Hello Everyone! I am once again writing to you from work, which is quickly becoming the easiest place to write from. Here's how my daw went today:
8am - Wake up
9am - Get to work
11:30am - Done with all work delivered to us, Warehouse is empty
1pm - Done reading articles on CFB, SCG, and TCGPlayer that caught my attention
1:30pm - Lunch Break at Acapulcos
2:30pm - Get back from lunch break, fight off doubters who said I left for lunch at 1, not 1:30
3pm - Finished with random stuff that showed up in the past hour
3:15pm - Remembered I could update blog from work
3:21pm - Finished typing this scentence
So seeing as I am here at work for another 2 hours with nothing to do, I will finish what I intended to talk about way back on monday, which was delayed to yesterday, which was then left off of the final post: Modern.
For those of you who don't know what Modern is, and don't feel like reading my synopsis of the format at the end of my previous post, here is an ultra-abbriged version of what Modern is:
A new eternal format from 8th Edition/Mirrodin Block - on
So before I get into the meat of this topic, I must say I think this is an awesome idea for a format and I thoroughly support it! With that being said, why is this format so great? Well first, it's a non-rotating format, which is great financially. I find myself hardly investing in NPH and Standard as a whole right now, because it is ever emminent that cards that may seem so epic now will just be in the casual binder next year, like Gideon Jura, which is currently $31.74 but can only hold a $10-15 price tag once it rotates [read: Elspeth, Knight Errant. 35/40 --> 15].
But financials is the least of our worries, as they will always warp themselves around new tech and the popular formats. What we really care about is playability. There are already 2 eternal formats: Legacy and Vintage, so lets see how Modern stacks up against them. First, let's compare Legacy and Vintage. The only difference between them is the B&R list. So few cards apart, such vastly different formats! The mere existence of 1 copy of the power 9 cards and other stupidly overpowered cards makes the format so much faster turns-wise! Its not even reasonably possible to call Legacy and Vintage similar formats because those cards completely warp what is even viable.
Vintage > Legacy > Modern
So now we have to compare Legacy vs Modern. Here's a list of Archaetypes you can expect to face at a Legacy event:
Dredge
Reanimator
Counter-Top
Enchantress
Affinity
Painted Stone
Metalworker
Lide from the Loam
Aggro Loam
Burn
Cephalid Breakfast
Natural Order
Zoo
Junk
Team America
ANT
TES
Merfolk
Goblins
Canadian Threshold
Pyromancer Ascension
Hypergenesis
Landstill
Doomsday
Show and Tell
Stifle-Naught
High Tide
Death and Taxes
Elves
Bant Aggro
Eldrazi Ramp
Charbelcher
Every deck listed above is significantly impacted through the smaller card pool and the banned list. But these decks I would consider unplayable in this new format:
Counter-Top (Sensei's Divining Top is banned)
Enchantress
Painted Stone
Metalworker
Cephalid Breakfast
Natural Order
ANT
TES
Canadian Threshold
Landstill
Doomsday
Show and Tell
Stifle-Naught
High Tide
TL;DR version: of the 32 decks I listed as possible decks to run into at a legacy tournament, 14 decks are completely unplayable
Now this unplayable factor is simply because of the alloted card pool. There are decks that I feel can rebound, like Affinity, Dredge, and Reanimator, despite banned cards and cards that are no longer available. The card that I feel defines Legacy is Force of Will because its the glue that keeps the format honest. Combo decks are stupidly fast, but Force of Will is just as fast. Now lets take that thought and move it to Modern: without Force of Will, are there combo decks that are fast enough to win turn 1? I can think of 1 off the top of my head: Hypergenesis. While the deck will never be completely over the top good because it lacks any hand fixing at all, it's like a Charbelcher deck in that it draws 7 and sees if it gets there. Besides that, I think this format will sit very nicely between Standard and Legacy in terms of speed.
Speaking of Combo decks, I definitely feel there is space for some kind of Storm deck, although the only storm deck I can really consider viable would be Dragonstorm. The only other Storm card that deals damage is Grapeshot. 10 Storm is sometimes difficult to accumulate, so 20 is nigh impossible. BTW, banking on your opponent making life easy for you with their fetches and Ravnica duals is a bad game plan. Check out Patrick Chapin's Worlds list as a reference for Dragonstorm.
They're trying to hate it out, but I think it can still work, let's take a look at Modern Dredge! First, we need to see what we lose from Legacy Dredge:
Cephalid Colliseum
Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe
Careful Study
Breakthrough
LED
Golgari Grave-Troll (banned)
Cabal Therapy
Chain of Vapor
Ichorid
The thing that jumps out at me first is the loss of a solid discard outlet. 3 cards that I thought of to solve this problem are Glimpse of the Unthinkable, Hedron Crab, and One With Nothing. Glimpse and Crab are fantastic cards because they are effictively card draw engines for yourself. They make you rely much less on your dredgers, which is important because we lost our heavy-hitting Grave-Troll. One With Nothing will probably not get played, but it is important to remember all of our options. With much less action from our graveyard, discarding our hand ASAP isn't all that important. So instead of a discard outlet, we can just mill ourselves. The next thing that jumps out at me is the loss of aggressive card draw. The one card that peaked my attention to fix this problem was Magus of the Bazaar. After a while your hand doesn't matter, so losing cards on every activation becomes less and less relavent, while drawing 2 extra cards a turn is just bonkers!
Finally, the last card that I feel bad losing is Ichorid. Ichorid can win many games completely by itself through its relentless recursive nature. I was trying to think of a replacement when I thought of Extractor Demon, which worked with Hedron Crab in last year's Standard Dredge-Uh-Vine deck. This got me thinking about Unearth as a mechanic as a whole, which led to seeing a ton of sweet cards! Maybe the dredge deck to go for would be an aggro-unearth deck? A tricky problem though, is that unearthed creatures have a replacement effect on death to be exiled, so Bridge from Below won't trigger. This is important if we want to do some crazy stuff and try to make a Zombie Horde by sacrificing creatures to Dread Return targetng the Flame-Kiln. That being said, there is a recursive creature that DOES die, named Bloodghast. Bloodghast could make be this deck's Narcomeba #5-8. All we need to do is play Dakmore Salvage, and we can go nuts with them!
So let's take a look at the cards I think should be considered as creatures that come from the dead:
Narcomeba
Bloodghast
Dredgscape Zombie
Hellspark Elemental
Rotting Rats
Scourge Devil
Sedraxis Specter
Extractor Demon
Shambling Remains
Viscera Dragger
WOW! We actually have way more options available to us than I previously thought! One card that I want ot point out especially is Scourge Devil. This card is like a mini-Flamekiln Zealot. It doesn't grant haste, but it can make a seemingly timid army explode in power before going straight for the throat (1B)!
So work is ending in 8 minutes, here's a decklist:
4x Hedron Crab
4x Narcomeba
1x Flame-Kiln Zealot
4x Golgari Thug
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Bloodghast
4x Darkblast
2x Dread Return
4x Bridge from Below
2x Scourge Devil
4x Magus of the Bazaar
2x Shambling Remains
4x Glimpse of the Unthinkable
4x City of Brass
4x Crumbling Necropolis
3x Dakmore Salvage
4x Gemstone Mine
2x Reflecting Pool
That is all from me today, I hope you enjoy the rest of your life! But always remember... Stay Classy!
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
A Week Away, A World Apart
Whole Lee Baa Geez Zeus! What a week to be completely disconnected from the Multiverse! I don't even know where to start! For those of you who have been away like I have for the past week, some very significant things happened, which has a ton of financial implications! Lets just start with the easiest to dissect: Stoneforge Mystic.
I had noticed that Stoneforge Mystic had dipped a couple dollars the other day, and I assumed it was going through the recession that all ZEN block cards were getting into right now (Jace, TMS is currently 82.87), but Tron pointed me to this article posted last week on the Mothership. Stoneforge Mystic is being offered as a 2-of in the mono-white deck. Considering these decks sell for $25 each and Stoneforge is going for $25 each right now, something's got to give. As of right now, Stoneforge is going for $20.42 but I expect it to continue to slightly drop, maybe down as far as 16, but the pre-con will be selling for 35. In case you were wondering, the other pre-con is pretty terrible. It's trying to do way too many things at the same time leading to a whole lot of awkward.... Why is Overgrown Battlement even in this deck? But that's not what I'm here to talk about... Stoneforge Mystic is in an odd position because it's even seeing a ton of Legacy play now, so it's not like this card is simply going to tank in value because of this re-printing. However, it's so expensive that something is going to happen, and I think the value is going to tank a little. I recently traded for 2 when they were on their downturn, but now they're right back in the binder trying to get moved to someone who doens't know about this up to the minute trade tech.
Now for round 2 of big news from this past week: Magic 2012 spoilers! They're rolling in very slowly, but I'm eating them all up as they all roll in! Today WotC posted the mechanics article for 2012. There's not a whole lot of content in this article.... Basically just a keyword that will take some getting used to (Hexproof) and a keyword thats always been used casually, but is now official (dies). But there is one nugget I want to extract from this article and expand upon. I have mentioned it before, but Bloodthirst is returning mechanic in M12! Gruul was a super-aggressive deck 5/6 years ago, and Bloodthirst was a great way for the deck to gain momentum: once you start taking beats, the attacking player's creatures are much more efficient, and your rate of death increases exponentially. Remember how during Beseiged previews I was talking about how Standard was going to become much more aggressive? We saw U/B control fall off the face of the earth and was replaced by Caw-Blade, which places intense pressure on the opponent very quickly, and can set up an unbeatable board position by turn 4 (with counter back-up of course!). With M12 kicking around to replace M11, Worldwake will soon fall out of standard, and aggro with be the lynchpin of standard. We already have aggressive abilities like Battle Cry that make creaures more potent, and now we can pump them up even more!
