COLLECTIBLE-an object suitable for a collection, originally a work of fine art or an antique, now including also any of a wide variety of items collected as a hobby, for display, or as an investment whose value may appreciate.
Magic is a COLLECTIBLE card game, so by removing the collectibility of cards you just killed one-third of what it's all about the other two being CARDS and a GAME
Lots of people complain, but far to few have reasonable ideas to correct the problem. So without upsetting the current card holders who spend money early on investing, how would you solve the price problem?
I don't think anyone who bought Wastelands at 8 each would of predicted them to be this high.
So what is your solution, keep in mind you have to satisfy all parties here, not just the side that wants lower prices.
I kind of agree that it's annoying, but it's always been part of magic. You had to maindeck artifact removal in mirrodin block, which was annoying, you had to maindeck stuff to interact with graveyards in odyssey block which was annoying, you probably had to maindeck an unusually high amount of creature removal in lorwyn/onslaught block, etc. etc.
I agree that it's irritating, but everybody will get bored of polymorph/summoning trap decks in a few weeks.
If not, run telemin performance and a pile of countermagic (or just blightning and duress)!
I definitely agree that the article would be better with pictures. The problem that I ran into was that I was already at 5000 words, and had put way too much time into this article for it to be worth what I was going to get for it. 5000 words is a lot, and I figure that I made something like 4 dollars an hour for this. I got to the point where I just had to tell myself that good enough was good enough. Of course, the real problem is that I am too verbose, and if I would just get to the heart of what I was trying to say a lot sooner, then I would have had a much shorter article, it would have taken a lot less time, and I could have put more pictures in it. I guess my point is that the lack of pictures was not from lack of attention, but from lack of time.
Yeah, it's better that everyone is playing the same inferior decks than the same superior ones - got it. So if only 4xForce of Will had been created it would be a good thing because then people would have an even harder time to build Reanimator and crush people?
In case you missed it I wrote this to clear things up:
"In any case my point wasn't that Whiffy and others like him is to blame per se (sorry to him if it turned out like that), but "they" are the ones saying that you can just "pay the cost to be the boss" and "it's just a one-time investment". I merely wanted to point out that this is incredibly hypocritical, when the very same people paid a fraction of the current cost. 300$ will buy you DnT, Goblins and Ichorid, but if you could buy Landstill, Reanimator and ANT for 300$ as well what would you pick (or rather what would the actual good players go for)?
You can of course counter this by saying, that they deserve that position by buying into the format at an earlier stage, but I don't see how that argument helps anyone. And it makes little sense when you consider that until recently Legacy wasn't a part of the MTGO family (the reason why I and many others hadn't bought into it)."
So once again, I do not blame anyone for having played for a long time - that would just be retarded. What I meant was that it seems ridiculous that OTHERS are defending why newcomers have to pay 5-10x more with the opposite argument. Why should it matter so much to pick up cards within this short of a time frame? Obviously, the ones that got a Black Lotus or three ten+ years ago "deserve" (silly word, but bear with me) that advantage. I also don't complain about people reacting quickly to unbannnings (Entomb) or format changes/new cards being printed to push the value of certain cards (Dark Depths in Extended for an example). That is something you can react to, whereas I can do nothing about the fact that I didn't play Classic, and thus never bothered to buy the given tournament staples.
I think what bothers me more than anything is that people assume I am only writing this from a personal point of view. What I'm trying to argue is that since Wizards are pushing MTGO (and Legacy on MTGO in particular), how can it be right that new players are at such a huge disadvantage? How can it be right to anyone that people (that perhaps never bothered much with MTGO - see The Source population) has to be at such a disadvantage when trying to move their testing/playing to an online platform?
Re: hoarding and speculation.
I understand that a lot of people don't do this, and there are many forms of hoarding in any case. People holding on to FoW (because they probably paid quite a bit for it, and wouldn't like to rebuy it for even more should they ever need it)is an example, and people buying up Wastelands for 5-8$ is a very different one. I understand why some people hold on to very valuable cards. Yes, it damages the market, but while I wouldn't care, I can understand the thought process behind (having sold my 4xTarmogoyf and needing them now helps me to understand the issue). The ones buying up cards to profit is a bit harder for me to accept. I think it is very shortsighted and antisocial, and I really dislike seeing fairly niche hobbies being choked by greedy individuals. What these people are also missing is that the entire economy is bloated by this behaviour and it is sadly a staple of all player run economies (see WoW as the worst example). Once a few items are overpriced, others will overprice their goods in order to afford item A and then we have the vicious cycle. Noone buy Wizards benefits from expensive cards online, so I don't see how so many people are eager to defend it (blind fanboys/bot owners perhaps?).
