Bloodthrone Vampire + Act of Treason > Pacifism
and
Pacifism > Act of Treason
and
Hoarding Dragon + Triskelion + 2xBloodthrone Vampire > Serra Angel
For me this build was more about card interactions over the raw power of the cards. I only went 2-1 with the pool so I'm willing to admit that raw power might have been the better call. But I believe it was a close call.
Pacifism itself is not a permanent solution, since Naturalize, Acidic Slime, War Priest of Thune, and Solemn Offering are quite playable. I reasoned that with 2 Bloodthrone Vampires and a Gravedigger I should be able to get and keep one on the table most of the time to make Act of Treason into a permanent removal spell. It didn't work out that way in the final match but it did work out in my first two matches so I don't think it was a horrible decision, just probably not the optimal one.
The main problem with splashing Cultivate is figuring out your mana base. Since green is a splash, you don't want too many forests, but if you cast Cultivate early you have access to all three colors. Therefore you want enough forests in your deck to cast Cultivate. Cultivate itself doesn't help you find that first forest. So either you have a few (3-4) forests in the deck and risk having a Cultivate in your deck you can't play until turn 6-7 or you have a lot of forests (5-7) and risk drawing all forests and no Cultivates meaning which means you can't cast any of your business spells.
Basically a three color deck carries a lot of added risk that you won't get to your colors when you need them. Adding Cultivate as a third color to fix your colors and thin your deck means that it is just working against itself.
The mythic prices of must-haves made me quit standard events. Beside some draft, i always sell everything relevant for formats after each draft, i only play heirloom right now! a really funny and competetive format with an amazing cardpool and a budget level that breaks even pauper!!! If interested, just check xaoslegends article on this side! http://puremtgo.com/articles/heirloom-constructed
My story is a little different than Jyalts, but I agree with him!
I was always the guy with all the cards in my small town. Since Revised I was averaging 12 boxes a year (and that's including the times we didn't always have a proper "4th" set during the summer).
Plus buying singles at stores, and then online when the net came around.
Plus driving 100 miles to events. Lots of them.
I spent (blew?) enough money on Magic that I even played a foil deck for my first PTQ T4 back in 2001. All 75 cards.
At one time people joked that if I hadn't bought so much 6th edition they wouldn't have bothered with 7th edition.
I bought all the corney boxed sets they used to come out with (the newer ones are much cooler).
I even bought ALL the "precon" decks (but stopped with the 2nd set of the new intro packs...)
I was into about my 3rd box of Alara when I realized I still couldn't build half of the Stadard decks-to-beat.
Okay, so it's a trading card game. Trade 12 packs for one Mythic? Not good math for my wallet.
Trade a handful of medium rares for a hot mythic? Still leaves me not being able to build a lot of decks.
So I hope Wizards has acquired 6 new customers who each buy 2 boxes a year, or 4 customers who each buy three boxes a year, cuz I'm not buying those 12 boxes anymore.
A quick glance at the medium prices at a popular online store suggests the average standard deck (in big event T8's) is several hundred dollars. This number pulled down a bit by the $150 Red deck that keeps popping up successfully. The same number pushed high with decks like Mythic Conscription and their $600 medium price tag. (Over $1000 on the high lists!!!)
In Standard!
How much did that Extended WW deck in Amsterdam cost? LOL
If I'm going to spend $1000 I'll "invest" in some Legacy/Classic/Vintage stuff which tends to retain some value over the years.
Otherwise, I'll draft for fun on MTGO and play my "rareless" decks in the casual rooms. I play some Pauper PRE's and might make it to some cardboard prerelease events, but my days of chasing rares..er Mythics.. for Standard are done.
I had the same thing happen to me over the summer! Someone snarfed my account, sold off all my money cards and spent a whole night drafting on my account. Now anybody who knows me knows that the thief wasted his time, as robbing my MTGO account was like knocking over a little kids lemonade stand... probably not worth the trouble.
I the first thing I asked them to do was to change the password, which they did promptly. They did spend a week investigating, during which time my account was locked. After the investigation they concluded that a third party website or program was to blame. They can't really recompense you, check the terms of service. My guess is that someone hacked either this site or one of the other MTG websites I'm registered at. Do you use the same Nick/Password combination here and online? I'm worried that that is what happened. Especially if in your case it has happened again to another member of our community.
