Now this is what gets me on one hand you have a Progenitus/Natural Order combo and the other hand Doomsday/Shelldock Isle both of which are combo decks that can win very early on in the game. Yet one player is applauded for a good deck and the other scorned.
It doesn’t really make much sense as they are both combo decks which makes them way more competitive than the rest of the decks in the event.
Thanks for the comment I will be including comments next time for sure.
I'll also link the packs and fix the links on RoE to point to Traders, I changed Urza's Legacy but forgot RoE after reverting from displaying paper prices.
I cleared the Sudo spelling through him first, I changed the spelling the last time we ran an article of his, and this time kept it inline with the play on his screen name.
You mentioned Forsythe discussing the ravnica dual land inclusion in m11/10 and why they were not. Do you have a link too that article? I would like to read it.
I have plenty of cheese here for all the whine on this board. Good lord, grow a set and suck it up. Its a game, if you think its anything more, you are delusional.
I've really been enjoying these. Try to keep as much info on them as you can as time goes on. I agree more comments would be enjoyable and ignite more discussion in the comments. For example, you mention Classic is dropping due to in being underplayed. I don't really agree with this, most of the Classic only cards have stabilized by now. If you are talking about Classic sets in general, the big reason they are dropping is due to the very good Nix Pax offerings recently. Until the 12 Tix Nix pax ME123 and ME112233 sealed for 30 tix the duals and fow were all going up.
Also, links on the booster packs would be nice too. I like to click the links to see if the price has changed yet (btw RoE should likely be linking to mtgotraders).
I was very angry over the changes and still am feeling slightly put out. Mainly because after the last season of extended I decided to buy some of the Ravnica lands for two reasons. One, at the time they would have been legal for two and a half more years. and Two, they are necessary to be competitive and were at their cheapest at the time. So a smart buy in order to play them and not have to worry about the price jump that occurs near the start of extended season. I know a lot of others who happened to do the same. Then we get told...yeah extended guess what in two weeks its completely different. Which sucks because now Ive bought a lot of cards to play in a format which is fundamentally different and now own cards that have no play anywhere. I dont care that they lost value. I care I lost money in an attempt to actually play.
I have to say as someone who cares very little about the extended change from a personal level I object to the characterization of those who cry foul (fowl?) at the change timing to be chicken littles. This isn't last years incredibly complex set of rules changes (well simplifications with extreme clauses) so I don't think people ARE saying "The sky is falling!" for the most part. I think people are complaining rightfully so that a) wotc didn't care enough to give decent notice and b) they don't seem to care enough about their casual player base to keep some format that people can play ravnica in. In my conversations in casual chat with WotC Matt and others the vibe I got was "Boo hoo, get over it." And as I said it doesn't affect me personally. Though I am dismayed at what seems like a very cavalier attitude towards those who ARE affected.
I don't expect that WotC will fix it. I think they are quite happy with things as they are. Until they decide that Classic is no longer cost effective to support, etc. Then they will 'fix' things again that aren't broke.
There's a difference between treating playing Magic as an investment and expecting there to be some consistency in the values of cards. It's a hobby, and for many players it's a fairly expensive one; one of the best ways to mitigate the cost has been to make smart purchases of valuable (both in dollars and in play versatility) cards that are relatively stable. It's basically the opposite of speculating; if I have a fixed amount of money to spend on new cards, historically one of the best ways to go about it was to focus on buying cards that can be used in multiple decks that are most likely to retain their value over the course of a season. Look at Reflecting Pool during Lorwyn standard -- basically a four-of in every deck. In extended, Ravinica duals were the poster-child for this approach to the game; stable in monetary value and playable in almost every deck in the format. Buying these cards wasn't an "investment" in the sense of speculating on their value, but it certainly was an investment in your ability to enjoy your hobby. The way in which the early rotation was handled, specifically the lack of notice, created a situation where what had been incredibly conservative collections evaporated in value.
I don't think the realigning of extended is a bad thing (even if I suddenly don't have anything to trade for the Jaces and Baneslayers that will dominate it any more), but it's completely disingenuous to say "Well, so what? The price changes would have happened immediately, no matter when the change was announced." When format rotations are known ahead of time (and it wasn't that long ago that Wizards realigned and normalized extended rotations -- we haven't even made it through a full cycle in the most recent system), it allows players to make informed decisions about the collections they are expected to spend money on, trading or selling at the height of a PTQ season, for instance, rather than waiting for the season to end. Sudden announcements like this destabilize the underlying idea of spending money on pieces of cardboard and INCREASE the inherent speculation on card value, which isn't a good thing for anybody involved.
