Wow, the price to play Magic is getting ridiculous! Im glad Im getting out of it (not really I love to play but its becoming crazy). For those that play paper Legacy, Vintage, good luck in the future finding any real tournaments a few years down the road, its just going to get more and more costly to get any real new blood into the format. Its a shame, this GAME is getting out of hand IMO.
I agree that inflation is not the reason for tickets to be sold for more than 1 USD and it is likely to do with taxes(especially the VAT), but what do you mean your professor has told you that the "more money gets printed by the government" statement is wrong?
There is no way to deny that the increased printing of money increases the nominal value of goods. There are more dollars chasing less goods and I don't care how complicated people try to make the situation it is really that simple.
No one anywhere on the political spectrum will say that printing money does not cause inflation.
I think that's a reasonable line. Is it superior? Maybe even superior. If so, it’s very narrow, in that the only thing it does that I can come up with is preventing a loss to a topdecked Groundswell (am I missing anything? Wind Zendikon has you beat regardless, and the green zendikon costs too much). It's worth noting at this point that I did not pass a Groundswell in the draft, and all but P3P7 and P3P8 contained something I would think even newer players would take over Groundswell for a UG deck.
So Villain had to have drafted a Groundswell out of the P3P7 or P3P8 packs, and it has to be on top of the library right now. That’s preventing against an extremely slim chance, but I’ll still grant you that it becomes the right play by that slim chance, so long as we are not opening ourselves up to some other way of losing by keeping the gear on the cat. Assuming no Groundswell, the win by leaving the gear on the cat must be 100% as iron clad as moving it, or else leaving the gear on the cat becomes the wrong play.
I’ll leave it to you and other readers to figure out if there is any way to lose this game by keeping the gear on the Steppe Lynx that wouldn’t happen by moving it onto the Crusher Zendikon. :)
EDIT: I had it wrong above...leaving it on the cat to cast the nulls also prevents against the loss to a topdecked Wind Zendikon, which is more likely than the Groundswell since we know we passed a Wind Zendikon (twice actually, it wheeled from P3P1). It still needs to be weighed against possible outs for the Villain created by leaving the gear in place, but it helps the case for leaving it, to be sure.
Homer: "I know! I'll just make up some news!"
Lisa: "Can you at least take off the Pulitzer when you say that?"
....
I'm betting that can make up some pretty amazing news... :D
I predict at least a 10 tix fall on Mox Diamond. (from 35 to 25). The deck it is best in in legacy (Land) won't work till we get Maze of Ith in MED4 and Rishadan Port in Masques (or possibly in MED4) I don't think that many peopel will be clamoring to play with it.
Plus I anticipate at least one other wanted card in Relics (Sol Ring and/or Mana Vault) that will take up a good portion of the value. So anyone holding onto Diamonds will be taking a risk of 15-20 tix per loss if valued at 35.
I'm sorry for the double posting here, but I wanted to add one more thing.. there are several instances (for the stronger decks) where if there is a primer out there that I have found I have tried to link it (maybe more so in Pt.2 then this part, but I have).. my hopes is someone casually reading these articles may see a deck list that stick out to them, read my generalizations about the deck, and continue on to research it more and read some of the more indepth primers on them.. if I took the time to put together a primer for each deck in Legacy then it would take forever, I'm simply trying to draw in a little interest in Legacy in anticipation of it's online start
You've made one error in your look at this article, it isn't a primer... a primer is filled to the brim with information like card choice and match ups, but that isn't the purpose of this article.. I'm not sure if you read the first one, but there idea is better stated there.. these articles were meant as a brief showing of deck lists for those who knew nothing about the format.. also you're misunderstanding that these are showing the showings of the decks, not how they place or how strong they are, the quote you highlighted is taken a little out of context, the frequency in the showings I'm referring to isn't a look at the years of Legacy and other tribes showing up more as the years progress, but as a look at the deck lists.. the ones shown in the first article vs. these fringe/rogue decks.. you are correct this particular article isn't really rogues and I've been told that by a couple of people and that is simply a naming error on my part, it probably was better named fringe decks instead since the second part contains decks that are better considered under the "rogue" title.. I think I made mention to the bottom line here in comments and even in the article that these aren't based on how strong a deck performs, but simply focusing on what people are bringing, not everything written about Magic/a format of Magic has to be about how to win, sometimes (at least in my case) it's nice to know some general information as well, I apologize if this is not the case for most people
I appreciate your honesty and I hope I've better clarified my intention for you, but it does sound like you haven't seen/read the first one and having done so it might provide you a better insight as to where I was coming from
Hey Godot, just wanted to say great walkthrough! I only play Swiss drafts because I always like to play 3 rounds, and I agree with your points in the comments completely. I tend to look at magic as a game that I play against myself rather than a game that I play against an opponent. when I lose, i always ask myself what I did wrong rather than always assuming my opponent did something right.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I look forward to reading this article every week. It is pretty much the first thing I do every week. Eric provides both valuable insight and useful statistical information. He is one of (if not the) most important people in the mtgo community.