In M11 we had scry as the return mechanic, which lends itself to control very well as they love their library manipulation. There were 5 cards with Scry in M11: Preordain, Forsee, Augury Owl, Crystal Ball, and Viscera Seer: 60% Blue. So now that we know that Bloodthirst will be the returning mechanic, I expect it will be based in the Jund colors, probaby 3 red cards, 2 green, 1 black, and 1 colorless dude for good measure. Once again we can look at this from a financial perspective and see what cards should be better than what theyre currently worth. My current aces in the whole? Hero of Oxid Ridge and Hero of Bladehold. While I was able to make some fast profit 2 weeks ago when I traded for 2 Hero of Oxid Ridge at 4 each then flipped them for 8 each 45 minutes later, in general these cards should be relatively cheap pickups. As I have mentioned before, Hero of Bladehold is an insane clock! A turn 4 Hero should lead to a turn 5 win, assuming you didn't stick your thumb up your ass and pretend like you were Draw-Go for the first 3 turns. Turn 2 Accorder Paladin, Turn 3 Mirran Crusader, opponent goes to 17, Turn 4 Hero, opponent goes to 8, Turn 5 swing for 22? Sounds fair to me!
Time for round 3, or what would be round 3 if I could remember what I was talking about....! I am very sorry for my lack of posts recently, but that is due to my incredibly busy schedule. I was originally writing this on Monday, but then couldn't finish it until I had 3 hours of nothing to do at work today, Wednesday. After this weekend my Eagle Scout Court of Honor will have come and gone, and I should be able to have time to write again, so I can flood you with my crazy ideas and financial advice. But since I aid there was going to be 3 topics today, I will write a little about the one that I thought of today: Counterbalance.
A couple posts ago I declared I was going to make a Counterbalance deck with Stoneforge/Bitterblossom as the win condition, but it instead became a WB disrupting aggro deck. I have been thinking a lot about Counterbalance, and I realized it's simply not where I want to be right now. Mental Misstep has changed the format so much (27 copies in the top 8 anybody?), at least for the short term, that every deck needs to change a little because of it. This creates an oil in water effect where the CMCs of everyone's decks are up and down and all over the carts, making Counterbalance a very hard card to lock down everyone with. Honestly I feel that to play counterbalance right now, you would have to re-build it for every tournament you go to based on what you feel the meta is. For example, theres a lot of Merfolk in my local meta (although based on what I have been reading thats the global case), so for a local event I would want more creature disruption, and would add a whole additional color for sweepers. In Europe theres more storm which means more 1s and 2s. Basically I don't have the time to constantly rebuild my deck, especially when I only play 3 rounds of tournament Legacy every week, to really make forcing counterbalance a worthwhile use of my time. I have been very satisfied rocking Dredge, Reanimator, ANT, and Painted Stone.
And now I conveniently remember what I was going to write about: Modern. But that's something I can easily write a whole article about on its own. Just as a news update for those who don't closely follow it, Modern is a new format that Wizards has released, but only for those in the Community Cup.
Quick Aside
{
The community cup is an annual event between 8 WotC employees and 8 members of the MTG community. Its a very casual event, and always cool to tap into.
}
End Aside
A new format for this event is called Modern, which theoretically will rotate like Legacy [read: it wont] and will feature cards from 8th edition/Mirrodin block forwards, which is when the Modern card frames came out, which is where the name came from. There is a short banned list, but I wont delve into that now, my graveyard is empty.
Anyways, thats all for me today, until next time stay classy!
I had noticed that Stoneforge Mystic had dipped a couple dollars the other day, and I assumed it was going through the recession that all ZEN block cards were getting into right now (Jace, TMS is currently 82.87), but Tron pointed me to this article posted last week on the Mothership. Stoneforge Mystic is being offered as a 2-of in the mono-white deck. Considering these decks sell for $25 each and Stoneforge is going for $25 each right now, something's got to give. As of right now, Stoneforge is going for $20.42 but I expect it to continue to slightly drop, maybe down as far as 16, but the pre-con will be selling for 35. In case you were wondering, the other pre-con is pretty terrible. It's trying to do way too many things at the same time leading to a whole lot of awkward.... Why is Overgrown Battlement even in this deck? But that's not what I'm here to talk about... Stoneforge Mystic is in an odd position because it's even seeing a ton of Legacy play now, so it's not like this card is simply going to tank in value because of this re-printing. However, it's so expensive that something is going to happen, and I think the value is going to tank a little. I recently traded for 2 when they were on their downturn, but now they're right back in the binder trying to get moved to someone who doens't know about this up to the minute trade tech.
Now for round 2 of big news from this past week: Magic 2012 spoilers! They're rolling in very slowly, but I'm eating them all up as they all roll in! Today WotC posted the mechanics article for 2012. There's not a whole lot of content in this article.... Basically just a keyword that will take some getting used to (Hexproof) and a keyword thats always been used casually, but is now official (dies). But there is one nugget I want to extract from this article and expand upon. I have mentioned it before, but Bloodthirst is returning mechanic in M12! Gruul was a super-aggressive deck 5/6 years ago, and Bloodthirst was a great way for the deck to gain momentum: once you start taking beats, the attacking player's creatures are much more efficient, and your rate of death increases exponentially. Remember how during Beseiged previews I was talking about how Standard was going to become much more aggressive? We saw U/B control fall off the face of the earth and was replaced by Caw-Blade, which places intense pressure on the opponent very quickly, and can set up an unbeatable board position by turn 4 (with counter back-up of course!). With M12 kicking around to replace M11, Worldwake will soon fall out of standard, and aggro with be the lynchpin of standard. We already have aggressive abilities like Battle Cry that make creaures more potent, and now we can pump them up even more!
In M11 we had scry as the return mechanic, which lends itself to control very well as they love their library manipulation. There were 5 cards with Scry in M11: Preordain, Forsee, Augury Owl, Crystal Ball, and Viscera Seer: 60% Blue. So now that we know that Bloodthirst will be the returning mechanic, I expect it will be based in the Jund colors, probaby 3 red cards, 2 green, 1 black, and 1 colorless dude for good measure. Once again we can look at this from a financial perspective and see what cards should be better than what theyre currently worth. My current aces in the whole? Hero of Oxid Ridge and Hero of Bladehold. While I was able to make some fast profit 2 weeks ago when I traded for 2 Hero of Oxid Ridge at 4 each then flipped them for 8 each 45 minutes later, in general these cards should be relatively cheap pickups. As I have mentioned before, Hero of Bladehold is an insane clock! A turn 4 Hero should lead to a turn 5 win, assuming you didn't stick your thumb up your ass and pretend like you were Draw-Go for the first 3 turns. Turn 2 Accorder Paladin, Turn 3 Mirran Crusader, opponent goes to 17, Turn 4 Hero, opponent goes to 8, Turn 5 swing for 22? Sounds fair to me!
Time for round 3, or what would be round 3 if I could remember what I was talking about....! I am very sorry for my lack of posts recently, but that is due to my incredibly busy schedule. I was originally writing this on Monday, but then couldn't finish it until I had 3 hours of nothing to do at work today, Wednesday. After this weekend my Eagle Scout Court of Honor will have come and gone, and I should be able to have time to write again, so I can flood you with my crazy ideas and financial advice. But since I aid there was going to be 3 topics today, I will write a little about the one that I thought of today: Counterbalance.
A couple posts ago I declared I was going to make a Counterbalance deck with Stoneforge/Bitterblossom as the win condition, but it instead became a WB disrupting aggro deck. I have been thinking a lot about Counterbalance, and I realized it's simply not where I want to be right now. Mental Misstep has changed the format so much (27 copies in the top 8 anybody?), at least for the short term, that every deck needs to change a little because of it. This creates an oil in water effect where the CMCs of everyone's decks are up and down and all over the carts, making Counterbalance a very hard card to lock down everyone with. Honestly I feel that to play counterbalance right now, you would have to re-build it for every tournament you go to based on what you feel the meta is. For example, theres a lot of Merfolk in my local meta (although based on what I have been reading thats the global case), so for a local event I would want more creature disruption, and would add a whole additional color for sweepers. In Europe theres more storm which means more 1s and 2s. Basically I don't have the time to constantly rebuild my deck, especially when I only play 3 rounds of tournament Legacy every week, to really make forcing counterbalance a worthwhile use of my time. I have been very satisfied rocking Dredge, Reanimator, ANT, and Painted Stone.
And now I conveniently remember what I was going to write about: Modern. But that's something I can easily write a whole article about on its own. Just as a news update for those who don't closely follow it, Modern is a new format that Wizards has released, but only for those in the Community Cup.
Quick Aside
{
The community cup is an annual event between 8 WotC employees and 8 members of the MTG community. Its a very casual event, and always cool to tap into.
}
End Aside
A new format for this event is called Modern, which theoretically will rotate like Legacy [read: it wont] and will feature cards from 8th edition/Mirrodin block forwards, which is when the Modern card frames came out, which is where the name came from. There is a short banned list, but I wont delve into that now, my graveyard is empty.
Anyways, thats all for me today, until next time stay classy!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Birthing Death
Hello everyone! I am at work right now. We have been hanging out doing nothing for an hour and a half, and I have already read all the articles posted today on all the magic sites I have linked to on the right --->> So now, with an hour and a half left over still to kill, I figured I might as well get some decklists out of my brain and onto the page.
Spawning Shell Birthing Pod is a card that I was absolutely stoked about from the moment it was spoiled in the original wave of Japanese spoilers. This card is sweet because it lets you get away with having toolbox 1-ofs, and works double time with Fauna Shaman to quickly develop a Vengevine army, but Vengevine isn't the only creature in standard that recurses from the graveyard, I can think of 2 more off the top of my head: Kuldotha Pheonix and Bloodghast.