Also, it sounds like you hadn't even made the deck yet, or am I really too tired and misread? So the amount of people who knew you'd have good stuff is quite small.
I also panicked once when I couldn't log into my account, but could log into the free trial. I have no idea why and it righted itself a couple hours later. Yet, I'm fairly secure in my account because I chose a password no one could guess, shared it with no one and have it written down nowhere. Those three golden rules should secure most accounts.
Good luck with the recovery. =( Losing cards really sucks.
First of all, it's nice to see a Spike's perspective. That said, it seems like a little lazy deck building. I know, most Spikes don't have the inclination to get into grassroots deck building, but it would seem like there are other non-mythic decks out there that can do well, like Soul Sisters or Red Deck Wins (Kargan is only ten bucks). Those decks can do well and there may very well be other decks out there that haven't even been built yet that are cheap and effective... build one! ;)
Can't you just über-Spike other inexpensive formats? Classic, Legacy, Singleton, Pauper, etc. are all inexpensive in their own ways (eternal obviously in that they can be tweeked without fear of being obsoleted or needing to be completely overhauled). I mean, surely with all of Magic Online's formats you can find one to suit both your Spike temperament and budget.
I notice you have said zero about the alleged hacking. Were you on a private computer and internet connection? Do you use public wifi, or ever leave your password written down where it can be found, or share it with your friends? I appreciate you have had a bad day, but you need to give us facts not assumptions. The timing of the incident is very suspicious to me, clearly someone knew your account would be loaded up on that day, who knew?
Besides the fail not including white in #4 2 Cultivates and a Awakening Druid is the perfect reason to splash green. Not to mention the 2 naturalizes and plumet for the sideboard. You originally picked Hoarding Dragon over Serra Angel, which really baffles me. Act of treason is good, but it requires them to have a bomb to steal. If they have some combat trick and you don't end the game right there, you need to have a solution for it next turn so it doesn't knock you out. Borrowing the Titan for a turn might be cute, but what do you do when it swings back at you next turn? The answer is pacifism and it was never heard from again.
Maybe I am stuck in shards block, but 3 colors (especially with fixers) works well with m11. Did I mention TWO!! cultivates?!?!?!? Say you started with 2 cultivates 2 lands and 3x other cards. First draw is another land. That's now more than half your land removed from your deck (assuming 13 land). Fetch fixes and thins, this becomes even more powerful in a 30 card deck. Mean while your opponent is flooding you are dropping creature after creature each turn. Because that turn 4 Serra Angel with a flash freeze and cancel to protect, will usually run to the finish line. Maybe it comes down to personal play style. I am pretty sure #4 would have been a bomb WUG build. Safe passage and sleep can be a game winner. Not to mention 2 time scours can really put someone on the clock with a 30 card deck.
Enjoyable read.
I understand your no-love for mythics, especially about the standard environment which is clearly a “get your own mythics or pass your turn” (it could be exaggerated a bit … but to me, it’s not that far from reality anyway). That said, I don’t necessarly agree with your “mythic card conception rules”. I think the casting cost shouldn’t be considered independently from the global potence of a card in a defined metagame. To increase the CC contributes to make mythics fairer in some cases that’s true, but not always. In example, I don’t consider persecutor to be a mistake. This is a strong card, no doubt, but isn’t close to jace’s/vengevine’s potence imo. Same goes with Linvala or warren instigator to me. Sure, the casting cost is a way to regulate the brokenness of a card, but it is not the only way, and not the way I would support the most as if all mythics creatures should be 6CC to be fair, then eternal format almost never could use them … and this would be a shame. Regarding global interest of eternal format for new sets, but also regarding the “return of investment” considering the value of “only standard format staples” after rotations. To sum this up, I would say that Mythic rarity is a money engine and what you related in your article about increased investment to play standard is pretty correct to me, and this is globably not really fair : the best cards are mythics so they are rarer, so they are more expansive… Vicious circle. But it does not mean most of mythic rares are “broken or unfair” in themselves (with exceptions like jace and few others). At the moment mythic rarity is established, this would have been unlogical to me that the rarest cards wouldn’t have been just more powerful/useful than simple rare. But all in all, this is the mythic policy in itself which is pretty unfair to me, regarding players enthusiast as well.