I'm sorry to hear that, is there anything that would provide more value to you?
Providing a valuable service is very important to me, and I do strive to give a useful article each week (even when I mess up hugely... like say,this week ;) ).
If there is anything that would make them more useful in the future please don't hesitate to recommend.
For example, the Legacy listing of prices is a great suggestion and I'll work on implementing it by next week's article. Comments like that help shape this article week after week and help me keep it fresh. Any time someone has a way to make it more applicable to more players I will try to incorporate it. :)
~Erik
The non-foil version won't fall much (though it won't go up either). So far nothing else of value to MTGO has been revealed in the set, basically making the FTV set a $35 mox diamond. The SH FOIL mox though will likely tank quite a bit.
I can see you put a lot of work into this, but to be honest, that's about the only thing this breakdown has going on for it. You lack any real insight in the format and almost every deck in the article is god-awful and often outdated. I mean Clerics? Come on, it has three placings on deckcheck, the latest being close to a year old. Furthermore all three are from what looks like underdeveloped metagames. Yet you have this comment: "While not as popular as Goblins or Elves we're starting to see a bit more frequency in the showings of these decks.". The article is riddled with these sort of comments and decks.
These aren't rogue decks, they are the fringe of the fringe of the legacy format. I hope no one takes this article seriously and use it as a primer for Legacy rogue decks.
As far as formatting goes, one tool that I use extensively is Microsoft Excel.
You can cut and paste formatted tables from Excel to your article with very little loss of information. I format most of my information in Microsoft Excel, then cut and paste it into the article and then adjust the width of the tables as needed. To me at least it is much easier than messing with the table buttons in the article editor.
Tables are one of the best ways to add color, section dividers, and a multi-column layout your article in a visually interesting way.
Wow, the price to play Magic is getting ridiculous! Im glad Im getting out of it (not really I love to play but its becoming crazy). For those that play paper Legacy, Vintage, good luck in the future finding any real tournaments a few years down the road, its just going to get more and more costly to get any real new blood into the format. Its a shame, this GAME is getting out of hand IMO.
Damn fine article. Bookmark for sure. Haters galore are jealous I'd say. Boo hoo - now shut up and listen.
Glad I got my Sylvan Library for EDH a while ago. Never imagined it would shoot up like this.
This is much better then some of your earlier ones, I think you're hitting your stride, keep it up
Workshop/Sol Ring gets you that T1 Jubjub even without the moxen... :)
Great article....
I agree that inflation is not the reason for tickets to be sold for more than 1 USD and it is likely to do with taxes(especially the VAT), but what do you mean your professor has told you that the "more money gets printed by the government" statement is wrong?
There is no way to deny that the increased printing of money increases the nominal value of goods. There are more dollars chasing less goods and I don't care how complicated people try to make the situation it is really that simple.
No one anywhere on the political spectrum will say that printing money does not cause inflation.
I think that's a reasonable line. Is it superior? Maybe even superior. If so, it’s very narrow, in that the only thing it does that I can come up with is preventing a loss to a topdecked Groundswell (am I missing anything? Wind Zendikon has you beat regardless, and the green zendikon costs too much). It's worth noting at this point that I did not pass a Groundswell in the draft, and all but P3P7 and P3P8 contained something I would think even newer players would take over Groundswell for a UG deck.
So Villain had to have drafted a Groundswell out of the P3P7 or P3P8 packs, and it has to be on top of the library right now. That’s preventing against an extremely slim chance, but I’ll still grant you that it becomes the right play by that slim chance, so long as we are not opening ourselves up to some other way of losing by keeping the gear on the cat. Assuming no Groundswell, the win by leaving the gear on the cat must be 100% as iron clad as moving it, or else leaving the gear on the cat becomes the wrong play.
I’ll leave it to you and other readers to figure out if there is any way to lose this game by keeping the gear on the Steppe Lynx that wouldn’t happen by moving it onto the Crusher Zendikon. :)
EDIT: I had it wrong above...leaving it on the cat to cast the nulls also prevents against the loss to a topdecked Wind Zendikon, which is more likely than the Groundswell since we know we passed a Wind Zendikon (twice actually, it wheeled from P3P1). It still needs to be weighed against possible outs for the Villain created by leaving the gear in place, but it helps the case for leaving it, to be sure.
