Maybe you should title your tables... like the above poster, it took me like 6 months to realize they show the biggest value gainers, biggest percentage gainers, biggest value losers, and biggest percentage losers, which is why sometimes the same card shows up on multiple tables.
Red - Dragons
Black - Demons
Blue - some sort of flyer. Djinn? Sphinx? Not a lot to work with there.
Green - always kind of screwed with the iconic creatures. Too many beasts. Wurm? That's a tough one.
well whining and bitching about and being an all-around douchebag isnt to effective. You can sit there and bitch and moan all you want on your little keyboard. Its not going to change the fact that more people are playing magic more than ever. Which means plenty of people obviously have no issue with mythic rarity. Either pay for them or dont. But if you do decide to buy them dont expect people to care about how much they cost you. And your assesment of my point is totally wrong. My point is, you choose if you want to play mythics. No one forces you too. WotC isnt forcing you to buy the mythics on the secondary market...thats how you chose to spend your cash. So now you think you can complain over how you spent your cash and put blame on someone else? dude go fuck yourself, youre a fucking idiot. your mom should have swallowed you
I've always found it amusing how people complain about Wizards and how they chose to operate their business. I have a secret for you, companies who are in business are there to make profits! This sense of entitlement we get from society now a days is sickening (I'm a customer, woe is me).
Typical business will operate with these 3 things in mind.
1. Is this decision right for the company?
2. Is this decision right for the shareholders?
3. Is this decision right for the customers?
The truth is, believe it or not, printing Mythics did in fact fulfill yes answers to all 3 questions. Mythics drove down prices of rares and made FNM's all across the country more casual.
A great business thrives at these three things.
1. Revenue growth
2. Profit
3. Great relationships with internal and external customers
1. Revenue growth is simply them selling as many packs as possible, but also and more importantly doing the necessary things to bring new players into the game (ie xbox). Everyone has heard of McDonalds, yet they still advertise. Why?
2. Profit - easily explained, they can't sustain profit losses for long period of times without major drawbacks or even dismantling of the company.
3. Internal customer would be the people that work for them. Happy employees make great employees. External is obviously you and I who buy their products.
In the end, this game we love is ran by a company in the business of making money and until we accept that as fact, these type of threads will never end!
I won my last match and ended up with a 2-1 record with the help of the bye. It's strange how so many people drop after the first round in 4-booster swiss. I guess they're looking for MOCS points.
Anyway, I had 2 gargoyles, one was foil.
You may be right that I underestimate Azure Drake. I certainly think it's a good creature, but it's also defensive and I've found that defensive strategies don't work very well in M2011. I'll have to watch my evaluation of Azure Drake in the future.
Yes, this build is a lot better than the black blue one I originally submitted. Stormtide Leviathan was terrible. I could never survive long enough to use it. In the future I'm probably not going to even play it unless I've got multiple Cultivates.
Hoarding Dragon is very good, but it also has little to search for in this pool. That's the main reason why it didn't pull me stronger in that direction.
I still like the three color build in my rebuild of the decklist because I haven't had much difficulty with three colors when I have 2 color fixers and a dual land.
@Bastow... I'm going to say this as nicely as possible. I'm about as far from a tournament player as you are likely to find in these parts. Yet I agree with you that many of these prices are insane and that bugs me because it means that there are parts of this game I love that I will most likely never get to experience. Its not just the tourney players who are feeling gypped in this situation. If I crack a Primeval Titan I pretty much hafta sell it to fill out the rest of my collection, I'll almost never get to play with it. I think the new Venser pwalker looks cool, but I'll most likely never get to use him either because you tourney players will drive his price thru the roof if he is at all useful. And you know what? This has always been true, even before mythics. I never owned a WoG until they took it out of std due to price. Mythics just exacerbate the problem.
