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Last night I was playtesting Todd Andersonâs UWr control deck against Chris Pennock, piloting Chris Weidingerâs Reanimator from SCG Cincinnati. I was firmly behind with essentially no board and a sparse two life remaining against a couple of green monsters. I drew my card for what I thought would likely be my last turn and Miracled an Entreat the Angels for nine. Everything was finally coming up Milhouse!
Or so I thought.
Chris casually untapped and Angel of Serenityâd away three of my angel tokens. This put me on blocking duty, as he had gained a grip of life off of some Thragtusks. On his next turn he swung his Angel into my army. I blocked with all of my manâs and cast Azorius Charm to gain 24 life. At this point he cast a second Angel, putting the one from his graveyard under it as well as killing two more of my 4/4s. Killing me from there was all too easy for him.
I cast Entreat the Angels for nine and I still lost. I canât say that it was particularly close either.
Meet the latest incarnation of the truth.
That wasnât the first or last time Angel of Serenity proved its worth in our playtest session. It seldom mattered what else happened when the game entered the Angel phase. I hit my mark when I said on Good Luck; High Five! that the card would be worth money, but I completely missed by not declaring that it was going to be the best endgame in Standard.
Itâs really a card that you have to see in action to fully understand its power. After a few matches, youâll find that the anecdote I included above isnât an extreme case, but is rather pretty close to the norm.
This, and a few other forthcoming notes in mind, Iâm going to present some revised opinions about cards that Iâve previously discussed, in addition to suggesting some cards that I havenât yet talked about that are worth looking at.
How embarrassing is it to think this card might not be good enough? Letâs start with Restoration Angel.
Former Standard roleplayer, current Modern all-star- weâve seen plenty from this card. As much as it pains me to write this, I donât think that Restoration Angel is good enough anymore.
I included four in my Junk list last week in order to blink cards like Centaur Healer and Thragtusk, but I now intend to cut the card entirely.
In the games when your Healers and Thragtusks arenât good enough on their own, they generally donât survive long enough to be blinked anyhow. In the games where they are good enough, just adding a 3/4 flier to the mix doesnât change things that much. For the record, this line of thought also makes me lose interest in Disciple of Bolas.
Whether youâre winning or losing with your early creatures, Angel of Serenity is a fantastic top-end. When your ground guys are sticking around you just Fiend Hunter* your opponentâs team. When your ground guys die, you get to Raise Dead them and probably get a Fiend Hunter* or two in on top of that.
*Well, upgraded Fiend Hunter.
The power level of Angel of Serenity also makes me lose a lot of respect for Armada Wurm. There is only so much room for top-end in a deck, and Armada Wurm is so much more than one mana worse than Angel of Serenity. Against the aggressive decks the two are somewhat comparable, but against a control deck a single Supreme Verdict undoes your Wurm, and its little friend too. Wraths on Angel of Serenity are considerably worse, particularly Supreme Verdict, as having an Angel in your graveyard is pretty ideal for when the time comes to play a second copy.
Because of Angelâs ability to âchainâ with redundant copies in your graveyard, the best answers are going to be things that donât put it in the graveyard. That more or less leaves these as the best options:
Sphere, Sever and Terminus have the added ability of completely blanking Entreat the Angels, and with Miracles winning the first week of the format thatâs a very good place to be. Sphere and O-ring obviously work well as answers to Planeswalkers too, another mainstay of Miracles.
On the topic of Sever the Bloodline, I think that this was the most glaring omission from Chris Weidingerâs maindeck. If youâre going to be casting Mulch and Grisly Salvage, you may as well include the best removal spell with flashback to answer any opponents trying to go as big or bigger than you.
With these points about the format in mind, here is an updated Junk list:
The Yard 2.0
spells
4 Thragtusk
3 Angel of Serenity
4 Sever the Bloodline
4 Tragic Slip
4 Centaur Healer
3 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Loxodon Smiter
4 Knight of Glory
4 Farseek
2 Oblivion Ring
lands
3 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Isolated Chapel
The only change to the list not previously discussed is the addition of Farseek. With Angel of Serenity being the endgame of choice, it stands to reason that mana acceleration/ having more virtual mana sources in the deck will benefit this game plan.
Another quick note on Oblivion Ring is that itâs very useful as an answer to opposing Detention Spheres on your Angels, which as I stated earlier is one of the few good answers to the card.
I have to say that this list is dramatically better than the previous version. It doesnât really lose much against decks like Zombies, while gaining a much stronger endgame.
Now the question for this deck, and a question that I know Iâll find myself asking about every deck that I build in the immediate future, is whether or not this is the best Angel of Serenity shell. As with all things Magic, time and testing will tell.
Personally I wonât be able to make it out to play States, but I feel confident recommending this deck for this weekend. For all of you battling, good luck; high five!
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In part 1 of this series we explored the world of finance and poker through two books I consider must reads. We explored that as soon as we see something as a potential âgainâ, our mind differently from when we see something as a potential âriskâ. This can affect our judgment as easy as in a Magic game as soon as you are playing to win or worse: playing to survive.
In this article I look to examine how we think as Magic traders and how to improve ourselves.
Endowment Effect & Sentimental Value
Ever stumble across casual players, having casual chat in an EDH game, when someone takes a long turn and you mention that you'd like to do some trades. You and your potential trading partner exchange binders and allow the trading process to begin, where you both start picking cards.
The problem is that every card that you are interested in, for whatever reason, your trading partnerâs facial expression shows a sign of doubt and regret. "Eh. I'm not sure if I can trade that one, I started playing Magic with that card in my first deck."
More than likely, you have encountered this or you have said it once yourself. It is often very hard to get the card from this player, often first being hesitant but later willing to let it go for a number far higher than any reasonable index price.
This is a classic example of how different value can appear from separate points of views. Various studies have been done on this phenomena because it is interesting why people put in a high selling price for product X while they would buy the exact same product X for a significant lower amount.
A study done by Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler (1990) illustrates through an experiment that there is a gap between the valuations of a simple mug when selling and buying. The sellers â who received the mug therefore âownâ them â were asked what the lowest sum would be to sell the mug. At the same time the buyers were asked what the highest sum they would have to spend to acquire the mug.
The researchers concluded that the average selling price in this setting was twice as large as the average buying prices.
This gap between selling and buying prices can be related back to loss aversion. When people put value other than pure financial value into a certain card, they are seeing the card as a reminder of the good times they had with this particular piece of cardboard in a certain deck. Therefore trading it away can and most likely will feel as a bigger loss than they would get in exchange.
They also lose the right to play with the card until the exact same card is acquired somewhere else. This is big because, even when people trade away their card, I recommend looking at facial expressions as they are most likely not satisfied with the trade.
When aiming for longevity in trading, thus establishing new trade relationships, this can be bad news as the link with you â as a trader â and the pain of losing the card in a trade can easily be made.
Now Dan Ariely and Ziv Carmon also performed multiple experiments in 1998 regarding basketball tickets. Based on what they concluded in their research article, they argued that âmarketers may want to consider influencing consumersâ choices and behavior via the perspective from which they evaluate a transactionâ.
For example, consumers who buy new products can have a different focus from those who are upgrading existing products (ie. Giving up current products). Thus, framing new purchases as replacements rather than as new purchases can have a strong effectâ.
Now how can this help us in making a successful and satisfying trade for both of the parties when trading with a person as I described in the beginning?
I would make a point to saying that the card they put sentimental value in is easily replaceable with other cards that are better or even slightly worse, mostly distracting them from the potential loss they are creating.
One can also say that the card is easily available at the LGS but, since you are not fond of buying cards, you prefer trading it with them. This is a weak argument so I wouldnât recommend using it.
Last but not least, one can use the reference prices they use to gain some value by making this trade.
If you want to save the time, though, you can just pick other cards from his binder that your trading partner is not attached to.
The point I want to make with this phenomena is that one can apply this with almost everything. Dan Ariely wrote in his 2011 book The Upside of Irrationality that âthe effort that we put into something does not just change the object. It changes us and the way we evaluate that objectâ.
The illustrations Dan Ariely wrote about are objects like Do It Yourself furniture and Origami. In Magic we can relate this to collectors who have been collecting for X years and suddenly need the money. Or Magic players who quit and put their bulk on Craigslist saying they paid X amount for it and they want something like 80-90% of X, which is absurd.
It is hard to convince these people, so I am mostly aiming to redirect their attention or to simply not put any effort in it.
On the trading floor
When on the trading floor at your local FNM, the trades of nowadays are completely different than when I was playing Magic even six years ago. Smartphones are common, price memory is a term people know about and so on.
I still think we can create an edge amongst any other trader without sharking them out. Some other Quiet Speculation writers have written about these small "Tricks of the Trade" that can make trading easier with your potential trading partner.
Most players are somehow attracted to a game of Magic, especially one involving 100 card Commander decks. I especially love pulling out my binder and opening it to the front page while playing a Magic game before any event starts. The front page of my binder is full of eye catching cards so if people are ââWowââ-ing, I know they would likely make a good trading partner.
My front page ( as of 10-07-2012) consists of: Krenko, Mob Boss, Ajani Vengeant, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice,  Ajani, Caller of the Pride, Bonfire of the Damned,  Vraska the Unseen, Sword of Body and Mind, Yeva, Nature's Herald and Woodland Cemetery.
With Return to Ravnica, I am aiming to fill more Ravnica slots to the front and 2nd page to create a good first impression. What does your first page look like? I am very curious!
Another small trick others have mentioned is to deliberately say to your partner that you are fine with him taking out the cards he would like to acquire, own or have. I would phrase it as the âeBay effectâ where people feel more or less that they own the card already, hence putting more effort in it in actually getting it.
