2012 | Quiet Speculation

Insider: Pack Wars—What Pack to Crack

Posted on February 23, 2012January 17, 2022 by Chad Havas

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For over a year now I’ve been sharing my experiences with “Draftcycling” with you all. Draftcycling is all about getting the most out of your drafts so you can draft again at little to no expense. Of course a big part of this is winning your drafts, but another is being smart with your money.

Sometimes Draftcycles happen because you held on to a Rare you drafted because you thought it would rise. Sometimes it’s because you opened a Snapcaster Mage pack 3 and slammed it for value (Must. Be. Nice.). Other times it’s through prize support.

At my LGS, the top two finishers from each pod receive a nice stipend of store credit to be used toward anything, typically more drafts. Anyone who is eliminated in the Semi-Finals get’s a booster and most guys at my store grab the newest set out of habit.

As somewhat of a known guru for numbers, people started asking me why I always ask for New Phyrexia when I bust packs. The answer is simple and I always tell them the same thing: “I want the most value out of these 14 cards as I can get, and I’m pretty sure I get that in NPH.”

Some blindly listen to me, some argue with me about some mythic here or some mythic there, so I decided to run the numbers myself.

I isolated my analysis to the boosters currently in Standard and I’m working with Buy/Trade pricing. I used two separate sets of Pricing, SCG Buy Price, and the same buy price with the 25% trade bonus. When I’m busting packs at my store I’m hoping to snag some value to trade toward more drafts, because clearly if I lost in the Semi-Finals, I’m not walking away with any store credit.

While Buy list prices are lower than the typical quoted price of the card, you can use whatever metric makes the most sense to you. If you’re able to push cards out through your EBay store at close to retail, then consider these to be YOUR buy prices and add your appropriate profit margin.

Next I estimated the average value of a pack, using buy list prices and ignoring foil values. I tested foil values for one set (Innistrad) and it only affected average pack value marginally, so I’ve omitted them from further inclusion. Also, cards that fall below buylists may still have some value to you, but I’ll assume it’s fairly small and can be easily calculated bulk.

Before you read further, which pack (of current Standard legal sets) would you guess to be worth the most? Did you agree with me?

Scars of Mirrodin:

Avg Trade-In: $1.275/pack (Avg Cash Buy list: $1.02/pack)

Scars has no commons that are buy list worthy, meaning all 10 commons in your pack go at bulk rate (or trash/donation). There are 3 uncommons (Arc Trail, Memnite and Palladium Myr). The most valuable is Mox Opal ($12.50 cash/$15.63 trade), but the real factor holding this set up in value is the “Fast Lands”.

The cycle of five rare lands on their own bring in a nice chunk of change and you have approximately an 8% chance of hitting one of those five alone. I was expecting Scars to be near the bottom of the list, but they actually sit in at nearly a tie for 2nd.

Mirrodin Beseiged:

Avg Trade-In: $1.275/pack (Avg Cash Buy list: $1.02/pack)

As a small set, Besegeiged brought about weird Faction based print-runs, which brought a whole new element to drafting at high levels. But for purposes of value, it didn’t seem to affect much. Tied with it’s older brother, it has approximately the same value when opened.

Also, no commons at buy list levels and only one uncommon (Go for the Throat). Sword of Feast and Famine and several other staple rares and mythics keep the set afloat. Of note, Mirrodin Beseiged had the lowest number of cards that appear on SCG buylist total (17). Keep in mind, it is a small set, so there are about 20 less rares and uncommons in the set.

New Phyrexia:

Avg Trade-in: $1.45/pack (Avg Cash Buy list: $1.16/pack)

Another Small set, but one that has a common (Vapor Snag) as well as 7 uncommons that appear on SCG Buy List, combined with an average amount of rares and mythics as the other sets.

Only two cards are on the SCG Cash Buy list for more than $8: Elesh Norn at $12 and Sword of War and Peace at $25.

However, the fact that 7/35 uncommons (Beast Within, Dismember, Dispatch, Gut Shot, Shrine of Burning Rage, Shrine of Loyal Legions, and Tezzeret's Gambit) in the set have Buy List value, which means you’re really likely to hit something. Hopefully some of these cards sound familiar as targets I’ve mentioned in the last few months.

New Phyrexia is the clear leader, about 15% higher than the other two packs in the block.

Magic 2012:

Avg Trade in: $1.18/pack (Avg Cash Buy list: $0.95/pack)

Core set returns, as we all dreaded opening reprinted cards, and fear that our existing stock is bleeding value as new copies hit the market. Luckily for Mr. Core-set, he has 5 planeswalkers and 5 titans using up 10 of the 15 mythic slots and floating the value of the packs at a reasonable level.

We do get Ponder at common, but now even Mana Leak has fallen to bulk status. If you’re able to get value out of Core Set commons, you may be able to bump this value up a bit, but not by much.

Innistrad:

Avg Trade in: $1.26/pack (Avg Cash Buy List: $1.00/pack)

From a draft standpoint Innistrad block has been extremely entertaining, but, for the most part, it hasn’t made much of a splash in constructed with only a few bold exceptions (See: Snapcaster Mage). However, what isn’t made up with huge singletons is made up for in volume.

Innistrad boasts the highest quantity of non-bulk rares (20/59), many of which are from the two cycles of rare lands. A super high Rare in Snapcaster Mage and a still afloat Liliana and Garruk keep Innistrad at a respectable, yet unexciting, level.

Dark Ascension:

Avg Trade in: $1.05/pack (Avg Cash Buy List: $0.85/pack)

Last, but certainly not least. Oh, wait, it is least. By a long shot. And I’d contend this will continue to decline rapidly. As the buy list currently stands, SCG is buying 1 common (Faithless Looting) and 6 Uncommons (4 of which are the Tribal Lords). Huntmaster and Sorin are the only cards above $6 cash, and if they come down at all this pack just won’t be worth opening.