That being said, at this point I don't give a crap what you think about it. Every single other commenter in this thread has gone out of his way to be polite. Nobody has told you to shut up, yet you have repeatedly tried to exclude others from the discussion. Maybe it's the internet. Maybe irl you'd be a nice guy to have a beer with. But right now, in this thread, you are coming off as a boorish, foulmouthed douchebag.
I have a splintermite deck for tribal wars classic (knights) using Spinter Twin and Sky Hussar. Pestermite of course is also in the deck. I am a little surprised this sort of casual combo (if potentially infinite if unstopped) had an impact in a high ranked tourney. I guess I was right to pull that deck from casual casual play before people started getting mad at it. Lol. Middleman is right though. It is all about the hasty innumerable 2/1 fliers. (You simply need to make more than your op can deal with, though a single fallout or other instant speed global damage would ruin that plan severely.)
Still busy trying to evade my points I see. Your entire argument boils down to "if a company arbitrarily raises the cost of a luxury item you desire by a fairly large amount, you aren't allowed to voice displeasure or feel screwed over". If that's your stance fine, but don't expect others to simply accept it as a golden rule. Mythic rares really suck for a lot of players, don't just expect them to bend over. People want to go on record to say "hey, guess what, mythics still suck and we still think you screwed us over", calling that stupid is just plain fucking ignorant. I for one don't share your loyalty to the capital and I hopefully never will.
Hey, ran into you in the 4-man queues tonight. Hope you won your last match!
In your second event, i thought UB was the way to go. Cloud Elemental isn't a monster, but it's a solid beater who's very hard to stop with any of the white fliers short of Serra Angel. I think you massively underrate
Again, sad about leaving Shiv's Embrace in the board.
Diminish
2x Preordain
Mana Leak
Child of Night
Reassembling Skeleton
Assassinate
Quag Sickness
Cloud Elemental
2x Barony Vampire
2x Gargoyle Sentinel (unless you only had one...)
2x Azure Drake
Gravedigger
Rise from the Grave
Stone Golem
Your sideboard is really thin:
Phantom Beast (Against a deck with few target effects, your sideboard)
splash Red for Manic Vandal/Demolish against Whispersilk Cloak/Warlord's Axe/Crystal Ball/Fireball splash
Nice general overview of new Extended, but it really could have done with a bit closer editing.
"Treefolk Harbinger into Treefolk Harbinger, fetching Doran and beating for 20 in two swings (2 * Harbinger first swing, 2 * Harbinger plus Doran second swing) is pretty strong..."
This is actually something Doran CAN'T do after rotation, without drawing a second Harbinger in the opening 7 at least (3+3+3+3+5 = 17 =/=20). The '20 in two swings/by turn 4' required a tapped Treetop Village turn 2 to enable a 14 point swing on turn 4.
"Teachings is gone, as is Venser (the creature card, although there will be a new planeswalker version.) Many of the one-offs will also be gone, but Teachings and Venser were the tutor package that made the deck work. Teachings could tutor for any instant, and Venser gave all your creatures Flash so you could tutor for them, too."
You mean Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, who is in the deck, but certainly isn't getting reprinted as a Planeswalker, rather than Venser who isn't in the deck but is getting reprinted as a Planeswalker.
"Pils, however, had a different combo - Pestermite and Splinter Twin. That is an interesting combo - and one that might see more play in the future. The ability to tap everything your opponent has, and get a squadron of two power fliers at the same time, seems good."
This combo doesn't actually tap everything your opponent has, the triggered ability of Pestermite (When Pestermite comes into play, you may tap or untap target permanent.) is used to untap the original Pestermite so it can tap to create a new copy and so on.
Sorry if this came across a bit negative, I'm a fan of your articles generally and I'm sad your're no longer writing for SCG.
That opinion is "veiled" because it's nonexistent. I trust R&D not to print cards like the hypothetical Lotus Goyf simply because it's ridiculously overpowered. I don't think opening the door on nostalgia-based mythics opens the door for overpowered nostalgia-based mythics. The checks and balances that prevent cards like Lotus Goyf from being printed are as much in place as they ever have been (and in fact are stronger today than they have been in the past).