I can actually relate this back to the Sentimental Value section above, as people will value it higher whether it is a simple eBay auction or the card they really want and actually have in their hand. If you can talk like a cardealer, you can even mention how great the card can be in their deck so their mind is focused on all the great things they can do with it. It creates excitement, which is converted into even more sentimental value.
Now I would not call this sharking, but I am open to exchange opinions about this since I do think it is kind of borderline. But then again, if they are indeed going to make these great plays and are happy with the trade...
Last summer I visited one of my Poker friends in Estonia, where we went to a good restaurant. Afterwards we checked out, the waitress gave us the bill with some gummybears and peppermints. Now this waitress was not particularly cute, but I love gummybears. So I grabbed a handful and ate them.
Later on, when we were walking to the car, my friend asked me the reason restaurants hand out sweet candy to their customers in the end. I didnât know at first and I was instantly curious to this trick, as he mentioned that people tip more and associate a sweet good feeling with the restaurant. As a Dutch person, I tipped that waitress 10-15% instead of rounding it up, which in the Netherlands is considered normal.
Strohmetz, Rind, Fisher and Lynn (2000) did an experiment regarding the use of candy to increase restaurant tipping. They successfully concluded that just a small piece of chocolate along with the check resulted in a bigger tip. They argue that this comes from the notion that any sweet candy enhances the positive mood the customers are in. The second reason is that customers tip more because they feel obligated to reciprocate when receiving an act of generosity. Last but not least, when the waitress gave the candy along with the check, the waitress is being perceived as very friendly which increases the chance to receive a bigger tip.
Now what does this all have to do with trading? Have you ever bought a bag of candy most people liked (I would not advocate black liquorice outside the Netherlands, it doesnât work overseas!) and offered some to your trading partner after you finalized a trade? An unexpected act of generosity from you, while it cost you nothing, is something that has a big return of investment.
For example, when trading with someone and you just cannot find something for a small bulk rare in decent sized trade, you may just make the trade without the bulk rare. Then some moments later you walk up and give him the bulk rare anyway, saying something like ââYou can use this card more than I can right now. I hope you have loads of fun with it!ââ
This unexpected event would catch your trading partners off guard and they're more likely to reciprocate in later trades. Instead of being perceived a shark, you are seen as a person they can play a casual game with, get strategy tips and make some fun trades.
I suggest next time to buy some of candies, let go of bulk and try it out yourself. Focus on the long-term with this strategy, because it can take some time to make new trades, but the investment is well spent. One note to make is that if QS members buy/trade cards with each other, I tend to include Quiet Speculation in the shipment as well just for the fun, I already gave a couple of members these cards and they liked the fun!
~
On a completely separate topic, my Prerelease was superfun. I saw 80 players at one prerelease where they normally expect 50ish.
Oh, and the judge also said there was a cake for the participants. Although I thought the cake is a lie I was quite surprised to see this:
I made some very good trades, acquiring hard to get cards like Sylvan Library and Humility for some Standard staples. It was fun and I certainly am looking forward to Gatecrash Prereleases. I sincerely hope you had loads of fun at yours too!
~
One last thing, what would the ideal amount of tickets be to start out as a speculator on Magic Online? 100? 200?
~
Thank you for reading!
- Gervaise
Notes
D. Kahneman, J. Knetsch, R. Thaler. 1991. ''Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias'' Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (Winter, 1991): 193-206.
 Z. Carmon, D. Ariely. 2000. ''Focusing on the forgone: How Value can appear so different to buyers and sellers'' Journal of Consumer Research 27 (December, 2000): 360-370
D. Strohmetz et. al. 2000. ''Sweetening the Till: The Use of Candy to Increase Restaurant Tipping'' Journal of Applied Social Psychology 32 (2002): 300-309
Recommended Readings
D. Ariely. 2011. The Upside of Irrationality, HarperCollinsPublishers, London
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A lot has happened since we last talked. A Standard metagame has started to shape up, many cards have boomed or busted, and Iâve put a little more time and thought into smartphone dealing. The inherent problems plaguing high turnover trading where phones are involved revolves around a few core issues.
Firstly, the ratios tend to be smaller. When a person has relatively accurate pricing information at their fingertips no matter what, itâs difficult to find the normal holes in common knowledge that occur when a person is simply less into finance than you are.
Secondly, the lower rate of return is compounded by the not insubstantial amount of time it takes to look up all the prices. First world problems, right? Unfortunately, due to the limited nature of trading in terms of investment, Iâve been trying to come up with a way to work within the confines of smartphone trading.
This is Befuddlement. Three and a half more steps is Befuzzlement.
Last article we discussed ways to approach the trade from a psychological point of view, and Iâm sorry to say I found myself just as befuzzled as Iâd always been. There were some great comments about what people do at their local stores, and how they approach trading, but I still think thereâs a lot we can work on.
Does This Mean I Have To Do Math?
Last time I talked about ratios, a concept I like very much. This week I hope to approach that in more detail, and give you some examples of cards with good smartphone ratios.
To begin with, the ridiculous sounding âsmartphone ratioâ is simple. If the value of a card on your chosen source (StarCity, an arbitrary buylist) is what you want to use to determine value, and the guy youâre trading with wants to use a price aggregate (magiccards.info is a common choice), knowing both numbers is difficult.
I tried and, even though I have a good head for numbers, I still couldnât become confident in keeping them straight without ludicrous amounts of wasted time.
Well That's Good... Simple Is Better... Right?
Enter the solution. What card should we demonstrate on? I know! How about Jace, the Mind Sculptor! He is, after all, better than all. Jace is currently sold out on StarCity at 80. Thereâs a lesson in this, but since that may have come as a surprise to some of you, Iâll assume that youâll be able to figure out that they might be a good target in the next few weeks while they sneakily rise in price. If your region has caught on, no worries. Next boat and all that.
Heâs also about 70 on magicards.info, and while those numbers arenât very hard to compare, thatâs not a good reason to think every card will be so simple. His buylist is a lofty 50 SCG, a particularly high price, and about the same ratio-to-selling-price that Star has been paying for him since time anon.
Since the price you want to use is 50, the cash value, and the price the smartphones get is 70, the ratio is a good cross section of how valuable a card is to trade for when smartphones are involved.
Jaceâs ratio is about .714.
Once Was Enough, Tucker. Can We Move On?
Guys, Iâm having a great time - what card should we try next?
I know! One of the new Shocklands! Since I think Blood Crypt is dumb for not going up in price and making me millions of dollars, letâs do that one.
Magiccards.info on Blood Crypt is 12, which seems fairly similar to StarCityâs price of 15 on the new ones and 18 on the old ones. The buylist, and this is interesting, is 8 on RTR crypts... and 6 on original Dissensions.
This is the Neverending Math Article. Up and Away, Falkor!
On Dissension Crypts, this ratio is about .5, while RTR is .66 repeating.
An important conclusion, and an important aside, is that knowing the buylist of old reprinted cards sometimes leads to interesting situations that most people arenât aware of. More simply, target RTR Crypts over Dissension, and if possible trade for an RTR with some junk thrown in in exchange for your far less valuable Dissension Crypt.
The basic way this ratio works in your favor, along with streamlining card price research, is that knowing the ratios on a bunch of different cards is very useful when it comes to deciding how to make trades. If all cards are valued by an aggregate, the cards with higher ratios are the ones you trade for, while the lower ratios are the ones you trade away. Letâs bust out some more.
Thragtusk is MC.I at 16, and buylist at 8. Ratio? .500.
Jace is MC.I at a little over 45, and buylist at 30. Ratio? .666 Repeating.
Armada Wurm is clearing at 16.5, and buylist at 10. .606 ratio.
Olivia Voldaren is around 15, buylist at 8. Ratio is .533
Garruk Relentless is 11, buylist 6. Ratio comes to .5454 repeating.
We've Gone Too Far To Go Back, Onward!
I was going to make a donner party joke, but that seemed bad. So here's a kitten instead.
Gosh, those numbers are close! Even the worst is about a 50% ratio, while the best barely goes .16 higher. In a vacuum it would be a better idea to trade for Jace than for Thragtusk, but thereâs more at work than these raw numbers.
You may have noticed that the two new cards broke 6, while the three old cards didnât get past 5.5. The demand for the new set along with the limited availability of product artificially boosts prices, and closes the gap between buy and sell. In addition, the very highly ratioâd Jace is nearly 50 dollars on MC.I, and we all know that the buy:sell ratio gets higher the more expensive a card is.
There have got to be flaws in this algorithm. At the very least there have got to be cards for whom this narrow band of relative value breaks down. The easiest starting point is low valued cards, cards with fringe or sideboard playability that donât have the versatility or demand of the more popular finishers and mythics.
Rest in Peace is a fairly well hyped card, and goes for 2.50 by aggregate. The buylist is disastrously low,
however, at 50 cents. Ratio? .200. Thatâs much lower than weâve been seeing. How about some more.
Detention Sphere, MC.I 7, buy 3. Ratio is .428.
Loxodon Smiter, MC.I 4.75, buy 1. Ratio is .211
Sulfur Falls 11 MC.I, buy 6. Ratio is .5454 repeating.
Entreat the Angels MC.I 14.5, buy 8. Ratio is .552.
This is still hazy, but a clearer picture is becoming evident. Highly playable cards played in large quantity that have proven their value are higher - Sulfur Falls and Entreat the Angels both see a significant amount of play, and there are very few alternatives in those slots.
Contrast to Smiter, who sees fringe format play at best, and is often time ignored in favor of a common in the same cost slot. Rest in Peace is another low cost card that sees only fringe play, most often in sideboards.