What does this mean to you?

What is your outlet for cards? How do you get Sealed product?

To be honest, I’m tempted to start stocking up on New Phyrexia boosters. Boxes sit around $90 on eBay, but anyone who has access to good deals on Cases can likely find something better. Even at $90, you’re paying $2.82/pack, so you’d need to be making a full 100% margin off Buy prices to break even. But for some, that’s not unreasonable. Finding them closer to $2.25 a pack would be ideal.

Happy Pack-Crackin!

Hitting the Wall: How to Renew Deckbuilding Inspiration

Posted on February 21, 2012February 20, 2012 by Carlos Gutierrez

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In a way, It's kind of surprising that the formats with the largest card pools, like Commander and Vintage, often have the least diversity. This is an expected but counter-intuitive circumstance exhibited by larger card pools: the presence of a very few, very powerful cards edges out a ton of the more interesting, less powerful fringe strategies.

The analogue to this in Commander is the same issue I discussed last week. Even though there are a near-infinite number of things that you can do, most decks are built form a pool of maybe 400ish cards from all those legal - the ones given staple-status.

Furthermore, most of the decks built from these cards fall into one of three categories:

Blue-based combo-control,
Green-based ramp/combo, or
Black- or White-based recursion or attrition.

Let me be clear: there's nothing wrong with a format like that, but it does have some natural implications.

What this means is that people who are told to try Commander because of its staggering diversity and Johnny-Timmy emphasis are going to be really excited about their first few games, but quickly realize that many of the decks are the same. It also meas that it is increasingly important for deckbuilders to remove their "blinders," whatever they may be, and expand the pool of cards and strategies that they consider during deckbuilding. Expanding your horizons, finding hidden gems, and figuring out new ways to use old tools - these are the way that you gain edges in this format. More importantly, this is the way you find new, awesome things to do.

As someone who builds a fairly unique deck every week, I frequently hit the wall with regards to deckbuilding to the point where I just can't think of something interesting to do. This week, for example, was supposed to be about a five-color Superfriends deck, with a million Planeswalkers. But I'd get 50 or so cards into the list and realize it looked just like every other Planeswalker deck, which means it's a fine, solid deck.

It also means it's not for me.

Full disclosure: I'll build three or four articles worth of decks in a day or two, then spend three or four weeks looking for emails to talk about or trying to come up with three more decks. I assume I'm not the only one who has trouble figuring out where to start with a deck, so I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about some of the methods I use to figure out what I want to do.

Give Something Old a New Twist

Pick your favorite Commander or one of your favorite cards. At different points during your Commander career, you must have seen something interesting that either you or someone else's deck was capable of doing that your deck either didn't emphasize or run.

Maybe a new set has been released that encourages new interactions with the card you have in mind and there's one you want to build around. A few examples:

turning Reap and Deathlace into a combo deck
Second Sunrise into an absurd ritual and card drawing engine with Zuran Orb and Lich.

There are always powerful cards that have good, generic applications. The thing is, these cards also have even more powerful corner-case interactions that are very exciting to build around and play with. Once you stop thinking about cards as doing one particular thing, like Reap being a value card or Lullmage Mentor existing solely for Merfolk-heavy decks, you can do much more interesting things with them. They still play that role, but you're focusing more on what the card actually does as opposed to how it most frequently get played.

Just Try Something New

Maybe there's always been a card or Commander you've wanted to play with but never got a chance to. This is a format where you can do anything you want do. You can play with cards that aren't very good and still do fin and you can experiment with cards you've never had a chance to play with anywhere else.

I can't tell you how many Hatching Plans and Lullmage Mentor decks I've built trying to get them to do something powerful.

There's generally two ways to go about this. As said above, you can either pick a card or a Commander to start with. If you pick a card, then I'd first go to your favorite Magic card database to see if there are any other cards with similar effects. Then just skim through the 473 Legendary Creatures in the game.

Go, it doesn't take as long as you think!

Maybe one of them jumps out at you because of a powerful interaction, or there could be one that you haven't seen someone play with and you'd like to. Either way, it's not too difficult to find the basis of a deck this way. Alternatively, you can start with a Legend and start searching for the kinds of effects you want to play with.

Here are two examples, the first starting with a card and the second with a Commander:

1) Ertai, the Corrupted

I wanted to build a Lullmage Mentor deck in the worst way.

I built one forever ago with Sygg, River Guide, but that really wasn't a great place for Mentor, even if it was a Merfolk tribal deck.

So I looked through the Legendary Creatures, keeping Mentor in my mind, and saw Ertai, the Corrupted. There's a reasonable interaction with these two, but, after taking a minute to think, the pieces started coming together.

Thornbite Staff, Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek, and Hatching Plans. There are a lot of interesting interactions that let you leverage the synergy between Ertai and Mentor into a position where you can counter every spell that anyone plays for the rest of the game.

Not the most fun way to end a game, but it would require so many pieces that I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

2) Jugan, the Rising Star

I've played decks geaturing every single one of the Kamigawa Dragons and had a ton of fun with them. Kamigawa was my favorite block by a fairly large margin, bringing such favorites as Gifts Ungiven and Tallowisp, and I've been trying to find a way to take advantage of Jugan for the longest time. The deck certainly wouldn't be very good, but maybe there's something tricksy that you can do, right?

The first step is actually fairly easy. If Jugan is going to your graveyard instead of to your Command Zone, then you need ways to get him back. There're the easy answers, like Nim Deathmantle and Genesis, but there's also Soulshift!

There're thirteen cards with Soulshift in Green, four of which can get Jugan back no matter what, and Kodama of the Center Tree, which gets him back conditionally.

The problem of what to actually do with the +1/+1 counters is actually much more difficult. Normally you'd just say that you'll put them on your Commander and Voltron people to death that way. That doesn't work out so well for Jugan. Poison is kind of like Commander damage though. Throw in some pump spells and poison guys, and that sounds like a solid framework for a deck to me!