I was wondering if a hydra fan would pop up. There are actually a lot of you guys out there.
My problems with him are that it costs 3 mans to give him one counter, youcant attack and use his ability, and you have to remove all his counters when you use it. But kudos to you for finding a spot for him. Although in general I think you would be happier with Ghitu War Cry.
i totally agree with you i just wish alot of the chicken littles would see that this is true a well and enjoy the format as it is rather then expect wizards to come "fix" it any time that the meta settles into a certain set of decks for awhile.
You didn't mention CoP:White in your article. Knowing when to side it in should be pretty obvious but I think that you need to at least talk about it. Also missing is the mirror analysis. Is CoP:White good there? Is Duress?
Also, two things about the Faeries deck:
Goblins is not even close to its worst match-up.
It has plenty of outs to Guardian of the Guildpact.
"I looked at all the games that won the "Best of" awards at Origins over the same period as Magic. Magic, and some its expansions, won awards over the years. Dungeons and Dragons won a couple times. Lots of other games won awards. Of those, the ones that are still being published, and thriving, are basically Magic and D&D. The rest have, almost entirely, failed. Many were great games - but they failed."
Hey Peter, this is fellow judge Eric. I would have to take issue with this statement. HeroClix won game of the year in 2003, and is still going strong. Hackmaster as well. If you're only talking card games, I believe L5R is also still publishing, and it won as well.
The Origins awards are a bit hard to parse because they've changed categories about 7 times in 20 years, but I don't think the statement "all games that won 'best of' except Magic and D&D have failed" holds any real weight.
This is a great article and you have a great point, but I don't think that particular paragraph adds much to the thesis that Wizards knows what it is doing, and impugns several other awesome games.
The change to a new ext format isnt what angers people, its the lack of respect shown to the players by only giving 2 weeks notice. Not only does it give players no time to prepare (sell/buy cards, change decks), having a 2 week notice also made it so all the cards that will be rotating out immediately dropped in value, instead of a slower decline that 6 months notice wouldve made. On top of that, the best format for casual games (i know its hard to fathom that some people are not tourney players, just casual players) is now gone. ext might not fire tournements but its alive and well for casual. Standard and new ext are both too limited to make any unique decks, and legacy is far too expensive for the average player. A huge majority of magic players dont play tournements, just casual. This change makes most casual decks obsolete.
STOP TALKING ABOUT OVEREXTENDED!!!!!!!!!!! WOTC HAS NEVER MENTIONED IT, IT DOES NOT EXIST AND WONT UNLESS IT SELLS PACKS!
And I strongly disagree with you when you say wotc knows what they are doing. They know what they are doing when it comes to tourney players. Not everyone else. Tourney players are a tiny fraction of the magic players out there, and when every decision is based on those few, it makes the game worse for everyone else.
It would also be nice if people would be honest about why they did the change. It has nothing to do with ext being popular or not. It has to do with selling product. They will sell more packs if people need more new cards instead of being able to buy older cards for decks. Very simple.
I did add some comments on the charts last month but wasnt sure if people were interested so decided to go without this month and see if anyone missed them. Which they have so the comments will return next month.
Actually I realize that your red/blue deck is different than the previous decks that fit into that category. I will be addressing archetype generalization in my perspective next week.
I don't have a good answer on the downfall of MBC in the PREs as my examination of seasons 7-12 only showed one period where MBC absolutely dominated for about 5 weeks. The metagame shifted to MBCu and opened the door for a variety of other decks. MBC, however, has fared much better in the PREs than in the PEs.
Solid breakdown and good stuff throughout. A few more pics and/or video would be nice, but those will come in time, as this is a confusing editor here at puremtgo...
Great stuff, so bummed I can't make this next one, or the last two...used to playing in each one. As far as the June 18th top 8...I wasn't playing "Blue-Red Aggro control" as you described...it is close, but not accurate to the deck I was playing...while having 2 islands, it was a burn deck with blue for only card drawing, here's a reference: http://puremtgo.com/articles/pauper-reloaded
Nice to see Burning kiln aka. RDW taking first...any historic remembrance on what brought down MBC years ago? The pie chart needs a target to focus new hate on :)
Now this is what gets me on one hand you have a Progenitus/Natural Order combo and the other hand Doomsday/Shelldock Isle both of which are combo decks that can win very early on in the game. Yet one player is applauded for a good deck and the other scorned.
It doesn’t really make much sense as they are both combo decks which makes them way more competitive than the rest of the decks in the event.