All three of these creatures have been seeing play in tier 1.5 decks for the past couple months with GW aggro (and Bluemanji), Big Red, and RB Vamps. As I was planning in my head what I was going to say in this post, Kuldotha Pheonix didn't cross my mind until I was finished typing that first paragraph, so I may not have much to expand on with Kuldotha Pheonix, but instead my focus has been centered on making Bloodghast go nuts! Blooghast is part of a superpowerful engine, for those of you who don't know, with either Viscera Seer or Bloodthrone Vampire + Kalastria Highborn to quickly drain opponents of all their life while still beating face with a bunch of bears. That engine has become less prevalent with new Vamp tech in the form of splashing red for burn and reach, but I want to propose going back to the mono-black version and make this combo our reach plan. Bloodghast can only tutor for a 3-drop when we drop it into the Birthing Pod, but Vamps has 2 fantastic options with Vampire Nighthawk and Captivating Vampire. I also want to add some New Phyrexia hotness besides Birthing Pod in the forms of Phyrexian Obliterator and Lashwrithe. I present: (M)B Aggro:
4x Viscera Seer
4x Bloodghast
4x Kalastria Highborn
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Captivating Vampire
2x Vampire Nighthawk
3x Birthing Pod
2x Despise
2x Inquisition of Kozelik
3x Dismember
2x Lashwrithe
2x Mindsludge
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marhs Flats
1x Forest
15x Swamp
This list is incredibly tight for space, but with a little testing I should be able to fine everything's sweet point. One thing I really think Birthing Pod + Bloodghast will help me do is to help build a board presence of Vampires so Captivating Vampire can start popping off like crazy and take complete board control. I think Vamps Pod can even be a deck in Extended if you make your 4-drop Vampire Nocturnus instead of Lashwrithe. You could make the deck much more aggro by powering out a monsterous black army. Note that there is speculation on a black theme for Innistrad, so keep Vamps Pod in mind when you read those spoilers.
So now lets go back to what I was thinking of before I came across Bloodghast: Vangevine. Vengevine is a 4-drop, so it can tutor up a 5 only. Some good ones are Baneslayer Angel and Acidic Slime. So we are also obviously going to add Fauna Shaman and Squaren Hawk, and Stoneforge is om nom noming on the format, so we might as well toss it in here too. Check this out:
4x Vengevine
4x Fauna Shaman
1x Acidic Slime
1x Baneslayer Angel
4x Squadren Hawk
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Emeria Angel
2x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Lotus Cobra
4x Mirran Crusader
3x Birthing Pod
1x Sword of War and Peace
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Lead the Stampede
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
5x Plains
5x Forest
This is another deck that simply looks to overrun the opponent ASAP. The main reason why this deck can even exist is because of the change in the Meta that has led to Caw-Blade completely cutting Gideon Jura from their 75 and most only have 2 DoJ in their sideboard. This makes the deck better in the mirror and also conveniently helps their Valakut numbers too. In turn Valakut has become much less popular, which was this deck's worst matchup.
And now finally I roll into choice 3 for a recursive creature to sac to the Pod: Kuldotha Pheonix. Being a 5, it can tutor up some sweet 6s, like Titans! Inferno Titan is where its at right now, so maybe we could use Birthing Pod in the Big Red deck that has seen some popularity. The deck usually doesn't have a problem with getting Metalcraft because it runs Sphere of the Suns and Everflowing Chalice, and now Birthing Pod is also an artifact that it can use to its advantage. Consider:
4x Inferno Titan
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Kuldotha Pheonix
4x Koth of the Hammer
3x Urabrask, the Hidden
4x Sphere of the Suns
4x Everflowing Chalice
2x Birthing Pod
2x Brittle Effigy
3x Volt Charge
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Slagstorm
4x Raging Ravine
4x Rootbound Crag
16x Mountain
I really like Volt Charge in Big Red as there is nothing better than ultimating Koth the turn after he comes into play by proliferating him right up. Urabrask is another card that I'm fairly excited to use, and from a financial perspective I think he could jump in value a lot, just like Inferno Titan did.
Birthing Pod is an awesome card that I think will be a serious contender in the future metagame. The trick to making it good is to make sure the creature that is dying has value beyond just dying. Other cards to consider are those like Perilous Myr and Occulus which have sweeet death triggers.
BONUS FINANCIAL UPDATE: Spellskite has recently jumped up from a 6 or 7 dollar card up to a solid 10. I think this is simply hype as it is a key piece to the Exarch-Twin combo, so it will drop back down to 6 or 7 soon, but this is definitely a card to keep your eyes on. Most people didn't even realize this was a $5 card, and those who did know that probably don't know about this new jump in price, so be keen and be on the hunt.
Anyways, that's all for now, my shift is ending in 5 minutes! Until next time, stay classy!
All three of these creatures have been seeing play in tier 1.5 decks for the past couple months with GW aggro (and Bluemanji), Big Red, and RB Vamps. As I was planning in my head what I was going to say in this post, Kuldotha Pheonix didn't cross my mind until I was finished typing that first paragraph, so I may not have much to expand on with Kuldotha Pheonix, but instead my focus has been centered on making Bloodghast go nuts! Blooghast is part of a superpowerful engine, for those of you who don't know, with either Viscera Seer or Bloodthrone Vampire + Kalastria Highborn to quickly drain opponents of all their life while still beating face with a bunch of bears. That engine has become less prevalent with new Vamp tech in the form of splashing red for burn and reach, but I want to propose going back to the mono-black version and make this combo our reach plan. Bloodghast can only tutor for a 3-drop when we drop it into the Birthing Pod, but Vamps has 2 fantastic options with Vampire Nighthawk and Captivating Vampire. I also want to add some New Phyrexia hotness besides Birthing Pod in the forms of Phyrexian Obliterator and Lashwrithe. I present: (M)B Aggro:
4x Viscera Seer
4x Bloodghast
4x Kalastria Highborn
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Captivating Vampire
2x Vampire Nighthawk
3x Birthing Pod
2x Despise
2x Inquisition of Kozelik
3x Dismember
2x Lashwrithe
2x Mindsludge
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marhs Flats
1x Forest
15x Swamp
This list is incredibly tight for space, but with a little testing I should be able to fine everything's sweet point. One thing I really think Birthing Pod + Bloodghast will help me do is to help build a board presence of Vampires so Captivating Vampire can start popping off like crazy and take complete board control. I think Vamps Pod can even be a deck in Extended if you make your 4-drop Vampire Nocturnus instead of Lashwrithe. You could make the deck much more aggro by powering out a monsterous black army. Note that there is speculation on a black theme for Innistrad, so keep Vamps Pod in mind when you read those spoilers.
So now lets go back to what I was thinking of before I came across Bloodghast: Vangevine. Vengevine is a 4-drop, so it can tutor up a 5 only. Some good ones are Baneslayer Angel and Acidic Slime. So we are also obviously going to add Fauna Shaman and Squaren Hawk, and Stoneforge is om nom noming on the format, so we might as well toss it in here too. Check this out:
4x Vengevine
4x Fauna Shaman
1x Acidic Slime
1x Baneslayer Angel
4x Squadren Hawk
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Emeria Angel
2x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Lotus Cobra
4x Mirran Crusader
3x Birthing Pod
1x Sword of War and Peace
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Lead the Stampede
4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
5x Plains
5x Forest
This is another deck that simply looks to overrun the opponent ASAP. The main reason why this deck can even exist is because of the change in the Meta that has led to Caw-Blade completely cutting Gideon Jura from their 75 and most only have 2 DoJ in their sideboard. This makes the deck better in the mirror and also conveniently helps their Valakut numbers too. In turn Valakut has become much less popular, which was this deck's worst matchup.
And now finally I roll into choice 3 for a recursive creature to sac to the Pod: Kuldotha Pheonix. Being a 5, it can tutor up some sweet 6s, like Titans! Inferno Titan is where its at right now, so maybe we could use Birthing Pod in the Big Red deck that has seen some popularity. The deck usually doesn't have a problem with getting Metalcraft because it runs Sphere of the Suns and Everflowing Chalice, and now Birthing Pod is also an artifact that it can use to its advantage. Consider:
4x Inferno Titan
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Kuldotha Pheonix
4x Koth of the Hammer
3x Urabrask, the Hidden
4x Sphere of the Suns
4x Everflowing Chalice
2x Birthing Pod
2x Brittle Effigy
3x Volt Charge
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Slagstorm
4x Raging Ravine
4x Rootbound Crag
16x Mountain
I really like Volt Charge in Big Red as there is nothing better than ultimating Koth the turn after he comes into play by proliferating him right up. Urabrask is another card that I'm fairly excited to use, and from a financial perspective I think he could jump in value a lot, just like Inferno Titan did.
Birthing Pod is an awesome card that I think will be a serious contender in the future metagame. The trick to making it good is to make sure the creature that is dying has value beyond just dying. Other cards to consider are those like Perilous Myr and Occulus which have sweeet death triggers.
BONUS FINANCIAL UPDATE: Spellskite has recently jumped up from a 6 or 7 dollar card up to a solid 10. I think this is simply hype as it is a key piece to the Exarch-Twin combo, so it will drop back down to 6 or 7 soon, but this is definitely a card to keep your eyes on. Most people didn't even realize this was a $5 card, and those who did know that probably don't know about this new jump in price, so be keen and be on the hunt.
Anyways, that's all for now, my shift is ending in 5 minutes! Until next time, stay classy!
Magic 2012 Spoilers!
Well the hype and energy that surrounds a new set releasse was killed prematurely for New Phyrexia, so someone decided to let us start thinking about Magic 2012 a couple months early. I only have 2 cards to talk about today, but let me tell you, there is some seriously sweet things we can pull from these 2 cards!
Gideon’s Avenger 1WW
Creature – Human Soldier (Rare)
Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes tapped, put a +1/+1 counter on Gideon’s Avenger.
2/2
Furyborn Hellkite 4RRR
Creature – Dragon (Mythic)
Bloodthirst 6
Flying
6/6
Wow! Talk about 2 crazy cards! Where to start? The easy one to start pulling information from is Gideon's Avenger. In M11 we had 2 spells to go with each of the planeswalkers (the only 2 that saw competetive play were Ajani's Pridemate and Jace's Intuition), but they were only common and uncommons. Now we have proof that the cycle could extend to all rarities! Also, just in case the poster released with for the 2012 Duels of the Planeswalkers wasn't enough to convince you that Gideon was getting either reprinted or a new version, this is robust evidence.