The Eternal Quest, Cheap Valuable Things
This could, however, all be biased accounting. What if the low ratio cards are just low ratios because of their price? Are there sub-5 dollar cards that can produce the same high value propositions as a tried-and-true Thragtusk? Much to my ire, some problems exist.
Apparently, the best cost for a useful rare card is 8 dollars. Dreadbore, Clifftop Retreat, Supreme Verdict... irritating. Wait! Mizzium Mortars!
Mizzium Mortars clocks in at at prestigious 4.5 dollars MC.I, with a buylist at 2. Ratio? .444. BOOM! SUCCESS! Do any others exist?
Primal Hunter MC.I 5.5, Buy 2. Ratio is .36 repeating.
Wolfir Silverheart MC.I 4, Buy 1. Ratio is .253
Thalia MC.I 4.5, Buy 2. Ratio is .444
Cyclonic Rift MC.I 4, Buy 1. Ratio is .253
Well, some hits, some misses, but the more mainstream a card is the more money itâs worth. Makes sense to me.
This concludes my brief thought experiment on evaluating cards, I for one plan to remember that Loxodon Smiter is absolutely not worth trading for if a smartphone is involved - the ratio is so low and the demand is so godawful that practically anything I trade for it will be a loss to me unless a misvalue occurs. Despite that vitriol, I will happily take elephant man for a buck apiece
And That's A Wrap
I hope this was as helpful for you as it was for me. Iâm going to be working on putting together a list of commonly traded cards and their values as much to have an understanding what not to trade for as what side of a Bonfire I want to be on.
If this kind of article appealed to you, numbers and all, please let me know. If you prefer my more psychological and common sense based approach, let me know that to! I look forward to hearing your questions, comments and snide remarks in the comments section.
~
P.S.: Sorry for not responding on the last article, I didnât realize I had responses until too many days had passed for my statements to be relevant. I absolutely read and appreciated everything you had to say.
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As I like to say, I write articles on a finance website, but I don't write finance articles.
It's not my purview to make financial calls or predictions. I'm more in the "post-game" analysis racket, which is much easier than trying to predict the future. Since I'm not an Insider writer, I also can't give out relevant information about cards impacted by the weekend's events until Monday night, after the Insider-only e-mail blasts have alerted our insiders.
Such blasts did a good job of warning everyone before [card Trostani, Selesnyas voice]Trostani[/card], [card Jace, Architect of Thought]Jace[/card], Armada Wurm and [card Olivia Voldaren]Olivia[/card] spiked. If you're into buying a Jace at $38 before it hits $50, I think Insider is a worthwhile investment. I don't get paid extra to say that, so at the risk of sounding like a shill without getting paid to be a shill, we can move on.
Who Doesn't Want to Buy Jace at $38 Before It Hits $50?
Well, me, for one. I see the spike to $50 (on one website; try and guess which one!) as short-term. Some stores got heavy allocations of sealed RtR product, and once everyone gets their playset and the "impatience factor" wears off, I see Jace settling below $50. (The "impatience factor," you may be wondering, is my term for the high prices people pay to preorder cards they want to play in the first weekend event.)
Despite Jon Medina's advice not to bother, my cohort Ryan Bushard and I like "penny stocks". Magic cards aren't true penny stocks, however, as a bulk rare has a minimum intrinsic value so buying at bulk is practically no risk. If the card hits, you rake in a ton of profit. If it misses, you get almost all of your investment back selling the cards in bulk.
One night a few years ago, Ryan logged on to all the major retail websites and bought every copy of Death's Shadow he could find. When the card hit in the short term, he sold all of his copies at 2000% of what he paid. That gave him enough one dollar coins to fill a swimming pool and dive into like Scrooge McDuck. (He hurt his back quite badly doing this; it is not recommended.)
When Ryan told me he was going deep on Seance, I decided I could follow suit and quietly speculate (hur hur) along with him, or I could do something that really hasn't been done before. I could shout it from the rooftops.
Isn't He Angry That You Gave Away His Secret?
No, he isn't, and he was in on the whole thing. The magic card market is vast and there are opportunities for many more people than you might imagine. The player base of this game is in the millions and we finance nuts are in the minority. I actually don't make more money when I withhold information from other speculators because I don't have the resources to buy every copy of a card or move every copy quickly following a price spike.
I actually think speculators can actively benefit from sharing their picks with others. If Seance suddenly becomes a $3 card (which seems reasonable), stores will already have a million copies in stock from their bulk purchases. They'll increase their buy price from "bulk" to something like 50 cents. Even though they can get $3 on the outs, they still have thousands of copies to clear out before they need to worry about restocking.
That's why the more people who go deep on a called shot, the better. When the card hits, with more copies in the hands of the finance community and fewer in the hands of stores, they will raise their buy price more quickly and the dumping can commence. With the player base taking notice, this actually shouldn't create a glut of everyone dumping at once. If you bought 20 copies at a quarter each, you may be inclined to eBay or MOTL or straight up trade them closer to the $3 retail (for the purposes of this theoretical exercise) and thus not put too many copies in the hands of buylist buyers.
This was my rationale for telling anyone who would listen that I went deep on Seance and that there were still lots of cheap copies available. I want us all to win big; I have no selfish motives and if the card hits, all of the credit goes to Ryan Bushard anyway. He believed in this card back when I was still teasing him about it, he pioneered the decklist being tested by some of the grinders from Lansing and Grand Rapids, Michigan and he let me in on it.
Remember, if the card whiffs and you have to out it for bulk in a year, I told you it would be a card. If the card hits and you make a bunch of money, Ryan Bushard said it and I deserve none of the credit. My only rationale for being vocal about this card is that I think it's fun to speculate on "penny stocks" and I think anyone who participates in a success will agree. Since it's low risk, anyone who buys at close to bulk stands to lose next to nothing. If they go deeper, Caveat Emptor-- I'm not omniscient and this card could go nowhere. But if that gives you pause, remember, I invested my own money in this gamble.
Why Is Seance a Winner?
Glad you asked me that, rhetorical device. The deck has been solid in testing, and several groups have added it to their testing gauntlet or took it to events last weekend. When more people play with Seance and observe how much better it performs than Unburial Rites in conjunction with [card Trostani, Selesnyas Voice]Trostani[/card], Thragtusk, Armada Wurm and Craterhoof Behemoth, the tech will catch on.
Seance is a repeatable Rites which leaves your mana available to populate with Trostani, cast more creatures, or use Mulch and Grisly Salvage to find Seance food for turns and turns. Unburial Rites is one activation per turn cycle for a maximum of two activations. Seance is two activations per turn cycle until they deal with it.
I am not down on Unburial Rites as I think Frites variants are strong and one just got Top 8 in Cincinnati (more on that later). But Seance is better in certain situations and has a higher upside. For example an Armada Wurm put into play by Seance not only lets you keep the token it makes, it itself is a token so you can copy the original with Trostani and keep 15 power in creatures when the turn ends. Good luck dealing with "The Ghost of Thragtusk Past" during your own upkeep, Zombies. Maybe you should carry four spears.
Test it. You may find you want to play it. There's always the "Seance, Mirror-Mad Phantasm, Laboratory Maniac" combo deck which is better-positioned given fewer counterspells and instant-speed removal from control decks. You could also go heavy into the populate theme and maybe even jam Parallel Lives to optimize those triggers from Armada Wurm and Thragtusk. There is also brewing your own deck. The card is far from the do-nothing that many have dubbed it and with another year of legality, I expect to see Seance-containing decks post results, soon. It's only been one weekend, after all.
And What a Weekend It Was!
Hey, Wait a minute! This is Jason's Archives, Not Jason's Editorial Page! You Can't Skip Straight to Decklists!
OK, take it easy. I'll give you your fix. I had no idea you cared that much.
The 5th copy of Emrakul?
Redditor Idiosync shares with us his custom Flying Spaghetti Monster playmat. Not originally a devotee of FSM, I converted from Church of the Subgenius when I married a Pastafarian. His noodly appendages have been known to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Nice mat, idiosync!
Wonder if you can guess which pile runs out first.
Artist Noah Bradley stops by reddit on occasion, and he took the time to let us know his Return to Ravnica artist proofs had arrived in the mail. Looking good! That has to be the best Giant Growth ever printed. Subtle yet evocative. No, that wasn't me trying to mock art critics, that was actually my reaction to seeing it for the first time. Someone needs to call me out on my malarkey, and it looks like it falls to me.
There's nothing else good on reddit this week. Literally.
Now for Deck Lists!
The SCG Open in Cincinnati this weekend was the first glimpse into post RtR Standard.
Ever braggadocios, I wagered an amount of fine Fat Tire Amber Ale (we can't agree on how much) to serial griefer @deathandstuff based on my prediction that zero Zombies decks would Top 8 and his prediction to the contrary.
His decision to bet me was based on his total lack of an imagination. I wagered that the Magic community would know Zombies was the obvious deck and wouldn't show up in Cincinnati with a deck that couldn't beat it. I also remembered when people went ape over B/W Tokens when Dark Ascension came out, and that deck never materialized.
How much would it matter that Zombies was a deck already, unlike B/W Tokens? Was Joe right that the Magic Community lacked imagination and couldn't brew anything new, preferring to run familiar archetypes from pre-rotation? Or was I right that brewing would prevail and prove the faith I have in the imagination and ingenuity of the community is not unfounded?
An astonishing three unique lists in the Top 8 makes me think a lot of brewing went into finding a Zombie deck that beats the mirror as opposed to finding a deck that beats Zombies and everything else.
Jund seems to be popular, putting three variants in the Top 8. R/B or G/B was five of the Top 8, unless you count the four-color Frites build (I didn't, so that would make it 6).