Look for Inspiration in Other Places

The more Magic you play, especially different kinds, the more interactions you're exposed to.

As you see more cards used in more ways, not only do you become a better player, but you increase your knowledge and familiarity with the game. This makes it easier to think in multiple directions and easier to get inspiration for sweet Commander decks!

This is the reason that my advice for new players to the format is this: think about what your favorite constructed deck is in any format, whether it's Caw-Blade from last Standard season, Legacy Reanimator, or anything else, and try to build that deck in 99 card singleton.

If you do that, then you start with interactions you're mostly familiar with, you're playing with cards you know you like. It pretty much guarantees that you'll at least enjoy yourself while you're playing, that you aren't diving into a completely alien format, and that your deck will be built on a solid fundamental idea.

The two best examples I have of this are my Child of Alara 56 land deck and my [card Isperia the Inscrutable]Isperia[/card] Caw-Blade deck. I felt like those decks captured the essence of the idea of their constructed counterparts very well, all while being powerful, synergistic, and a ton of fun to play!

Put Restrictions on your Deckbuilding Process

"Restrictions breed creativity."

This idea has been repeated ad nauseam in all kinds of contexts, but it also applies here. If you find yourself playing the same cards or same kinds of decks over and over, then force yourself to build something else.

The kind of restrictions you want to put on yourself obviously depends on the types of decks you tend to play. Maybe you only play Blue-based decks. If that's the case, you should try avoiding the color. Maybe you play with a very small pool of cards. Then you can build a deck that can't contain any cards that are already in a deck you own.

There are also restrictions of theme rather than just archetype, color, or cards. You can build pauper decks, tribal decks, or cards with all one artist. There's no end to the kinds of interesting ways you can force yourself to be creative.

I have two examples of this that I've been working on recently and am hoping to finish soon. The first is a Kresh, the Bloodbraided deck, since I don't tend to play Black decks and almost every deck I own plays White. That deck has a theme of Morbid, with all of the cards like Reaper from the Abyss along with Lumberknot and Algae Gharial to bring the beats.

The second deck I've been working on is a Spirit tribal deck with Isperia the Inscrutable at the helm, just so I have an excuse to play my foil Angel of Flight Alabaster and use it to recur a foil Yosei, the Morning Star! This kind of deckbuilding also lead Donovan (@d0su on Twitter) to build the much reviled Pauper Dreamcrusher.

In Conclusion

The point of all of this is that sometimes we have to look at things other than what we're most comfortable with. It helps us to grow as players, as deckbuilders, and leads to more interesting and dynamic games.

Try something different and see what happens! It helps bring back the enthusiasm and wonder that newer players have and veteran players tend to lose sight of once they start taking the game more and more seriously.

Commander is a chance to do some of your favorite things involving complex interactions and stack manipulation, your favorite infinite combos and hard locks. But it's also a place where you can recall the times where casting Scaled Wurm was exciting or where you were casting Ghost Council of Orzhova[/cad] with [card]Tallowisp in play for infinite value.

The cute plays and interactions that make people smile are just as important as the epic ones that people remember for weeks after. Those are the reasons I play the format, at least.

Next week will be a return to form. We'll be looking at the five-color planeswalker control deck that I promised Becca I'd build for her, talking about the different directions these decks can go in, and figuring out which planeswalkers are the best or worst for this kind of deck! Besides that, I've got a couple of exciting ideas in the works for a couple more less formulaic articles, so be sure to check back in!

I'll see you in the Lab!

Carlos Gutierrez
cag5383@gmail.com
@cag5383 on Twitter

Insider: The Captivation of MTG Finance

Posted on February 21, 2012January 17, 2022 by Sigmund Ausfresser

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I tire of repetition easily. For this I mostly blame society, but I’m sure there are genetic predispositions as well. Either way I have come to this realization about myself.

Video games hold massive intrigue upon opening their boxes for the first time, only to be forgotten about mid-story. A backlog of magazines is stored away to eventually be read in some unforeseeable future. And in the realm of Magic: the Gathering, I have developed the unhealthy habit of playing two rounds of an FNM, going 1-1, and then dropping.

Perhaps this is why I will never make the Pro Tour. My insatiable drive is too quiet and my rational thought-process shadows my MTG ambition. And when a format stagnates, I even have the tendency to distance myself from the game for a sabbatical.

There is just one aspect of this collectible card game that continues to intrigue me, continues to motivate me, and continues to surprise me. I am, of course, referring to the financial aspect of this game.

Involvement

MTG finance is different to me for an array of reasons. The concept of a hobby partially sustaining itself is highly attractive. Should I have pursued golf instead, I would have been destined for continuously poor performance at the loss of good money. After all, a set of golf clubs and a membership to a golf course is awfully expensive, likely rivaling even the most competitive of Legacy decks.

There is perhaps more to the intrigue, however. Because I have a love for numbers and all things related to finances, reading about Magic Card values excites me. I enjoy making predictions on card prices and anticipating their eventual fulfillment. I enjoy even more when I take action on these predictions and reap the rewards. These opportunities do not exist in other hobbies (picture courtesy of blacklotusproject.com).

For example, consider the long-lived game of Chess. The amount of strategy in playing one competitive game of Chess is immense. Matches can last for hours and achieving ones goals within this game would be very rewarding. But there are two fundamental differences between Chess and Magic that I simply cannot look past.

First, there is no financial aspect to the game of Chess. Every player starts with the same pieces in the same positions every single game. As a corollary to this, one cannot trade pieces to further financial goals.

Second, there seem to be fewer opportunities to make bank from playing on an amateur level. Wizards of the Coast does an exceptional job providing varying levels of competitive play with impressively valuable prices along the way. I know of no such analogue for Chess amateurs that is as widespread as Friday Night Magic.

