It's not as easy as you'd think. Most decks run 5 Mox, Crypt, and Sol ring as their only permanent artifact mana. The chances of seeing 2 of those plus Opal in your opening 7 (almost the only time it's actually better than a land) are extremely slim. Additionally, each extra copy is essentially a Lotus Petal, which is not something that most decks want. Storm and balls-to-the-wall aggro Shops decks will occasionally run it, but overall, Vintage and Legacy have little impact on its price as it just doesn't see much play in either format.
Thank you for your additional insight! I had a chance to play this deck in a tournament and it worked smoothly for me. I never really missed Madcap Skills, while Shock was an amazing card whenever I brought it in. This Deck can't win against a Heroic creature equipped with Hopeful Eidolon and Shock is the cheapest way to prevent that. Mono-black and White Heroic seemed to be positive match-ups and I only lost to Mono-Blue, which isn't popular but almost unbeatable for us with all these 1/4s.
1. Contract from Below - Who doesn't want a card that makes Ancestral Recall look weak :D
OK... maybe not, but on a more serious note...
1: Accumulated Knowledge - Combined with Intuition this was a mainstay in old Type 1/1.5, though it isn't played anymore due to incidental graveyard hate, taking up too much room, and Jace TMS.
2: Fact or Fiction - An absolute powerhouse when it was legal in Standard and Extended and restricted for years in Vintage. It has since been unrestricted and still sees play.
3: Life from the Loam - The backbone of the "Landcestral Recall" engine, it's absurdly powerful when combined with ONS cycling lands.
4: Skeletal Scrying - The Black "Draw X", it's more mana efficient than any of the Blue options at the cost of paying life instead.
I posted this above, but I thought I should repost here. I was wondering if there are any statistics on how much power 9 has been opened on magic online?
This was a good read, very in-depth. I've been playing blue tron for a while. I like the sideboarding guide. I kind of had been just boarding slightly differently each match up until I saw some streams by shoktroopa.
I like how this deck has good match ups against the best decks in modern.
Yep, it's 3 votes for categories with 7 nominees or more, 2 for categories with 5 nominees, 1 for categories with 3 nominees. I figured one can have a dark horse favorite while wanting to give a vote to a more renowned card as well.
When you are already running "real" Moxen, Opal Easily fits right in.
I'm curious as to how long before it gets restricted in Vintage.
Running 9 clean Moxen seems to make restricting the others pretty moot.
Nice article, Raimundas. I especially like the previews, as I have not been keeping up on that news.
Glad you liked the Scouring Sands in the Sligh sideboard. I chose it over the other options for sweepers entirely for the Scry. An argument could be made that instant speed is more important. I opted for the slight opportunity to improve my top decks. I don't recall if it became a factor in that event or not.
I'd like to explain the lack of Madcap Skills in my list. Skills is clearly one of the preferred cards in such a deck. I just find it so bad when lots of opponents have Keening Apparitions on the table. Of course other opponents have instant creature removal, putting Skills on the wrong side of a 2-for-1 trade. By using instant pump spells, I weaken Keening Apparitions and Pacifisms, and can try to time my way around instant removal. Titan's Strength has Scry, which is soooo important in helping the deck run smoothly.
I sided in Shock almost all the time, and recommend they start in the main deck as long as WWx decks continue to shine. Four Rouse the Mob was too many.
/i had problems with submitting a deck after sideboarding during my vma draft. I also gave a guy 5 cards off of a fact or fiction due to lag causing me to click ok too many times (or something like that, all i know was it let him pick a 5 card pile and i was mad). I still won the games where i had bugs, so that was good.
Man, If I lost a game of magic where my opponent just gave me a five card FoF, I might retire.
Just to let you know, you used checkboxes instead of radio buttons on your voting form so it is possible for someone to vote for more than one card which might confuse things a bit.