I think that common sense is what's stopping them from printing things like mythic dual land throwbacks. Firstly, allowing nostalgia-mythics isn't some kind of rule that other members of R&D can use as a loophole to get bad mythics made. As it stands there are no rules preventing them from printing anything they want at mythic. If they wanted to make mythic Scryb Sprites, they could. So if we apply the same "what's stopping them" question, the answer once again becomes "common sense".
Furthermore, Mox Opal is a fixed/tweaked mox, not a functional reprint. If we did see mythic dual lands - something I doubt we'll ever see - they'd be tweaks, not just functional reprints with flavorful names. They've never done a functional reprint of an overpowered card at mythic, and I don't think they will in the future. For one thing, functional reprints of overpowered cards just aren't something they do. The closest they've come are things like Mind Spring, and I don't think too many people would really call Braingeyser overpowered.
you still arent making a valid point...its your money. If you are choosing to spend it on mythics then thats your choice. No one is saying there is anything wrong with that. But for people to spend the money on mythics and at the same time still bitch about the prices is stupid.
Again, if you're not affected at all, why respond? Responses have not addressed my point in the slightest. Rehashing the same old, tired, retarded point doesn't make it right. If your honest opinion is that no one should ever complain about anything, that's fine. But then you shouldn't reply to this article. Like at all. Because, you know, you're complaining about people complaining.
To return to the movie example. To make this a straight up magic example: If no one buys into the tournament scene, i.e. no one goes to the theater, the rate of new cards/movies would be glacial. And if you don't care about that, why the fuck are you "arguing" in this discussion about new cards? Working overtime to find a hole in my entirely fictional example just show how little logic and reasoning you bring to this discussion. Everything I mentioned was simply to illustrate the point that everyone has a soft spot. A luxury item they don't need, but certainly like having around. Let's say every american ISP decided that your internet would from now on be capped at 28kps, unless you pay an extra 50% per month? Do you understand now or are you still too stubborn? I'm not calling for any radical boycott or any such nonsense, all I'm saying is that consumers shouldn't laud a company for fucking them over. And just to pull a preemptive strike on the knee-jerk reaction, fucking about with your turn 16 combo around the "kitchen table" isn't the same game as competitive magic. I'm not saying either is right or anything silly like that, it's just not the same game.
Disclaimer: I'm nothing special at 4-pack. I've played twice, 4-0 and 1-3.
This format is REALLY hard to read, but i do favor quantity in terms of understanding a new format. I'm glad you're playing lots of 4-pack, and sharing your results with us.
Sealed Pool 1:
Feels like it should have been R/B to me.
Child of Night
Reassembling Skeleton
Assassinate
Quag Sickness
Act of Treason
Mind Rot
2x Barony Vampire
Prodigal Pyromancer
Gravedigger
Canyon Minotaur
Shiv's Embrace
Rise from the Grave
Rotting Legion
Berserkers of Blood Ridge
Hoarding Dragon
Corrupt
Sideboard
Duress
Volcanic Strength
Stone Golem
Diabolic Tutor
Incite (against decks with amazing blockers like Giant Spider/Azure Drake or Ice Cage)
This gives you ten playable creatures, the same 3 pieces of removal, and very stable mana, as well as the two biggest bombs in your poor: Shiv's Embrace and Hoarding Dragon. Volcanic Strength might be the call over Act of Treason, especially against Red decks or decks splashing Fireball/Lightning Bolt.
I just really like Hoarding Dragon, Shiv's Embrace, and Pyromancer over Stormtide Leviathan, Ice Cage, and Sleep.
Maybe you should title your tables... like the above poster, it took me like 6 months to realize they show the biggest value gainers, biggest percentage gainers, biggest value losers, and biggest percentage losers, which is why sometimes the same card shows up on multiple tables.
You make some excellent points here. All true and all pretty much on target. Kudos.
Red - Dragons
Black - Demons
Blue - some sort of flyer. Djinn? Sphinx? Not a lot to work with there.