How To Stay Engaged

On multiple occasions, I have stopped playing Magic for an extended period of time. Urza’s Saga Block, Mirrodin Block, and most recently, Lorwyn block did not hold particular interest for me (though I’m glad to have missed out on Tolarian Academy and [card Seat of the Synod]Affinity[/card]).

Since embracing the trading of cards, I have yet to lose interest in the game. When a format inevitably becomes stale, there are still opportunities aplenty to grow a Magic portfolio.

To maintain my engagement, there are only a few actions I must take. I would recommend these behaviors to anyone interested in following the same pursuit I have.

1) Reading websites:

Every morning I skim Quiet Speculation, Channel Fireball, Star City Games, and, of course, Daily MTG to learn about recent tournament results, popular trends, and financial movers. Twitter can also be a healthy source of information. Keeping up-to-date of recent events is exciting because there is always fresh information available. And the time commitment is minimal: just a quick skim over morning coffee is all I need.

2) Maintaining a relevant collection:

This is what I do after reading all of this new information. I maintain a sale list, I surf eBay and MOTL for competitively priced cards, and I even try to work a few exchanges via Twitter on occasion. To remain relevant, I always need to keep a fresh inventory of cards. When I cannot make it to an FNM (or when I am not motivated), I still make sure to buy and sell on the internet. Both are equally important – making cash is key but it is critical to use some of that cash to reinvest in a portfolio. Otherwise, things can stagnate quickly.

In the internet age, one month is enough to make one’s Standard trade binder obsolete. The infancy of Modern also creates sufficient uncertainty. You do NOT want to be stuck holding cards like Frost Titan and Grove of the Burnwillows at the wrong time (charts courtesy of findmagiccards.com and blacklotusproject.com respectively).

3) Making Connections:

When I first decided that MTG finance was important to me, I had zero connections. I would go to FNM each week and try to be as friendly and accommodating as possible. After providing a few people with some key cards they needed for their decks, people started treating me as an equal rather than a scrub. From there, I signed up for a Twitter account and followed the pros.

Once I began digesting all the information out there, I started Tweeting minor observations of financial relevance. I was noticed, and follower count grew (giveaways always help too!). By growing my network, I am able to obtain information more rapidly. Also, the network enables faster sales via Twitter and the like. (As an aside, this is seriously worth trying. If you have a few cards you want to unload and your price is very competitive, it’s a great way of making a connection while also earning some cash. Both equally valuable in the MTG community.)

MTG Finance Is Good For the Game… Sort of

Like everything, focusing on the financial aspect of Magic is most beneficial in moderation. The hobby needs to remain enjoyable and intriguing. If it becomes a mindless grind, perhaps reconsideration is in order. Another pitfall would involve becoming too aggressive. Trying to bully others into a deal so you can obtain that one extra dollar in value is not good for Magic.

But when I can keep my collection financially relevant I am motivated. Every sale and purchase I make is a reminder that this is such a fascinating facet of Magic – one which many other hobbies lack.

At the end of the day, it is the financial portion of this hobby that keeps me so highly engaged. While the game is fun, not having to spend money on the game is even more fun. And when you can get paid to play the game, via trades or simply winning, the game is most rewarding of all.

MTG Finance is a way that us regular Joes with no time to grind out PTQ’s can still benefit from the game. After all, I can do zero travel and still buy/sell/trade cards and read all the fascinating deck techs available online and feel satisfyingly engaged.

-Sigmund Ausfresser
@sigfig8

Insider: Lincoln’s Modern Calls

Posted on February 20, 2012January 17, 2022 by Douglas Linn

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I'd like to think that this is Abraham Lincoln's calls, like the Great Emancipator has reached out from beyond space and time to tell us what to grab in Modern. How plain, then, that this is about the best cards to watch, to pick up, and to ditch in the wake of Grand Prix: Lincoln. Modern makes a lot of cards move in value. Doubt me? Boot up Black Lotus Project and look what happened to Proclamation of Rebirth, which was a bulk rare, a wisp of a memory from and old Standard set. Now, you can get $8-10 for the card, thanks to a deck that couldn't break out into the top tables of Lincoln.

Affinity and Jund are the Real Deal

Ignore the winning deck for a moment and let's look at these two. Affinity is a no-nonsense deck with Platings, Ravagers and Mox Opals. We know what it does. It's the Dredge of the format - nobody really wants to play this damn deck, but you have to respect it because it will beat you if you ignore it with your sideboard. There are few money cards in this deck that we don't already know about.

Jund is another respectable force because it can consistently make 2-for-1s out of every trade in its deck. Jund's whole spell list essentially cantrips, aside from super-efficient spells like Terminate. Jund's topdecks are always okay, meaning that a decent draw from Jund will punish a bad draw from any deck on the market. I would keep a weather eye on Kitchen Finks and Inquisition of Kozilek. No surprises here, obviously - we know these cards are good - but these are the kind of power staple uncommon that will be bread and butter for Modern for years to come. While the Modern reprint policy is theoretically liberal, do you see Kitchen Finks, with its set-based keyword, being reprinted? What about Inquisition? Its very name calls up a set-specific monster. If I wanted to be on the long game, I'd get both of these cards in quantity. I'm glad right now that I have a set of Finks - I feel like they are more vital than Tarmogoyfs in Modern!

Aggro Loam and the Dark Confidant factor

I don't respect Dark Confidant a whole lot. His presence usually means that I can't run cool spells like Dead/Gone or Boom/Bust. He exacts a heavy toll, but Bobby Digital saw a good amount of play this weekend. Both Jund decks ran the draw monster and Aggro Loam made excellent use of him. I sold my collection of Confidants awhile ago, and while I don't feel bad for doing it then, I see that they are a little more essential now than I had previously figured. Confidant is another card that I wouldn't ever bet on seeing reprints. You could put that guy in Rise of the Eldrazi and he'd still be a monster.