Todd Anderson solved the problem of how to build a control deck much earlier than we'd anticipated. Usually the first week or two is dominated by aggro as control decks take longer to dial in. But a format where counterspells are meaningless and terrible may be easier to build in if you just jam tapout control spells.
[card Jace, Architect of Thought]Jace[/card] and [card Tamiyo, the Moon Sage]Tamiyo[/card] make strange bedfellows on paper but in reality they are quite a pair and compliment each other's abilities (and the mana curve) nicely. Expect Entreat the Angels to lag behind Jace's price spike but spike itself nonetheless. Detention Sphere is better than $5-$7 right now and even Azorius Charm made a surprising impact despite it initially looking like the weakest of the cycle. On a hot streak of late, Anderson continues to be a guy to watch. Just like that, we have a control deck to test.
Dan Kauffman was ready for Zombies with Elite Inquisitor in the board. Another card I went deep on when it was a dime, this beater is ready for a field full of zombies. The rest of Kauffman's Selesnya deck is all power all the time. Four Sublime Archangels seems like the right number in a deck that outpaces zombies but lacks their reach.
Not ready to give up, Caleb Durward jammed Delver to an impressive 19th place. Not bad for missing Ponder, Mana Leak and Vapor Snag.
Geist of Saint Traft is another card that heated up. Populating the angel token can be fun, and just drilling the face for 6 is edifying in its own right. If it were me, I'd try to jam Parallel Lives in a deck with Geist, but I am no Todd Anderson. I'm closer to Louie, probably. A few Azorius and Bant beatdown decks also featured the new Ghost Dad. He seems a solid card to hold onto for a bit to see where his price stabilizes.
No bets associated with this Top 8, but if I had to, I would have bet that people would jam Abrupt Decay and see how it played.
Tezzastrix by Caleb Durward seems like a good deck choice. Managing to restrain himself and avoid Delver, he ran a hostile gauntlet of Abrupt Decays to finish supreme Legacy champ on the weekend.
Those Planechase decks continue to be treasure troves of expensive cards, and continue to be available for $20 at big box retail stores. If I had to guess how many times I've walked into a Meijer in the past month and walked out with a Chaos Reigns or three under my arm, it would be "all of them". The only way to get Maelstrom Wanderer, Shardless Agent and Baleful Strix is from these sets, so snap them at $20.
I'm sitting on a few in anticipation of future increase, but the rest get busted and cannibalized to feed my eBay store its eBay store food. Properly fed, my store excretes a steady stream of cash for me to squander on Seances.
So Caleb didn't top eight with Delver. You know who did? Three other people. Ugh.
It's good to see Death and Taxes top eight. I was a fan of Junk and Taxes as Junk easily supports the [card Mangara of Korondor]Mangara[/card]/Karakas combo and also lets you ruin their lives more with discard. This is the pure white version though, which jammed maindeck Phyrexian Revoker as a 4-of. Seems better than the Jotun Grunt that used to occupy that spot. Thomas Enevoldsen managed Top 8 despite playing nonlands that survive an Abrupt Decay.
My prediction that Decay would be laughed off by Mother of Runes seems similarly wrong as zero Maverick decks managed Top 25 for the first time since I can remember.
Lands did make a top 25, piloted by Bobby Kovacs.
I can use my bully pulpit to point out another Top 8 by Kalamazoo local hero Deshaun Baylock. I would have preferred he top eight standard with my Seance build, but he dropped Maverick for the first time in months and it looks like it paid off. Congrats, D!
A nice-looking Top 25 for Legacy brings this week's article to a close at just under 3,000 words. Thanks for sticking with it the whole time.
That's All, Folks
So no Seance in the Top 8. I'm not worried as only a few players had our list and as the metagame continues to develop, I think a Seance build has a place. If control is shifting to tapout with sorcery-speed removal, Seance can help you get some real value out of the creatures they don't manage to Terminus. With another year of legality, I feel like this is a solid call and I'm more than happy to share any and all of my picks with my readers. But take whatever I say with a grain of salt. Remember, I don't write finance articles.
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It's kind of hard to believe that I've been writing weekly for QS for over two years - but then, I've been writing about Magic since 2004 (for a paycheck!) and I'm often pleasantly surprised at my endurance. One of the first articles I wrote for QS was Maximizing Ebay Profits, an article about how to get the most money from Ebay. This week, I'm going to review it with you and we'll talk about what's the same, what's different, and how you can continue to make money from listing cards on Ebay.
Ebay is the primary way to dispose of excess Magic cards; it generates enormous traffic, is relatively safe to sell through, and it allows for easy visual displays of your items.
Ebay is probably not the primary way to get rid of excess cards anymore, especially for speculators. It has been replaced by the buylist, especially because of advances in TCGPlayer and its aggregation qualities. Two years ago, this sort of thing was much harder to do. Ebay is still a great way to get rid of older and more dinged up cards. I've sold dual lands and Onslaught fetches that had seen some love.
Unsurprisingly, people still lose their brains when it comes to auctions.
In the original article, I went on about the psychological effects that lead to higher Ebay prices. They still hold true today - people get worked up about an auction and have to win it! This is evident in many auctions where the sell price is above the BIN price - people didn't do their homework or didn't care. Think about it - people play poker and know they may throw their money away, or lose a little more than they thought. The thrill of winning kicks in and it's an easy leap for a bidder to think "well I'll spend $3 more to make sure that guy doesn't win it instead!"
Let's address another factor, which I touched on in the original article but needed more development. People will pay a premium to have the certainty of getting cards and avoid the problem of waiting for them. This is how people shop with BIN auctions. This is rationalized but come on, you can wait two days to save $5, right? Many people will not, though, and want those cards now. It's better to place the standard staples in BIN and lock up the really cool stuff in auctions, in my experience.
Competing on the BIN market is easy and powerful.
When I shop for cards, I type in something like "4 Deadly Insect" and then flip it over to BIN-only, low-to-high listings. I want to find the absolute cheapest set of cards and Ebay makes this easy, since they add the price and shipping together. As I mentioned in the original article, you can undercut the market by a quarter or less if you want! You end up getting that sale while someone else loses it because your listing will appear over theirs. This is simple and just requires a little bit of homework, which is something most power-sellers cannot be bothered with.
This, of course, depends on your desire to sell at the lowest price. A price determined by someone else. Maybe you need to get more out of the cards, but you'll have a hard time selling them at premium prices without a reputation for quality. Not everyone gets to be KidIcarus power-sellers.
20:00 GMT-4 is the Golden Hour.
That time, Eastern Standard time at 10pm, remains the golden hour for getting the most from your bids. Contrary to our advice, people don't often use bidding programs to place bids and prefer to do it live. Why is 10pm so good? That's a bridge hour between when people on the East Coast of the United States are getting ready to go to bed and when people in California are getting home from work. It represents a narrow band when you can capture all of America to bid on your auctions as they end. I don't have a scientific study of the best day to post an auction, but I have had great results with Sunday. It's to where I'll schedule an auction for 5 days just to make it end on Sunday if I missed my first chance!
Scheduling an auction on Ebay is easy. Remember that you are scheduling when the auction starts, not when it ends. Naturally, it will end at the end of 7 days at that very time. Thus, you set it to start at 10pm on a Sunday and that's when it will end. It costs 10 cents, which is a bargain.
The complaint of "Fee-bay" is still true.
Ebay has been losing volume in auctions over the last few years. The novelty is wearing off and Amazon is making it much more attractive for small stores to set up shop. You probably cannot avail yourself of an Amazon shop, so Ebay has decided to jack up the prices on you. The prices have risen in the last few years, especially since Paypal is the de facto paying option. If you sell that set of Snapcaster Mages that you've traded for at FNM and gleefully get $75 for them online, here's how your fees break down:
BIN insertion fee: $0.50
Sale price: (11% of $50[5.50] + 1.5) = $7
Paypal fee of 2.9% + .30 = $2.48
For a grand total of $9.98 in fees. Or a sale price of closer to $65.00 than what you originally thought. Oh, and you still have to ship it. And Ebay now charges the same fees on shipping as it does on the sell price, meaning that you can't charge $9 for shipping and hope to dodge them anymore. You don't practically catch any breaks for listing it as an auction instead.
This is sobering; it's a 13.3% rake before you put the object in an envelope. Ebay is, in my opinion, still good for getting rid of the older stuff, but buylists have seriously given it a run for selling commodity cards.
Shipping your cards is now more expensive.
Shipping is more because you now lose fees on the entire cost and there are serious incentives from Ebay to make you list it with free shipping. For one, your auction "wins the tie" on any listing where it's competing with paid shipping - yours gets listed above, so it appears cheaper. You should offer free shipping, anyway - it generates more sales. It's a psychology thing and not a science thing, but it makes you money. When we sold books on this site (many moons ago), we upped the sale price, said "free shipping" and enjoyed about 20% more sales immediately. This translates to Ebay. Plus, if you are selling a $200 playset of cards, you engender a lot of goodwill among bidders by saying that you're covering protected shipping. This leads to more trust and better bids.
On the topic of shipping, I have now expanded my list of countries to whom I shall not ship from "Italy and Spain" to "any country that doesn't rhyme with 'Smuh-merica.'" International scamming is frequent, Ebay will take your money and side with the buyer, and tracking breaks down internationally. Much safer to sell to the already-huge US market.
Think of BIN as free advertising for rare stuff.