Again, this is just my opinion(s). Feel free to disagree as much as you like.
seriously? your gonna hold it against people who have been playing classic/legacy since the beginning?
why should i feel bad that i got fow at 17 each. i risked them being worthless if classic/legacy never took off.
and for the record. most of the long time eternal players online( i know most of them since im old time) do not stock pile cards. even at 35-50 fow is too much money to buy lots of them to sell later. me and most of my allumnis dont buy more then what isd needed for decks. ie natural order is a 3 of in almost all lists, hence the reason i only ever bought 3. and whats the difference when you pay 12 for natrual orderf a year ago compared to them now in the mid 30s. dont std cards do this too? jace is 60 tix and its being drafted. what will jace cost half way through the next block? 80? 100?
i obviously feel for people who cant buy in, but its not like its a surprise. these cards have been available for years and years.
and much to the point. that was 300 out of pocket for a nearly 500 dollar copy of thresh old from 3 years ago. i sold out of std and ext and that was the only deck i could play with, in any format. it took a little bit of time, but by the end of a 3 month cycle i could play 3or 4 decks. 6 months later and i could play like 10. a year later and i could play any deck in the format. and remember that just because cards are expensive dosent mean they always were.
for instance, i spend about 500 tix on my 40 dual lands. those same duals are now worth 1200. is that my fault for getting them at less then half their CURRENT value?
im trying to understand why mtgo should not be concerned with print runs and rarity? If every card was available to whoever wanted it the metagame would quickly turn to everyone playing the best decks and not much innovation.
I am dealing with it. Why do you keep repeating yourself? Everyone is dealing with this. Either by A) refusing to buy a deck, B) by picking a budget option or C) by forking out the required amount of XXX or XXXX$. I don't see how this removes my right to express my discontent, though. You don't have to read and comment everything I write about that particular subject too. It should be enough for you to know that I am wrong (as you amusingly enough seem to think).
My argument:
I find it sad that MTGO, which shouldn't be limited by print runs or rarity issues, is almost exactly as expensive as paper Magic, where those arguments does make it a bit more acceptable to pay a lot for mint copies of old cards. And the same cards/decks that are close to unavailable in paper (due to cost that is) are also equally unapproachable online due to speculation and hoarding (as the cards aren't being used much as JustSin results would indicate).
your argument basically boils down to the fact that YOU think prices are unfair, and that's great. But apparently others dont. Legacy is expensive, just deal with it.
How was I proven wrong? A lot of people "thought" I was wrong (read: disagreed), said I was stupid and spewed out various ad hominem attacks, but I don't remember anyone coming up with _good_ arguments as to why I was wrong.
Your point:
You can get a tier 1 deck for a few hundred dollars.
My point:
Both yes and no. The only cheap tier 1 deck is dredge, and that is currently suffering from GY hate directed at the far more dangerous Reanimator deck, which makes it a poor choice.
And:
Some cheap decks are doing well because people are forced to play with. Hence while a lot of the Goblins/DnT/Ichorid players are getting results, I'm fairly certain a good deal of them would probably much rather play something else. The problem is that they are forced into playing sub-par decks due to the cost for the actual top of the line decks (read: every blue one).
In any case I have severeal times conceded that you can, in fact, buy cheap decks that can be used competitively (not the same as being great decks, though), but what if people dislike playing these 3 decks (4 if you count Elves)? What if only one of these decks were cheap? Would you still think the meta was healthy if 50% played Goblins? If your only answer to that is "tough luck" then we'll never get anywhere.
In any case you don't even play competitive Legacy (to my knowledge at least), so I don't understand why you keep defending the steep cost of entering the format.
The self-confessed "I didn't even know what DnT was until a few weeks ago" shouldn't call anyone else out. For your information I've actually played DnT in the past and it's not a T1 deck. Not now and not until it receives some ridiculous cards (heck, the online version is even missing a few important pieces).
The only reason Goblins, Ichorid and DnT are doing well online is that they are the only choice left to a lot of players (myself included, if I could stand playing them, though). Money talks in Magic (both in paper and online), and didn't you yourself conclude, that the more expensive decks do a lot better when you compare successes with attendance?
I'm sorry, but if you want to live in lala-land, where it's good to play Goblins then that's fine with me. Fact is though, that Goblins (or the other cheap decks for that matter) isn't a great deck (= tier 1) and it's just carried by good pilots and the sheer mass of people currently playing it/them.
In any case my point wasn't that Whiffy and others like him is to blame per se (sorry to him if it turned out like that), but "they" are the ones saying that you can just "pay the cost to be the boss" and "it's just a one-time investment". I merely wanted to point out that this is incredibly hypocritical, when the very same people paid a fraction of the current cost. 300$ will buy you DnT, Goblins and Ichorid, but if you could buy Landstill, Reanimator and ANT for 300$ as well what would you pick (or rather what would the actual good players go for)?
