great to experience events vicariously through this sort of article.
Slightly surprised to see so many Valakuts in the top 8, and not more Jace.
Do you find 22 lands to be enough in your deck? I know you have 8 creatures that can be cast for free, but still, looks a little risk to me.
Sword and Body and Mind is starting to look better with green becoming so dominant.
@Raddman
I did lose money, via traveling and using time that I could have actually been trading from my personal collection to trade for Pack to Power. Not to mention all the time it took to actually assemble each weeks adventure into an article.
I did this knowingly, because I felt like it was something the magic community needed to see. I'm not a value monger like some may think, if I was I would have just kept all my trade advice to myself and use my time making money.
I know what it takes to be a successful trader and I will tell anyone who asks. Some people don't like what that looks like, but it's the truth. I didn't create capitalism. lol
Thanks for following me on my adventure BTW.
@Pete
I didnt tell him that they dropped. I made an offer based on the market and demand for the cards. I gave him a reason for my valuation. It was enough for him.
See above for more info.
I stand by my reasoning. I'm not going to take Shock lands at "full price" just because online retailers don't want to lower their prices.
People don't typically trade for shock lands at full price because they only see play in EDH. So, obviously I'm not going to take them at full price and risk losing value.
You might notice that I didn't place a gun to this guy's head but instead I explained why I was offering the value that I did. It's no secret that the shock duals were priced higher at certain dealers. The fact that my trade partner was hesitant shows that he knew about the pricing discrepancy but my reasoning was enough for him to let them go at a cheaper price.
Keep in mind that my trade partner was not a dealer, so he has no way to get "full price" for his shock lands. Let's be sensible here.
Fact: Shock Lands are in low demand.
This effects alot of things, including the price that dealers will pay.
My trade partner has the opportunity to gain value (cards that he wanted) out of cards that he didn't want. He could have gone to the dealers but he probably wouldn't have got a better deal.
So, I'm sleazy because I offered my trade partner a service? Am I sleazy for hookin' him up with cards that he can use in decks?
There was nothing shady going on here, I didn't lie to the guy about what the cards were worth. I simply gave him my offer and my reasoning.
Is there something wrong with that? He didn't have a problem with it, so I'm not sure why you do. :)
This line of thinking, reductio ad absurdum, would have to conclude that any middleman is being unethical. And there certainly are people who subscribe to that view, but I put no stock in it.
The flaw is in treating any item as if it has a single value. To use your donuts example from the comments above, what's the value of those donuts you purchased? The temptation is to say $2.55. But that's not the value, it's merely the equilibrium price. If the value was $2.55, then you wouldn't care if you bought them or not and the shop wouldn't care if they sold them or not. But that's clearly not true. You value the donuts more than $2.55, or you wouldn't have bothered to go there. And they value the donuts less than $2.55, or they wouldn't have bothered to sell them. Such is always the case: for the buyer, item value >= price. For the seller, item value <= price. Both gain from the exchange, both walk away happy they profited from it.
This is why Capitalism works. (And somewhat ironically, it's the reason Sales Tax is possible. If the donuts were worth exactly $2.55, no one would buy them because once you add the tax they're not worth it.)
So this completely holds true in card trading. If I have a Jace but want to build Valakut Ramp and need two Titans, and you have Titans but need a Jace, then we both benefit from the exchange regardless of what other people say they think each is "worth". The fact is that other people aren't there offering the exchange and their theoretical "price" is worthless compared to the actual utility of the trade in front of me.
Now when you involve deceit it's an easy case, but also an unrelated one. Yes it's wrong to lie about what a dual land is worth in order to take it in trade. But wouldn't it also be wrong to lie just because you think it's funny to confuse him? Harm is still harm whether the perpetrator benefits from it or not. So if you want to reference lying to criticize some documented articles that's fine, but don't blame the trading.
Yes people tend to set aside something to buy a few cards at least. Also dealers crack enough to get play sets of every rare so they become available to players fairly quickly.
I have never seen that sort of discrepancy in anything I have ever used the buybot for.
I actually had to go and read that trade...but to sit there and convince someone there cards where worth over 50% less than what they were just makes you a piece of shit.
"The tough part of this trade was valuing the Shock dauls. I put the Watery Grave at $5 the Steam Vents at $3 and the Temple Garden at $2. He was very resistant but I told him that they were not in Extended and that they have been doomed to the depths of 100 card EDH decks. He obliged and this was the full trade:
My (10.24)
Vendilion Clique 8.99
Lodestone Golem 1.25
His (46.15)
3x Explore Foil 1.49
Temple Garden 9.99
Watery Grave 12.99
Steam Vents 11.99
Harrow Textless 2.99
Tectonic Edge .99
Khalni Garden Foil .99
Restore Balance .75
Voltaic Key .99
Net +35.91"
You sir are not a BAMF as you claim in the opening of your article, but rather just a sleazy mother fucker.