Speaking of having Gideon in the set, apparently there is a whole lot of flavor going on with Gideon and the planeswalkers in the picture not named Garruk. You can read a fantastic synopsis of the flavor here. One thing that was interesting that I learned from that article was the connection to Ravnica and how Gideon was going there to gather allies to battle the Eldrazi. Interestingly enough, our other card harks back to the city plane as well. The last time we saw the keyword Bloodthirst, it was on Ravnica being sported by the Gruul Clan. FuryBorn Hellkite is not a reprint from the Gruul, but there are a few cards that I think could very well be reprinted:
Bloodscale Prowler
Battering Wurm
Gristleback
Rabble-Rouser
There are more mono-colored creatures with Bloodthirst, but they have flavor-specific names, which means they probably won't get reprinted.
There's not a whole lot to go on for M12 quite yet (and this would be a terrible de ja vu if there was), but these 2 cards are a very interesting window into what to expect. Personally I really like how the core sets are connecting the block-to-block flavor going between sets. It's kinda like a club meeting between missions which we spend a year exploring into. I don't know enough to say I'm stoked for M12 yet, I'm still working NPH into my brain. But based on how the flavor is looking for the next few months its going to its going to be some exciting twists and turns. Is Innistrad going to take place in Ravnica?
I'm just starting to read into flavor a little more, and this is simply awesome to try and predict! I really can't wait to see how this all pans out! Until next time, stay classy!
Gideon’s Avenger 1WW
Creature – Human Soldier (Rare)
Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes tapped, put a +1/+1 counter on Gideon’s Avenger.
2/2
Furyborn Hellkite 4RRR
Creature – Dragon (Mythic)
Bloodthirst 6
Flying
6/6
Wow! Talk about 2 crazy cards! Where to start? The easy one to start pulling information from is Gideon's Avenger. In M11 we had 2 spells to go with each of the planeswalkers (the only 2 that saw competetive play were Ajani's Pridemate and Jace's Intuition), but they were only common and uncommons. Now we have proof that the cycle could extend to all rarities! Also, just in case the poster released with for the 2012 Duels of the Planeswalkers wasn't enough to convince you that Gideon was getting either reprinted or a new version, this is robust evidence.
Speaking of having Gideon in the set, apparently there is a whole lot of flavor going on with Gideon and the planeswalkers in the picture not named Garruk. You can read a fantastic synopsis of the flavor here. One thing that was interesting that I learned from that article was the connection to Ravnica and how Gideon was going there to gather allies to battle the Eldrazi. Interestingly enough, our other card harks back to the city plane as well. The last time we saw the keyword Bloodthirst, it was on Ravnica being sported by the Gruul Clan. FuryBorn Hellkite is not a reprint from the Gruul, but there are a few cards that I think could very well be reprinted:
Bloodscale Prowler
Battering Wurm
Gristleback
Rabble-Rouser
There are more mono-colored creatures with Bloodthirst, but they have flavor-specific names, which means they probably won't get reprinted.
There's not a whole lot to go on for M12 quite yet (and this would be a terrible de ja vu if there was), but these 2 cards are a very interesting window into what to expect. Personally I really like how the core sets are connecting the block-to-block flavor going between sets. It's kinda like a club meeting between missions which we spend a year exploring into. I don't know enough to say I'm stoked for M12 yet, I'm still working NPH into my brain. But based on how the flavor is looking for the next few months its going to its going to be some exciting twists and turns. Is Innistrad going to take place in Ravnica?
I'm just starting to read into flavor a little more, and this is simply awesome to try and predict! I really can't wait to see how this all pans out! Until next time, stay classy!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Back from.... Vacation?
So I haven't posted anything new for the past... 8 days.... Frankly I have only played Magic in one of those 8 days, and that was a legacy event where I went 2-1 with Dredge. But one other big thing that has happened was the opened of my New Phyrexia box. Given the option of a Japanese box, I simply couldn't resist! As with all boxes, theres some goodies but theres also a whole lot of bulk. Here's the straight juice I opened in my box:
2x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Foil Phyrexian Obliterator
Foil Gitaxian Probe
2x Mental Misstep
Spellskite
And then there was a ton of bulk, haha. But just those cards alone are worth more than the entire box. Foil Japanese cards are at an extreme premium these days. Foil Japanese Gitaxian Probe is currently going for $25 on eBay, and Foil Japanese Phyrexian Obliterator is going for $95! To say the least, I can't wait to move these for some sweet legacy staples! 1-for-1 Obliterator into a Tropical Island is pretty much equal, and that is a trade I could make any day! I love me some foreign cards, so I absolutely look forward to going all japanese all the time from here on out with boxes that I order for each set!
So the only other thing that I have done for the past week+ Magic-wise has been Legacy. Right now, I have 4 decks withing the 15 proxy limit: Dredge, ANT, Counter-top, and Painted Stone. I am ever so slowly trading my way up to fill out all 3 decks, and I'm only one 25 cent common short of filling out Dredge!
Dredge
Deep Analysis
ANT
Thoughtseize
3x Dark Confidant
Counter-Top
Sword of Feast and Famine
Swords to Plowshares
Seat of the Synod
Stoneforge Mystic
4x Bitterblossom
Firespout
3x Dark Confidant
Painted Stone
4x Intuition
2x Goblin Welder
4x Seat of the Synod
Great Furnace
2x Painter's Servant
Firespout
Of course, just having all the decks is cool, but everyone who has traded with me before knows I love pimping out my decks! Foiling out Legacy? Why not! Of course... foil legacy cards are far more expensive! Here are the relative prices on a variety of Dredge cards based on SCG values:
Golgari Grave Troll: 2 -> 15 x7.5
Breakthrough: 3 -> 10 x3.33
Cephalid Colliseum: 4 -> 15 x3.75
Stinkweed Imp: 0.25 -> 2 x8
Golgari Thug: 1 -> 5 x5
Careful Study: 1 -> 8 x8
Ichorid: 5 -> 35 x7
Putrid Imp: 1 -> 6 x6
Cabal Therapy: 6 ->15 x2.5
Wow! So on average, an all foil dredge deck is going to cost 4.77 times more! A deck that probably costs 100 to make besides Underground Seas and LED is now a $500 deck! Well... Its not easy, and I'm not looking to do it fast, but when oportunity presents itself, I'm absolutely going in on it!
Anyways, I don't have much to say today, but I wanted to get back to writing and hopefully I can get back on track with a post every other day+. Until next time, stay classy!
2x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Foil Phyrexian Obliterator
Foil Gitaxian Probe
2x Mental Misstep
Spellskite
And then there was a ton of bulk, haha. But just those cards alone are worth more than the entire box. Foil Japanese cards are at an extreme premium these days. Foil Japanese Gitaxian Probe is currently going for $25 on eBay, and Foil Japanese Phyrexian Obliterator is going for $95! To say the least, I can't wait to move these for some sweet legacy staples! 1-for-1 Obliterator into a Tropical Island is pretty much equal, and that is a trade I could make any day! I love me some foreign cards, so I absolutely look forward to going all japanese all the time from here on out with boxes that I order for each set!
So the only other thing that I have done for the past week+ Magic-wise has been Legacy. Right now, I have 4 decks withing the 15 proxy limit: Dredge, ANT, Counter-top, and Painted Stone. I am ever so slowly trading my way up to fill out all 3 decks, and I'm only one 25 cent common short of filling out Dredge!
Dredge
Deep Analysis
ANT
Thoughtseize
3x Dark Confidant
Counter-Top
Sword of Feast and Famine
Swords to Plowshares
Seat of the Synod
Stoneforge Mystic
4x Bitterblossom
Firespout
3x Dark Confidant
Painted Stone
4x Intuition
2x Goblin Welder
4x Seat of the Synod
Great Furnace
2x Painter's Servant
Firespout
Of course, just having all the decks is cool, but everyone who has traded with me before knows I love pimping out my decks! Foiling out Legacy? Why not! Of course... foil legacy cards are far more expensive! Here are the relative prices on a variety of Dredge cards based on SCG values:
Golgari Grave Troll: 2 -> 15 x7.5
Breakthrough: 3 -> 10 x3.33
Cephalid Colliseum: 4 -> 15 x3.75
Stinkweed Imp: 0.25 -> 2 x8
Golgari Thug: 1 -> 5 x5
Careful Study: 1 -> 8 x8
Ichorid: 5 -> 35 x7
Putrid Imp: 1 -> 6 x6
Cabal Therapy: 6 ->15 x2.5
Wow! So on average, an all foil dredge deck is going to cost 4.77 times more! A deck that probably costs 100 to make besides Underground Seas and LED is now a $500 deck! Well... Its not easy, and I'm not looking to do it fast, but when oportunity presents itself, I'm absolutely going in on it!
Anyways, I don't have much to say today, but I wanted to get back to writing and hopefully I can get back on track with a post every other day+. Until next time, stay classy!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Legacy with 8 Bitterblossom
The very first Legacy deck I ever wanted to build was Counter-Top, although Reanimator holds the title for first deck actually built. Ever since I built Counter-Top, it has gone through many life changes including dropping and adding colors semi-weekly. The only color that is absolutely required is obviously blue as that gives us the Counterbalance, which we kinda named the deck after, but also for a wall of other counterspells and Brainstorm. Each support color offers a wide variety of choices for other cards, and I have delved into each of them for these purposes recently:
White:
Humility
Moat (if I had the money to throw at it)
Swords to Plowshares
Stoneforge Mystic
Enlightened Tutor
Black:
Thoughtseize
Engineered Plague
Red:
Firespout
Grim Lavamancer
Red Elemental Blast
Green:
Krosan Grip
Tarmogoyf (I have never used it, but many decks do)
Multicolored:
Rhox War Monk
Thopter Foundry
Artifacts:
Sensei Divining Top
Ensnaring Bridge
Sword - Fire/Ice, Feast/Famine, of the Meek
Engineered Explosives
Pithing Needle
I am probably missing a couple cards, but you get where I'm going.... there's a ton of options out there! You can probably see I haven't delved much into Black, instead having played Bant or USA most of the time, but it's time to get funky now! I have been playing Thopter-Sword as my kill condition for as long as I have played Counter-Top and sometimes it is awesome while othertimes it's simply lackluster. The combo is fantastic, but sometimes it is also restrictive. I can only usethe combo if I am not casting other spells, but at the same time it can be hard to assemble as it really strains where my Enlightened Tutors are going. Neither Thopter Foundry or Sword of the Meek do anything by themselves, which can really make things awkward. Compare that combo to Counterbalance-Top where both are perfectly fine cards by themselves (in fact I just built Painted Stone which plays Top with no Counterbalance just because it's that good).