You can of course counter this by saying, that they deserve that position by buying into the format at an earlier stage, but I don't see how that argument helps anyone. And it makes little sense when you consider that until recently Legacy wasn't a part of the MTGO family (the reason why I and many others hadn't bought into it).
TL;DR:
MTGO and its eternal card pool might have been accessible in the past, but today you can either give up a 1000+$ or settle for one of a very few choices. Not very enticing in my eyes at least - feel free to disagree with that.
did you read the article? hell you don't have to read the whole thing I cover deck costs in the last section, hard to miss... you CAN in fact buy in for 300... fine you want to eliminate some of those? You can still play Goblins/DnT/Ichorid and you don't consider those tier 1?
what whiffy was refering to is how he got where he is and it was just a literal example to back up what I said, there are people who have won their way to their collection and why should you get mad at them? they've put in time and effort to get to that point and just because I'm jealous of their collection doesn't mean I'm going to blame them or accuse them of anything
I am one of those people who got the cards cheaper, but you can hardly blame me. I only bought 4x copies of the cards I needed so in order for me make a huge profit I would have to sell them. Since I play almost all those cards, selling them really isn't an option. Yes the rise in prices will help me if/when I decide to quit this game, but it's not like me buying cards at cheaper rates causes an overall increase in the pricing.
What whiffy was referring too was him buying a thresh deck and becoming sickly successful with it and being able to use profits to buy more cards. 300 tix did buy a nice thresh deck back then.... also tarmo was like 10, not 40 or 50. While 300 doesn't get you the deck you might want, it will put a huge dent in a decklist you plan on running, you just gotta be patient unfortunately.
see wyrath this is the problem here...you have this supposed list in your head of cards necessary to compete. Especially when the current top played legacy deck is only $209.21 Which also proves that FoW, LED, and others are not NEEDED. And to blame this whole thing on hoarders is just irresponsible. You were proven wrong in the mtgo forums, and you wont win with these need to own arguments here either.
While I am totally in sympathy having none of the expensive cards myself, I have take slight umbrage in blaming Whiffy and co. They aren't in control of prices and gouging etc. If they win prizes then use those winnings to support those who are responsible it is not their fault for doing so. They would be foolish in fact not to. Sure it sucks to be us but that is the nature of the game/world/universe.
How will 300 tickets get you close to a tier 1 Legacy deck, though? Some would of course argue that Ichorid is tier 1, and that is obviously under 300, but in my eyes Ichorid is a pretty poor choice due to Reanimator's success.
Let's look at some prices for playsets of cards you need for tier 1 decks:
LED = 272 tickets for a playset
FOW = 420 tickets for a playset (massive recent drop in price btw - I hope some of the speculators got burned)
Tarmogoyf = 176 tickets for a playset (another nice drop in price actually)
Entomb = 200 tickets for a playset
Underground Sea = 232 tickets for a playset
Tundra = 152 tickets for a playset
Tropical Island = 144 tickets for a playset
Wasteland (the most ridiculous priced card in my opinion) = 112 tickets for a playset
... and so forth.
300 tickets is not going to get you anywhere today (unless you buy something like Goblins), and I actually think that the people that got the aforementioned cards cheaply are to blame. They have been able to profit all the time (apart from their initial investment obviously), and thus they can afford to spend the huge sums on cards with bloated prizes (and even replace their cards with foils - no comment). Hell, if I had been stockpiling Wastelands to sell for a 20$ profit per card, I too wouldn't mind picking up X card for XXX$.
Since emrakul's ability is only triggered, and with the proper amount of mana you can get him back for a turn with goryo's vengeance forcing 6A and 15 dmg, or for a while till a solution is found with Makeshift Mannequinn/Miraculous recovery or the high costing betrayal of flesh. You could also do it with golgari guildmage, hellscaretaker (using entomb on upkeep) doomed necromancer and possibly even allies, other options include giving a sorc instant speed with quicken or a particular creature flash via Teferi, Not saying it easy or efficient, just possible.
To sum up my Eldrazi thoughts in Eldrazis' defense (because I'm a fan of them, can't help about that: Great Old Ones + Galactus = big happy smile on my face, kudos to MaRo and co. to this brilliant and funny idea), I have to say that, as this article shows up well, there are two large subtypes of Eldrazi decks: the ones where the Eldrazis are sneaked into play via the most viable way of each format, and the ones where the Eldrazi are actually cast. (To me, only this latter one is the "true" way to use the Eldrazis, BTW). The first subtype is not dependent by the Eldrazis: it already existed before in its many forms, and now it just got a new option with new big baddies to choose from. To deal with these decks means to deal with the ways they sneak things into play, before than to deal with the Eldrazis themselves.
