The Zach Jesse ban sounds ridiculous to me. I don't see how his past has anything to do with Magic or why you would ban someone from playing Magic for having a criminal past. Unless that criminal past has something specifically to do with something that happened at a MTG event or perhaps relates to a fraud/cheating (which may directly relate to playing Magic). I do not think the public safety argument very far. I don't think Wizards does anything to background check players at MTG events and nor do I think they should need to. Of all the people who play Magic how many have a criminal past? I have no idea but you have to imagine it's far more than just Zach Jesse and I think there's a good chance that there are people with far worse criminal pasts who are currently playing the game (though presumably not quite as well).
I can see from a public image point of view Wizards probably doesn't want people with criminal pasts representing their brand and that top level Magic players do that to some degree. However, I don't think it is remotely fair to single out and ban people essentially for doing too well, as seems to be the case for Zach Jesse who only really came to light after making Top 8. Also, there's a big difference to saying we don't want you representing our company (which seems like something they are entitled to do) and saying we don't want you to play our game at all...ever. It all seems very unfair and I hope Wizards sees the light.
Deed I've tried in quite a few decks, but it runs into problems against Planeswalkers, ramp and reanimation. Good against swarms, but I usually look to O-stone if I need a 2 turn 3 mana kill everything, dependent on the deck.
I've used both, I've lost to both, I've beaten both, they've seen a fair amount of play over the years. Restore Balance is a longstanding lynchpin of my landless 5-colour builds, and price of progress alongside Magus of the Moon were essential back when I won the invitational. If I see them getting too popular I'll run safeguards again: Gargoyle Ramp into a Nullstone Gargoyle or a well timed Orim's Chant really ruin Restore Balance's day.
I tried to make those Cascade decks work. I really did. I must have played decks based around those at least ten times, but I never won a single event with them. With more practice, I think I could have pushed my win percentage up a bit more with Restore Balance, but I eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't ever going to regularly win events with the deck. When the price of Restore Balance and Living End spiked a few months ago, I took the opportunity to sell those cards and am now focusing on other things when I'm able to play Tribal Wars.
I have to disagree that Restore Balance and Price of Progress are the most underutilized cards in the format. Those aren't in the same league as Natural Order, Pernicious Deed, or Intuition. Those are three of the most powerful cards in the format, and they're very rarely played, whereas we see Restore Balance and Price of Progress played fairly often.
Maybe the most underutilized is Vindicate? I would love to Bloodbraid into Vindicate, but that's another card that's effectively banned in the format due to price.
I was surprised how bad my Magus of the Moon was last week; everyone had a ton of basics. I think I could add 2x Serum Visions for 2x lands in that Wizards build to help Delver not be as bad as you claim (he's fine, just not insane).
Well, Restore Balance is for players who like RestoreBalance.dek. Your average tribal player, even when chooses to go cutthroat, prefers to go cutthroat by swarming with linear tribal creatures.
Price of Progress has been seen on occasion. But not usually for 24 damage (I believe it might have even been 30, I think I had 5 lands on the battlefield, and I don't have any basic in that deck). Not that it's needed, even in your case I think I was already closer to 0 than to 20, but it sure is splashy. :)
It's not just the early turns. In fact, it's even worse mid-game. You draw a tapland as your 4th land, you can't drop the Kozilek's Predator that could stop your opponent's assault. You may just lose the game right there. Don't tell me it never happened.
I'd rather use all basic lands than taplands. Especially in that deck, where there's just one card that requires double color. And any fetch > any dual. Even Terramorphic Expanse, because at least you thin your deck, skip Wasteland, don't reveal your colors turn 1, and such.
In a deck with so many basics, the M10 checklands are functionally regular duals. Can't understand why people don't like to play those.
And Taiga is 2 tix, anyway. Can't get cheaper than that (or wider a gap with paper Magic!)
Nice work, glad to see that you're writing, playing, and enjoying both of those activities. Vintage is awesome, but I can tell you that even I've been frustrated by some bad-beats at times. I have this burning desire lately to play metagame decks and troll the top dogs as much as possible. Anti-shops, anti delver type decks really. We'll see how that goes!