And rare stuff doesn't just mean Magic cards, it can mean the other stuff, too. There was an original piece of art, the Ice Age painting of Icy Manipulator, that sat on Ebay for months, for about $5,000, unbid. It costs virtually nothing to keep rolling this over and over, and eventually someone bought it. I think that the final buyer was someone who kept looking at it over and over and finally jumped for it. There are just too few people who buy the really rare, expensive stuff to make an auction go anywhere. It's much safer to use BIN on a large, rare item and open it up to Best Offers. You get the same appeal of an auction (people blindly bidding numbers) and you don't have to sell until something good comes along.
I hope that you are fortunate as a player and seller to have the opportunity to move some truly rare and cool pieces of Magic history!
Pictures will make or break you
We both know that the older or more expensive the card, the more pictures you need. An auction for a Beta Tundra should be drenched in photos. If you're selling something old, use the macro feature on your camera, get some pictures against different backgrounds and show what the card looks like from all angles. You may think "well I don't want to show just how junky it is," but bad photos scare bidders. I'd rather avoid something that I can't see than willingly bid on something I know looks worse. Who knows, maybe I'll get into a bidding war and fight over it anyway!
With auctions for standard staples, it's not much work to pull a photo from online and use it as a stock photo. I'm still amazed at auctions with no photos! This is also a good point to mention that the more you write, the better your auctions end up. More auction writing lets me know that you are a human and not a drone that lists for some store, and it makes me feel like I have a better shot at getting things resolved to my satisfaction.
In summary, Ebay remains a good place for a lot of cards, even if the lower-end stuff is best sent off to dealers or sold through MTGO. A lot has changed in two years, but a lot remains the same! Please share your Ebay tips and suggestions below!
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I got pretty excited when I found out the guild leaders in Return to Ravnica were being redone. I had been looking for new ideas and RtR was a perfect set for new commanders.
I had to make a decision about which legend to make a deck around first. My options were Trostani, [card Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius]Niv-Mizzet[/card], [card Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord]Jarad[/card], or [card Isperia, Supreme Judge]Isperia[/card]. Niv-Mizzet and Isperia are cool, but in terms of a commander they are pretty bland. Jarad would be fun to make a deck around, since he has several fun abilities, but I decided to go with Trostani.
Initial Ideas
When I first saw Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, I thought of a deck idea immediately. Obviously it was tokens, but I wanted to bring it in a direction that token Commander token decks don't usually go in. Big tokens. Typically a token deck produces multiple small creature tokens and then buffs them all in some way. I decided to show some love to the big token making cards. The bigger the tokens, the better populate is.
Besides making tokens, Trostani also reliably gains life. This can be quite helpful but also dangerous. I've noticed that players will often attack the person with the most life, which is wrong in most situations, but still happens. My idea to combat this was to incorporate cards that you could spend life on, like Sylvan Library.
Step 1: Token Makers
The first thing I did was compile a list of token making cards, focusing on the ones that made large tokens. I wasn't sure if there would be enough at first, but after writing a list of them I was pretty surprised. I tried to choose cards that made 4/4's or bigger. Here are some of the all-stars:
Step 2: Token Synergizers
The next step was to find cards that worked well with tokens. I like every single card with populate, plus some other obvious ones:
Step 3: Taking Advantage of Extra Life
The final set of thematic cards were those that took benefit from having extra life. After searching gatherer I found there aren't many white or green cards that let you spend life to do stuff. I had to settle with cards that benefit from either gaining life, or having lots of life:
Step 4: Fill in the Gaps
The theme of this deck fills the rolls of threats, so I don't have to worry about adding any large creatures. However, the deck is lacking answers to my opponents permanents. Some standard Commander staples should fill the role just fine:
It would also be silly not to take advantage of green's mana ramping capabilities. It's what green does best, and in my opinion, is the best strategy in Commander:
Step 5: Lands
This part is easy. Add a bunch of dual lands, some staple utility lands, couple basics and you're done. I've found that in two-color decks you can get away with quite a few basics, which turn out to be quite helpful in many situations.
The Finished Deck
Untitled Deck
Commander
Token Makers
Token Synergy
Life Cards
Utility
Lands
8 Forest
8 Plains
Final Thoughts
This is a nice and friendly Commander deck. There aren't any combos or any annoying cards, just some good old fashioned large monsters and life gain. It could probably be made much more competitive, but as it is it fits the spirit of Commander.
This deck should also be easy for a newer Commander player to pilot. Continually pumping out large monsters to pummel your opponents with is straightforward but still powerful. Also, life gain is alluring to newer players. Typically I wouldn't incorporate life gain as a primary theme, but Trostani pretty much throws it in for free, so why not.
Creating decks that are fair and fun is my primary goal when constructing a Commander deck, but at the same time it needs to be powerful so I don't lose every game. I think this deck is pretty cookie-cutter when it comes to a Commander deck. It reliably creates threats and has a good package of cards to deal with whatever your opponents do.
I haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet, but I foresee if being decent. My Commander decks always go through several stages of development before I get them where I want them. I'm sure this deck needs some fine tuning, so if you have any suggestions feel free to post them in the comments.
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This past weekend saw over 400 Magic players battle it out at the Star City Games Open in Cincinnati, Ohio. This was the first major event broadcast online with the new Standard, and there were certainly some significant shifts! The metagame will never again be the same, as evidenced by incredible number of Return to Ravnica cards seeing play as well as the Innistrad block cards not seeing so much play â namely, Delver of Secrets.
But there was a different type of shift I noticed from this past weekend. As the tournament evolved and certain decks rose to the top, Twitter was abuzz with the cards to grab for speculation. What was particularly interesting to me was Star City Gamesâ effort to remain on the cutting edge of this speculation.
There were a handful of examples of this behavior. Let me explain further.
U/W/R Miracles Deck - The Winning Deck
Many of the Star City Games veterans, including Todd Anderson and Brad Nelson, were on this deck. It basically consists of lots of removal spells, lots of Miracles, Jace, Architect of Thought and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. Many of the removal spells, such as Detention Sphere, are from Return to Ravnica, but the deck relies fairly heavily on cards from Avacyn Restored, so naturally it has my attention as a speculator.
Before the event, Tamiyo, for example, was averaging $12-$14 in auction and was retailing for just a little more (chart from blacklotusproject.com).
But once this deck broke the scene, Star City Games was one of the first retailers to adjust accordingly, increasing their price first to $19.99 and then $24.99. Their buy list price for Tamiyo is now $15, where as many eBay auctions are ending in this area. Clearly Star City Games wants to remain ahead of the curve, and they are almost speculating on Tamiyo here, which was only a 2-of in the deck.
They also turned an aggressive eye to the other Planeswalker in the deck, Jace, Architect of Thought, by increasing their buy price to $30 and their sell price to $49.99!
Another card that Star City Games has quickly become bullish on from this deck is Terminus. Iâve been on this card for a while after seeing it make Top 8 in major Legacy events, and the card has finally moved some. Star City Games are again on the forefront, upping their buy price to $4 and their sell price to $7.99. This is astronomically high for a board sweeper. Once again, the card usually auctions for around $4 each (chart from blacklotusproject.com).
Frites
The other deck that made the finals was a remake of Frites, relying on Unburial Rites to unearth large creatures. The newest member of the team: Angel of Serenity. The only card I preordered from Return to Ravnica is likely to payoff. For those of you who joined me in buying the card when it was $6-$8, we can now immediately profit on our copies by selling to Star City Games, who is buying the card now for $10. Their sell price has been upped as well, to $19.99.
Whatâs surprising to me is not that Angel of Serenity is making a splash in Standard. Rather, itâs Star City Gameâs immediate response to increase their buy and sell price that has me raising an eyebrow. Paying $10 on a Mythic Angel that saw play in one specific archetype may be the right move, but doing so after the first weekend the card is legal seems to me a bit gutsy.
While Iâm at it, the price increase on Trostani, Selesnyas Voice is even more intriguing. Going through the Top 8 lists, I donât see a single copy of this legendary creature. Yet Star City Games is selling it for $19.99 and buying at $10. I understand that this card is already a casual favorite, but paying $10 on the card when it reliably sells for $10-$12 on eBay seems flat out premature.
Again, I understand itâs a casual favorite, but without making an impact on Standard Iâm not sure how this card is worth $20. I grabbed a few at $9 each and I intend to sell or trade them very quickly once they arrive.
Jund/Zombies â Yawn
I cannot discuss the Cincinnati SCG Open without at least mentioning Jund and Zombies strategies. There were three Jund decks and one Golgari Zombies deck that made Top 8, so clearly this deck is a force to reckon with.
The biggest mover I see from these lists has been Olivia Voldaren. This card is once again retailing for $15 after seeing a major pullback from its previous peak (chart from blacklotusproject.com).
The success of this card largely hinges upon the continued success of these Jund/Rakdos strategies. I saw the card in action watching the live coverage of the SCG Open and I am on the fence. Iâm not going to call this card a buy at $15 without seeing it make Top 8âs repeatedly. For now, this card will continue to be my âpick-up if cheapâ play.
Under the Radar
I also want to touch on a few cards that saw decent play this past weekend and may be due for a price increase despite not seeing an immediate price bump at Star City Games.
First, consider the Miracle Entreat the Angels (chart from blacklotusproject.com).
Since June this card has been on a steady decline. The chart finally appears to have reached a stable bottom, and, with three copies in the U/W/R Miracles deck, that price floor just became more stable. I expect this card to see a small bump up and Iâve bought my set in preparation for the new metagame, even if Star City Games hasnât shifted their price just yet.
Another âunder-the-radarâ card worth mentioning is Huntmaster of the Fells (chart from blacklotusproject.com).
This creature has already been on a rebound since bottoming in July. Two decks in the SCG Open Top 8 ran a full set of Huntmaster, and his relevance may still be in tact post rotation. If you can find people offering this one up on the low end, it may also be worth acquiring a couple. Star City Games is selling these at $18 and I donât see too much immediate upside from there, but should we see more Jund in the future, he seems like a mainstay in Standard.