Then, there is the second type, where the Eldrazis are cast. And sure, when Emrakul is cast, it's a good insurance towards game over. But then again, by the time I spent 15 mana, I would expect to have something large and frightening in play, not an Enormous Baloth. But the point here is: I have to build a deck which CAN actually reach the 15-mana level. That IS a deckbuilding challenge. That requires some thinking, and when you manage to do it, it's satisfying, because you built and accomplished something. Putting 4x Baneslayer Angel and 4x Tarmogoyf in a deck who can simply access either W or G mana (or both), that's not much of a deckbuilding challenge. For me that's not even deckbuilding at all. The Zoo.dec, that's what truly revulse me. When you cast a Baneslayer, you don't accomplish anything more than to prove you're able to tap 5 mana. Yu-hu, you're a winner! You can tap lands for mana in the right way!
While I'm doing my thing to reach the 15 mana for Emrakul, the opponent is probably free to do what his/her deck does. And then again Emrakul can also creates a situation like that: I cast it, happy as I can be. I get another turn, who just means I'm entitled to draw a card and have a real combat phase, because hardly I will have anything useful in play to attack with during the previous turn (I would play around that with Lightning Greaves, in fact). So I attack, annihilating 6 of your permanents, a punishment that usually is very hard to take, but that strictly depends of the turn we are. Then you block it with some Birds of Paradise (because, yes, a single Birds of Paradise can stop Emrakul - it stops Marit Lage too, but Marit Lage has many more chances to be attacking in turn 3), and during your turn you deal with it in one of the 100 ways you can. Or maybe you already had an active Goldmeadow Harrier, so my 15 mana level Emrakul becomes a very expensive way to draw a card.
But do you know what I think is another positive thing in having Emrakul around? You have to reconsider your removals. Fearing an opponent's Emrakul in any deck, you can be no more so confident in StP and Path to Exile alone. You have to better consider the options. Emrakul doesn't require very specific removals/solutions, virtually every single deck can already incorporate the right way to deal with it (that cannot be said of Progenitus at all) - in fact I think an Eldrazi.dec of the second subtype can't stand a single chance against Death and Taxes.
Sorry if I gone too long, just wanted to defend my precious little boy!
P.S: BTW, blau, if you still need one, I have a prerelease Emrakul to spare! Let me know.
We're talking about a 15cc creature here (otherwise no time walk), it seems to me WoTC made more wrong-costed cards than that. Baneslayer, anyone?
I can understand the revulsion if you are in fact revulsed even more by the likes of some mentioned and before-mentioned angels, or some beater that can be a 5/6 attacking on turn 3 without the need of any trick at all, just paying the true ridiculous 1G cost.
I would like to repeat myself: if it's the idea of a turn-1/2 entombed/exhumed eldrazi (and we're not talking about Emrakul here, because Emrakul CANNOT BE entombed/exhumed, and that's again good and fair design work to me), then the cards to be blamed are Entomb and Exhume, not the Eldrazi itself, who's simply the new guy in town, and hardly the scariest one.
The implication of panic is funny if untrue. It isn't panic but revulsion that fuels my angst. But I still believe 'annihilator:6' is over powered and ridiculous no matter how bad the art. The timewalk isn't exactly easy to stop either. :)
I don't think there is ONE Eldrazi deck. As Flippers just showed, there are many ways to use them, ranging from sneak them into play to actually hardcast them. How many decks out there actually hardcast Progenitus? Besides, Progenitus is usually fetched via Natural Order, while the Eldrazis are put into play with, well, anything else except Natural Order. That for me talks a lot about better design.
And there are MANY more ways to deal with Emrakul than with Progenitus, who remains waaaaaay stronger and more unstoppable. Please take notice of the fact that Emrakul can be tapped by Minister of Impediments, returned in hand by Tradewind Rider or Karakas, exiled by Mangara of Corondor (if not simply by Journey to Nowhere/Oblivion Ring), and even controlled by Merieke Ri Berit! And many many more. Progenitus laughs at all of them, his 2-turn clock can be stopped only by mass removal.
So, don't panic, Eldrazis are not this big deal, the true Eldrazi.deck which try to hardcast them is not going to dominate anything, and to deal with the decks which are using ways to sneak them into play... well, it's the same as if they were sneaking into play whatever big bad menace you can think of. In fact, Progenitus and Iona are way more unfair and not fun to play against that all the Eldrazis put together.
COLLECTIBLE-an object suitable for a collection, originally a work of fine art or an antique, now including also any of a wide variety of items collected as a hobby, for display, or as an investment whose value may appreciate.