So I don't want to spend $288 on a set of Tarmogoyfs (and I really don't care for Goyf as a win condition because he is just a fat guy... theres nothing exciting about him, and he can get chump blocked all day), but at the same time the Thopter-Sword combo is too difficult to assemble and use to make worthwhile.... Also, we need a proactive game plan or else we are begging to get walked on.... I think we need some advice from the Fae.
One of the guys at our store, ADB (not his real name or initials, no one knows why he is called that, not even him), is a fantastic faeries player (2nd place at a recent extended PTQ) and took Faeries and transformed it into a Legacy deck. Another guy at Toys, Nick, who doesn't play Legacy said he wants to break into Legacy with 8 Bitterblossoms - 4 real Bitterblossoms and 4 Stoneforge Mystics which is the "Bitterblossom" of Standard. My biggest concern with playing the deck was that I wanted to outdraw my opponents, but then Bob Maher walked by and said hi, and I knew I was golden. I think Bitterblossom is a fantastic substitute for Thopter-Sword although there are differences to take note of:
Pros:
-Bitterblossom takes 1 card, not 2 to make dudes
-Bitterblossom doesn't require any further mana investments after it's played
Cons:
-Bitterblossom only produces 1 token a turn, where sometimes you need to produce an instant army for chump blocking
-Bitterblossom makes you lose life instead of gaining it
So we are trading life and the ability to swing out every turn for cards and mana eh? You know, there's a reason Channel and Necropotence are banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Burning a little life is totally worth it! Now that were in black, we can also play Thoughtseize, and we can acquire the aid of Bob Maher himself to draw us a few cards. I know, more life loss ca seem a little Dark, but I'm Confidant that we can level up this deck's synergy a little more by combining Bob with Sensei's Divining Top! I have seen Bob-Top be utilized as a draw engine before, but we're also playing Top to lock up the world with Counterbalance anyways, so we're just maximizing value.
Finally, let's move along to that there Stoneforge Mystic. This guy, as you have seen in Standard, can do nice things with a Sword of Feast and Famine, but if you have never seen it grab a Sword of Fire and Ice, you've been missing out! This card is sick, especially against aggro decks where you can pick off their guys with every swing (especially Goblins)! For those of you keeping track at home, with Sword of Fire and Ice puching through for damage while Bob is in play, you are drawing 3 cards a turn. However, we will be losing a ton of life from Bitterblossom and Dark Confidant, so I want to have a Jitte to gain us life, while also offering the splash damage of picking off weenies and pushing through extra damage when you need it. So with all that in mind, here's what I'm currently sitting on:
4x Bitterblossom
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Dark Confidant
14
2x Counterbalance
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thoughtseize
4x Enlightened Tutor
2x Spell Pierce
27
1x Moat
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
6
Lands
Now the first thing to notice is that we have a 47card deck before adding lands, and we only have 15 blue spells in the deck including the 4 Force of Wills. This is a very awkward position to be in as we both need to remove 8 cards from the deck AND add probably 5 more blue cards to the deck. Looks like something has to give, and everything looks fairly important. The first thing I thought of was to actually drop blue as a whole and make a BW disruptive aggro build. 2 cards of note to be used in that deck would be Tidehollow Sculler and Vindicate which would allow us to be very disruptive and still apply pressure with equipment et all. Let's see where this takes us:
4x Bitterblossom
4x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
4x Vindicate
1x Pithing Needle
4x Scrubland
4x Marsh Flats
5x Swamp
5x Plains
2x Flooded Strand
1x Polluted Delta
This deck does look fairly interesting to me simply because it's something I haven't conceived before. I feel like this would play out like an aggro-rock deck. But bakc to that there Counterbalance issue. I really don't know where I can make cuts or where I should go with the deck, whether it's a more aggressive deck, like the Faeries deck ADB made, or more of a control deck that applies light early pressure like what Nick is thinking about. I am currently stuck on the fence as going either route would make me feel like I'm missing a little something. I was actually planning on having a finished rough Counter-top deck by the time I was done writing this post (these posts are more a stream of conciousness as opposed to an editted essay), but I guess not.
Until next time, stay classy!
White:
Humility
Moat (if I had the money to throw at it)
Swords to Plowshares
Stoneforge Mystic
Enlightened Tutor
Black:
Thoughtseize
Engineered Plague
Red:
Firespout
Grim Lavamancer
Red Elemental Blast
Green:
Krosan Grip
Tarmogoyf (I have never used it, but many decks do)
Multicolored:
Rhox War Monk
Thopter Foundry
Artifacts:
Sensei Divining Top
Ensnaring Bridge
Sword - Fire/Ice, Feast/Famine, of the Meek
Engineered Explosives
Pithing Needle
I am probably missing a couple cards, but you get where I'm going.... there's a ton of options out there! You can probably see I haven't delved much into Black, instead having played Bant or USA most of the time, but it's time to get funky now! I have been playing Thopter-Sword as my kill condition for as long as I have played Counter-Top and sometimes it is awesome while othertimes it's simply lackluster. The combo is fantastic, but sometimes it is also restrictive. I can only usethe combo if I am not casting other spells, but at the same time it can be hard to assemble as it really strains where my Enlightened Tutors are going. Neither Thopter Foundry or Sword of the Meek do anything by themselves, which can really make things awkward. Compare that combo to Counterbalance-Top where both are perfectly fine cards by themselves (in fact I just built Painted Stone which plays Top with no Counterbalance just because it's that good).
So I don't want to spend $288 on a set of Tarmogoyfs (and I really don't care for Goyf as a win condition because he is just a fat guy... theres nothing exciting about him, and he can get chump blocked all day), but at the same time the Thopter-Sword combo is too difficult to assemble and use to make worthwhile.... Also, we need a proactive game plan or else we are begging to get walked on.... I think we need some advice from the Fae.
One of the guys at our store, ADB (not his real name or initials, no one knows why he is called that, not even him), is a fantastic faeries player (2nd place at a recent extended PTQ) and took Faeries and transformed it into a Legacy deck. Another guy at Toys, Nick, who doesn't play Legacy said he wants to break into Legacy with 8 Bitterblossoms - 4 real Bitterblossoms and 4 Stoneforge Mystics which is the "Bitterblossom" of Standard. My biggest concern with playing the deck was that I wanted to outdraw my opponents, but then Bob Maher walked by and said hi, and I knew I was golden. I think Bitterblossom is a fantastic substitute for Thopter-Sword although there are differences to take note of:
Pros:
-Bitterblossom takes 1 card, not 2 to make dudes
-Bitterblossom doesn't require any further mana investments after it's played
Cons:
-Bitterblossom only produces 1 token a turn, where sometimes you need to produce an instant army for chump blocking
-Bitterblossom makes you lose life instead of gaining it
So we are trading life and the ability to swing out every turn for cards and mana eh? You know, there's a reason Channel and Necropotence are banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Burning a little life is totally worth it! Now that were in black, we can also play Thoughtseize, and we can acquire the aid of Bob Maher himself to draw us a few cards. I know, more life loss ca seem a little Dark, but I'm Confidant that we can level up this deck's synergy a little more by combining Bob with Sensei's Divining Top! I have seen Bob-Top be utilized as a draw engine before, but we're also playing Top to lock up the world with Counterbalance anyways, so we're just maximizing value.
Finally, let's move along to that there Stoneforge Mystic. This guy, as you have seen in Standard, can do nice things with a Sword of Feast and Famine, but if you have never seen it grab a Sword of Fire and Ice, you've been missing out! This card is sick, especially against aggro decks where you can pick off their guys with every swing (especially Goblins)! For those of you keeping track at home, with Sword of Fire and Ice puching through for damage while Bob is in play, you are drawing 3 cards a turn. However, we will be losing a ton of life from Bitterblossom and Dark Confidant, so I want to have a Jitte to gain us life, while also offering the splash damage of picking off weenies and pushing through extra damage when you need it. So with all that in mind, here's what I'm currently sitting on:
4x Bitterblossom
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Dark Confidant
14
2x Counterbalance
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thoughtseize
4x Enlightened Tutor
2x Spell Pierce
27
1x Moat
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
6
Lands
Now the first thing to notice is that we have a 47card deck before adding lands, and we only have 15 blue spells in the deck including the 4 Force of Wills. This is a very awkward position to be in as we both need to remove 8 cards from the deck AND add probably 5 more blue cards to the deck. Looks like something has to give, and everything looks fairly important. The first thing I thought of was to actually drop blue as a whole and make a BW disruptive aggro build. 2 cards of note to be used in that deck would be Tidehollow Sculler and Vindicate which would allow us to be very disruptive and still apply pressure with equipment et all. Let's see where this takes us:
4x Bitterblossom
4x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
4x Vindicate
1x Pithing Needle
4x Scrubland
4x Marsh Flats
5x Swamp
5x Plains
2x Flooded Strand
1x Polluted Delta
This deck does look fairly interesting to me simply because it's something I haven't conceived before. I feel like this would play out like an aggro-rock deck. But bakc to that there Counterbalance issue. I really don't know where I can make cuts or where I should go with the deck, whether it's a more aggressive deck, like the Faeries deck ADB made, or more of a control deck that applies light early pressure like what Nick is thinking about. I am currently stuck on the fence as going either route would make me feel like I'm missing a little something. I was actually planning on having a finished rough Counter-top deck by the time I was done writing this post (these posts are more a stream of conciousness as opposed to an editted essay), but I guess not.
Until next time, stay classy!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The Party Don't Start 'Til I Enter The Battlefield
(to the tune of "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha)
Wake up in the morning feeling like P Chapin
(Hey what's tappin?)