One of the most fun browser games I was involved with was tkdragon.com (Don't know if it's still around but it is probably in its nth iteration if so.) Also of interest in the same rpg vein and better but cut short in its prime: Forlorn Hope Online. Sadly good rpg browser games tend to fail because of lack of support, and excessive bug exploitation. THAT is the real reason I fear a browser based client. How the front end works will remain to be seen but it is a scary prospect that the bugs and exploits that hound so many games could be introduced to MTGO.
Thanks for telling us your story. It made you more real in my eyes. As far as mythics go, there IS no hope. You either put up the money or don't. Some will manage due to perseverance and luck and others won't.
"Luckily MTGO has this neat feature where you can't have more than one client open on a PC at a time"
In fact, you CAN open more instances of the client at once. Normally, MTGO is installed with a desktop-icon pointing to the kicker.exe (which checks the version and stuff before showing the splash loading-screen). But if you go into the installed directory, you'll find MTGO_NET.exe which you can start multiple times. Log into your different accounts and transfer away.
But again, this information is too late for you :P
Congrats on your wife being pregnant!! Hope it is a smooth pregnancy and that the baby is healthy.
I opened a new account a few months ago after being unsatisfied with my old username. If you haven't already, just avoid opening the planeswalker deck altogether. Although you can't trade it, you can leave it in box form and never have to see the cards.
And as for opening two clients on the same PC, you can actually do it. You have to go to your WOTC folder and open MTGO_Net and it'll let you log in under two different account names. Was useful to transfer the cards from account to account.
My wife is doing well, she's just having to take it easy and eat lots of hospital food =P.
I'm sorry the new time is bad for you, maybe in a few months we'll do 2 tournaments a week with one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Until then of course I hope you can make it often.
I still have your tix and foil to give you from the first tournament. So I'll keep looking for you online for that.
Hope your wife is fine Xao. Sorry I couldn't make it. Because of the time difference, it's not the best time for me, won't be able to make it every week I guess.
The metagame will settle down eventually I imagine.
The format has a static legal list now http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2008 so for large chunks of time the legal cards will not change, also making whole new decks is usually far cheaper in Heirloom than tweaking a standard deck is, maybe hard to be the best Heirloom player without alot of struggle, but being a good one should be doable enough without a terrible lot of time or money invested, especially with a ton of very good decklists already posted to draw from.
It seems like I hardly have time to keep abreast of fast moving formats like Standard I can't see how I would have time to play this format unless I kept to one archetype like Sligh or RG Beatz, you know, something that will probably always be tweekable and playable.
Here's an unsolicited suggestion you might consider for your podcasts. Instead of adding another partner, why not build a stable of recurring guests instead? The benefits would be several:
1) This would free up your format in case you ever want to have a celebrity guest; you'd just schedule them in one week and it's not like you've crowded the mike or kicked anyone out.
2) It allows you to use people who might be interesting but can't commit to a regular podcast. For example I'm witty and charming and brilliant. And humble. That might make me a delightful guest, but I should never be a host because sometimes I'd just be like "Yeah I didn't turn the program on this week. What game is this again?" (Or more realistically you interview Xaoslegend one week about how Heirloom is shaping up. He'd obviously be better than me, I'm just saying for example.)
3) It lets you take a punt on a person or topic that might be fun once, or once a month, but would burn out an audience in large doses. (See above.)
4) You know how some weeks there's just nothing to talk about? If you add the same guy every week, he's going to have that problem too. But a guy you haven't spoken with in 4 weeks would likely have something else to offer.
TV panel shows and radio crews, whether news or comedy, often do this for exactly the above reasons. They have one-time, recurring, frequent, and friend-of-the-show guests who fill in at the last minute. And you can play it by ear to see if listeners are bored, entertained, or infuriated by any particular guest.
Bloodthrone Vampire + Act of Treason > Pacifism
and
Pacifism > Act of Treason
and
Hoarding Dragon + Triskelion + 2xBloodthrone Vampire > Serra Angel
For me this build was more about card interactions over the raw power of the cards. I only went 2-1 with the pool so I'm willing to admit that raw power might have been the better call. But I believe it was a close call.
Pacifism itself is not a permanent solution, since Naturalize, Acidic Slime, War Priest of Thune, and Solemn Offering are quite playable. I reasoned that with 2 Bloodthrone Vampires and a Gravedigger I should be able to get and keep one on the table most of the time to make Act of Treason into a permanent removal spell. It didn't work out that way in the final match but it did work out in my first two matches so I don't think it was a horrible decision, just probably not the optimal one.