In vintage, brainstorm and ponder were really good at finding restricted cards, and at 4 copies a piece they were very consistent as well.
In legacy, Brainstorm gives decks with blue such a high level of consistency that other colors have a hard time competing. That isn't to say that other decks or colors can't do well, but look at the top legacy decks and tell me how many aren't blue based.
I love brainstorm though, and I don't want it banned. One of the things I love about legacy is the fact that I can play brainstorm.
Also, i'm sure you know about the interaction between brainstorm, ponder, and fetchlands. Although brainstorm isn't giving you extra cards, you're trading likely dead lands into fresh cards. Then shuffling them away.
Yeah though I have noticed some odd outliers where the card isn't played at all but retains super high pricing even through multiple printings and yet others that are heavily played and have only small printings are super cheap.
I do believe it is the casual buyer who has run away in fear or loathing and I am sure they will be back eventually but meantime we suffer for their cowardice.
Any time you feel like a Vintage game hit me up and I will gladly oblige. I do have a few less than good decks that I wouldn't be too happy about losing with in TP.
I really love your articles, especially the ones with interviews. I found it funny that the only reason Soly wants Brainstorm banned in Legacy is to make people angry. In fact, everything I've read where some one is in favor of that ban it's for the same reason. I've yet to see a legitimate reason why people think this. Am I missing something here? Can you tell me why Brainstorm should be banned?
Well as Kumagoro said, he took 24 damage out of no where when I cast Howl of the Horde with raid followed by Price of Progress and if you watch his replay video you can see how brutal Restore Balance is.
My favourite format at the moment is Vintage as well its just hard finding players in the just for fun room, I don't think my decks are competitive enough for the TP room, but I'm not really heading in that direction.
In regards to card prices you are defiantly right, I sold my collection when I stopped playing and am now picking up most of the cards for a 3rd of the price even less in some cases. There are a few that have shot up though in price. I think its due to a shift in playing patterns on MTGO, the number of casual players has drasticly shrunk which has resulted in less non tournament cards being purchased any more, the number of tournament players on the other hand has increased making the staples rise and anything else drops to 0.1 tickets if its not in a tournament deck, this is fed further by the increase in drafters.
It's all about supply and demand. The drafters feed the tournament players but the circle is in disrepair due to the lack of casual players picking up what the tournament players aren't interested in.
What did Mother of Runes ever do to you :) I have been playing with that card for almost my whole magic career. I think it is a very fair card :) Thanks for the comments though guys always appreciate it.
I think the economy has shrunk in lots of small ways. Many of the eternal legal cards prices have gone from holding some value to being penny trash. And the same is true for many modern legal cards and even standard cards. There was a time when Mythics were never under 1 tix (with a couple of weird exceptions like "Mythic" rarity promos that were really common) now it is not hard to find them for cents on the dollar.
Standard rares no longer hold much value unless they are super hot. And it is true that they have a life cycle as expected but it has shrunk immensely from holding value for a year + to I expect much less than 8 months on average though in specifics that could be somewhat wrong.
My eternal collection (non-power) lost a good deal of value ironically after Vintage Masters went "out of print" in September. And never recovered. Heck the mox jet I had cost me 52 tix and dropped almost over night by 20 tix and never recovered.
I have a large and diverse collection and it is only expected that it fluctuates in value but I have found that in the last year or so, many cards that used to go up and down based on normal factors now just go down.
This can't be coincidental. On the other hand I don't have a single explanation for why it is so. I imagine the redemption fees have played a part for some newer sets not retaining value, and the overabundance and subsequent flooding of VMA after speculators sold out probably sunk quite a few staple prices.
And while it hurts someone like me because I don't keep pouring money into my collection, I am sure it is a great thing for someone willing to pay the money into the system now as for example power has never been more obtainable.