A New Speculator In Town?
Iâve always considered Star City Games on the forefront of MTG Finance. They have many people working for them who keep their finger on the pulse of the metagame, identifying where price changes are needed. This has not changed.
Where I see a subtle difference is in their reaction time. This past weekend we saw a few cards show up in Standard decks that we havenât often seen before, and Star City Games has moved accordingly. In some cases they increased their buy prices so high that they are paying more than the cards sell for on popular sites such as eBay and TCG Player.
Are they trying to capitalize on the hype? Are they acquiring frantically in anticipation of States? Or are they simply desperate to gather copies to meet pre-order sales?
In any case, they are definitely revealing their hand a little earlier than usual by upping so many buy prices (and dropping others, such as Vraska the Unseen to $10). Our task is to respond accordingly and to identify the cause for the rapid changes. Either way there are some profitable opportunities available to us right now if we make some wise pick-ups.
But you canât pick up everything as the overall average value of the set will eventually drop. The trick is to pick up the cards that will continue to impact Standard after all the hype has settled down.
âŠ
Here are my weekly tidbits of information. I think from now on Iâll call this section âSigbitsâ to keep the explanation here to a minimum.
Sigbits
Woodland Cemetery did see a lot of play this past weekend at the SCG Open, but the retail price remains $14.99 with a buy list price of $8. I canât see this going up any more and I hope youâve sold yours for a nice profit as I have.
Blue Zendikar Fetch Lands are on the rise, thanks to Modern. Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest are both retailing for $19.99, and they are difficult to acquire on eBay for less than $14. I suspect there will come a time when this will be the bottom of the price cycle instead of the top.
Gaeas Cradle is out of stock at Star City Games at $79.99. What may be more interesting is that the price of the Judge Foil version seems to be dropping. Slightly Played copies can be had for $175, even though eBay auctions are ending in the $180-$200 price range. This discrepancy seems odd, but I donât see an easy way to profit from it.
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The following table is a list of all cards that appeared in Top 16 deck lists.  The Top 8 and Top 16 columns indicate how popular a given card was within the bracket. Thragtusk, for example, comprised 3.4% of all cards in the Top 16 but only 2.47% of those in the Top 8.  The Total column represents the percentage of the entire sampled field.
Columns T8 Outperform and T16 Outperform measure how much more frequently a given card appeared in a bracket than appeared in the entire event's decklist pool.
Thragtusk had a good day out. Â I don't want to call it a 'breakout' card because everyone already knew it was good, but the numbers on the chart below tell a new story about the card's power level. Â I expect the metagame to evolve around Thragtusk and Zombies for the most part, which makes me glad my current Standard brew is heavy on Syncopate, Azorius Charm and Feeling of Dread.
Green decks:
No Goyf
Green decks:
No Goyf %
Green decks:
With Goyf
Green decks:
With Goyf %
Infect
7%
Abzan
13.4%
Abzan Liege
3.2%
Jund
2.3%
RG Tron
2.8%
RUG Twin
1.3%
Amulet Bloom
2.8%
Sultai Control
.4%
Scapeshift
2.5%
Bogles
1.8%
4C Gifts
1%
Nykthos Green
.8%
TOTAL %
OF GREEN DECKS
56%
TOTAL %
OF GREEN DECKS
44%
Biggest Losers
The following table is a list of all the cards that didn't make it into a deck finishing in the Top 16.  There are some really good cards on this list, and if this trend keeps up we can expect  big price shifts.  Some of these were so shocking I almost quit working on this analysis in frustration, certain that my data was fundamentally flawed.  Then I went back and double checked everything.
Top 5 Surprising Failures
Restoration Angel Delver of Secrets Armada Wurm Zealous Concsripts Hinterland Harbor
[table “5” not found /]
Location, Location, Location
The table that follows is a breakdown of the Top 16 mana base.  Other than going long on Forests and Plains which, for the record, I do not endorse , your actionables might be getting Sunpetal Groves at dirt-cheap prices in trade binders.  If these numbers extrapolate well to a larger scale, it could be one of the staples that you churn though dozens of in the course of a month.  The same may be true of Glacial Fortress. Â
The shock lands are toxic to me; I don't know where they'll settle and there's no way I'm going to risk playing the lottery with them. Â I see no upside at this price. Â That's how I feel about Innistrad lands too; there's no value left in their upside, and I don't want to be stuck with the bill if / when they drop.
Gavony Township in the 15th spot catches my eye, since it's the first of the Innistrad utility lands on the list and it's paired up with the right colors. Â It won't be a 4-of in 99% of decks that include it, but at the current price (around 1.00) they are cheap throw-ins that have some, but limited, upside. Â I've got about a dozen of them sitting in a pile on my desk, hoping that they'll hit 2.00.
Deck
# of finishes
(1/28 - 3/17)
GWP
Mono U Tron
25
72.89%
Infect
64
70.79%
Storm
27
70.68%
Amulet Bloom
52
70.10%
Affinity
98
70.04%
Burn
187
69.73%
Ad Nauseam
20
69.57%
Grixis Delver
16
69.51%
Jund
16
69.19%
Abzan
182
68.74%
Scapeshift
40
68.67%
Bogles
25
68.65%
UR Twin
148
68.60%
Nykthos Green
20
68.53%
RUG Twin
17
68.38%
UWR Midrange
14
68.28%
RG Tron
47
68.22%
Merfolk
46
68.17%
Abzan Liege
47
67.55%
4C Gifts
36
67.52%
BW Tokens
20
67.02%
UW Control
20
66.25%
UWR Control
36
65.43%
Note: I'm using a lot of experimental and new technology to generate these reports. Â Data may be missing or inaccurate. Â Don't shoot the messenger.Â
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Today I continue my primer for people looking to speculate on MTGO for the first time. If you didn't catch last week's article, be sure to read that first.
Step 4: Finding a Good Price
This will take a little work. The MTGO market is quite efficient, but it can still be worth a few tix to hunt around.
Cardbot and the Classifieds
Start with the majors. Go to Cardbotâs website and punch in a card that you are curious about. Their prices can be on the high end of the market but they are very responsive. If a card is crashing in price, Cardbot's prices will often lead the rest of the market.
They also have a very good selection, especially for Eternal formats such as Modern or Legacy. Transaction times are the fastest around. Their prices are a good baseline to which you can compare other prices.
Sticking to the Godless Shrine example from Part 1, we see itâs currently at 5.91 tix.
Next, scan the classifieds for what you are interested in. To do this, enter "Godless Shrine" with no quotations in the search function at the top of the page. Since it's currently out of print, the number of listings for Godless Shrine will be somewhat small.
If a card is in print, we can expect many more listings as well as humans selling on the classifieds. Humans will typically post a card for sale that is lower than the market sell price, but higher than the market buy price. They are trying to squeeze out a ticket or two by posting here and waiting for a buyer.
This illustrates another way to buy cards. Post your own ad to the classifieds! In this case, I would post something like the above. And if I was playing in a tournament and had some time, I might score a few deals here or there. If you post a lower price, you might get a better deal, but alternatively you might not get any action at all. Posting a price that is competitive with the other bots ensures you wonât overpay.
However, this method counts on a player scanning the classifieds and randomly choosing your listing. The bot chains have a name out there, and they get repeat business because they have established a relationship with their customer base. If you post prices similar to the bot chains, there is nothing to distinguish you from them. Posting a buy price .5 to 1 tix higher than the bots gives you an edge to get the cards you want.
In the search results for Godless Shrine, you may notice many bots posting buy prices of 3 tix. These are the low ball bots that seek to take advantage of new or lazy players. When all the listings are buying for 3 tix, one might assume that that is the current market buy price. But this is quite a bit below what the major bots are paying.
These low balling bots exist because of the low barrier to entry. Posting a buy price higher than these bots will distinguish your ad from them, but your price will often still be below what the majors are paying.
To ensure your price is competitive you'll want to offer slightly more than the majors. Note this is not always possible due to the indivisibility of tix, but you can modify your buy price by paying more for multiples. For example, posting "Buying Godless Shrine 5, or 2 for 11" means you are offering 5.5 tix per copy.
Other References
If the classifieds are a bit sparse, then itâs time to dig deeper into the bot chains to find a deal. Go to supernovabots and check their prices. Scan the list by using the Find function of your browser, Ctrl+F on Firefox. Highlighted here is the Godless Shrine listing:
Supernova posts two prices if they have a card in stock. On the left is their buy price and on the right is their sell price. Beside that is the name of the bot holding the card and the quantity available. For Godless Shrine, there is one copy in stock, and at 5.70 tix itâs only at a small discount with respect to Cardbot. Nothing wrong with going for this one, but letâs keep looking.
The last stop will be MTGOLibrary. Entering "Godless Shrine" in their price wiki causes the following list of bots, prices and quantities to come up.
Again, not much of a discount, but picking off the top of the listing gives two copies for a total of 11.32, which represents a total savings of 0.5 tix over buying through Cardbot. A little bit of work has saved a small amount of tix in this case.
MTGOLibrary sometimes provides out-of-date information, but don't get discouraged if you see a deal that is too good to be true. Be sure to check it out, because sometimes you'll be the first to find it. It's also useful to see the range of prices and quantities available on the wiki. Knowing the depth of the market on a card can give you the sense for where the price might be headed next.
Step 5: Purchasing
This step is easy. Take the lowest prices and buy what you can. In this case, Godless Shrine is not a hot card, so buying the cheapest ones available and leaving the others for the moment is fine. Some more might come onto the market over the coming weeks and they might be priced lower.