The big guys and the little guys

The central axis coming into this event seemed to be the question of whether little token anklebiters would beat big monsters. Would we see Lingering Souls tokens win, or would Primeval Titans seal things up? It's rough to gauge - the T8 had a Faeries deck, after all - but I'd put this marginally in the hands of the big monsters. Countryside Crusher is a big deal, for instance. In Bronson's deck, it triggers whenever you dredge a card. See a spell on top after cycling through all that? Bring that Darkblast back and grow your Crusher a little more. At $1.25 and in the home of the Prix-winning deck, Crusher will be popular. It's the card I'd call as the speculation target for this event.

Don't be so hasty to rule out the little monsters, though. B/W Tokens was a very respectable strategy, as was Soul Blade. That deck skipped Squadron Hawks for Lingering Souls and a black splash to catch the back end of the spell. Steelshaper's Gift means that you can make any Sword you need to. I'd also keep an eye on that Gift and plan to have access to them. They are getting more and more popular, which means higher prices and scarcity.

The next-level bets for Modern

I'm inclined to bet against little monsters for awhile, which means that I want to put stock in Firespout, Night of Souls' Betrayal and Curse of Death's Hold. We saw Faeries do well and there were plenty of token decks just nipping at the T16. Plus, imagine how debilitating a Night of Souls' Betrayal is against an Affinity deck! The splash damage is incredible. I'd be inclined to run Curse in everything, but some Martyr decks pack Leyline of Sanctity, which means you don't have realistic targets. You can see that Bronson's Flame Jabs really went the distance - the field is very hateful toward tokens, because they are just so good. Also keep an eye on Zealous Persecution, which is currently $.25. I'm ordering a set today, because they are a total blowout in any tokens mirror. Brian Kibler called it a bedrock card in his Doran deck. These incidental uncommons are going to be worthwhile for a long time and we cannot count on reprints to carry low card prices!

In addition, isn't Shadow of Doubt looking even better? Aside from the Affinity deck, you can at least punk a fetchland from any of the other T8 decks. Picture Shadowing away a Gifts Ungiven from that Tron deck - you can stop Iona, even if you're monoblack! You can make a Birthing Pod fizzle and cantrip, you can blank Steelshaper's Gift... I'm loving this card. Ponderously slow Esper strategies make me sick in Modern, but this is the kind of role-playing card that would make those decks sing. If you can shut down a Gifts with this card, you've cast the world's best Dismiss.

Torpor Orb also looks pretty sly. It'll shut down the Iona combo as well as stop Birthing Pod combo and Twin. This kind of versatility is great, but I wonder if Grafdigger's Cage isn't simply better. I invite my readers to suggest why I should run Orbs over Cages with practical examples.

How to not lose to Aggro Loam

Granted, Aggro Loam is a real deck and I assume a lot of people will be trying it out. Confidant Aggro Loam, or CAL, from Old Extended, had fits and spurts of doing well. The deck could benefit from Mox Diamonds and Chrome Moxes for speed. This CAL is slow! It lacks Devastating Dreams for Armageddon blowouts. It just takes advantage of the lack of graveyard hate. That's why I think we'll see more Surgical Extraction and Extirpates. Recursive Raven's Crime is no issue if you can remove the Loams. Without a cohesive draw engine, Tarmogoyfs and Countryside Crushers are easily killed.

I'm not sure of the best hate against CAL. I like Withered Wretch and Loaming Shaman a lot, but Nihil Spellbomb will still make a lot of problems. Bronson's CAL list has only two Nature's Claims on the board to solve a Leyline of the Void, which would blank his whole deck. There are multiple ways to fight this kind of deck, which is a more focused Jund style, but you just have to commit to fighting it somehow.

Unfortunately, Faeries Exist

Yes, Faeries and their Cryptic Commands are still going to float around. Look, I don't see Faeries being able to shrug off Firespouts and Zealous Persecutions all day, but the deck is respectable. Mistbind Clique is a Time Warp and then some. Luckily, a lot of Faeries components are cheap. For example, Mistbind Cliques and Scion of Oona are relatively inexpensive to speculate on. This is the kind of deck that MTGO players go nuts about, so getting digital copies of those cards can be smart, too. I wouldn't invest heavily in Faeries because the deck is still largely unproven. It's not a sure thing like Jund is.

* * * * *

I hope that this satisfies both the Modern junkie and rabid speculator. I'll be back next week with more set reviews, but I absolutely had to talk about Modern - I'll take any opportunity! There are some great uncommons to pick up and hold onto, along with underpriced rares. Get in while you can. Until next week,

-Doug Linn

Attacking Standard with Thalia

Posted on February 17, 2012February 17, 2012 by Mike Lanigan

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Think about the Standard metagame. What is it really about?

Spells.

The metagame is actually about spells. What spells can I play so that I can flip the Delver of Secrets and what other cards should I play in the deck. The rest of the metagame is reacting to that deck building process.

Wolf Run of whatever color is the flavor of the week, tries to do this by resolving huge guys that have an immediate impact on the game state. Control has existed in some fashion or another but, for the most part, had too much to deal with to really be a force in the metagame. Wolf Run does a better job in my opinion of being a control deck, at least against anyone trying to cast those Delver checklist cards.

Conley’s Wolf Run deck splashing Black was a great example of this. Tempered Steel and Mono Red are still around and they try to make the game a race they think they can win.

The worst matchup for Delver has to be Blue White Humans. Why? The Humans deck does a great job of interacting in the first few turns so they don’t fall too far behind the tempo advantage of Delver, all while providing threats like Leonin Relic-Warder and Fiend Hunter in addition to playing the best aggressive creatures in the format.

The Delver player has a decision to make. Do they deal with the cards that are interacting with their permanents or the ones that are the real threat? This is what allows Blue White Humans to win so many games against Delver.