The taplands really aren't as bad as they might seem. The deck has exactly zero 1-drops and only Nest Invader as a 2-drop that you actually want to play on the second turn; I'm usually not missing out on anything by having the lands enter tapped and also the deck is really, really bad against aggressive decks with a decent draw, which the lifegain helps with a tiny bit. I'll probably try swapping them out for some scry Temples when Theros rotates out of standard though.
That being said, if anyone wants to donate some dual lands to me, I certainly wouldn't be opposed.
In what sense do you think that the MTGO economy is shrinkring? And why should it affect the value of your cards?
Has there been a significant drop in the value of eternal cards? If you have a lot of non-eternal cards ie standard and leave them be for 8 month then they will go down in value independent of the size of the economy. So what part if your collection is responsable for the decrease in value?
I like the idea of Sylvan Scrying to grab the Inkmoth. I've found myself in the same boat, just wanting/needing an Inkmoth to win. Definitely will be testing that before Sunday.
I've enjoyed your videos and look forward to checking them out weekly. Keep up the great content.
Hi...
Perhaps I've just been really lucky, but I've run into less of it online than I expected. I do like the Corrupters, and bring them in frequently, but I'm not sold on a full set being required. Other removal, between Beast Within and Dismember, does give me additional interaction.
While all Tron lists (and really, probably most lists in general) are susceptible to the T3 kill, the issues I've run into with Gruul Tron many times center around Pyroclasm into Karn or Oblivion Stone. Most of the RG Tron lists are running 4 main. Sadly, it's the only deck I've consistently lost to in the 8-mans.
I like your idea of upping the number of creatures as the format does seem to be very removal heavy currently.
Other tech I got to test out included Sylvan Library to tutor for your Inkmoth Nexus, which I found to be the best card in the deck. Not sure it's necessarily worth 4 slots but often all I wanted was to have an Inkmoth on the field. Guttural Response in the board was an interesting inclusion - countering Cryptic or Electroylze for one-mana is nice but your mileage may vary.
I would definitely add in a Pendelhaven as you're unlikely to ever be too badly punished for it - it comes into play untapped and produces green, though I guess it is susceptible to Blood Moon and/or Fulminator Mage though I don't think either would be devastating to this deck.
Congrats on the qualification and I agree that there's no such thing as a cheap or easy deck. Use what you can be successful with.
Hey, glad you could stop by! Het, as I stated in the article and when we played, you were correct to do that and IF I had continued and done well, I would have been able to credit you for saving me the embarrassment of making it into some later round only to have someone else call the judge.It was way better to have it happen game 1 match 1 than down the road.
I was so nervous anyways that in a way, after that I was a lot less nervous. The worst case scenario had already happened.
So, not only was it beneficial to me and correct to do, you did it in a very classy way and with sympathy. I knew you felt bad. Don't misinterpret the tone of my rant as in any way towards you. More towards myself and a silly rule. Unfortunately, even silly rules have to be enforced or else all consistency goes out the door.
Unfortunately as well, Princess passed away last Friday after a week long struggle with liver failure. In the end, we had to make that awful decision pet owners eventually face if they have more than a few pets. We chose to give her release from pain and a dignified end of her life. To bring her back home and let her die in pain from an internal obstruction due to not being able to digest food would have been selfish on our part just to keep her with us. We had to let her go.
On a happier note, the tournament was a great experience and I will eventually attend another once my wallet recovers! In the mean time it's MTGO and chasing MOCS.
Best of luck in your future exploits! Thanks for being a cool dude about the whole thing!
Oh and how about the loud mouth dude to your right harassing the kid?????
Pretty smal sample of matches to give up on those corrupters. Affinity is the #3 qualifying deck for the festival. I'm also surprised to hear you are having a hard time versus gruul Tron. All Tron variants are susceptible to t3 kills.
Great stuff guys.