Below is a snap shot of my trade book for Godless Shrine over the past week. Different days see different prices according to the ebb and flow of the market. For a low pressure play like this, spreading out purchases can yield better deals over time.
Name
Price
Quantity
Average Cost
Total
Date
Motivation
Godless Shrine
5.79
4
5.79
23.16
9/25/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.157
2
5.157
10.314
9/25/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.5
1
5.5
5.5
9/25/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.12
3
5.12
15.36
9/28/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.66
3
5.66
16.98
9/28/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.3
4
5.3
21.2
9/28/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.73
3
5.73
17.19
9/28/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.66
2
5.66
11.32
9/30/2012
Hold for Modern
Godless Shrine
5.91
4
5.91
23.64
10/1/2012
Hold for Modern
Total
26
5.564
144.664
Step 6: Waiting
After buying comes the waiting. This type of off season purchase strategy is low risk and boring, but pays off. To employ it you must practice patience, otherwise this is where the fear might creep in. Refer back to your trade book and read the motivation for buying this card.
In this case, the motivation is "Hold for Modern" (with the release of Gatecrash as a back up plan) which means waiting till the end of November or early December for the start of the Modern PTQ season. At that time, other speculators and players will be anticipating the season and will have bought up available copies. Getting in now ensures arriving to the party before things get out of hand.
Supply of the Dissension and Guildpact shocklands is quite thin online. Observe the recent surge in the price of Stomping Ground after [card Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle]Valakut's[/card] unbanning. It quickly went from 6 tix to 15 tix. If half the interest crops up in Godless Shrine, this position will still yield a tidy, very low risk profit.
Step 7: Selling
Last year, there were two good opportunities to sell Godless Shrine during Modern season. Look for that initial price spike to occur again in December. When the time comes to sell, your options are pretty much identical to those covered above in Step 4. Putting up a sell ad in the classifieds will often yield the most tix, but also takes the most time.
Cardbot will take up to four copies of any card at a time and they pay a predictable price. If Godless Shrine is selling for 10 tix on Cardbot during Modern season, expect to get a little over 8 tix when selling to them. Compare the price with what Supernova is paying if you are looking to sell only a few. Both chains adjust their prices when a card is bought or sold, but Supernova has a much lower threshold and will give different prices for copies past the first in most transactions.
If you scroll up and look at the MTGO Library screen cap, you'll see the two columns on the right list a buying price and a buying quantity. Often these prices are not very competitive, but there are times when a card's price has just dropped and the bots in this network can be slow to update.
Step 8: Profit! (With Guarantee)
I am quite confident in the call on Godless Shrine. For anyone who is looking to try out online speculating, I will guarantee a small position is zero risk.
The substance of this guarantee is as follows. I promise to buy up to a playset of Godless Shrines from you in the first week of January for 6 tix a piece. In other words, you can't lose if you are buying Godless Shrine for 6 tix or less today. For those that are interested in taking me up on this offer, please comment on this article with the number of Godless Shrine you bought and at what price.
Come January just look me up on QS or MTGO and I'll buy your copies for 6 tix each, up to a maximum of 4 copies per person.
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I hope everyoneâs Return to Ravnica prerelease was as awesome as mine! I played both Golgari and then Azorious and liked both, though I found I definitely preferred Azorious, at least for the 2HG format. Playing Draw-Go while your partner played Creatures was fun.
All right, with that out of the way, I have a quick question for you:
What Magic product has increased the most in price over the last four years?
I expect a lot of things are running through your mind right now. Hereâs one you may have guessed.
Underground Sea is a good guess. All the Duals have gone crazy in that time frame, and Sea has risen about $70 since then. If you asked me this same question, I would have likely answered the same were I pressed, or a few other cards I could name.
But thatâs not right.
Would you have guessed From the Vault: Dragons?
The special item, which opened at $35 MSRP and could be had for even less than that, is up to $150 on SCG and goes for somewhere around that on Ebay. Someone even spent $157 on one, which is a little crazy since it can be had for cheaper than that on SCG, but to each his own.
What? Thereâs not even any Constructed playable Dragons in the box! I know, but Collectors want it. That, combined with the short print run of the product and the growth in the player base since then has led to a $115 retail increase. Thatâs a rate of about $30 a year.
To be blunt, thatâs insane. Investors would kill for stocks that consistently showed that kind of growth. We have that right here with Magic, but itâs something even those of us âin the businessâ overlook way too often.
I know why. Itâs not sexy to sit on cards or product for years at a time as it accumulates dust in the closet. And, unless youâre a collector who just likes to look at it, it means very little to you.
I came into a lot of sealed product about 6 months ago in a collection, including all the good From the Vaults and all five Commander decks. I recently found a buyer for all of it at once, so I shipped to him at a bit of a discount because stocking away the money, not to mention selling it all at once instead of piecemeal, was an attractive option for me. But that doesnât mean Iâm not always on the lookout for sealed product to hold onto, even though I have no interest in collecting it.
Because itâs not just Dragons that is worth money. Hell, itâs not even the sets that come with more value in them than the sticker price. Stuff like Duel Decks: Elves vs. Goblins commands a nice price, and even things largely seen as âmissesâ like FTV: Legends or Premium Deck Series Graveborn routinely sell now for more than the MSRP.
I think we can attribute this to the âcollectibleâ aspect of this Collectible Card Game we all love. As players and traders collecting isnât something we all inherently understand, but it clearly affects the market. It is a totally advisable move to grab every sealed product you can at MSRP when it comes out, even if itâs a critical disappointment. In the long run, this will essentially give you cash to hide away in your closet, only to find itâs accrued interest when you get back to it.
Sealed Product and Ravnica
With that out there, letâs look at the most recent round of Sealed product we can get: Guild Boxes.
And, unfortunately, Iâm just not sure I can advice buying into these, at least not en masse. The price on these has come steadily down in the last week as more and more hit Ebay. I have an Izzet guild box I got as prize support that I have up on Ebay, and I expect to get no more than $30 for it.
And I expect that to come down even further, for a few reasons. Firstly, these things are kinda flimsy. Now, thatâs not a complaint per se, because they were great for what they were built to do and the concept was awesome, but it means the boxes arenât going to hold up great over time compared to the way the product like the From The Vaults series will.
This is the same reason that individual Faction packs from Mirrodin Besieged arenât selling great on Ebay; people want a wrapped box or a clearly-sealed product. With our Guild Boxes, the âsealâ is literally just a small sticker. This doesnât help matters.
Secondly, if/when the box is opened, the cards inside are just regular packs. Even the Guild pack has regular cards in it. Once itâs been âcrackedâ (small piece of tape broken) the entire package is worth nothing more than any other six packs of Return to Ravnica.
Now, Iâm not saying these wonât increase over the years. On the contrary, Iâm sure they will. The question, though, is if it will be enough to make it worth investing money in. A product that goes up $30 a year is a great; a product that goes up $5 a year probably isnât worth keeping. That money can be better reinvested in other products.
Products like the upcoming Commanderâs Arsenal, for instance. A premium set that comes in nice packaging and contains alternative art/foiling for historically popular cards? Thatâs the kind of place we want to be.
The first impulse upon getting these products at MSRP (if your store sells at that price), can be to flip them for instant profit. And thatâs fine. But itâs products like CA that are going to keep going up in price, just like Dragons.
And thatâs where Iâm going to put my money when it comes to sealed product.
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Question: Do you think players really won't be ready for your Gravecrawlers?
Let me first say that Zombies is very good, regardless of which version of the deck you are playing. Players have to prepare to play against the deck or doom themselves to loosing some quick matches. Rest assured, your opponents will come equipped with answers.
As a Zombies player, you need to anticipate the likely answers opponents will have and craft a deck that can contend with them. For example, Pillar of Flame is an extremely good tool for dealing with Gravecrawlers and Geralf's Messengers. As a Zombie player, your next thought should be, "What am I going to do about those Pillar of Flames?"
Thinking on this question led me to design a midrange zombie deck. Some of the choices I made are radical, but sometimes it is better to play a slightly worse card overall because it is better in the format.
Midrange Zombies
Untitled Deck
Creatures
4 Gravecrawler
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Dreg Mangler
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Sluiceway Scorpion
1 Thragtusk
Spells
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Rancor
4 Tragic Slip
3 Garruk Relentless
Lands
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
2 Golgari Guildgate
1 Grim Backwoods
8 Swamp
4 Forest
Obviously this is not your typical Zombie deck. I want to start by talking about the cards that didn't make the cut.
The major card I removed was Geralf's Messenger. There were a few reasons for this decision. First, casting a three-drop that dies to a one-mana, frequently-played removal spell is not a play that will win you many games. Having your Gravecrawler removed with Pillar of Flame is not nearly as bad for you because both of you spent the same amount of mana. It is more detrimental when this happens to your Messenger.
Coming into play tapped can be an issue as well. Often this doesn't matter but when it does it's usually a key part of the game.
The final reason that I made the cut was because there is a card that I want to replace it with in Vampire Nighthawk. The Nighthawk doesn't die to Pillar, has lifelink, and many decks cannot deal with the flying evasion. One of the best lines of play with Midrange Zombies is giving your Vampire Nighthawk a Rancor. The deathtouch ability is also important because it allows you to trade your three-mana creature for a more expensive one.
The second part of the deck missing are the other one-mana creatures. By playing many one- and two-mana creatures, you are trying to win the game as quickly as possible. But since both Huntmaster of the Fells and Thragtusk are legal in the format, you usually do not kill your opponent fast enough. Therefore, instead of drawing irrelevant one-mana dorks, why not play something else. I did not include Rakdos Shred-Freak for this same reason.