I dislike the color scheme on both the wizards main site and gatherer. What I dislike about gatherer most though is the fact that there is no next/previous page links at the bottom of the page, forcing you to go back to the top to see the next page of search results (BTW, the mtgotraders site does the same)
Oh and while on the topic of the traders new site, can someone fix the search function on the puremtgo home page so it directs to the new site, please (sorry for going off topic).
I think Pete, that some of the "needs to be fixed" items may be shunted into the "aesthetics" category just because they don't represent client breaking problems and instead represent to some extent, UI improvements. UI isn't however just about taste. It is also about ease of use and convenience. While WOTC may be happy to make some things more inconvenient for its customers to force them into using the client differently than they want to it may have a very chilling effect short term on the secondary market.
I think this is a significant problem and is worrisome partially because WOTC employees have a pattern of showing disdain for User Interface improvement and customer convenience. I could not care less what things LOOK like (though my eyes may disagree with me) as long as stuff actually works and isn't too discouraging in the process. The collection is a prime example where this line is drawn for me. It isn't merely hard to look at my 20k+ cards. It is hard to use them in any reasonably fast way. I am sure you know what I mean.
Anyway I hope for the best but I expect the worst here.
I haven't tried this yet, but i thought about trying to have say, topor orb, pithing needle, phyrexian revoker, crucible of worlds, and/or other artifact silver-bullet type cards in the sideboard so that games 2-3, you could tutor for exactly what you need to help you win.
Obviously, the list of artifacts I listed are incomplete or maybe not the correct choices, but I just wanted to illustrate the tool-box concept i was considering.
I tested a few games with the JVL list, just to try it out. The games went poorly, but it wasn't the deck's fault. Just varience, and my sleep-deprived state, were the culprit for my losses.
It's not as easy as you'd think. Most decks run 5 Mox, Crypt, and Sol ring as their only permanent artifact mana. The chances of seeing 2 of those plus Opal in your opening 7 (almost the only time it's actually better than a land) are extremely slim. Additionally, each extra copy is essentially a Lotus Petal, which is not something that most decks want. Storm and balls-to-the-wall aggro Shops decks will occasionally run it, but overall, Vintage and Legacy have little impact on its price as it just doesn't see much play in either format.
That makes little sense to me without a means to weight your vote (1st choice, 2nd choice, etc).
Thank you for your additional insight! I had a chance to play this deck in a tournament and it worked smoothly for me. I never really missed Madcap Skills, while Shock was an amazing card whenever I brought it in. This Deck can't win against a Heroic creature equipped with Hopeful Eidolon and Shock is the cheapest way to prevent that. Mono-black and White Heroic seemed to be positive match-ups and I only lost to Mono-Blue, which isn't popular but almost unbeatable for us with all these 1/4s.
My wtite-ins:
1. Contract from Below - Who doesn't want a card that makes Ancestral Recall look weak :D
OK... maybe not, but on a more serious note...
1: Accumulated Knowledge - Combined with Intuition this was a mainstay in old Type 1/1.5, though it isn't played anymore due to incidental graveyard hate, taking up too much room, and Jace TMS.
2: Fact or Fiction - An absolute powerhouse when it was legal in Standard and Extended and restricted for years in Vintage. It has since been unrestricted and still sees play.
3: Life from the Loam - The backbone of the "Landcestral Recall" engine, it's absurdly powerful when combined with ONS cycling lands.
4: Skeletal Scrying - The Black "Draw X", it's more mana efficient than any of the Blue options at the cost of paying life instead.
I posted this above, but I thought I should repost here. I was wondering if there are any statistics on how much power 9 has been opened on magic online?
How have you done against affinity? I've only played it a few times, but I only won one Match.
Ive reported this a few times. So far no luck.
Thanks Joshua
I will let heath know about the search function and the redirection. Thanks for bringing that up!
This was a good read, very in-depth. I've been playing blue tron for a while. I like the sideboarding guide. I kind of had been just boarding slightly differently each match up until I saw some streams by shoktroopa.
I like how this deck has good match ups against the best decks in modern.
Yep, it's 3 votes for categories with 7 nominees or more, 2 for categories with 5 nominees, 1 for categories with 3 nominees. I figured one can have a dark horse favorite while wanting to give a vote to a more renowned card as well.