Enter Thalia

When looking at the Dark Ascension spoiler, there was one card that stuck out to me as being particularly disruptive to a format where everyone is trying to cast a lot of spells. The card was Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. As soon as I saw her, I was in awe, and not just because of her remarkable artwork reminiscent of Angelic Destiny.

I was in awe because of her power level. I am certain that this is a card that has been pushed in design. Back in the day, I used to rock some Glowriders in my decks, and Thalia is a strict upgrade. The problem with Glowrider was that it cost three mana. Sure, you could play an accelerant, but when you didn’t have one three mana was just too expensive.

Without the drawback of mana cost, Thalia will likely see play in every format. Thinking through games where you are on the play and Time Walk your opponent simply because you cast her turn two is not just a dream. Rather, it will be a frequent event that will occur simply by playing her in your deck.

Think of all the spells that see regular play in Standard. Here’s a short list.

Untitled Deck

Ponder

Gitaxian Probe

Gut Shot

Mana Leak

Doom Blade

Rampant Growth

Sphere of the Suns

Slagstorm

Black Suns Zenith

Mortarpod

Honor of the pure

Midnight Haunting

Lingering Souls

Thinking about delaying any of those spells by a turn sends my mind into spirals of wonder.

The implications Thalia brings to the format are astounding. Even in the worst cast scenario where you opponent pays two life and one mana for their Gut Shot, they lose the whole point in playing Gut Shot in the first place. Gut Shot is so good because it costs no mana. Using your life total to get ahead in tempo is great, but when you have to start paying mana, the effect looses much of its potency.

When I saw Thalia, I knew that I had to find a way to play her in this format.

Enter Flavor

After I stopped salivating over my secret love for this card, I found out what it feels like to be a casual player.

I thought it would be so much fun to play Werewolves! How can you not love the flavor of Innistrad and Dark Ascension? Werewolves are sweet! Not only did I think they were cool, I also was determined to make them work in competitive magic (as noted by my writing last week). I spent hours thinking about a dedicated werewolf deck and how to build it.

Sure, the deck is fine for your local FNM, but do you think a deck packing Moonmist,\ is really going to cut it on the higher levels of play? Doubtful.

The way I was building it, the Werewolf deck basically looked like Mono Red with one glaring exception: most of the werewolves were just dudes that flipped into cost efficient creatures, but were otherwise unimpressive.

Ratchet Bomb seeing more play didn’t help either.

There were a couple of exceptions to my dislike of everything aside from the flavor. Daybreak Ranger and Huntmaster of the Fells were both amazing. Every time I play or see someone playing Daybreak Ranger, he impresses me even more. Have you ever seen a match where one player had a Daybreak Ranger in play and the opponent was attacking with Delver of Secrets? Which side would you rather be on? I know I got crushed by Daybreak Ranger. Honestly, your best bet might be to let the Ranger flip so that at least they have to commit mana each turn to killing your team. As for Huntmaster of the Fells, here are some of the things I have said about this card.

Huntmaster of the Fells is like...

...combining Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap together as one card.
...creating your own baby Grave Titan.
...the epitome of built in card advantage.
...a reusable Flametongue Kavu.
...Trample? Trample!!! LOL the flip side even gets trample!
...getting free 2/2's because your opponent is playing Snapcaster Mage.

Maybe I am diluted by the fact that I love this card, but the sheer power of it overwhelms me. The last time I was this amazed by a card was when Vengevine was spoiled. Now, I am not saying that Huntmaster of the Fells is going to see play over multiple formats like Vengevine did, but I am suggesting that he will have as big of an impact on the Standard format.

One of the most important aspects of the card is the ability to force your opponent to make bad decisions. I call this a play mistake card. The original card the category was created for was Fact or Fiction. Basically, no matter what your decision is, your opponent can turn that into an advantage against you. The built in card advantage Huntmaster of the Fells offers operates similarly. Evidence of this belief can be seen in the Pro Tour coverage from this past weekend. Players just didn't know how to play against it and the success of the new wolf run decks is there as proof.

Let’s gather our thoughts.

Standard is a format revolving around spells and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben wrecks what a lot of players are trying to do right now in the format. A couple of werewolves seem really solid against the expected metagame right now as well. Daybreak Ranger punishes players trying to outpower flyers and Huntmaster of the Fells will hunt for targets on the ground or throw his axe into the sky to cut them down.

Light bulb!!!

What if we play those three cards together?

Three cards that attack the metagame combined into one aggro control deck. What other cards would we play in this deck though? I thought maybe some other hard to deal with threats like Strangleroot Geist and Blade Splicer would be nice.

Articles have been written, and more will be, about Strangleroot Geist and how good it is. Being double Green seemed like a problem, but, upon further consideration, I don’t think it really is. This is a Green deck we are building. It may not seem like it yet, but it is. There are only a couple White cards and a couple of Red cards. The rest of the deck is Green.

Before I go on, let me show you what I came up with.

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Avacyn Pilgrim

4 Young Wolf

4 Strangleroot Geist

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

2 Torch Fiend

2 Silverchase Fox

4 Daybreak Ranger

4 Blade Splicer

4 Huntmaster of the Fells

Spells

3 Lead the Stampede

2 Oblivion Ring

Lands

3 Copperline Gorge

4 Rootbound Crag

3 Razorverge Thicket

4 Sunpetal Grove

2 Kessig Wolf Run

8 Forest

Four Thalia! This guy must be crazy! Or am I?

Don’t you want to draw her almost every game in almost every match? Don’t you want to play her on turn two against the decks she’s good against? She’s a legend, so what! The thing you need to realize is that she will die. One of two things will happen: either you will block with her or they will spend too much mana on a removal spell for her. Wouldn’t it be nice to play another one right after that?