The Zach Jesse ban sounds ridiculous to me. I don't see how his past has anything to do with Magic or why you would ban someone from playing Magic for having a criminal past. Unless that criminal past has something specifically to do with something that happened at a MTG event or perhaps relates to a fraud/cheating (which may directly relate to playing Magic). I do not think the public safety argument very far. I don't think Wizards does anything to background check players at MTG events and nor do I think they should need to. Of all the people who play Magic how many have a criminal past? I have no idea but you have to imagine it's far more than just Zach Jesse and I think there's a good chance that there are people with far worse criminal pasts who are currently playing the game (though presumably not quite as well).
I can see from a public image point of view Wizards probably doesn't want people with criminal pasts representing their brand and that top level Magic players do that to some degree. However, I don't think it is remotely fair to single out and ban people essentially for doing too well, as seems to be the case for Zach Jesse who only really came to light after making Top 8. Also, there's a big difference to saying we don't want you representing our company (which seems like something they are entitled to do) and saying we don't want you to play our game at all...ever. It all seems very unfair and I hope Wizards sees the light.
Deed I've tried in quite a few decks, but it runs into problems against Planeswalkers, ramp and reanimation. Good against swarms, but I usually look to O-stone if I need a 2 turn 3 mana kill everything, dependent on the deck.
I've used both, I've lost to both, I've beaten both, they've seen a fair amount of play over the years. Restore Balance is a longstanding lynchpin of my landless 5-colour builds, and price of progress alongside Magus of the Moon were essential back when I won the invitational. If I see them getting too popular I'll run safeguards again: Gargoyle Ramp into a Nullstone Gargoyle or a well timed Orim's Chant really ruin Restore Balance's day.
I tried to make those Cascade decks work. I really did. I must have played decks based around those at least ten times, but I never won a single event with them. With more practice, I think I could have pushed my win percentage up a bit more with Restore Balance, but I eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't ever going to regularly win events with the deck. When the price of Restore Balance and Living End spiked a few months ago, I took the opportunity to sell those cards and am now focusing on other things when I'm able to play Tribal Wars.
I have to disagree that Restore Balance and Price of Progress are the most underutilized cards in the format. Those aren't in the same league as Natural Order, Pernicious Deed, or Intuition. Those are three of the most powerful cards in the format, and they're very rarely played, whereas we see Restore Balance and Price of Progress played fairly often.
Maybe the most underutilized is Vindicate? I would love to Bloodbraid into Vindicate, but that's another card that's effectively banned in the format due to price.
I was surprised how bad my Magus of the Moon was last week; everyone had a ton of basics. I think I could add 2x Serum Visions for 2x lands in that Wizards build to help Delver not be as bad as you claim (he's fine, just not insane).
Well, Restore Balance is for players who like RestoreBalance.dek. Your average tribal player, even when chooses to go cutthroat, prefers to go cutthroat by swarming with linear tribal creatures.
Price of Progress has been seen on occasion. But not usually for 24 damage (I believe it might have even been 30, I think I had 5 lands on the battlefield, and I don't have any basic in that deck). Not that it's needed, even in your case I think I was already closer to 0 than to 20, but it sure is splashy. :)
It's not just the early turns. In fact, it's even worse mid-game. You draw a tapland as your 4th land, you can't drop the Kozilek's Predator that could stop your opponent's assault. You may just lose the game right there. Don't tell me it never happened.
I'd rather use all basic lands than taplands. Especially in that deck, where there's just one card that requires double color. And any fetch > any dual. Even Terramorphic Expanse, because at least you thin your deck, skip Wasteland, don't reveal your colors turn 1, and such.
In a deck with so many basics, the M10 checklands are functionally regular duals. Can't understand why people don't like to play those.
And Taiga is 2 tix, anyway. Can't get cheaper than that (or wider a gap with paper Magic!)
Nice work, glad to see that you're writing, playing, and enjoying both of those activities. Vintage is awesome, but I can tell you that even I've been frustrated by some bad-beats at times. I have this burning desire lately to play metagame decks and troll the top dogs as much as possible. Anti-shops, anti delver type decks really. We'll see how that goes!
In vintage, brainstorm and ponder were really good at finding restricted cards, and at 4 copies a piece they were very consistent as well.