You can't ok one and not the other.
Thanks for the comment I will be including comments next time for sure.
I'll also link the packs and fix the links on RoE to point to Traders, I changed Urza's Legacy but forgot RoE after reverting from displaying paper prices.
I cleared the Sudo spelling through him first, I changed the spelling the last time we ran an article of his, and this time kept it inline with the play on his screen name.
You mentioned Forsythe discussing the ravnica dual land inclusion in m11/10 and why they were not. Do you have a link too that article? I would like to read it.
I have plenty of cheese here for all the whine on this board. Good lord, grow a set and suck it up. Its a game, if you think its anything more, you are delusional.
I've really been enjoying these. Try to keep as much info on them as you can as time goes on. I agree more comments would be enjoyable and ignite more discussion in the comments. For example, you mention Classic is dropping due to in being underplayed. I don't really agree with this, most of the Classic only cards have stabilized by now. If you are talking about Classic sets in general, the big reason they are dropping is due to the very good Nix Pax offerings recently. Until the 12 Tix Nix pax ME123 and ME112233 sealed for 30 tix the duals and fow were all going up.
Also, links on the booster packs would be nice too. I like to click the links to see if the price has changed yet (btw RoE should likely be linking to mtgotraders).
You tell me.
What does this have to do with the classic pauper metagame.
its a play on pseudo based on his SN Sudeki___
I was very angry over the changes and still am feeling slightly put out. Mainly because after the last season of extended I decided to buy some of the Ravnica lands for two reasons. One, at the time they would have been legal for two and a half more years. and Two, they are necessary to be competitive and were at their cheapest at the time. So a smart buy in order to play them and not have to worry about the price jump that occurs near the start of extended season. I know a lot of others who happened to do the same. Then we get told...yeah extended guess what in two weeks its completely different. Which sucks because now Ive bought a lot of cards to play in a format which is fundamentally different and now own cards that have no play anywhere. I dont care that they lost value. I care I lost money in an attempt to actually play.
I'm assuming that 'Sudo Infinity' is some play on Psuedo?
I have to say as someone who cares very little about the extended change from a personal level I object to the characterization of those who cry foul (fowl?) at the change timing to be chicken littles. This isn't last years incredibly complex set of rules changes (well simplifications with extreme clauses) so I don't think people ARE saying "The sky is falling!" for the most part. I think people are complaining rightfully so that a) wotc didn't care enough to give decent notice and b) they don't seem to care enough about their casual player base to keep some format that people can play ravnica in. In my conversations in casual chat with WotC Matt and others the vibe I got was "Boo hoo, get over it." And as I said it doesn't affect me personally. Though I am dismayed at what seems like a very cavalier attitude towards those who ARE affected.
I don't expect that WotC will fix it. I think they are quite happy with things as they are. Until they decide that Classic is no longer cost effective to support, etc. Then they will 'fix' things again that aren't broke.
There's a difference between treating playing Magic as an investment and expecting there to be some consistency in the values of cards. It's a hobby, and for many players it's a fairly expensive one; one of the best ways to mitigate the cost has been to make smart purchases of valuable (both in dollars and in play versatility) cards that are relatively stable. It's basically the opposite of speculating; if I have a fixed amount of money to spend on new cards, historically one of the best ways to go about it was to focus on buying cards that can be used in multiple decks that are most likely to retain their value over the course of a season. Look at Reflecting Pool during Lorwyn standard -- basically a four-of in every deck. In extended, Ravinica duals were the poster-child for this approach to the game; stable in monetary value and playable in almost every deck in the format. Buying these cards wasn't an "investment" in the sense of speculating on their value, but it certainly was an investment in your ability to enjoy your hobby. The way in which the early rotation was handled, specifically the lack of notice, created a situation where what had been incredibly conservative collections evaporated in value.
I don't think the realigning of extended is a bad thing (even if I suddenly don't have anything to trade for the Jaces and Baneslayers that will dominate it any more), but it's completely disingenuous to say "Well, so what? The price changes would have happened immediately, no matter when the change was announced." When format rotations are known ahead of time (and it wasn't that long ago that Wizards realigned and normalized extended rotations -- we haven't even made it through a full cycle in the most recent system), it allows players to make informed decisions about the collections they are expected to spend money on, trading or selling at the height of a PTQ season, for instance, rather than waiting for the season to end. Sudden announcements like this destabilize the underlying idea of spending money on pieces of cardboard and INCREASE the inherent speculation on card value, which isn't a good thing for anybody involved.
