Yeah, I'm still not sure if you were being objective enough in your picks. It seemed like you really wanted White heroic to work for you so there were a few picks where you took White cards even though you were shaping up on a solid Blue/Green deck.
Pack 1 Pick 9: Artisan's Sorrow seems better than Annul? It's pricey, but sometimes it's a massive blowout.
Pack 2 Pick 1: That Raredraft seems like a waste with a playable Blue card in the pack.
Pack 2 Pick 3: When you saw very little good White in pack 1, why take Hoplite? Heck, you could have raredrafted this time and fixed your mana for your almost certain U/G deck.
There were of course several others, but I feel like pack 2 is where it started to fall apart. Could just be me though?
Not sure why you took Stymied Hopes over Breaching Hippocamp, neither are exciting but Stymied Hopes is really more of a 2 mana scry one than an actual counter, whereas Breaching Hippocamp can at least attack and block.
The price of FoW may be as high now as it typically was before the promo, but right after the promo came out they could be had for about 50-60 tix each. I logged on right after the downtime and got all four of mine in that range, and I doubt I was alone. Consequently the volume of players hit critical mass for firing Legacy events, and that has in turn created the increased demand that shot the prices up, as you note.
Anybody with a Legacy collection could play Classic. For my part, I had a perception that Classic wasn't a real format because it never fired DE's and because nobody played it in the TP room. The DE thing becomes a death spiral, if they don't fire then it contributes to the format's further decline. But playing in TP more often raises format awareness too, I usually get one or two guys kibitzing the match when I do that.
I also think there are some Legacy players who have been waiting for Vintage to come online, because they don't want to play what they may consider to be an artificial pseudo-Vintage. Actual honest-to-god Vintage will have enough allure to draw some of those people in. But some Legacy players will continue to prefer the Legacy environment for reasons real or imagined, especially because the perception of the Vintage environment is just as skewed as the perception of the Classic environment has been.
Outside of expected value, the original med was a lot more fun than you remember. Nothing is as cool as oubliette with no enchantment removal and feast or famines everywhere
I haven't listened long enough to see if it goes all through the pod cast, but the new audio setup of each host's audio coming out of only one side of the headphones is really annoying, at least for me.
Those must not have gone in because they were Theros cards and I forgot to double check and manually put them in, but the last 4 cards are 2 Stormbreath Dragon and 2 Underworld Cerberus.
I don't play as much Classic as it deserves because of my first love: deckbuilding. I can't get enough feedback for classic events as to the strengths and weaknesses of the deck because serious Classic matches never fire, and I don't really care to waste the tix on an untested deck for a DE or the time for a lengthy PRE. Give me more testing options (even Solitaire, WotC!), and I would play more.
Finally, Stax/Affinity is a bit too powerful for my taste - it kills too many innovations.
I find it hard to believe they will be able to avoid Modern cards. They stated in the article it had to be better than MMA. How do you do that when creatures were so bad pre modern? OLS is ok creatures but they really aren't decent to good until Ravnica or later. It just seems if they want an environment that matches or exceeds MMA it will have to include Modern creatures.
The fact is that's the way people generally see it.
Also, sanctioned MTGO play still thrives on being a testing ground for paper play - where you can win prizes that are either larger or seen as better than online - hence being a format that is not in paper is a huge detriment to sanctioned play participation.
Up until January of this year, when FoW was released as a promo, Legacy fired as much as Classic did; which is to say, never.
What changed to make people not just play Legacy once in a while, but firing at least one DE every single day? The price of FoW is slightly higher now than it was in Jan, but Wasteland (presumably on the back of a successful Legacy DE scene) has shot through the roof.
I didn't really go into the 'legitimacy' argument, mainly because it seems somewhat strange to me (if a format is good, it's good in my opinion - vice versa for bad), but I could see someone who is a big-time grinder or paper player preferring a format with a off-line equivalent.
I also agree with you about preferring a smaller metagame, although as I mentioned in the article and articles previous, I think Workshops are a bit too powerful in the format.
This is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for and generally pretty understandable reasons why you would opt for Legacy over Classic. Hopefully there will be some others who will chime in.
I guess I was thinking more about the white-based aggro decks running Thalia, where I think Pyroclasm is probably still superior because of the cheaper cost.
That's practically the point - if Zen fetches are $5 online and $30 by the next MMA and included in both for sure you will have removed a reason to draft the set.
I can't think of many scenarios where including something in VMA would increase the sales of that set online by more than the amount it would decrease the sales of the next MMA were it to be in that set - and hence making it worth WoTCs while to include them. Some corner cases probably work out, like the aforementioned Blightsteel Colossus, where the cards are only of interest to Vintage/Legacy players, but those cases are few and far between. Certainly not for something as repeatedly reprintable as fetchlands.