Magic is a COLLECTIBLE card game, so by removing the collectibility of cards you just killed one-third of what it's all about the other two being CARDS and a GAME
Lots of people complain, but far to few have reasonable ideas to correct the problem. So without upsetting the current card holders who spend money early on investing, how would you solve the price problem?
I don't think anyone who bought Wastelands at 8 each would of predicted them to be this high.
So what is your solution, keep in mind you have to satisfy all parties here, not just the side that wants lower prices.
Way Awesome!!!!
I kind of agree that it's annoying, but it's always been part of magic. You had to maindeck artifact removal in mirrodin block, which was annoying, you had to maindeck stuff to interact with graveyards in odyssey block which was annoying, you probably had to maindeck an unusually high amount of creature removal in lorwyn/onslaught block, etc. etc.
I agree that it's irritating, but everybody will get bored of polymorph/summoning trap decks in a few weeks.
If not, run telemin performance and a pile of countermagic (or just blightning and duress)!
I definitely agree that the article would be better with pictures. The problem that I ran into was that I was already at 5000 words, and had put way too much time into this article for it to be worth what I was going to get for it. 5000 words is a lot, and I figure that I made something like 4 dollars an hour for this. I got to the point where I just had to tell myself that good enough was good enough. Of course, the real problem is that I am too verbose, and if I would just get to the heart of what I was trying to say a lot sooner, then I would have had a much shorter article, it would have taken a lot less time, and I could have put more pictures in it. I guess my point is that the lack of pictures was not from lack of attention, but from lack of time.
Yeah, it's better that everyone is playing the same inferior decks than the same superior ones - got it. So if only 4xForce of Will had been created it would be a good thing because then people would have an even harder time to build Reanimator and crush people?
Keep up the good work.
In case you missed it I wrote this to clear things up:
"In any case my point wasn't that Whiffy and others like him is to blame per se (sorry to him if it turned out like that), but "they" are the ones saying that you can just "pay the cost to be the boss" and "it's just a one-time investment". I merely wanted to point out that this is incredibly hypocritical, when the very same people paid a fraction of the current cost. 300$ will buy you DnT, Goblins and Ichorid, but if you could buy Landstill, Reanimator and ANT for 300$ as well what would you pick (or rather what would the actual good players go for)?
You can of course counter this by saying, that they deserve that position by buying into the format at an earlier stage, but I don't see how that argument helps anyone. And it makes little sense when you consider that until recently Legacy wasn't a part of the MTGO family (the reason why I and many others hadn't bought into it)."
So once again, I do not blame anyone for having played for a long time - that would just be retarded. What I meant was that it seems ridiculous that OTHERS are defending why newcomers have to pay 5-10x more with the opposite argument. Why should it matter so much to pick up cards within this short of a time frame? Obviously, the ones that got a Black Lotus or three ten+ years ago "deserve" (silly word, but bear with me) that advantage. I also don't complain about people reacting quickly to unbannnings (Entomb) or format changes/new cards being printed to push the value of certain cards (Dark Depths in Extended for an example). That is something you can react to, whereas I can do nothing about the fact that I didn't play Classic, and thus never bothered to buy the given tournament staples.
I think what bothers me more than anything is that people assume I am only writing this from a personal point of view. What I'm trying to argue is that since Wizards are pushing MTGO (and Legacy on MTGO in particular), how can it be right that new players are at such a huge disadvantage? How can it be right to anyone that people (that perhaps never bothered much with MTGO - see The Source population) has to be at such a disadvantage when trying to move their testing/playing to an online platform?
Re: hoarding and speculation.
I understand that a lot of people don't do this, and there are many forms of hoarding in any case. People holding on to FoW (because they probably paid quite a bit for it, and wouldn't like to rebuy it for even more should they ever need it)is an example, and people buying up Wastelands for 5-8$ is a very different one. I understand why some people hold on to very valuable cards. Yes, it damages the market, but while I wouldn't care, I can understand the thought process behind (having sold my 4xTarmogoyf and needing them now helps me to understand the issue). The ones buying up cards to profit is a bit harder for me to accept. I think it is very shortsighted and antisocial, and I really dislike seeing fairly niche hobbies being choked by greedy individuals. What these people are also missing is that the entire economy is bloated by this behaviour and it is sadly a staple of all player run economies (see WoW as the worst example). Once a few items are overpriced, others will overprice their goods in order to afford item A and then we have the vicious cycle. Noone buy Wizards benefits from expensive cards online, so I don't see how so many people are eager to defend it (blind fanboys/bot owners perhaps?).