We should look for that in a special SotP in just 13 days?
I'll quibble about the economics, but I completely agree that your column has a (virtual) ton of solid content.
this article may have provided little value, but most of hams articles are full of good stuff.
Keep it up ham
I predict at least a 10 tix fall on Mox Diamond. (from 35 to 25). The deck it is best in in legacy (Land) won't work till we get Maze of Ith in MED4 and Rishadan Port in Masques (or possibly in MED4) I don't think that many peopel will be clamoring to play with it.
Plus I anticipate at least one other wanted card in Relics (Sol Ring and/or Mana Vault) that will take up a good portion of the value. So anyone holding onto Diamonds will be taking a risk of 15-20 tix per loss if valued at 35.
i wouldnt sweat it, wed and fri are ham days, i guess only if you could fit more news you could improve, but what else can you do? make it up!
I'm sorry for the double posting here, but I wanted to add one more thing.. there are several instances (for the stronger decks) where if there is a primer out there that I have found I have tried to link it (maybe more so in Pt.2 then this part, but I have).. my hopes is someone casually reading these articles may see a deck list that stick out to them, read my generalizations about the deck, and continue on to research it more and read some of the more indepth primers on them.. if I took the time to put together a primer for each deck in Legacy then it would take forever, I'm simply trying to draw in a little interest in Legacy in anticipation of it's online start
You've made one error in your look at this article, it isn't a primer... a primer is filled to the brim with information like card choice and match ups, but that isn't the purpose of this article.. I'm not sure if you read the first one, but there idea is better stated there.. these articles were meant as a brief showing of deck lists for those who knew nothing about the format.. also you're misunderstanding that these are showing the showings of the decks, not how they place or how strong they are, the quote you highlighted is taken a little out of context, the frequency in the showings I'm referring to isn't a look at the years of Legacy and other tribes showing up more as the years progress, but as a look at the deck lists.. the ones shown in the first article vs. these fringe/rogue decks.. you are correct this particular article isn't really rogues and I've been told that by a couple of people and that is simply a naming error on my part, it probably was better named fringe decks instead since the second part contains decks that are better considered under the "rogue" title.. I think I made mention to the bottom line here in comments and even in the article that these aren't based on how strong a deck performs, but simply focusing on what people are bringing, not everything written about Magic/a format of Magic has to be about how to win, sometimes (at least in my case) it's nice to know some general information as well, I apologize if this is not the case for most people
I appreciate your honesty and I hope I've better clarified my intention for you, but it does sound like you haven't seen/read the first one and having done so it might provide you a better insight as to where I was coming from
Hey Godot, just wanted to say great walkthrough! I only play Swiss drafts because I always like to play 3 rounds, and I agree with your points in the comments completely. I tend to look at magic as a game that I play against myself rather than a game that I play against an opponent. when I lose, i always ask myself what I did wrong rather than always assuming my opponent did something right.
keep up the good work!
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I look forward to reading this article every week. It is pretty much the first thing I do every week. Eric provides both valuable insight and useful statistical information. He is one of (if not the) most important people in the mtgo community.
His articles see more readers than any other writer here. I think your opinion is in the minority. Then again, you are entitled to it.
The non-foil version won't fall much (though it won't go up either). So far nothing else of value to MTGO has been revealed in the set, basically making the FTV set a $35 mox diamond. The SH FOIL mox though will likely tank quite a bit.
I wait all week for these.
ahhh, Mana Vault and Sol Ring. Not my favorite cards of all time, but the 2 I miss playing with the most. And yes even over the power 9
I can see you put a lot of work into this, but to be honest, that's about the only thing this breakdown has going on for it. You lack any real insight in the format and almost every deck in the article is god-awful and often outdated. I mean Clerics? Come on, it has three placings on deckcheck, the latest being close to a year old. Furthermore all three are from what looks like underdeveloped metagames. Yet you have this comment: "While not as popular as Goblins or Elves we're starting to see a bit more frequency in the showings of these decks.". The article is riddled with these sort of comments and decks.
These aren't rogue decks, they are the fringe of the fringe of the legacy format. I hope no one takes this article seriously and use it as a primer for Legacy rogue decks.
I think these state of the program articles provide very little value.
As far as formatting goes, one tool that I use extensively is Microsoft Excel.
You can cut and paste formatted tables from Excel to your article with very little loss of information. I format most of my information in Microsoft Excel, then cut and paste it into the article and then adjust the width of the tables as needed. To me at least it is much easier than messing with the table buttons in the article editor.
Tables are one of the best ways to add color, section dividers, and a multi-column layout your article in a visually interesting way.
Actually I think you did that well. Except for the one jumbled image which was confusing. No walls of text here.