The main problem with splashing Cultivate is figuring out your mana base. Since green is a splash, you don't want too many forests, but if you cast Cultivate early you have access to all three colors. Therefore you want enough forests in your deck to cast Cultivate. Cultivate itself doesn't help you find that first forest. So either you have a few (3-4) forests in the deck and risk having a Cultivate in your deck you can't play until turn 6-7 or you have a lot of forests (5-7) and risk drawing all forests and no Cultivates meaning which means you can't cast any of your business spells.
Basically a three color deck carries a lot of added risk that you won't get to your colors when you need them. Adding Cultivate as a third color to fix your colors and thin your deck means that it is just working against itself.
Hi! Thx for this interesting article!
The mythic prices of must-haves made me quit standard events. Beside some draft, i always sell everything relevant for formats after each draft, i only play heirloom right now! a really funny and competetive format with an amazing cardpool and a budget level that breaks even pauper!!! If interested, just check xaoslegends article on this side! http://puremtgo.com/articles/heirloom-constructed
Best wishes!
My story is a little different than Jyalts, but I agree with him!
I was always the guy with all the cards in my small town. Since Revised I was averaging 12 boxes a year (and that's including the times we didn't always have a proper "4th" set during the summer).
Plus buying singles at stores, and then online when the net came around.
Plus driving 100 miles to events. Lots of them.
I spent (blew?) enough money on Magic that I even played a foil deck for my first PTQ T4 back in 2001. All 75 cards.
At one time people joked that if I hadn't bought so much 6th edition they wouldn't have bothered with 7th edition.
I bought all the corney boxed sets they used to come out with (the newer ones are much cooler).
I even bought ALL the "precon" decks (but stopped with the 2nd set of the new intro packs...)
I was into about my 3rd box of Alara when I realized I still couldn't build half of the Stadard decks-to-beat.
Okay, so it's a trading card game. Trade 12 packs for one Mythic? Not good math for my wallet.
Trade a handful of medium rares for a hot mythic? Still leaves me not being able to build a lot of decks.
So I hope Wizards has acquired 6 new customers who each buy 2 boxes a year, or 4 customers who each buy three boxes a year, cuz I'm not buying those 12 boxes anymore.
A quick glance at the medium prices at a popular online store suggests the average standard deck (in big event T8's) is several hundred dollars. This number pulled down a bit by the $150 Red deck that keeps popping up successfully. The same number pushed high with decks like Mythic Conscription and their $600 medium price tag. (Over $1000 on the high lists!!!)
In Standard!
How much did that Extended WW deck in Amsterdam cost? LOL
If I'm going to spend $1000 I'll "invest" in some Legacy/Classic/Vintage stuff which tends to retain some value over the years.
Otherwise, I'll draft for fun on MTGO and play my "rareless" decks in the casual rooms. I play some Pauper PRE's and might make it to some cardboard prerelease events, but my days of chasing rares..er Mythics.. for Standard are done.
I had the same thing happen to me over the summer! Someone snarfed my account, sold off all my money cards and spent a whole night drafting on my account. Now anybody who knows me knows that the thief wasted his time, as robbing my MTGO account was like knocking over a little kids lemonade stand... probably not worth the trouble.
I the first thing I asked them to do was to change the password, which they did promptly. They did spend a week investigating, during which time my account was locked. After the investigation they concluded that a third party website or program was to blame. They can't really recompense you, check the terms of service. My guess is that someone hacked either this site or one of the other MTG websites I'm registered at. Do you use the same Nick/Password combination here and online? I'm worried that that is what happened. Especially if in your case it has happened again to another member of our community.
Also, it sounds like you hadn't even made the deck yet, or am I really too tired and misread? So the amount of people who knew you'd have good stuff is quite small.
I also panicked once when I couldn't log into my account, but could log into the free trial. I have no idea why and it righted itself a couple hours later. Yet, I'm fairly secure in my account because I chose a password no one could guess, shared it with no one and have it written down nowhere. Those three golden rules should secure most accounts.
Good luck with the recovery. =( Losing cards really sucks.