I was wondering if a hydra fan would pop up. There are actually a lot of you guys out there.
My problems with him are that it costs 3 mans to give him one counter, youcant attack and use his ability, and you have to remove all his counters when you use it. But kudos to you for finding a spot for him. Although in general I think you would be happier with Ghitu War Cry.
i totally agree with you i just wish alot of the chicken littles would see that this is true a well and enjoy the format as it is rather then expect wizards to come "fix" it any time that the meta settles into a certain set of decks for awhile.
You didn't mention CoP:White in your article. Knowing when to side it in should be pretty obvious but I think that you need to at least talk about it. Also missing is the mirror analysis. Is CoP:White good there? Is Duress?
Also, two things about the Faeries deck:
Goblins is not even close to its worst match-up.
It has plenty of outs to Guardian of the Guildpact.
"I guess my final point is that Magic is a hobby, not an investment. Don't confuse the two."
Good point. Good article.
LE
"I looked at all the games that won the "Best of" awards at Origins over the same period as Magic. Magic, and some its expansions, won awards over the years. Dungeons and Dragons won a couple times. Lots of other games won awards. Of those, the ones that are still being published, and thriving, are basically Magic and D&D. The rest have, almost entirely, failed. Many were great games - but they failed."
Hey Peter, this is fellow judge Eric. I would have to take issue with this statement. HeroClix won game of the year in 2003, and is still going strong. Hackmaster as well. If you're only talking card games, I believe L5R is also still publishing, and it won as well.
The Origins awards are a bit hard to parse because they've changed categories about 7 times in 20 years, but I don't think the statement "all games that won 'best of' except Magic and D&D have failed" holds any real weight.
This is a great article and you have a great point, but I don't think that particular paragraph adds much to the thesis that Wizards knows what it is doing, and impugns several other awesome games.
-Eric
Oops, I had 4 Spoils of the Vault in the deck at first. Then I took it down to 3 and added in a Through the Breach. It must have just slipped my mind.
The change to a new ext format isnt what angers people, its the lack of respect shown to the players by only giving 2 weeks notice. Not only does it give players no time to prepare (sell/buy cards, change decks), having a 2 week notice also made it so all the cards that will be rotating out immediately dropped in value, instead of a slower decline that 6 months notice wouldve made. On top of that, the best format for casual games (i know its hard to fathom that some people are not tourney players, just casual players) is now gone. ext might not fire tournements but its alive and well for casual. Standard and new ext are both too limited to make any unique decks, and legacy is far too expensive for the average player. A huge majority of magic players dont play tournements, just casual. This change makes most casual decks obsolete.
STOP TALKING ABOUT OVEREXTENDED!!!!!!!!!!! WOTC HAS NEVER MENTIONED IT, IT DOES NOT EXIST AND WONT UNLESS IT SELLS PACKS!
And I strongly disagree with you when you say wotc knows what they are doing. They know what they are doing when it comes to tourney players. Not everyone else. Tourney players are a tiny fraction of the magic players out there, and when every decision is based on those few, it makes the game worse for everyone else.
It would also be nice if people would be honest about why they did the change. It has nothing to do with ext being popular or not. It has to do with selling product. They will sell more packs if people need more new cards instead of being able to buy older cards for decks. Very simple.
I did add some comments on the charts last month but wasnt sure if people were interested so decided to go without this month and see if anyone missed them. Which they have so the comments will return next month.
Actually I realize that your red/blue deck is different than the previous decks that fit into that category. I will be addressing archetype generalization in my perspective next week.
I don't have a good answer on the downfall of MBC in the PREs as my examination of seasons 7-12 only showed one period where MBC absolutely dominated for about 5 weeks. The metagame shifted to MBCu and opened the door for a variety of other decks. MBC, however, has fared much better in the PREs than in the PEs.
I'm guessing you didn't notice you have 3 Through the Breach in the Deck and 2 in the sideboard :/ It is probably pretty tough to have 5 in there ;)
Solid breakdown and good stuff throughout. A few more pics and/or video would be nice, but those will come in time, as this is a confusing editor here at puremtgo...
Great stuff, so bummed I can't make this next one, or the last two...used to playing in each one. As far as the June 18th top 8...I wasn't playing "Blue-Red Aggro control" as you described...it is close, but not accurate to the deck I was playing...while having 2 islands, it was a burn deck with blue for only card drawing, here's a reference: http://puremtgo.com/articles/pauper-reloaded
Nice to see Burning kiln aka. RDW taking first...any historic remembrance on what brought down MBC years ago? The pie chart needs a target to focus new hate on :)