The idea for this deck actually came from the draft I did last night with my friends. My first pick in pack one was Lotleth Troll and my first pick in pack two was Deathrite Shaman. I took first in this draft mostly because of these two amazing cards. It seemed that every time I played one of these two creatures early in the game, I was able to win with relative ease. In game two of the finals, I even won a game where I never hit more than two mana just because turn two Lotleth Troll was just that strong.
Draft is not the same as Standard, this is true, but both of those creatures do powerful enough things to see play in Standard. We have all heard a lot about the troll and it is easy to see how the card embodies the essence of power creep. Deathrite Shaman on the other hand, is much more subtle.
The three unique abilities on Deathrite Shaman make it hard to judge his power level. Think about the first time you saw a card like Grim Lavamancer. To me, Lavamancer seems basically unplayable on face. Now we all know that Grim Lavamancer is a solid card, but that was not always the case. Deathrite Shaman needs to be fueled the same way.
Going back to my first point about ways to deal with all the recursive creatures in Standard, the shaman fills this role quite well. In addition to shutting down undying and Snapcaster Mage, he works well in conjunction with Grisly Salvage to produce value turn after turn.
Grisly Salvage is similar to Forbidden Alchemy in that it lets you dig for what you need, but in the right deck provides additional value by filling the graveyard. The Zombies deck takes advantage of Grisly Salvage with scavenge creatures, extra Gravecrawlers, and Deathrite Shaman.
The most questionable card in the deck is certainly Sluiceway Scorpion. You might be thinking this card doesn't cut the mustard but I think it's just barely good enough.
The main reason I included the Scorpion is because it combos well with Lotleth Troll. Following up a turn two troll by discarding and scavenging Sluiceway Scorpion is a solid line of play. This will grant three counters to your troll and put your opponent on a very fast clock. Even on his own though, a four mana creature with deathtouch can still help you deal with larger threats. All I am saying is that I think Sluiceway Scorpion is good enough. Most of the time, you are not casting him though.
One Thragtusk seems odd, but his main purpose is as a tutor target for Garruk Relentless. With only twenty-three lands, you won't reliably hit five mana on turn five anyway. If you don't, you can always discard him to Lotleth Troll.
This version of Zombies has some definite strengths. One of the biggest is the mana base. Cutting Geralf's Messenger allows room to play some Forests which will help cast our spells more reliably. Another strength is how much synergy the cards in the deck have with one another. This list is capable of some fast starts, but also provides a stable base in order to combat the rest of the format.
Updating Armada Wurm
Last week, I talked about a variety of decks that utilize Armada Wurm. Building on those ideas, I have an updated list.
Untitled Deck
Creatures
4 Thragtusk
2 Armada Wurm
Spells
3 Tragic Slip
4 Call of the Conclave
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Garruk Relentless
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2 Vraska the Unseen
2 Underworld Connections
Lands
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Temple Garden
1 Selesnya Guildgate
1 Golgari Guildgate
2 Gavony Township
2 Swamp
2 Plains
I like this version a lot. It's much more streamlined and combines the best elements of the token deck and the aggro control deck into one cohesive strategy.
One of the biggest additions to the deck is Garruk Relentless. I am not sure how I forgot about him because I have been a huge fan ever since he was printed. As a removal spell, token maker, and tutor, he provides a powerful toolbox of effects that will help you in many situations. His stock has gone up drastically in my opinion because there are much fewer flying creatures to be concerned with.
Many of my decks have included Sever the Bloodline but there wasn't room for it in this list. If Liliana of the Veil proves too weak for the metagame, I could see making room for the Severs in that spot but that might leave us with too many four-mana spells. Sever does a great job of answering many of the hard-to-answer creatures right now so consider it when you are building your decks.
There are so many possibilities right now, I am anxious to see what actually happens at the first big event, the Star City Open this weekend in Cincinnati. Unfortunately, my plans to attend fell through so I will be stuck watching coverage. I am sure this first event will provide a lot for us to talk about next week. If you guys have any ideas for decks similar to these, post them below for discussion.
Until next time,
Unleash the Return to Ravnica Force!
Mike Lanigan MtgJedi on Twitter
(I'm active on twitter again, so send me a message sometime.)
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com
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(The views expressed in "Good Luck, High Five!" are those of the personalities featured and do not necessarily represent the views of and should not be attributed to our host.)
Parental Advisory: May Contain Mild Obscene Language
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Magic really is a different game than it used to be. Return to Ravnica hasnât even had its official release date and the general public already has a pretty good idea of what they can expect of the Standard metagame. As a matter of fact, many players are already finding themselves sick of the âZombie menaceâ.
Personally, I havenât been a big fan of aggressive decks for a number of years. Geralf's Messenger, while very powerful, is hardly what I look for in a haymaker. That said, being aware of how to beat the Zombie deck is the only way to produce anything viable for the immediate future of Standard. And building a viable deck is exactly what my goal is.
Letâs start by identifying the enemy. At its core, Zombies is a pile of cheap 2-power donks:
Essentially, assembling an early Mass of Ghouls is the way that Zombies attempts to beat the Thragtusk decks. Enough early pressure, combined with a good amount of reach, will pretty easily be able to deal 25 damage come turn five.
Speaking of reach, this is more or less what youâll have to look out for when youâre trying to stabilize against Zombies:
All of these cards synergize very well to produce a lot of damage. That being the case, it seems to me that generating creatures that can block their early offense, as well as having access to a healthy amount of lifegain, will be the best way to combat Zombies. Alternatively, you could try to kill them faster, but Iâm the wrong person to talk to about accomplishing such a task. Iâd much rather grief them in a long game.
To this end, the defensive creature suite that I like against Zombies looks something like this:
Centaur Healer is a far cry from exciting, but Iâm far more interested in beating a metagame than looking cool while doing so. It blocks well and gains life, which is exactly what I think is needed.
Smiter doesnât gain any life, but itâs able to block both halves of a Messenger, and doesnât outright die to a non-morbid Brimstone Volley or a lone Flames of the Firebrand. I also like having the option to sandbag Smiters against potential Rakdos's Returns. I donât think that this will be particularly relevant in the immediate future, but it definitely doesnât hurt to be prepared. Additionally, this guy is a pretty efficient beater in situations where your opponent isnât aggressive.
Knight of Glory is another card that isnât particularly exciting by todayâs standards, but is completely appropriate in todayâs Standard. On the surface it looks to be exclusively a pre-boarded option for battling Zombies, but it carries quite a bit more weight than just that. Having an aggressive curve to battle Planeswalkers is always a good thing, and it breaks Restoration Angel mirrors, which are likely going to be a large portion of the non-Zombie metagame.
Whatâs that? I hadnât mentioned that I was playing Restoration Angel yet? Letâs get these bad boys out of the way then:
This endgame is pretty obviously insane. Gaining forty-billion life and making an army of 3/3s and 5/5s is some strong. As I mentioned earlier, the major problem is surviving to this point in the game. While I think that the above creature package manhandles Zombies pretty well, I donât believe that blocking them into submission is a winning strategy.
A third color seems necessary for some removal. Oblivion Ring is fine, but I think that we can do better. Early in my testing I opted to battle with Pillar of Flame as itâs very good against Geralf's Messenger and Gravecrawler, but man was it ever bad against Falkenrath Aristocrat and Rakdos Shred-Freak. It was also unimpressive against the Lotleth Trolls and Dreg Manglers of GB Zombies.
If killing one toughness creatures at varying points on the curve at instant speed is important, then itâs hard to do much better than Tragic Slip. An additional boon of Tragic Slip is the flexibility to wreck up mana-dorks and giganto-bombs, such as Niv-Mizzet, alike. Being black is also sweet because it gives the deck access to Sever the Bloodline, aka the catch-all to everything, plus flashback.
All of this covers the Zombie match very well along with covering a few extra bases, but the deck still needs a way to compete with decks trying to go bigger than it. My favorite way to accomplish such a task is to draw extra cards, which makes these guys a pretty good fit:
Each card has its advantages over the other, but ultimately I think that being a freakinâ Planeswalker makes me want more Garruks. The desire to avoid Planeswalker redundancy, in tandem with wanting to lower the curve a tad, makes me want at least one Disciple. Be sure to keep in mind the synergies between these guys and Knight of Glory.
Lastly, we need a way to cast our spells. GWB has the great fortune of being a three-color set that has two dual lands in Return to Ravnica, which makes building the mana base fairly easy. In decks with lower curves Iâd be wary about just jamming all of the duals, but this deck doesnât really have any turn one plays and is capable of gaining a good amount of life. If you want to play it more conservatively then feel free to mess with the manabase. A good route to go is to make room for some Borderland Rangers or Gatecreeper Vines, but I really donât think you need them. Here is my current list:
The Yard
spells
4 Thragtusk
4 Restoration Angel
4 Sever the Bloodline
4 Tragic Slip
4 Centaur Healer
2 Armada Wurm
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Knight of Glory
2 Disciple of Bolas
lands
3 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Isolated Chapel
Iâm not entirely certain how strong this deck is going to be as the format evolves, but I think Iâve done a pretty good job of picking cards with wide applications and/or high levels of raw power. At the end of the day it is a rock deck, so it should be able to beat most decks even if it doesnât do so especially consistently. If nothing else, it sure beats up on Zombies.
If you have any questions or comments Iâm always more than happy to address them. Until next time, good luck; high five!
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter
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is a gap between the valuations of a simple mug when selling and buying. The sellers â who received the mug therefore âownâ them â were asked what the lowest sum would be to sell the mug. At the same time the buyers were asked what the highest sum they would have to spend to acquire the mug.