When you are already running "real" Moxen, Opal Easily fits right in.
I'm curious as to how long before it gets restricted in Vintage.
Running 9 clean Moxen seems to make restricting the others pretty moot.
Nice article, Raimundas. I especially like the previews, as I have not been keeping up on that news.
Glad you liked the Scouring Sands in the Sligh sideboard. I chose it over the other options for sweepers entirely for the Scry. An argument could be made that instant speed is more important. I opted for the slight opportunity to improve my top decks. I don't recall if it became a factor in that event or not.
I'd like to explain the lack of Madcap Skills in my list. Skills is clearly one of the preferred cards in such a deck. I just find it so bad when lots of opponents have Keening Apparitions on the table. Of course other opponents have instant creature removal, putting Skills on the wrong side of a 2-for-1 trade. By using instant pump spells, I weaken Keening Apparitions and Pacifisms, and can try to time my way around instant removal. Titan's Strength has Scry, which is soooo important in helping the deck run smoothly.
I sided in Shock almost all the time, and recommend they start in the main deck as long as WWx decks continue to shine. Four Rouse the Mob was too many.
/i had problems with submitting a deck after sideboarding during my vma draft. I also gave a guy 5 cards off of a fact or fiction due to lag causing me to click ok too many times (or something like that, all i know was it let him pick a 5 card pile and i was mad). I still won the games where i had bugs, so that was good.
Man, If I lost a game of magic where my opponent just gave me a five card FoF, I might retire.
Deliberate. It even specifies up to three per section.
Just to let you know, you used checkboxes instead of radio buttons on your voting form so it is possible for someone to vote for more than one card which might confuse things a bit.
As stated in the opening speech, this category was nonpermanent only. Too big otherwise. Card-drawing permanents will be covered in another entry.
I dislike the color scheme on both the wizards main site and gatherer. What I dislike about gatherer most though is the fact that there is no next/previous page links at the bottom of the page, forcing you to go back to the top to see the next page of search results (BTW, the mtgotraders site does the same)
Oh and while on the topic of the traders new site, can someone fix the search function on the puremtgo home page so it directs to the new site, please (sorry for going off topic).
Can I write in Land Tax and Sylvan Library?
Glaring spotlight for those pesky hexproof decks
It sees play in Vintage and Legacy decks, so there is now more demand with the same supply.
I think Pete, that some of the "needs to be fixed" items may be shunted into the "aesthetics" category just because they don't represent client breaking problems and instead represent to some extent, UI improvements. UI isn't however just about taste. It is also about ease of use and convenience. While WOTC may be happy to make some things more inconvenient for its customers to force them into using the client differently than they want to it may have a very chilling effect short term on the secondary market.
I think this is a significant problem and is worrisome partially because WOTC employees have a pattern of showing disdain for User Interface improvement and customer convenience. I could not care less what things LOOK like (though my eyes may disagree with me) as long as stuff actually works and isn't too discouraging in the process. The collection is a prime example where this line is drawn for me. It isn't merely hard to look at my 20k+ cards. It is hard to use them in any reasonably fast way. I am sure you know what I mean.
Anyway I hope for the best but I expect the worst here.
Any thoughts on the 40% Mox Opal jump? That's far more than typical fluctuation and makes it the most valuable Modern card that's not a 5/6 for 1G
I like the idea, but I am not sure how elegant it would be.
I haven't tried this yet, but i thought about trying to have say, topor orb, pithing needle, phyrexian revoker, crucible of worlds, and/or other artifact silver-bullet type cards in the sideboard so that games 2-3, you could tutor for exactly what you need to help you win.
Obviously, the list of artifacts I listed are incomplete or maybe not the correct choices, but I just wanted to illustrate the tool-box concept i was considering.
I tested a few games with the JVL list, just to try it out. The games went poorly, but it wasn't the deck's fault. Just varience, and my sleep-deprived state, were the culprit for my losses.