I only play Classic (and limited) so I don't know from personal experience, but I think Legacy fires more because it has a paper equivalent. People can follow paper events in paper and copy decklists, or test for local paper events. Legacy also has large paper tournaments, so for the real grinders there is something to strive for. Hopefully Vintage coming online will add some of this "legitimacy" to our format.
I am the opposite from Grappling above: I prefer Classic's small metagame. I like knowing what I'm playing against from turn 1.
show and bargain is pretty good. its a bit risky in this super workshop infested metagame, but it is brimming with raw power and sacrement eats oath and combo decks alive.
Grab your two guys and time vault?
grab your vault, jace, and tendrils?
let me sit here and win on my own time?
except that in the case of mma 2 they are driving the set for paper play, and mtgo is a nice added benefit.
example-
they print zen fetches in vma, and then use them to drive set sales of mma 2. The fact that they were in vma will not diminish there paper value, and the fact that there are more in the system will not diminish online drafting of mma 2.
If your drafting mma 2, do you care that fetchlands are worth 10 or 15? i dont think you do.
with other spells. The thing was they all required you to pop them into your graveyard. Until Cage, all the GY hate was based on timing (Crypt, Mulling your opening hand for void) and was not nearly as effective. Cage came along and gave a out for cheating things from the GY faster than your opponent could ever hope to get them in and out of there.
I don't disagree that printing Griselbrand helped Sneak and Show, but then I think other fatties (Emrakul) had that deck clicking before then as well.
The thing was Cage made it basically the only game in town. It's so stupid effective it's being MAINDECKED in some Vintage lists (I guess hosing Tinker and Oath and Dredge is pretty good for 1 mana)
That's not because I don't like old frames. I'm of the opinion the old frames were better on everything except lands and also new frame artifacts with art to match (mixing old art and new frames artifacts looks really bad).
But I think here there is definitely a chance to save some collector face. I mean, look at Tangle Wire - the old frames one retains a good fraction of it's value while the new one is far more affordable. That's a win-win for everyone. So I hope everything is new frames because if it helps retain even a little bit of value that's a good thing all around for all
Yeah, I'm still not sure if you were being objective enough in your picks. It seemed like you really wanted White heroic to work for you so there were a few picks where you took White cards even though you were shaping up on a solid Blue/Green deck.
Pack 1 Pick 9: Artisan's Sorrow seems better than Annul? It's pricey, but sometimes it's a massive blowout.
Pack 2 Pick 1: That Raredraft seems like a waste with a playable Blue card in the pack.
Pack 2 Pick 3: When you saw very little good White in pack 1, why take Hoplite? Heck, you could have raredrafted this time and fixed your mana for your almost certain U/G deck.
There were of course several others, but I feel like pack 2 is where it started to fall apart. Could just be me though?
Not sure why you took Stymied Hopes over Breaching Hippocamp, neither are exciting but Stymied Hopes is really more of a 2 mana scry one than an actual counter, whereas Breaching Hippocamp can at least attack and block.
The price of FoW may be as high now as it typically was before the promo, but right after the promo came out they could be had for about 50-60 tix each. I logged on right after the downtime and got all four of mine in that range, and I doubt I was alone. Consequently the volume of players hit critical mass for firing Legacy events, and that has in turn created the increased demand that shot the prices up, as you note.
I had a fairly good Legacy collection even before that, but I did not play Classic until this year. I talked about it a little in my article from earlier this year about getting into Classic: http://puremtgo.com/articles/eternal-warrior-1-classic-final-frontier
Anybody with a Legacy collection could play Classic. For my part, I had a perception that Classic wasn't a real format because it never fired DE's and because nobody played it in the TP room. The DE thing becomes a death spiral, if they don't fire then it contributes to the format's further decline. But playing in TP more often raises format awareness too, I usually get one or two guys kibitzing the match when I do that.
I also think there are some Legacy players who have been waiting for Vintage to come online, because they don't want to play what they may consider to be an artificial pseudo-Vintage. Actual honest-to-god Vintage will have enough allure to draw some of those people in. But some Legacy players will continue to prefer the Legacy environment for reasons real or imagined, especially because the perception of the Vintage environment is just as skewed as the perception of the Classic environment has been.
Outside of expected value, the original med was a lot more fun than you remember. Nothing is as cool as oubliette with no enchantment removal and feast or famines everywhere
BLACK FTW
I haven't listened long enough to see if it goes all through the pod cast, but the new audio setup of each host's audio coming out of only one side of the headphones is really annoying, at least for me.
Those must not have gone in because they were Theros cards and I forgot to double check and manually put them in, but the last 4 cards are 2 Stormbreath Dragon and 2 Underworld Cerberus.
What are the last four cards on the ramp deck's sideboard?
I don't play as much Classic as it deserves because of my first love: deckbuilding. I can't get enough feedback for classic events as to the strengths and weaknesses of the deck because serious Classic matches never fire, and I don't really care to waste the tix on an untested deck for a DE or the time for a lengthy PRE. Give me more testing options (even Solitaire, WotC!), and I would play more.