Green - always kind of screwed with the iconic creatures. Too many beasts. Wurm? That's a tough one.
well whining and bitching about and being an all-around douchebag isnt to effective. You can sit there and bitch and moan all you want on your little keyboard. Its not going to change the fact that more people are playing magic more than ever. Which means plenty of people obviously have no issue with mythic rarity. Either pay for them or dont. But if you do decide to buy them dont expect people to care about how much they cost you. And your assesment of my point is totally wrong. My point is, you choose if you want to play mythics. No one forces you too. WotC isnt forcing you to buy the mythics on the secondary market...thats how you chose to spend your cash. So now you think you can complain over how you spent your cash and put blame on someone else? dude go fuck yourself, youre a fucking idiot. your mom should have swallowed you
I've always found it amusing how people complain about Wizards and how they chose to operate their business. I have a secret for you, companies who are in business are there to make profits! This sense of entitlement we get from society now a days is sickening (I'm a customer, woe is me).
Typical business will operate with these 3 things in mind.
1. Is this decision right for the company?
2. Is this decision right for the shareholders?
3. Is this decision right for the customers?
The truth is, believe it or not, printing Mythics did in fact fulfill yes answers to all 3 questions. Mythics drove down prices of rares and made FNM's all across the country more casual.
A great business thrives at these three things.
1. Revenue growth
2. Profit
3. Great relationships with internal and external customers
1. Revenue growth is simply them selling as many packs as possible, but also and more importantly doing the necessary things to bring new players into the game (ie xbox). Everyone has heard of McDonalds, yet they still advertise. Why?
2. Profit - easily explained, they can't sustain profit losses for long period of times without major drawbacks or even dismantling of the company.
3. Internal customer would be the people that work for them. Happy employees make great employees. External is obviously you and I who buy their products.
In the end, this game we love is ran by a company in the business of making money and until we accept that as fact, these type of threads will never end!
I thought Momir came with the basic account.
Sent you an email
I won my last match and ended up with a 2-1 record with the help of the bye. It's strange how so many people drop after the first round in 4-booster swiss. I guess they're looking for MOCS points.
Anyway, I had 2 gargoyles, one was foil.
You may be right that I underestimate Azure Drake. I certainly think it's a good creature, but it's also defensive and I've found that defensive strategies don't work very well in M2011. I'll have to watch my evaluation of Azure Drake in the future.
Yes, this build is a lot better than the black blue one I originally submitted. Stormtide Leviathan was terrible. I could never survive long enough to use it. In the future I'm probably not going to even play it unless I've got multiple Cultivates.
Hoarding Dragon is very good, but it also has little to search for in this pool. That's the main reason why it didn't pull me stronger in that direction.
I still like the three color build in my rebuild of the decklist because I haven't had much difficulty with three colors when I have 2 color fixers and a dual land.
I hadn't thought of it, but I guess they designed Chimeric Mass just for that. Sweet.
@Bastow... I'm going to say this as nicely as possible. I'm about as far from a tournament player as you are likely to find in these parts. Yet I agree with you that many of these prices are insane and that bugs me because it means that there are parts of this game I love that I will most likely never get to experience. Its not just the tourney players who are feeling gypped in this situation. If I crack a Primeval Titan I pretty much hafta sell it to fill out the rest of my collection, I'll almost never get to play with it. I think the new Venser pwalker looks cool, but I'll most likely never get to use him either because you tourney players will drive his price thru the roof if he is at all useful. And you know what? This has always been true, even before mythics. I never owned a WoG until they took it out of std due to price. Mythics just exacerbate the problem.
That being said, at this point I don't give a crap what you think about it. Every single other commenter in this thread has gone out of his way to be polite. Nobody has told you to shut up, yet you have repeatedly tried to exclude others from the discussion. Maybe it's the internet. Maybe irl you'd be a nice guy to have a beer with. But right now, in this thread, you are coming off as a boorish, foulmouthed douchebag.