I was talking about ethics in general. However, if you insist on dealing with the specifics of your trading.
I looked at a couple pack for power articles. Take trade 72, for example. You tell the guy that shocklands have dropped massively in value, and that the value of the lands are about 40% of the values you show deriving the net for the trade.
I'm glad that you have moral values that align with your spiritual beliefs. However, I read a lot of history, and I have to note that Cotton Mather, Jim Jones and Thomas de Torqumada would also make that same claim.
I have no problem with making money off cards that rise in price. I do have problems with misrepresenting the value of something solely to make a profit.
Stock market investments - long term at least - are not the same as what you are doing in the pack to power series. I think that's closer to the corporate raider model of T. Boone Pickens and the like, from the late 80's.
I'm always astonished at how quickly a new set becomes used in MTGO. Scars was released monday evening for purchase, and playing in the casual room you already see many decks with their full sets of Scars rares and the most recent builds from the tournament scene. I usually build my set up from drafting since it's so much cheaper than cracking packs. Where do all these cards come from so quickly? In real life there's a big discount for buying boxes, so I can understand that, but in MTGO there is no bulk purchas discount. Do many people just crack open lots of packs, or set aside a certain amount of $ for buying cards from dealers?
Sorry, that whole comment was a bit off point for this article, but it's on my mind, and was provoked by the 4 necrotic oozes.
People playing in classic in MTGO should always include a bit of graveyard hate in their decks; what harm is there including a 1 cost artifact that you can cycle away if your opponent isn't playing with their graveyard? Graveyard combo decks are common enough that you really need to think about dealing with them when putting your deck together. This is a nice example of one.
well yea that was lots of fun i gotta keep going even tho i am sure i will lose. since i am not very good but anyway when is the article thats gonna be about well my general greatness:P gonna be writtne curse my impatient nature. anyhow i am working on a permission type contorl deck or trying to anyway. any thoughts on a way to make it work would be appreciated i guess now when imake a deck i have to wonder if ti can beat gobs. (the answer is almost always NOOO) lulz
I am not sure the donut reference applies in this situation. Products at grocery stores often have predetermined prices, people don't in their trade binders.
For instance, you see a package of white powdered donuts for $2.55, but you also see chocolate covered donuts priced at $2.55. You wouldn't go to the counter and tell them you are willing to pay $3.55 for the chocolate covered donuts because you "really" need them.
That is exactly what players do in trades. They often times willingly take losses to get the exact card they need to complete said deck. One of the reason is because they lack delayed gratification. They need the card now and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. With a little patience they could easily buy it at market price and not take a loss. Also paper trading is far more difficult because it might involve driving.
You simply can't put an exact price tag on cards like you can donuts because the personal value is higher to different people.
And to be honest, no offense to Mr. Medina, although I found his journey and articles enjoying to read, the truth is in the end he probably lost money.
It took him like 4 months approx to complete the journey, who knows how many hours only to really make $360. He could of just as easily got a part time job, made 5 or 10 times that and bought several pieces of power. If we really want a lesson in economics, I think getting a job might be a better discussion to start with 80)
Devoted druid without Quillspike? What's wrong with being infinitely large? Brawn can trample you as well with your forests.
Fun toolbox type of combo. That is precisely the sort of deck I imagined for Necrotic Ooze. Perhaps not the exact card list but pretty predictable based on my love of rec sur style decks. I do find Fauna Shaman works nicely with Ooze but I can see why you went with an infinite mana combo. Not something I would do probably but looks fun and deadly. Poor guy in the middle with poison deck. No chance at all there.
I had a match yesterday and my op cast Loaming Shaman after I buried alive my guys. :/ The shaman was just in there to help his own combo (to keep him from decking himself via self milling.)
It's easy to make mistakes with the price lists, 3 borderposts are 3c, the other 2 are 8c, while playtesting my deck I had just assumed they where all 3c, in the last 5 min had to change it, grrr.
I would do hypergenisis like this http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=674432 . It should win after going off, the only problem is getting there.
The Ooze doesn't inherit the Devourer's triggered ability that kills itself. Therefore the combo is quite robust.
Also, you beat me to the punch with an Ooze article. I'm currently writing one about 50 amusing things you can do with Necrotic Ooze.