Grab some packs, out to the store, I'm gonna kill some kithkin
Before I leave, check decklists, I know the new meta
Cuz when I leave for the night, get that blue letta
I'm talkin' draftin with 7 other bros (bros)
Hating that card I just chose (chose)
What color am I in, who knows (knows)
land droppin, getting ganged up in commander
building some rogue list disaster
Got my spell countered by this lil' bastar......
[Chorus]
Don't stop, lets planeswalk, got you in a Jace lock
Tonight, I'mma fight, til I see green sunlight
Tik Tok goes game clock
Hey buddy please don't play slow
With my perfect decklist now, designed to beat the whole field,
Ain't got no money in my pocket cuz I got Dragonshields
And now the binders linin' up cuz they hear we got power
But we kick them to curb before wasting an hour
I'm talkin bout
Getting blown out by Fae (fae)
I never drew that one-of Day (day)
Just realized that trigger says may (may)
Now, now going til they kick us out (out)
Cleaning up with Firespout (spout)
Casting Firespout (spout)
Cast-ing Fi-re...
[Chorus]
Your Storm count's up, it's goin down
Tendrils at 10, yeah you got me
Got perfect hands, no need for lands
Mox Vault Lotus Key, yeah you got me
G-Wave goes up, 10 cards come down
Ob Nixilis 8 lands, yeah you got me
You got lethal up
got lethal up
got lethal up...
Cuz the party don start til I enter the Battlefield!
[Chorus]
Wake up in the morning feeling like P Chapin
(Hey what's tappin?)
Grab some packs, out to the store, I'm gonna kill some kithkin
Before I leave, check decklists, I know the new meta
Cuz when I leave for the night, get that blue letta
I'm talkin' draftin with 7 other bros (bros)
Hating that card I just chose (chose)
What color am I in, who knows (knows)
land droppin, getting ganged up in commander
building some rogue list disaster
Got my spell countered by this lil' bastar......
[Chorus]
Don't stop, lets planeswalk, got you in a Jace lock
Tonight, I'mma fight, til I see green sunlight
Tik Tok goes game clock
Hey buddy please don't play slow
With my perfect decklist now, designed to beat the whole field,
Ain't got no money in my pocket cuz I got Dragonshields
And now the binders linin' up cuz they hear we got power
But we kick them to curb before wasting an hour
I'm talkin bout
Getting blown out by Fae (fae)
I never drew that one-of Day (day)
Just realized that trigger says may (may)
Now, now going til they kick us out (out)
Cleaning up with Firespout (spout)
Casting Firespout (spout)
Cast-ing Fi-re...
[Chorus]
Your Storm count's up, it's goin down
Tendrils at 10, yeah you got me
Got perfect hands, no need for lands
Mox Vault Lotus Key, yeah you got me
G-Wave goes up, 10 cards come down
Ob Nixilis 8 lands, yeah you got me
You got lethal up
got lethal up
got lethal up...
Cuz the party don start til I enter the Battlefield!
[Chorus]
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
May 2011 Secondary Market Update
Hello everyone! A ton has happened this past month in the multiverse, obviously including the spoiling of New Phyrexia. This has led to a whole lot of financial insanity like $9 crap rares and such! As always, I will be using the TCG Player medium ratings on these cards, and any changes less than a quarter over the past month will be listed as -0-
New Phyrexia
Karn Liberated 40.40
Batterskull 27.99
Phyrexian Obliterator 24.54
Sword of War and Peace 23.84
Surgical Extraction 10.68
Urabrask the Hidden 6.52
Puresteel Paladin 5.59
Hex Parasite 4.83
Mental Misstep 3.96
Sheoldred, Whispering One 3.92
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur 3.65
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 3.88
Vorinclex, voice of Hunger 3.31
Etched Monstrosity 2.93
As we have seen with every new set as it comes out, every single card on this list is going to go down. So from a purely financial standpoint, we should sell every card we get. However, let's look at the biggest ofenders first: Karn, Phyrexian Obliterator, and Surgical Extraction. I believe all of these will quickly halve in price (Surgical Extraction will probably just go to 7). Karn is just a hyped up planeswalker (read: Venser, Elspeth, Koth) who won't actually see insane amounts of play, and Phyrexian Obliterator just doesn't get there against control decks. That being said he absolutely destroys red deck, and Vengevine decks to a lesser degree. However, right now there is a current extreme domination of Caw-Blade in the current meta and Obliterator doesn't get there against them. If you want to kill control/jace with your mono-black deck, Lashwrite does much more, as it can't be controlled by Jace -1. Lastly, Surgical Extraction is good, but only against Vengevine in Standard, and in Legacy he just doesn't beat out Extirpate... Moving forwards, Batterskull is a great card to have if you are playign Caw-Blade right now, but if you aren't like me, then the plan is to ship every copy ASAP because this is losing serious value after rotation. It will probably float around 20 until rotation, then drop to 10 or less after that. Sword of War and Peace is only good against Boros and mono-red, and because of that, I expect this card to drop $7 down to about 17. It will see more play than BaM, but less than FaF. One card that can actually possibly go up is Urabrask the Hidden. Big Red is only going to get better as it has some sweet proliferation spells, and now Urabrask can make your Inferno Titan stupidly powerful. The only other cards I see in this list going up is Jin-Gitaxias almost doubling up to 6, and Sheolred sliding up to 5 supported purely by EDH. It's funny seeing Mental Misstep on this list, but chase uncommons are good to watch out for.
Mirroden Beseiged
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas 39.71 -5.78
Sword of Feast and Famine 25.32 -0.42
Inkmoth Nexus 9.88 -1.12
Blightsteel Colossus 8.64 -1.91
Thrun, the Last Troll 8.50 -3.10
Hero of Oxid Ridge 7.35 -1.31
Green Sun's Zenith 7.12 -0.79
Hero of Bladehold 6.62 -0.69
Massacre Wurm 4.46 -0.26
Consecrated Sphinx 3.98 -0.30
Glissa the Traitor 2.76
Praetor's Council 1.92 -0.28
Well I hope I made it obvious to you with my excessive use of red text, you really can't collect Standard cards, sit on them, and wait to accumulate value on them. Everything is just going down until a random card explodes, then things pop up and down to match said card, then everything goes back to normal with everything going down or stabelizing. As for where to go with this information: Tezzeret is probably going to continue losing value, and I can see him going all the way down to 25 in the next month or 2 unless another insane deck breaks out with him at the epicenter. FaF is still a perfectly safe card to sit on, but Inkmoths and Blightsteels (especially Blightsteel) should get shipped if you have any extra. Darksteel Colossus is a $3.55 card, so I expect Blightsteel to sit at 4 or 5. The one card that I am very suprised to see sink in value is Hero of Oxid Ridge. I have had those fly into and out of the binder at 9 each, and no one is concerned about it. I think that guy will get bumped back up to 8 or 9 in short due time, as he is simply insane!
Scars of Mirroden
Koth of the Hammer 24.71 +1.99
Mox Opal 21.60 -0.65
Sword of Body and Mind 13.58 -0-
Venser, the Sojounor 12.73 -0.44
Elspeth Tirel 11.68 -0.81
Skithryx, the Blight Dragon 11.50 +1.00
Wurmcoil Engine 9.23 -0.44
Darkslick Shores 5.71
Ratchet Bomb 5.35 -0-
Molten Tail Masticore 5.11 -0.79
Lux Cannon 3.28 -0-
Indominable Archangel 2.32 -0-
Platinum Emporion 2.03 -0-
Mindslaver 1.78 -0-
Geth, Lord of the Vault 1.44 -0-
Liege of the Tangle 1.27 -0-
Quicksilver Gargantuan 1.04 -0-
Well... theres not a lot of change to discuss here, but there are a few cards that I think are worthwhile talking about for future changes, starting with Koth. Thanks to the red/"red" proliferate spells in Tezzeret's Gambit and Volt Charge, I think Big Red will be a much better deck after NPH gets released. Koth is much better in that deck than in my goblins deck, although he is still a house there too. With red gaining access to proliferate, Koth can ultimate the turn after he comes into play, like Garruk except Koth's ultimate is far scarier. Venser is apparently really big in block, although I haven't spent more than 15 seconds watching games of block on MODO, so I really can't be sure. If he is though, that typically reflects that he will be a major player in next Standard season (and everyone will whine about his ultimate being too powerful and how he should be banned...). Aside from that theres not a lot going on. I don't know why Elspeth is still over 10, but she is still almost losing a dollar a month, so she will get there soon.
Magic 2011
Primeval Titan 30.39 -2.99
Grave Titan 14.47 -2.37
Inferno Titan 14.21 +2.59
Baneslayer Angel 11.58 -0.59
Jace Beleran 9.58 -0-
Garruk Wildspeaker 7.25 -0.25
Frost Titan 7.03 -1.85
Fauna Shaman 6.97 -0.50
Sun Titan 6.40 +0.39
Lilliana Vess 5.46 +0.67
Knight Exemplar 5.27 -0.45
Ajani Goldmane 5.04 -0-
Gaea's Revenge 3.81 -0.41
Demon of Death's Gate 3.48 -0.67
Chandra Nalaar 2.90 -0-
Platinum Angel 2.32 -0-
Time Reversal 1.31 -0-
And in this month's episode of the Meta shift, we see how Valakut is getting pwned by Caw-Blade and how Caw-Blade loses hard to Inferno Titan! Grave Titan is also simply the wrong color to be in a world dominated by Sword of Feast and Famine. Sun Titan and Frost Titan have never been that good (Frosty was all hype, props to those who cashed on it). Baneslayer Angel is reportedly not being reprinted in M12, so that is a good card to move now if your not using them. Lilliana Vess has been gaining 50-75 cents a month for a while now, which is very interesting, but she is another good card to move. She isn't getting reprinted in M12 as well, and there is probably an alternate version getting printed in Innistrad. I think she has hit her peak, or may go up to 6, but then its flattening or going downhill. There is a whopping 1 knight named Puresteel Paladin in New Phyrexia, so don't expect any new love for Knight Exemplar.