Again, this is just my opinion(s). Feel free to disagree as much as you like.
seriously? your gonna hold it against people who have been playing classic/legacy since the beginning?
why should i feel bad that i got fow at 17 each. i risked them being worthless if classic/legacy never took off.
and for the record. most of the long time eternal players online( i know most of them since im old time) do not stock pile cards. even at 35-50 fow is too much money to buy lots of them to sell later. me and most of my allumnis dont buy more then what isd needed for decks. ie natural order is a 3 of in almost all lists, hence the reason i only ever bought 3. and whats the difference when you pay 12 for natrual orderf a year ago compared to them now in the mid 30s. dont std cards do this too? jace is 60 tix and its being drafted. what will jace cost half way through the next block? 80? 100?
i obviously feel for people who cant buy in, but its not like its a surprise. these cards have been available for years and years.
and much to the point. that was 300 out of pocket for a nearly 500 dollar copy of thresh old from 3 years ago. i sold out of std and ext and that was the only deck i could play with, in any format. it took a little bit of time, but by the end of a 3 month cycle i could play 3or 4 decks. 6 months later and i could play like 10. a year later and i could play any deck in the format. and remember that just because cards are expensive dosent mean they always were.
for instance, i spend about 500 tix on my 40 dual lands. those same duals are now worth 1200. is that my fault for getting them at less then half their CURRENT value?
im trying to understand why mtgo should not be concerned with print runs and rarity? If every card was available to whoever wanted it the metagame would quickly turn to everyone playing the best decks and not much innovation.
I am dealing with it. Why do you keep repeating yourself? Everyone is dealing with this. Either by A) refusing to buy a deck, B) by picking a budget option or C) by forking out the required amount of XXX or XXXX$. I don't see how this removes my right to express my discontent, though. You don't have to read and comment everything I write about that particular subject too. It should be enough for you to know that I am wrong (as you amusingly enough seem to think).
My argument:
I find it sad that MTGO, which shouldn't be limited by print runs or rarity issues, is almost exactly as expensive as paper Magic, where those arguments does make it a bit more acceptable to pay a lot for mint copies of old cards. And the same cards/decks that are close to unavailable in paper (due to cost that is) are also equally unapproachable online due to speculation and hoarding (as the cards aren't being used much as JustSin results would indicate).
The end?
your argument basically boils down to the fact that YOU think prices are unfair, and that's great. But apparently others dont. Legacy is expensive, just deal with it.
How was I proven wrong? A lot of people "thought" I was wrong (read: disagreed), said I was stupid and spewed out various ad hominem attacks, but I don't remember anyone coming up with _good_ arguments as to why I was wrong.
Your point:
You can get a tier 1 deck for a few hundred dollars.
My point:
Both yes and no. The only cheap tier 1 deck is dredge, and that is currently suffering from GY hate directed at the far more dangerous Reanimator deck, which makes it a poor choice.
And:
Some cheap decks are doing well because people are forced to play with. Hence while a lot of the Goblins/DnT/Ichorid players are getting results, I'm fairly certain a good deal of them would probably much rather play something else. The problem is that they are forced into playing sub-par decks due to the cost for the actual top of the line decks (read: every blue one).
In any case I have severeal times conceded that you can, in fact, buy cheap decks that can be used competitively (not the same as being great decks, though), but what if people dislike playing these 3 decks (4 if you count Elves)? What if only one of these decks were cheap? Would you still think the meta was healthy if 50% played Goblins? If your only answer to that is "tough luck" then we'll never get anywhere.
In any case you don't even play competitive Legacy (to my knowledge at least), so I don't understand why you keep defending the steep cost of entering the format.
The self-confessed "I didn't even know what DnT was until a few weeks ago" shouldn't call anyone else out. For your information I've actually played DnT in the past and it's not a T1 deck. Not now and not until it receives some ridiculous cards (heck, the online version is even missing a few important pieces).
The only reason Goblins, Ichorid and DnT are doing well online is that they are the only choice left to a lot of players (myself included, if I could stand playing them, though). Money talks in Magic (both in paper and online), and didn't you yourself conclude, that the more expensive decks do a lot better when you compare successes with attendance?
I'm sorry, but if you want to live in lala-land, where it's good to play Goblins then that's fine with me. Fact is though, that Goblins (or the other cheap decks for that matter) isn't a great deck (= tier 1) and it's just carried by good pilots and the sheer mass of people currently playing it/them.
In any case my point wasn't that Whiffy and others like him is to blame per se (sorry to him if it turned out like that), but "they" are the ones saying that you can just "pay the cost to be the boss" and "it's just a one-time investment". I merely wanted to point out that this is incredibly hypocritical, when the very same people paid a fraction of the current cost. 300$ will buy you DnT, Goblins and Ichorid, but if you could buy Landstill, Reanimator and ANT for 300$ as well what would you pick (or rather what would the actual good players go for)?