Steel Overseer en Philly Leech are both in the first two tables.
By the way, is there a way to track these prices better from day to day, without hanging around in the classified section all the time?
I have a splintermite deck for tribal wars classic (knights) using Spinter Twin and Sky Hussar. Pestermite of course is also in the deck. I am a little surprised this sort of casual combo (if potentially infinite if unstopped) had an impact in a high ranked tourney. I guess I was right to pull that deck from casual casual play before people started getting mad at it. Lol. Middleman is right though. It is all about the hasty innumerable 2/1 fliers. (You simply need to make more than your op can deal with, though a single fallout or other instant speed global damage would ruin that plan severely.)
Still busy trying to evade my points I see. Your entire argument boils down to "if a company arbitrarily raises the cost of a luxury item you desire by a fairly large amount, you aren't allowed to voice displeasure or feel screwed over". If that's your stance fine, but don't expect others to simply accept it as a golden rule. Mythic rares really suck for a lot of players, don't just expect them to bend over. People want to go on record to say "hey, guess what, mythics still suck and we still think you screwed us over", calling that stupid is just plain fucking ignorant. I for one don't share your loyalty to the capital and I hopefully never will.
I think you massively underrate Azure Drake. It's one of the best commons in the format.
Hey, ran into you in the 4-man queues tonight. Hope you won your last match!
In your second event, i thought UB was the way to go. Cloud Elemental isn't a monster, but it's a solid beater who's very hard to stop with any of the white fliers short of Serra Angel. I think you massively underrate
Again, sad about leaving Shiv's Embrace in the board.
Diminish
2x Preordain
Mana Leak
Child of Night
Reassembling Skeleton
Assassinate
Quag Sickness
Cloud Elemental
2x Barony Vampire
2x Gargoyle Sentinel (unless you only had one...)
2x Azure Drake
Gravedigger
Rise from the Grave
Stone Golem
Your sideboard is really thin:
Phantom Beast (Against a deck with few target effects, your sideboard)
splash Red for Manic Vandal/Demolish against Whispersilk Cloak/Warlord's Axe/Crystal Ball/Fireball splash
Nice general overview of new Extended, but it really could have done with a bit closer editing.
"Treefolk Harbinger into Treefolk Harbinger, fetching Doran and beating for 20 in two swings (2 * Harbinger first swing, 2 * Harbinger plus Doran second swing) is pretty strong..."
This is actually something Doran CAN'T do after rotation, without drawing a second Harbinger in the opening 7 at least (3+3+3+3+5 = 17 =/=20). The '20 in two swings/by turn 4' required a tapped Treetop Village turn 2 to enable a 14 point swing on turn 4.
"Teachings is gone, as is Venser (the creature card, although there will be a new planeswalker version.) Many of the one-offs will also be gone, but Teachings and Venser were the tutor package that made the deck work. Teachings could tutor for any instant, and Venser gave all your creatures Flash so you could tutor for them, too."
You mean Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, who is in the deck, but certainly isn't getting reprinted as a Planeswalker, rather than Venser who isn't in the deck but is getting reprinted as a Planeswalker.
"Pils, however, had a different combo - Pestermite and Splinter Twin. That is an interesting combo - and one that might see more play in the future. The ability to tap everything your opponent has, and get a squadron of two power fliers at the same time, seems good."
This combo doesn't actually tap everything your opponent has, the triggered ability of Pestermite (When Pestermite comes into play, you may tap or untap target permanent.) is used to untap the original Pestermite so it can tap to create a new copy and so on.
Sorry if this came across a bit negative, I'm a fan of your articles generally and I'm sad your're no longer writing for SCG.
That opinion is "veiled" because it's nonexistent. I trust R&D not to print cards like the hypothetical Lotus Goyf simply because it's ridiculously overpowered. I don't think opening the door on nostalgia-based mythics opens the door for overpowered nostalgia-based mythics. The checks and balances that prevent cards like Lotus Goyf from being printed are as much in place as they ever have been (and in fact are stronger today than they have been in the past).