Rise of the Eldrazi
Gideon Jura 34.27 +0.34
Vengevine 29.45 -1.89
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 10.88 -0-
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 10.26 +0.26
Kozelik, the Butcher of Truth 9.94 -0-
Kargan Dragonlord 9.90 -1.88
Splinter Twin 9.56
All Is Dust 9.18 -1.69
Linvala, Keeper of Silence 7.60 -0-
Sarkhan the Mad 6.41 -0-
Student of Warfare 5.53 -0.52
Nirkana Revenant 5.48 -0-
Inquisition of Kozelik 5.29 +1.30
Khalni Hydra 4.65 -0-
Lighthouse Chronologist 4.63 -0-
Transcendant Master 3.92 -0-
Hellcarver Demon 0.95 -0-
Cast Through Time 0.95 -0-
Gideon Jura is an incredibly powerful card right now, but from a financial perspective, its a hard card to hang on to without good reason. He is probably getting reprinted in M12, which means that his price is going down. If he gets reprinted exactly as is, there will be a heavily increased supply, but that may not change his price if his demand is still high. However, there is no true control deck right now besides UB, which is only seeing fringe play, so Gideon's value play-wise is the highest now that it's ever been. If a new Gideon is printed, then Gideon Jura's value WILL drop. Look at the Elspeths. Knight-Errant is far superior to Tirel, but is down to 14.86 compared to the 30/40 she used to be. She is even getting played in Extended.... The cards that will sustain their value the best for the long term are the 3 Legendary Eldrazi. Emrakul, being the most powerful creature ever printed, is a Legacy staple in Show & Tell and Sneak Attack decks. Kozilik and Ulamog hold some epic casual appeal, and those 2 are legal in Commander, so they will be seing play there too. Splinter Twin is the most important card to know about in this month's update. With all the excitement over the new Pestermite varient in the form of Deceiver Exarch, Splinter Twin went up in value 20-fold! Please note: this is pure hype and this card will settle down to $6 fast, then slowly calm down back to a 2 or 3, a la Demon of Death's Gate. One more non-mythic of note is Inquisition of Kozelik. This card saw a serious increase in price with the popularity of the DarkBlade as the key to defeating traditional UW Caw-Blade. I think this card has a little hyped, but I can't see this going below 5 any time soon, especially with the steriod shot in the arm black mages are getting with this next set. Uncommons are typically not on people's radars when it comes to trading, so you may be able to pick these up cheap, but also be vigilent to move these fast.
Worldwake
Jace, the Mind Sculptor 90.43 -8.76
Stoneforge Mystic 23.28 -0.40
Avenger of Zendikar 9.75 -1.32
Abyssal Persecutor 9.44 -2.09
Creeping Tar Pit 8.68 +0.91
Kalastria Highborn 5.62 -0.92
Basilisk Collar 5.00 -0-
Dragonmaster Outcast 4.20 -0-
Omnath, Locus of Mana 3.85 -0-
Eye of Ugin 2.55 -0.29
Admonition Angel 2.33 -0-
Comet Storm 1.66 -0-
Novablast Wurm 1.16 -0-
Wrexial, the Risen Deep 1.10 -0-
WOW! Someone is going to need to order Jace a shrink because he is bound to have some hard self-esteem issues after seeign this. After just leveling off and dropping 50 cents last month, Jace lost almost a tenth of his value this month. People haven't stopped giving me crap when I have told them how I think Jace will lose significant value after he is released from Standard, but will bounce back to a $60 card in the long run, but this is the initial proof that my theory is right. Stoneforge Mystic, on the other hand, is a tough nut to crack. Her value will go down, but how far is the question... This leads me to have to look at the other Legacy tutors. Enlightened Tutor is the most expensive, sitting at 14.36. Stoneforge is much worse than Enlightened Tutor because of the increased mana cost, the lack of flash, and the restriction in what it can tutor. HOWEVER, it does have the advantage of the Aether Vial style ability to ensure the equipment hits play, and that the card goes to your hand as opposed to replacing the draw step. As enticing as that additional ability is, it does not make it any more valuable than Enlightened Tutor. I think the Legacy price for this card is $8, and that might be generous. The last card that is moving is Abyssal Persecutor. This card has slowly risen and fallen as the hype went up and down, but this guy never put up results. It's tough being a non-hasty 4-drop in the same set as Jace... He has never been a safe investment, and now people are actually realizing how bad he sucks. I'm unfortunately sitting on one right now, and it is on the fast track to get rid of, pretty much regardless of what I'm offered.
Zendikar
Lotus Cobra 15.83 -1.52
Scalding Tarn 13.59 +0.39
Verdant Catacombs 12.45 -0-
Misty Rainforest 12.33 +0.34
Arid Mesa 12.20 -0-
Marsh Flats 11.71 +0.35
Sorin Markov 11.31 -0.38
Eldrazi Monument 8.82 -2.64
Bloodghast 8.14 -0-
Nissa Revane 8.08 -1.03
Goblin Guide 7.64 -0.78
Iona, Shield of Emeria 6.24 -0-
Chandra Ablaze 4.39 -0-
Felidar Sovereign 4.00 -0-
Warren Instigator 2.95 -0-
Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet 2.74 -0-
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen 2.58 -0-
Rampaging Baloths 2.52 -0-
Mindbreak Trap 2.49 -0-
Obsidian Fireheart 1.16 -0-
Eternity Vessel 0.96 -0-
Lorthos, the Tidemaker 0.83 -0-
Lotus Cobra is the face of the RUG deck which was supposed to be the saving grce against the Caw-Blade Menace, then the Mortarpod tech was released and that all went downhill too. Without the Cobra, RUG dies, and without RUG, Cobra can't hold value. Thankfully, no one seems to know about this loss of value, and I just traded off all of mine at 18 a piece. In other relevant news, while no one is aware of the cobra losing value, apparently no one can accept that fetches are gaining value. I had quite the meltdown of a trade the other day that would have been avoided if a 3rd party didn't declare that all the fetches were exactly 10 eac. That lead to the guy I was trading with to say that Marsh Flats was only 8, which hasn't been true since M11 came out.... To say the least, if people are still valuing fetches at 10 in your area, go get them, even the "bad" ones are 11 or more. Let's take a look at how the Onslaught fetches are doing, as they are an indicator of where the ZEN ones are headed:
Polleted Delta 29.99
Windswept Heath 28.14
Flooded Strand 25.32
Wooded Foothills 20.77
Bloodstained Mire 17.59
Yeah, these ZEN fetches are going to go up for a long time, these Onslaught ones still are! My pick for long term rankings in value for the ZEN fetches puts Misty Rainforest as the most expensive in the very long term.
That's all I have for this month! Until next time, stay classy!
New Phyrexia
Karn Liberated 40.40
Batterskull 27.99
Phyrexian Obliterator 24.54
Sword of War and Peace 23.84
Surgical Extraction 10.68
Urabrask the Hidden 6.52
Puresteel Paladin 5.59
Hex Parasite 4.83
Mental Misstep 3.96
Sheoldred, Whispering One 3.92
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur 3.65
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 3.88
Vorinclex, voice of Hunger 3.31
Etched Monstrosity 2.93
As we have seen with every new set as it comes out, every single card on this list is going to go down. So from a purely financial standpoint, we should sell every card we get. However, let's look at the biggest ofenders first: Karn, Phyrexian Obliterator, and Surgical Extraction. I believe all of these will quickly halve in price (Surgical Extraction will probably just go to 7). Karn is just a hyped up planeswalker (read: Venser, Elspeth, Koth) who won't actually see insane amounts of play, and Phyrexian Obliterator just doesn't get there against control decks. That being said he absolutely destroys red deck, and Vengevine decks to a lesser degree. However, right now there is a current extreme domination of Caw-Blade in the current meta and Obliterator doesn't get there against them. If you want to kill control/jace with your mono-black deck, Lashwrite does much more, as it can't be controlled by Jace -1. Lastly, Surgical Extraction is good, but only against Vengevine in Standard, and in Legacy he just doesn't beat out Extirpate... Moving forwards, Batterskull is a great card to have if you are playign Caw-Blade right now, but if you aren't like me, then the plan is to ship every copy ASAP because this is losing serious value after rotation. It will probably float around 20 until rotation, then drop to 10 or less after that. Sword of War and Peace is only good against Boros and mono-red, and because of that, I expect this card to drop $7 down to about 17. It will see more play than BaM, but less than FaF. One card that can actually possibly go up is Urabrask the Hidden. Big Red is only going to get better as it has some sweet proliferation spells, and now Urabrask can make your Inferno Titan stupidly powerful. The only other cards I see in this list going up is Jin-Gitaxias almost doubling up to 6, and Sheolred sliding up to 5 supported purely by EDH. It's funny seeing Mental Misstep on this list, but chase uncommons are good to watch out for.
Mirroden Beseiged
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas 39.71 -5.78
Sword of Feast and Famine 25.32 -0.42
Inkmoth Nexus 9.88 -1.12
Blightsteel Colossus 8.64 -1.91
Thrun, the Last Troll 8.50 -3.10
Hero of Oxid Ridge 7.35 -1.31
Green Sun's Zenith 7.12 -0.79
Hero of Bladehold 6.62 -0.69
Massacre Wurm 4.46 -0.26
Consecrated Sphinx 3.98 -0.30
Glissa the Traitor 2.76
Praetor's Council 1.92 -0.28
Well I hope I made it obvious to you with my excessive use of red text, you really can't collect Standard cards, sit on them, and wait to accumulate value on them. Everything is just going down until a random card explodes, then things pop up and down to match said card, then everything goes back to normal with everything going down or stabelizing. As for where to go with this information: Tezzeret is probably going to continue losing value, and I can see him going all the way down to 25 in the next month or 2 unless another insane deck breaks out with him at the epicenter. FaF is still a perfectly safe card to sit on, but Inkmoths and Blightsteels (especially Blightsteel) should get shipped if you have any extra. Darksteel Colossus is a $3.55 card, so I expect Blightsteel to sit at 4 or 5. The one card that I am very suprised to see sink in value is Hero of Oxid Ridge. I have had those fly into and out of the binder at 9 each, and no one is concerned about it. I think that guy will get bumped back up to 8 or 9 in short due time, as he is simply insane!