First of all, it's nice to see a Spike's perspective. That said, it seems like a little lazy deck building. I know, most Spikes don't have the inclination to get into grassroots deck building, but it would seem like there are other non-mythic decks out there that can do well, like Soul Sisters or Red Deck Wins (Kargan is only ten bucks). Those decks can do well and there may very well be other decks out there that haven't even been built yet that are cheap and effective... build one! ;)
Can't you just über-Spike other inexpensive formats? Classic, Legacy, Singleton, Pauper, etc. are all inexpensive in their own ways (eternal obviously in that they can be tweeked without fear of being obsoleted or needing to be completely overhauled). I mean, surely with all of Magic Online's formats you can find one to suit both your Spike temperament and budget.
I notice you have said zero about the alleged hacking. Were you on a private computer and internet connection? Do you use public wifi, or ever leave your password written down where it can be found, or share it with your friends? I appreciate you have had a bad day, but you need to give us facts not assumptions. The timing of the incident is very suspicious to me, clearly someone knew your account would be loaded up on that day, who knew?
Besides the fail not including white in #4 2 Cultivates and a Awakening Druid is the perfect reason to splash green. Not to mention the 2 naturalizes and plumet for the sideboard. You originally picked Hoarding Dragon over Serra Angel, which really baffles me. Act of treason is good, but it requires them to have a bomb to steal. If they have some combat trick and you don't end the game right there, you need to have a solution for it next turn so it doesn't knock you out. Borrowing the Titan for a turn might be cute, but what do you do when it swings back at you next turn? The answer is pacifism and it was never heard from again.
Maybe I am stuck in shards block, but 3 colors (especially with fixers) works well with m11. Did I mention TWO!! cultivates?!?!?!? Say you started with 2 cultivates 2 lands and 3x other cards. First draw is another land. That's now more than half your land removed from your deck (assuming 13 land). Fetch fixes and thins, this becomes even more powerful in a 30 card deck. Mean while your opponent is flooding you are dropping creature after creature each turn. Because that turn 4 Serra Angel with a flash freeze and cancel to protect, will usually run to the finish line. Maybe it comes down to personal play style. I am pretty sure #4 would have been a bomb WUG build. Safe passage and sleep can be a game winner. Not to mention 2 time scours can really put someone on the clock with a 30 card deck.
Enjoyable read.
I understand your no-love for mythics, especially about the standard environment which is clearly a “get your own mythics or pass your turn” (it could be exaggerated a bit … but to me, it’s not that far from reality anyway). That said, I don’t necessarly agree with your “mythic card conception rules”. I think the casting cost shouldn’t be considered independently from the global potence of a card in a defined metagame. To increase the CC contributes to make mythics fairer in some cases that’s true, but not always. In example, I don’t consider persecutor to be a mistake. This is a strong card, no doubt, but isn’t close to jace’s/vengevine’s potence imo. Same goes with Linvala or warren instigator to me. Sure, the casting cost is a way to regulate the brokenness of a card, but it is not the only way, and not the way I would support the most as if all mythics creatures should be 6CC to be fair, then eternal format almost never could use them … and this would be a shame. Regarding global interest of eternal format for new sets, but also regarding the “return of investment” considering the value of “only standard format staples” after rotations. To sum this up, I would say that Mythic rarity is a money engine and what you related in your article about increased investment to play standard is pretty correct to me, and this is globably not really fair : the best cards are mythics so they are rarer, so they are more expansive… Vicious circle. But it does not mean most of mythic rares are “broken or unfair” in themselves (with exceptions like jace and few others). At the moment mythic rarity is established, this would have been unlogical to me that the rarest cards wouldn’t have been just more powerful/useful than simple rare. But all in all, this is the mythic policy in itself which is pretty unfair to me, regarding players enthusiast as well.
One of the most fun browser games I was involved with was tkdragon.com (Don't know if it's still around but it is probably in its nth iteration if so.) Also of interest in the same rpg vein and better but cut short in its prime: Forlorn Hope Online. Sadly good rpg browser games tend to fail because of lack of support, and excessive bug exploitation. THAT is the real reason I fear a browser based client. How the front end works will remain to be seen but it is a scary prospect that the bugs and exploits that hound so many games could be introduced to MTGO.
Thanks for telling us your story. It made you more real in my eyes. As far as mythics go, there IS no hope. You either put up the money or don't. Some will manage due to perseverance and luck and others won't.