Even though she is a legend, I don't think four is too many. When you side her out, all four come out, so there’s no problem in that regard. There will be hands that contain three of her in which you may have to mulligan, but that is likely the case for any card you run four copies of in a deck. If the metagame shifts to playing less spells, then she might drop down to three copies instead of four, but, as for now, running the full amount allowed seems correct.

While there is still room to grow and innovate in this list, much time and effort has been spent tweaking it to get it where it is now. Certainly there will be changes, but this is more like the beta test version than something just thrown together for an article.

Maindeck Mentions

There are a couple cards I want to mention specifically from the list.

The first is Lead the Stampede. How many players have totally forgotten this card exists? Take a stroll through the Gatherer sometime and see what cards have been relegated to unplayable and need reevaluation. Lead the Stampede showed its power as I was teaching new players the game. I picked up some of the free M12 thirty card decks.

In case you are not familiar, you just shuffle two of them together and you have a deck ready to go. This is a great tool for teaching new players, by the way, and it was a ton of fun. One thing I noticed though was that the green decks kept winning because of cards like Lead the Stampede and Hunter's Insight to just out draw your opponent.

Lead the Stampede fits perfectly in this Naya deck because we do not want very many spells due to Thalia Guardian of Thraben. We don’t want Thalia to be a drawback for us, only our opponents. Statistically this draw spell should average you almost three cards per time you cast it. Standard doesn’t have access to that kind of efficiency in drawing cards so resolving it against many decks in the format should be more than enough to win the game.

The two Oblivion Rings seem straightforward in their inclusion, but they are the second card I wanted to mention. Even if you end up having to pay four mana on occasion, removing any troublesome card is something this deck definitely wants. Three seemed like too many, but two seems like the perfect number so you can draw them when you need them. We don't want to just lose to certain permanents like Consecrated Sphinx, Karn Liberated, or Phyrexian Obliterator.

Finally, the last main deck card I wanted to mention was actually two cards. Torch Fiend and Silverchase Fox, while they are definitely not Qasali Pridemage in power level, are removal we can play without the Thalia drawback. This removal is conveniently hidden by making them look like creatures.

Torch Fiend in particular should start seeing more play with the number of Sword of War and Peace that are being played. Silverchase Fox is one card that I am not sure belongs main deck. It does deal with opposing Oblivion Rings, Curse of Deaths Hold, Honor of the Pure and Intangible Virtue, but I am not sure if that is enough targets to warrant it’s inclusion main deck. Being able to destroy those permanents can win you games though, so including him seems correct.

The Sideboard

When you look over the deck and think about certain matchups, some alarm bells may be going off. Much thought and effort has gone into the creation of the sideboard. Take a look:

Untitled Deck

Sideboard

4 Tectonic Rift

2 Ancient Grudge

2 Ray of Revelation

3 Birthing Pod

1 Vorapede

1 Acidic Slime

1 Wurmcoil Engine

1 Elesh Norn

One issue with any deck that aims to have a midgame aggro control approach is that it will then, by definition, have a problem with any Wolf Run deck.

I think I have finally found the answer to that in Tectonic Rift. Not only does it destroy a land , but it also allows you to attack unfettered. If you play it turn three or four, it can really disrupt your Wolf Run opponent’s game plan as well. Four cards dedicated to this match is a necessity. Acidic Slime would also come in for additional support to accomplish the goal of transforming your deck into Ponza.

Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation seem fairly straightforward in their inclusion, but when you move past them and see Birthing Pod, don’t freak out. The sideboard is designed to enable this deck to turn into a Birthing Pod deck post-sideboard.

While this deck has a fine match against Blue White Humans and any Zombie concoction, those matches are a lot closer than I prefer. By switching into a Birthing Pod deck for game two, you do a better job of going over the top, similar to how a ramp deck works. Even small seemingly innocent activations of Birthing Pod on your Young Wolf or Strangleroot Geist can put you in a dominating board position.

This is something that previous versions of Birthing Pod failed to do. They would sacrifice their Viridian Emissary to go get an additional land, pushing them further behind than they were. By simply removing the Thalia’s, two Daybreak Rangers, and a Huntmaster, we can bring in our Plan B and transform into a Birthing Pod deck that enables us to generate an advantage in board position. Additionally, bringing in two Tectonic Rifts when you bring in the Birthing Pod’s seems quite good as well, but what you take out would change depending on the opponent.

Hate Bears

Naya Aggro, a.k.a Hate Bears, is well positioned right now to fight everything the metagame has to offer. You may not know me or that I played Naya successfully for over a year, but think about how disruptive the cards I have included in this deck would be in the metagame right now. If you have questions or concerns, I would be happy to discuss my card choices more. I for one will be sleeving up the Hate Bears for some events. Will you?

Unleash that those Hate Bears!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com

Post script:

I played this deck last week at FNM with the change of the main deck set up as a Birthing Pod deck. Instead of the Birthing Pod plan in the sideboard, I decided to run it main deck because I expected my metagame to be different than a more typical one. I ended up playing against, and beating, Delver, RDW, Wolf Run, and Zombies.

The deck was a ton of fun to play and the Thalias were really good for me. They basically won game two against Delver when I sided them in. He just couldn’t do anything because of how I limited his mana. The list I ran ended up very similar to the Top 8 Birthing Pod list from the Pro Tour, so I guess it might be okay to just play Birthing Pod as your primary plan and then side into the Thalias. Here is that list from Pro Tour Honolulu.