In legacy, Brainstorm gives decks with blue such a high level of consistency that other colors have a hard time competing. That isn't to say that other decks or colors can't do well, but look at the top legacy decks and tell me how many aren't blue based.
I love brainstorm though, and I don't want it banned. One of the things I love about legacy is the fact that I can play brainstorm.
Also, i'm sure you know about the interaction between brainstorm, ponder, and fetchlands. Although brainstorm isn't giving you extra cards, you're trading likely dead lands into fresh cards. Then shuffling them away.
Yeah that must have been a pretty sweet moment for you. I've used price to kill people before but not with anywhere near that amount of damage.
Yeah though I have noticed some odd outliers where the card isn't played at all but retains super high pricing even through multiple printings and yet others that are heavily played and have only small printings are super cheap.
I do believe it is the casual buyer who has run away in fear or loathing and I am sure they will be back eventually but meantime we suffer for their cowardice.
Any time you feel like a Vintage game hit me up and I will gladly oblige. I do have a few less than good decks that I wouldn't be too happy about losing with in TP.
I really love your articles, especially the ones with interviews. I found it funny that the only reason Soly wants Brainstorm banned in Legacy is to make people angry. In fact, everything I've read where some one is in favor of that ban it's for the same reason. I've yet to see a legitimate reason why people think this. Am I missing something here? Can you tell me why Brainstorm should be banned?
Well as Kumagoro said, he took 24 damage out of no where when I cast Howl of the Horde with raid followed by Price of Progress and if you watch his replay video you can see how brutal Restore Balance is.
Welcome back its good to see you writing again :)
My favourite format at the moment is Vintage as well its just hard finding players in the just for fun room, I don't think my decks are competitive enough for the TP room, but I'm not really heading in that direction.
In regards to card prices you are defiantly right, I sold my collection when I stopped playing and am now picking up most of the cards for a 3rd of the price even less in some cases. There are a few that have shot up though in price. I think its due to a shift in playing patterns on MTGO, the number of casual players has drasticly shrunk which has resulted in less non tournament cards being purchased any more, the number of tournament players on the other hand has increased making the staples rise and anything else drops to 0.1 tickets if its not in a tournament deck, this is fed further by the increase in drafters.
It's all about supply and demand. The drafters feed the tournament players but the circle is in disrepair due to the lack of casual players picking up what the tournament players aren't interested in.
For some reason I read that as underbrutalized. Because I guess they can be totally brutal.
I think price of progress and restore balance are probably the most underutilized spells in Tribal Wars.
What did Mother of Runes ever do to you :) I have been playing with that card for almost my whole magic career. I think it is a very fair card :) Thanks for the comments though guys always appreciate it.
I think the economy has shrunk in lots of small ways. Many of the eternal legal cards prices have gone from holding some value to being penny trash. And the same is true for many modern legal cards and even standard cards. There was a time when Mythics were never under 1 tix (with a couple of weird exceptions like "Mythic" rarity promos that were really common) now it is not hard to find them for cents on the dollar.
Standard rares no longer hold much value unless they are super hot. And it is true that they have a life cycle as expected but it has shrunk immensely from holding value for a year + to I expect much less than 8 months on average though in specifics that could be somewhat wrong.
My eternal collection (non-power) lost a good deal of value ironically after Vintage Masters went "out of print" in September. And never recovered. Heck the mox jet I had cost me 52 tix and dropped almost over night by 20 tix and never recovered.
I have a large and diverse collection and it is only expected that it fluctuates in value but I have found that in the last year or so, many cards that used to go up and down based on normal factors now just go down.
This can't be coincidental. On the other hand I don't have a single explanation for why it is so. I imagine the redemption fees have played a part for some newer sets not retaining value, and the overabundance and subsequent flooding of VMA after speculators sold out probably sunk quite a few staple prices.
And while it hurts someone like me because I don't keep pouring money into my collection, I am sure it is a great thing for someone willing to pay the money into the system now as for example power has never been more obtainable.
Thanks for the commentary/questions.