I think that common sense is what's stopping them from printing things like mythic dual land throwbacks. Firstly, allowing nostalgia-mythics isn't some kind of rule that other members of R&D can use as a loophole to get bad mythics made. As it stands there are no rules preventing them from printing anything they want at mythic. If they wanted to make mythic Scryb Sprites, they could. So if we apply the same "what's stopping them" question, the answer once again becomes "common sense".
Furthermore, Mox Opal is a fixed/tweaked mox, not a functional reprint. If we did see mythic dual lands - something I doubt we'll ever see - they'd be tweaks, not just functional reprints with flavorful names. They've never done a functional reprint of an overpowered card at mythic, and I don't think they will in the future. For one thing, functional reprints of overpowered cards just aren't something they do. The closest they've come are things like Mind Spring, and I don't think too many people would really call Braingeyser overpowered.
you still arent making a valid point...its your money. If you are choosing to spend it on mythics then thats your choice. No one is saying there is anything wrong with that. But for people to spend the money on mythics and at the same time still bitch about the prices is stupid.
Again, if you're not affected at all, why respond? Responses have not addressed my point in the slightest. Rehashing the same old, tired, retarded point doesn't make it right. If your honest opinion is that no one should ever complain about anything, that's fine. But then you shouldn't reply to this article. Like at all. Because, you know, you're complaining about people complaining.
To return to the movie example. To make this a straight up magic example: If no one buys into the tournament scene, i.e. no one goes to the theater, the rate of new cards/movies would be glacial. And if you don't care about that, why the fuck are you "arguing" in this discussion about new cards? Working overtime to find a hole in my entirely fictional example just show how little logic and reasoning you bring to this discussion. Everything I mentioned was simply to illustrate the point that everyone has a soft spot. A luxury item they don't need, but certainly like having around. Let's say every american ISP decided that your internet would from now on be capped at 28kps, unless you pay an extra 50% per month? Do you understand now or are you still too stubborn? I'm not calling for any radical boycott or any such nonsense, all I'm saying is that consumers shouldn't laud a company for fucking them over. And just to pull a preemptive strike on the knee-jerk reaction, fucking about with your turn 16 combo around the "kitchen table" isn't the same game as competitive magic. I'm not saying either is right or anything silly like that, it's just not the same game.
To be honest I'm open to ideas It doesnt even have to be creatures. I had thought of Dragons and it is possible.
I was waiting to see if someone suggested anything.
Is your photo supposed to appear sideways? Great article!
Nice overview. This new extended just seems like Standard to me. But what do I know.
Glad you are still writing here at least.
Disclaimer: I'm nothing special at 4-pack. I've played twice, 4-0 and 1-3.
This format is REALLY hard to read, but i do favor quantity in terms of understanding a new format. I'm glad you're playing lots of 4-pack, and sharing your results with us.
Sealed Pool 1:
Feels like it should have been R/B to me.
Child of Night
Reassembling Skeleton
Assassinate
Quag Sickness
Act of Treason
Mind Rot
2x Barony Vampire
Prodigal Pyromancer
Gravedigger
Canyon Minotaur
Shiv's Embrace
Rise from the Grave
Rotting Legion
Berserkers of Blood Ridge
Hoarding Dragon
Corrupt
Sideboard
Duress
Volcanic Strength
Stone Golem
Diabolic Tutor
Incite (against decks with amazing blockers like Giant Spider/Azure Drake or Ice Cage)
This gives you ten playable creatures, the same 3 pieces of removal, and very stable mana, as well as the two biggest bombs in your poor: Shiv's Embrace and Hoarding Dragon. Volcanic Strength might be the call over Act of Treason, especially against Red decks or decks splashing Fireball/Lightning Bolt.
I just really like Hoarding Dragon, Shiv's Embrace, and Pyromancer over Stormtide Leviathan, Ice Cage, and Sleep.