Finally, Stax/Affinity is a bit too powerful for my taste - it kills too many innovations.
I find it hard to believe they will be able to avoid Modern cards. They stated in the article it had to be better than MMA. How do you do that when creatures were so bad pre modern? OLS is ok creatures but they really aren't decent to good until Ravnica or later. It just seems if they want an environment that matches or exceeds MMA it will have to include Modern creatures.
The fact is that's the way people generally see it.
Also, sanctioned MTGO play still thrives on being a testing ground for paper play - where you can win prizes that are either larger or seen as better than online - hence being a format that is not in paper is a huge detriment to sanctioned play participation.
Up until January of this year, when FoW was released as a promo, Legacy fired as much as Classic did; which is to say, never.
What changed to make people not just play Legacy once in a while, but firing at least one DE every single day? The price of FoW is slightly higher now than it was in Jan, but Wasteland (presumably on the back of a successful Legacy DE scene) has shot through the roof.
I didn't really go into the 'legitimacy' argument, mainly because it seems somewhat strange to me (if a format is good, it's good in my opinion - vice versa for bad), but I could see someone who is a big-time grinder or paper player preferring a format with a off-line equivalent.
I also agree with you about preferring a smaller metagame, although as I mentioned in the article and articles previous, I think Workshops are a bit too powerful in the format.
This is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for and generally pretty understandable reasons why you would opt for Legacy over Classic. Hopefully there will be some others who will chime in.
I guess I was thinking more about the white-based aggro decks running Thalia, where I think Pyroclasm is probably still superior because of the cheaper cost.
That's practically the point - if Zen fetches are $5 online and $30 by the next MMA and included in both for sure you will have removed a reason to draft the set.
I can't think of many scenarios where including something in VMA would increase the sales of that set online by more than the amount it would decrease the sales of the next MMA were it to be in that set - and hence making it worth WoTCs while to include them. Some corner cases probably work out, like the aforementioned Blightsteel Colossus, where the cards are only of interest to Vintage/Legacy players, but those cases are few and far between. Certainly not for something as repeatedly reprintable as fetchlands.
Pyroclasm was severely "weakened" the minute they printed Trygon Predator. Deluge is a fantastic card against very fish-based meta.
The tokens are interesting indeed. I guess I have to get those tokens or should I earn them? - Review Solution
I only play Classic (and limited) so I don't know from personal experience, but I think Legacy fires more because it has a paper equivalent. People can follow paper events in paper and copy decklists, or test for local paper events. Legacy also has large paper tournaments, so for the real grinders there is something to strive for. Hopefully Vintage coming online will add some of this "legitimacy" to our format.
I am the opposite from Grappling above: I prefer Classic's small metagame. I like knowing what I'm playing against from turn 1.
Well, yeah, both Games i keept my starting 7 with LotV+Bazzar, G2 even with Antihate and colored Manasource, so... ;/
show and bargain is pretty good. its a bit risky in this super workshop infested metagame, but it is brimming with raw power and sacrement eats oath and combo decks alive.
Grab your two guys and time vault?
grab your vault, jace, and tendrils?
let me sit here and win on my own time?
except that in the case of mma 2 they are driving the set for paper play, and mtgo is a nice added benefit.
example-
they print zen fetches in vma, and then use them to drive set sales of mma 2. The fact that they were in vma will not diminish there paper value, and the fact that there are more in the system will not diminish online drafting of mma 2.
If your drafting mma 2, do you care that fetchlands are worth 10 or 15? i dont think you do.
Limited edition huh. What is so limited with that one? - Review Solution
I love your gameplay! The cards you used were really unpredictable too. It was so exciting just watching the video. - Review Solution
with other spells. The thing was they all required you to pop them into your graveyard. Until Cage, all the GY hate was based on timing (Crypt, Mulling your opening hand for void) and was not nearly as effective. Cage came along and gave a out for cheating things from the GY faster than your opponent could ever hope to get them in and out of there.
I don't disagree that printing Griselbrand helped Sneak and Show, but then I think other fatties (Emrakul) had that deck clicking before then as well.
The thing was Cage made it basically the only game in town. It's so stupid effective it's being MAINDECKED in some Vintage lists (I guess hosing Tinker and Oath and Dredge is pretty good for 1 mana)
That's not because I don't like old frames. I'm of the opinion the old frames were better on everything except lands and also new frame artifacts with art to match (mixing old art and new frames artifacts looks really bad).
But I think here there is definitely a chance to save some collector face. I mean, look at Tangle Wire - the old frames one retains a good fraction of it's value while the new one is far more affordable. That's a win-win for everyone. So I hope everything is new frames because if it helps retain even a little bit of value that's a good thing all around for all