"Luckily MTGO has this neat feature where you can't have more than one client open on a PC at a time"
In fact, you CAN open more instances of the client at once. Normally, MTGO is installed with a desktop-icon pointing to the kicker.exe (which checks the version and stuff before showing the splash loading-screen). But if you go into the installed directory, you'll find MTGO_NET.exe which you can start multiple times. Log into your different accounts and transfer away.
But again, this information is too late for you :P
EDIT: DAMMIT, too late :(
Congrats on your wife being pregnant!! Hope it is a smooth pregnancy and that the baby is healthy.
I opened a new account a few months ago after being unsatisfied with my old username. If you haven't already, just avoid opening the planeswalker deck altogether. Although you can't trade it, you can leave it in box form and never have to see the cards.
And as for opening two clients on the same PC, you can actually do it. You have to go to your WOTC folder and open MTGO_Net and it'll let you log in under two different account names. Was useful to transfer the cards from account to account.
Thanks Feast,
My wife is doing well, she's just having to take it easy and eat lots of hospital food =P.
I'm sorry the new time is bad for you, maybe in a few months we'll do 2 tournaments a week with one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Until then of course I hope you can make it often.
I still have your tix and foil to give you from the first tournament. So I'll keep looking for you online for that.
Xaoslegend-
Spoils of the Vault with Children of Korlis....
It's fun with voltaic key and myr battlesphere.
Hope your wife is fine Xao. Sorry I couldn't make it. Because of the time difference, it's not the best time for me, won't be able to make it every week I guess.
The metagame will settle down eventually I imagine.
Hey MMogg,
The format has a static legal list now http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2008 so for large chunks of time the legal cards will not change, also making whole new decks is usually far cheaper in Heirloom than tweaking a standard deck is, maybe hard to be the best Heirloom player without alot of struggle, but being a good one should be doable enough without a terrible lot of time or money invested, especially with a ton of very good decklists already posted to draw from.
Xaoslegend-
Hey Paul,
Tx for your warm wishes, I appreciate it. I'm optimistic all will work out beautifully in the end.
Mike-
Hey Thuh-Nagarjuna,
Glad it was still great without me, I sure missed out not being there,
Some of the tix and the m11 pack were donated (by you, SekKuar Deathkeeper and Hoffefin so it wasnt all me =))
have a good one man-
Hope it all works out for your family.
+10
I agree with others that say it's interesting but time intensive. For example, Lightning Bolt is now at 5 cents, making it legal.
http://www.mtgotraders.com/store/M11_Lightning_Bolt.html
It seems like I hardly have time to keep abreast of fast moving formats like Standard I can't see how I would have time to play this format unless I kept to one archetype like Sligh or RG Beatz, you know, something that will probably always be tweekable and playable.
Any comments or question are greatly apprieciated.
Hey Guys!
This weeks Heirloom Event is over and was a lot of fun! Still growing fast so! Decklists are posted here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75846/25798377/MTGO_Free_Hei...
Thx to xaos for giving out Tix, Foils and a Booster! Thx to Mr. Slippery for hosting the Event today! And thx to u guys for showing up!
Best wishes
Here's an unsolicited suggestion you might consider for your podcasts. Instead of adding another partner, why not build a stable of recurring guests instead? The benefits would be several:
1) This would free up your format in case you ever want to have a celebrity guest; you'd just schedule them in one week and it's not like you've crowded the mike or kicked anyone out.
2) It allows you to use people who might be interesting but can't commit to a regular podcast. For example I'm witty and charming and brilliant. And humble. That might make me a delightful guest, but I should never be a host because sometimes I'd just be like "Yeah I didn't turn the program on this week. What game is this again?" (Or more realistically you interview Xaoslegend one week about how Heirloom is shaping up. He'd obviously be better than me, I'm just saying for example.)
3) It lets you take a punt on a person or topic that might be fun once, or once a month, but would burn out an audience in large doses. (See above.)
4) You know how some weeks there's just nothing to talk about? If you add the same guy every week, he's going to have that problem too. But a guy you haven't spoken with in 4 weeks would likely have something else to offer.
TV panel shows and radio crews, whether news or comedy, often do this for exactly the above reasons. They have one-time, recurring, frequent, and friend-of-the-show guests who fill in at the last minute. And you can play it by ear to see if listeners are bored, entertained, or infuriated by any particular guest.