Scars of Mirroden
Koth of the Hammer 24.71 +1.99
Mox Opal 21.60 -0.65
Sword of Body and Mind 13.58 -0-
Venser, the Sojounor 12.73 -0.44
Elspeth Tirel 11.68 -0.81
Skithryx, the Blight Dragon 11.50 +1.00
Wurmcoil Engine 9.23 -0.44
Darkslick Shores 5.71
Ratchet Bomb 5.35 -0-
Molten Tail Masticore 5.11 -0.79
Lux Cannon 3.28 -0-
Indominable Archangel 2.32 -0-
Platinum Emporion 2.03 -0-
Mindslaver 1.78 -0-
Geth, Lord of the Vault 1.44 -0-
Liege of the Tangle 1.27 -0-
Quicksilver Gargantuan 1.04 -0-
Well... theres not a lot of change to discuss here, but there are a few cards that I think are worthwhile talking about for future changes, starting with Koth. Thanks to the red/"red" proliferate spells in Tezzeret's Gambit and Volt Charge, I think Big Red will be a much better deck after NPH gets released. Koth is much better in that deck than in my goblins deck, although he is still a house there too. With red gaining access to proliferate, Koth can ultimate the turn after he comes into play, like Garruk except Koth's ultimate is far scarier. Venser is apparently really big in block, although I haven't spent more than 15 seconds watching games of block on MODO, so I really can't be sure. If he is though, that typically reflects that he will be a major player in next Standard season (and everyone will whine about his ultimate being too powerful and how he should be banned...). Aside from that theres not a lot going on. I don't know why Elspeth is still over 10, but she is still almost losing a dollar a month, so she will get there soon.
Magic 2011
Primeval Titan 30.39 -2.99
Grave Titan 14.47 -2.37
Inferno Titan 14.21 +2.59
Baneslayer Angel 11.58 -0.59
Jace Beleran 9.58 -0-
Garruk Wildspeaker 7.25 -0.25
Frost Titan 7.03 -1.85
Fauna Shaman 6.97 -0.50
Sun Titan 6.40 +0.39
Lilliana Vess 5.46 +0.67
Knight Exemplar 5.27 -0.45
Ajani Goldmane 5.04 -0-
Gaea's Revenge 3.81 -0.41
Demon of Death's Gate 3.48 -0.67
Chandra Nalaar 2.90 -0-
Platinum Angel 2.32 -0-
Time Reversal 1.31 -0-
And in this month's episode of the Meta shift, we see how Valakut is getting pwned by Caw-Blade and how Caw-Blade loses hard to Inferno Titan! Grave Titan is also simply the wrong color to be in a world dominated by Sword of Feast and Famine. Sun Titan and Frost Titan have never been that good (Frosty was all hype, props to those who cashed on it). Baneslayer Angel is reportedly not being reprinted in M12, so that is a good card to move now if your not using them. Lilliana Vess has been gaining 50-75 cents a month for a while now, which is very interesting, but she is another good card to move. She isn't getting reprinted in M12 as well, and there is probably an alternate version getting printed in Innistrad. I think she has hit her peak, or may go up to 6, but then its flattening or going downhill. There is a whopping 1 knight named Puresteel Paladin in New Phyrexia, so don't expect any new love for Knight Exemplar.
Rise of the Eldrazi
Gideon Jura 34.27 +0.34
Vengevine 29.45 -1.89
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre 10.88 -0-
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 10.26 +0.26
Kozelik, the Butcher of Truth 9.94 -0-
Kargan Dragonlord 9.90 -1.88
Splinter Twin 9.56
All Is Dust 9.18 -1.69
Linvala, Keeper of Silence 7.60 -0-
Sarkhan the Mad 6.41 -0-
Student of Warfare 5.53 -0.52
Nirkana Revenant 5.48 -0-
Inquisition of Kozelik 5.29 +1.30
Khalni Hydra 4.65 -0-
Lighthouse Chronologist 4.63 -0-
Transcendant Master 3.92 -0-
Hellcarver Demon 0.95 -0-
Cast Through Time 0.95 -0-
Gideon Jura is an incredibly powerful card right now, but from a financial perspective, its a hard card to hang on to without good reason. He is probably getting reprinted in M12, which means that his price is going down. If he gets reprinted exactly as is, there will be a heavily increased supply, but that may not change his price if his demand is still high. However, there is no true control deck right now besides UB, which is only seeing fringe play, so Gideon's value play-wise is the highest now that it's ever been. If a new Gideon is printed, then Gideon Jura's value WILL drop. Look at the Elspeths. Knight-Errant is far superior to Tirel, but is down to 14.86 compared to the 30/40 she used to be. She is even getting played in Extended.... The cards that will sustain their value the best for the long term are the 3 Legendary Eldrazi. Emrakul, being the most powerful creature ever printed, is a Legacy staple in Show & Tell and Sneak Attack decks. Kozilik and Ulamog hold some epic casual appeal, and those 2 are legal in Commander, so they will be seing play there too. Splinter Twin is the most important card to know about in this month's update. With all the excitement over the new Pestermite varient in the form of Deceiver Exarch, Splinter Twin went up in value 20-fold! Please note: this is pure hype and this card will settle down to $6 fast, then slowly calm down back to a 2 or 3, a la Demon of Death's Gate. One more non-mythic of note is Inquisition of Kozelik. This card saw a serious increase in price with the popularity of the DarkBlade as the key to defeating traditional UW Caw-Blade. I think this card has a little hyped, but I can't see this going below 5 any time soon, especially with the steriod shot in the arm black mages are getting with this next set. Uncommons are typically not on people's radars when it comes to trading, so you may be able to pick these up cheap, but also be vigilent to move these fast.
Worldwake
Jace, the Mind Sculptor 90.43 -8.76
Stoneforge Mystic 23.28 -0.40
Avenger of Zendikar 9.75 -1.32
Abyssal Persecutor 9.44 -2.09
Creeping Tar Pit 8.68 +0.91
Kalastria Highborn 5.62 -0.92
Basilisk Collar 5.00 -0-
Dragonmaster Outcast 4.20 -0-
Omnath, Locus of Mana 3.85 -0-
Eye of Ugin 2.55 -0.29
Admonition Angel 2.33 -0-
Comet Storm 1.66 -0-
Novablast Wurm 1.16 -0-
Wrexial, the Risen Deep 1.10 -0-
WOW! Someone is going to need to order Jace a shrink because he is bound to have some hard self-esteem issues after seeign this. After just leveling off and dropping 50 cents last month, Jace lost almost a tenth of his value this month. People haven't stopped giving me crap when I have told them how I think Jace will lose significant value after he is released from Standard, but will bounce back to a $60 card in the long run, but this is the initial proof that my theory is right. Stoneforge Mystic, on the other hand, is a tough nut to crack. Her value will go down, but how far is the question... This leads me to have to look at the other Legacy tutors. Enlightened Tutor is the most expensive, sitting at 14.36. Stoneforge is much worse than Enlightened Tutor because of the increased mana cost, the lack of flash, and the restriction in what it can tutor. HOWEVER, it does have the advantage of the Aether Vial style ability to ensure the equipment hits play, and that the card goes to your hand as opposed to replacing the draw step. As enticing as that additional ability is, it does not make it any more valuable than Enlightened Tutor. I think the Legacy price for this card is $8, and that might be generous. The last card that is moving is Abyssal Persecutor. This card has slowly risen and fallen as the hype went up and down, but this guy never put up results. It's tough being a non-hasty 4-drop in the same set as Jace... He has never been a safe investment, and now people are actually realizing how bad he sucks. I'm unfortunately sitting on one right now, and it is on the fast track to get rid of, pretty much regardless of what I'm offered.
Zendikar
Lotus Cobra 15.83 -1.52
Scalding Tarn 13.59 +0.39
Verdant Catacombs 12.45 -0-
Misty Rainforest 12.33 +0.34
Arid Mesa 12.20 -0-
Marsh Flats 11.71 +0.35
Sorin Markov 11.31 -0.38
Eldrazi Monument 8.82 -2.64
Bloodghast 8.14 -0-
Nissa Revane 8.08 -1.03
Goblin Guide 7.64 -0.78
Iona, Shield of Emeria 6.24 -0-
Chandra Ablaze 4.39 -0-
Felidar Sovereign 4.00 -0-
Warren Instigator 2.95 -0-
Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet 2.74 -0-
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen 2.58 -0-
Rampaging Baloths 2.52 -0-
Mindbreak Trap 2.49 -0-
Obsidian Fireheart 1.16 -0-
Eternity Vessel 0.96 -0-
Lorthos, the Tidemaker 0.83 -0-
Lotus Cobra is the face of the RUG deck which was supposed to be the saving grce against the Caw-Blade Menace, then the Mortarpod tech was released and that all went downhill too. Without the Cobra, RUG dies, and without RUG, Cobra can't hold value. Thankfully, no one seems to know about this loss of value, and I just traded off all of mine at 18 a piece. In other relevant news, while no one is aware of the cobra losing value, apparently no one can accept that fetches are gaining value. I had quite the meltdown of a trade the other day that would have been avoided if a 3rd party didn't declare that all the fetches were exactly 10 eac. That lead to the guy I was trading with to say that Marsh Flats was only 8, which hasn't been true since M11 came out.... To say the least, if people are still valuing fetches at 10 in your area, go get them, even the "bad" ones are 11 or more. Let's take a look at how the Onslaught fetches are doing, as they are an indicator of where the ZEN ones are headed:
Polleted Delta 29.99
Windswept Heath 28.14
Flooded Strand 25.32
Wooded Foothills 20.77
Bloodstained Mire 17.59
Yeah, these ZEN fetches are going to go up for a long time, these Onslaught ones still are! My pick for long term rankings in value for the ZEN fetches puts Misty Rainforest as the most expensive in the very long term.
That's all I have for this month! Until next time, stay classy!
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