The taplands really aren't as bad as they might seem. The deck has exactly zero 1-drops and only Nest Invader as a 2-drop that you actually want to play on the second turn; I'm usually not missing out on anything by having the lands enter tapped and also the deck is really, really bad against aggressive decks with a decent draw, which the lifegain helps with a tiny bit. I'll probably try swapping them out for some scry Temples when Theros rotates out of standard though.
That being said, if anyone wants to donate some dual lands to me, I certainly wouldn't be opposed.
In what sense do you think that the MTGO economy is shrinkring? And why should it affect the value of your cards?
Has there been a significant drop in the value of eternal cards? If you have a lot of non-eternal cards ie standard and leave them be for 8 month then they will go down in value independent of the size of the economy. So what part if your collection is responsable for the decrease in value?
Thanks. Glad you liked it.
I like the idea of Sylvan Scrying to grab the Inkmoth. I've found myself in the same boat, just wanting/needing an Inkmoth to win. Definitely will be testing that before Sunday.
I've enjoyed your videos and look forward to checking them out weekly. Keep up the great content.
Hi...
Perhaps I've just been really lucky, but I've run into less of it online than I expected. I do like the Corrupters, and bring them in frequently, but I'm not sold on a full set being required. Other removal, between Beast Within and Dismember, does give me additional interaction.
While all Tron lists (and really, probably most lists in general) are susceptible to the T3 kill, the issues I've run into with Gruul Tron many times center around Pyroclasm into Karn or Oblivion Stone. Most of the RG Tron lists are running 4 main. Sadly, it's the only deck I've consistently lost to in the 8-mans.
Nice article! I wrote about Mono-Green Infect a while back:
http://puremtgo.com/articles/becoming-modern-man-mono-green-infect
I like your idea of upping the number of creatures as the format does seem to be very removal heavy currently.
Other tech I got to test out included Sylvan Library to tutor for your Inkmoth Nexus, which I found to be the best card in the deck. Not sure it's necessarily worth 4 slots but often all I wanted was to have an Inkmoth on the field. Guttural Response in the board was an interesting inclusion - countering Cryptic or Electroylze for one-mana is nice but your mileage may vary.
I would definitely add in a Pendelhaven as you're unlikely to ever be too badly punished for it - it comes into play untapped and produces green, though I guess it is susceptible to Blood Moon and/or Fulminator Mage though I don't think either would be devastating to this deck.
Congrats on the qualification and I agree that there's no such thing as a cheap or easy deck. Use what you can be successful with.
CHRIS!!!!
Hey, glad you could stop by! Het, as I stated in the article and when we played, you were correct to do that and IF I had continued and done well, I would have been able to credit you for saving me the embarrassment of making it into some later round only to have someone else call the judge.It was way better to have it happen game 1 match 1 than down the road.
I was so nervous anyways that in a way, after that I was a lot less nervous. The worst case scenario had already happened.
So, not only was it beneficial to me and correct to do, you did it in a very classy way and with sympathy. I knew you felt bad. Don't misinterpret the tone of my rant as in any way towards you. More towards myself and a silly rule. Unfortunately, even silly rules have to be enforced or else all consistency goes out the door.
Unfortunately as well, Princess passed away last Friday after a week long struggle with liver failure. In the end, we had to make that awful decision pet owners eventually face if they have more than a few pets. We chose to give her release from pain and a dignified end of her life. To bring her back home and let her die in pain from an internal obstruction due to not being able to digest food would have been selfish on our part just to keep her with us. We had to let her go.
On a happier note, the tournament was a great experience and I will eventually attend another once my wallet recovers! In the mean time it's MTGO and chasing MOCS.
Best of luck in your future exploits! Thanks for being a cool dude about the whole thing!
Oh and how about the loud mouth dude to your right harassing the kid?????
Pretty smal sample of matches to give up on those corrupters. Affinity is the #3 qualifying deck for the festival. I'm also surprised to hear you are having a hard time versus gruul Tron. All Tron variants are susceptible to t3 kills.