You can of course counter this by saying, that they deserve that position by buying into the format at an earlier stage, but I don't see how that argument helps anyone. And it makes little sense when you consider that until recently Legacy wasn't a part of the MTGO family (the reason why I and many others hadn't bought into it).
TL;DR:
MTGO and its eternal card pool might have been accessible in the past, but today you can either give up a 1000+$ or settle for one of a very few choices. Not very enticing in my eyes at least - feel free to disagree with that.
did you read the article? hell you don't have to read the whole thing I cover deck costs in the last section, hard to miss... you CAN in fact buy in for 300... fine you want to eliminate some of those? You can still play Goblins/DnT/Ichorid and you don't consider those tier 1?
what whiffy was refering to is how he got where he is and it was just a literal example to back up what I said, there are people who have won their way to their collection and why should you get mad at them? they've put in time and effort to get to that point and just because I'm jealous of their collection doesn't mean I'm going to blame them or accuse them of anything
I am one of those people who got the cards cheaper, but you can hardly blame me. I only bought 4x copies of the cards I needed so in order for me make a huge profit I would have to sell them. Since I play almost all those cards, selling them really isn't an option. Yes the rise in prices will help me if/when I decide to quit this game, but it's not like me buying cards at cheaper rates causes an overall increase in the pricing.
What whiffy was referring too was him buying a thresh deck and becoming sickly successful with it and being able to use profits to buy more cards. 300 tix did buy a nice thresh deck back then.... also tarmo was like 10, not 40 or 50. While 300 doesn't get you the deck you might want, it will put a huge dent in a decklist you plan on running, you just gotta be patient unfortunately.
see wyrath this is the problem here...you have this supposed list in your head of cards necessary to compete. Especially when the current top played legacy deck is only $209.21 Which also proves that FoW, LED, and others are not NEEDED. And to blame this whole thing on hoarders is just irresponsible. You were proven wrong in the mtgo forums, and you wont win with these need to own arguments here either.
While I am totally in sympathy having none of the expensive cards myself, I have take slight umbrage in blaming Whiffy and co. They aren't in control of prices and gouging etc. If they win prizes then use those winnings to support those who are responsible it is not their fault for doing so. They would be foolish in fact not to. Sure it sucks to be us but that is the nature of the game/world/universe.
@ Whiffy
300 tickets?
How will 300 tickets get you close to a tier 1 Legacy deck, though? Some would of course argue that Ichorid is tier 1, and that is obviously under 300, but in my eyes Ichorid is a pretty poor choice due to Reanimator's success.
Let's look at some prices for playsets of cards you need for tier 1 decks:
LED = 272 tickets for a playset
FOW = 420 tickets for a playset (massive recent drop in price btw - I hope some of the speculators got burned)
Tarmogoyf = 176 tickets for a playset (another nice drop in price actually)
Entomb = 200 tickets for a playset
Underground Sea = 232 tickets for a playset
Tundra = 152 tickets for a playset
Tropical Island = 144 tickets for a playset
Wasteland (the most ridiculous priced card in my opinion) = 112 tickets for a playset
... and so forth.
300 tickets is not going to get you anywhere today (unless you buy something like Goblins), and I actually think that the people that got the aforementioned cards cheaply are to blame. They have been able to profit all the time (apart from their initial investment obviously), and thus they can afford to spend the huge sums on cards with bloated prizes (and even replace their cards with foils - no comment). Hell, if I had been stockpiling Wastelands to sell for a 20$ profit per card, I too wouldn't mind picking up X card for XXX$.
Since emrakul's ability is only triggered, and with the proper amount of mana you can get him back for a turn with goryo's vengeance forcing 6A and 15 dmg, or for a while till a solution is found with Makeshift Mannequinn/Miraculous recovery or the high costing betrayal of flesh. You could also do it with golgari guildmage, hellscaretaker (using entomb on upkeep) doomed necromancer and possibly even allies, other options include giving a sorc instant speed with quicken or a particular creature flash via Teferi, Not saying it easy or efficient, just possible.
To sum up my Eldrazi thoughts in Eldrazis' defense (because I'm a fan of them, can't help about that: Great Old Ones + Galactus = big happy smile on my face, kudos to MaRo and co. to this brilliant and funny idea), I have to say that, as this article shows up well, there are two large subtypes of Eldrazi decks: the ones where the Eldrazis are sneaked into play via the most viable way of each format, and the ones where the Eldrazi are actually cast. (To me, only this latter one is the "true" way to use the Eldrazis, BTW). The first subtype is not dependent by the Eldrazis: it already existed before in its many forms, and now it just got a new option with new big baddies to choose from. To deal with these decks means to deal with the ways they sneak things into play, before than to deal with the Eldrazis themselves.
Then, there is the second type, where the Eldrazis are cast. And sure, when Emrakul is cast, it's a good insurance towards game over. But then again, by the time I spent 15 mana, I would expect to have something large and frightening in play, not an Enormous Baloth. But the point here is: I have to build a deck which CAN actually reach the 15-mana level. That IS a deckbuilding challenge. That requires some thinking, and when you manage to do it, it's satisfying, because you built and accomplished something. Putting 4x Baneslayer Angel and 4x Tarmogoyf in a deck who can simply access either W or G mana (or both), that's not much of a deckbuilding challenge. For me that's not even deckbuilding at all. The Zoo.dec, that's what truly revulse me. When you cast a Baneslayer, you don't accomplish anything more than to prove you're able to tap 5 mana. Yu-hu, you're a winner! You can tap lands for mana in the right way!
While I'm doing my thing to reach the 15 mana for Emrakul, the opponent is probably free to do what his/her deck does. And then again Emrakul can also creates a situation like that: I cast it, happy as I can be. I get another turn, who just means I'm entitled to draw a card and have a real combat phase, because hardly I will have anything useful in play to attack with during the previous turn (I would play around that with Lightning Greaves, in fact). So I attack, annihilating 6 of your permanents, a punishment that usually is very hard to take, but that strictly depends of the turn we are. Then you block it with some Birds of Paradise (because, yes, a single Birds of Paradise can stop Emrakul - it stops Marit Lage too, but Marit Lage has many more chances to be attacking in turn 3), and during your turn you deal with it in one of the 100 ways you can. Or maybe you already had an active Goldmeadow Harrier, so my 15 mana level Emrakul becomes a very expensive way to draw a card.
But do you know what I think is another positive thing in having Emrakul around? You have to reconsider your removals. Fearing an opponent's Emrakul in any deck, you can be no more so confident in StP and Path to Exile alone. You have to better consider the options. Emrakul doesn't require very specific removals/solutions, virtually every single deck can already incorporate the right way to deal with it (that cannot be said of Progenitus at all) - in fact I think an Eldrazi.dec of the second subtype can't stand a single chance against Death and Taxes.
Sorry if I gone too long, just wanted to defend my precious little boy!
P.S: BTW, blau, if you still need one, I have a prerelease Emrakul to spare! Let me know.
We're talking about a 15cc creature here (otherwise no time walk), it seems to me WoTC made more wrong-costed cards than that. Baneslayer, anyone?
I can understand the revulsion if you are in fact revulsed even more by the likes of some mentioned and before-mentioned angels, or some beater that can be a 5/6 attacking on turn 3 without the need of any trick at all, just paying the true ridiculous 1G cost.
I would like to repeat myself: if it's the idea of a turn-1/2 entombed/exhumed eldrazi (and we're not talking about Emrakul here, because Emrakul CANNOT BE entombed/exhumed, and that's again good and fair design work to me), then the cards to be blamed are Entomb and Exhume, not the Eldrazi itself, who's simply the new guy in town, and hardly the scariest one.
The implication of panic is funny if untrue. It isn't panic but revulsion that fuels my angst. But I still believe 'annihilator:6' is over powered and ridiculous no matter how bad the art. The timewalk isn't exactly easy to stop either. :)
Thank you for reading, glad you enjoyed it!
If we're going into extended, there's a metric ton of extra cheaty options.
I don't think there is ONE Eldrazi deck. As Flippers just showed, there are many ways to use them, ranging from sneak them into play to actually hardcast them. How many decks out there actually hardcast Progenitus? Besides, Progenitus is usually fetched via Natural Order, while the Eldrazis are put into play with, well, anything else except Natural Order. That for me talks a lot about better design.
And there are MANY more ways to deal with Emrakul than with Progenitus, who remains waaaaaay stronger and more unstoppable. Please take notice of the fact that Emrakul can be tapped by Minister of Impediments, returned in hand by Tradewind Rider or Karakas, exiled by Mangara of Corondor (if not simply by Journey to Nowhere/Oblivion Ring), and even controlled by Merieke Ri Berit! And many many more. Progenitus laughs at all of them, his 2-turn clock can be stopped only by mass removal.
So, don't panic, Eldrazis are not this big deal, the true Eldrazi.deck which try to hardcast them is not going to dominate anything, and to deal with the decks which are using ways to sneak them into play... well, it's the same as if they were sneaking into play whatever big bad menace you can think of. In fact, Progenitus and Iona are way more unfair and not fun to play against that all the Eldrazis put together.