Untitled Deck

Creatures

1 Acidic Slime

3 Avacyns Pilgrim

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Blade Splicer

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

1 Fiend Hunter

1 Geist-Honored Monk

4 Huntmaster of the Fells

1 Inferno Titan

1 Llanowar Elves

1 Solemn Simulacrum

4 Strangleroot Geist

1 Viridian Emissary

1 Wurmcoil Engine

Spells

4 Birthing Pod

2 Mortarpod

2 Oblivion Ring

Lands

4 Copperline Gorge

6 Forest

3 Gavony Township

1 Mountain

1 Plains

4 Razorverge Thicket

2 Rootbound Crag

3 Sunpetal Grove

I have a lot more to say about Birthing Pod, so I'm sure you will be hearing more about that in the coming weeks. What are your favorite colors to play with Birthing Pod?

Insider: Checking in on Innistrad Predictions

Posted on February 17, 2012January 17, 2022 by Corbin Hosler

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We’ve come to that time. We’re 3-5 months out from the release of the groundbreaking (both in terms of flavor and mechanics) Innistrad. You know what that means: it’s time to see how I did when predicting the value of the set!

The State of Financial Writing

The “set review” is in an interesting place. When I started doing them more than a year ago, it was pretty difficult to find a financial review on the internet. Now we’re completely inundated with them and you have 5-10 guys all telling you that “Bulk Rare X” is, in fact, a bulk rare. You can now even compare how your favorite finance guru did against a Magic 8-Ball or a pair of Dice.

I, for one, am not really impressed with the gimmicks. The concept of the set review is to disseminate important financial information, and people should want to read your reviews because you are correct more often than not, not because your set review makes them laugh.

And to be honest, the term “set review” also bugs me a little — done properly, it’s a set of predictions rather than a review (which implies looking into the past). Anyway, that’s why I always title a “Prerelease Primer,” rather than a “set review,” and I take them very seriously. It’s also why I don’t list every card. You shouldn’t need someone to tell you for the tenth time that Dearly Departed is a bulk rare. I try to hit on the important or hyped cards and impart my thoughts on just those instead.

Enough of my rant on the state of financial writing. Let’s see how I did with Innistrad! As usual, I’ll use a WIN/FAIL/INCONCLUSIVE scale.

Win / Fail / Inconclusive

Angelic Overseer

What I said then: "Selling at $6 presale on SCG, I see that being not too far off from where this cards goes. It’s a Mythic and is an Angel, so there will always be some demand. The real question is whether this thing can top the curve in a Human-based deck that is actually good. If it does, it will spike early, but this set is going to be opened for a very long time, and it will come back down to Earth."

Now: Pretty much nailed this one. Believe it or not now, this card was pretty hyped when it was spoiled, but it didn’t make the cut even with Human decks being a thing and has come down to $3.

Call: WIN

Champion of the Parish

What I said then: "I’m pretty sure this guy is just worse than Hada Freeblade[/card], but is a Rare because of the Human theme they are pushing. I really don’t think Humans are that far off from being playable with either Black or Green as the supporting color. There are some legitimately powerful cards in the archetype, and they have a few ways to gain card advantage, though they seem weak to Gideon and Wrath. If the deck is real, it will need a 1-drop, and this guy could rise from his $2.50 pricetag to $4-5."

Now: $5 on SCG now. Called this one, and I found my comparison to the Freeblade interesting. It’s true on the surface, of course (1/2 compared to a 1/1), but the environment supports Humans much better now than Allies were supported then.

Call: WIN

Divine Reckoning

What I said then: "Like Monomania, I don’t see leaving your opponent with their best card being a good thing. This could see play for a few reasons, though. It does a reasonable job of clearing out the board on Turn 4 and then doing so again on Turn 7 after you have a Sun Titan out. Flashback cards like this can be hard to evaluate, but I’m not betting on this outclassing old-fashioned Wraths."

Now: Another card that’s interesting to see in retrospect, since it seems obviously bad now. But that wasn’t always the case, though I managed to not make myself look silly by betting on it.

Call: WIN

Fiend Hunter

What I said then: "Now here’s an uncommon with some potential. It removes a blocker for the Human deck to bash, and it has the more important 3-toughness thing going for it, with Bolt leaving. Pick these up off the draft tables."

Now: It’s interesting that this is only 50 cents on SCG right now. The card hasn’t caught on as much as I thought it would, though it’s obviously good. There’s still plenty of time for these to make a bigger impact and it’s one of those cards that always trades way above its actual price when trading. Pretty easy call on this one.

Call: WIN

Intangible Virtue

What I said then: "Seems like another uncommon could hold some casual value. Make sure to hold onto yours."

Now: Turns out this was the better Uncommon to pick, since it’s $1.50 on SCG. No one could have predicted the rise of Token decks to the extent that’s occurred, but at least I suggested picking these up, even if it turned out to be more for competitive play than casual.

Call: WIN

Midnight Haunting

What I said then: "I’ve seen rumors of Neo-Caw lists running this. It provides bodies for Swords and can be flashed back later with Snapcaster. Keep an eye on it."

Now: $1 on SCG. It’s popped up some but certainly hasn’t lit the world on fire and is now completely outclassed by Lingering Souls. It’s hard to call this a WIN or a FAIL since all I really wanted to do was tell people to keep an eye on it.

Call: INCONCLUSIVE

Stony Silence

What I said then: "While this answers Pod decks, it’s not like they won’t have a fair number of cards to draw that can naturally deal with it. I think there are probably better hate cards than this, though its compatibility with Null Rod can’t be overlooked in older formats. Hold onto yours, but don’t go too deep here."

Now: Turns out the real place for this card was in Vintage, which I missed. It’s not anything special and I certainly didn’t cost anyone much money here, but I did completely miss its Vintage appeal.

Call: FAIL

Dream Twist

What I said then: "Yes, it’s just a common. But check out the price on Memory Sluice. Just letting you know not to throw yours away."

Now: Still seems true.

Call: WIN

Mirror-Mad Phantasm

What I said then: The only time this is ever going to do anything is probably in a combo deck; it’s just so slow to play and protect. Move yours quickly.

Now: Again, this was an easy for me since I had no faith in the card at all, glad it worked out.

Call: WIN

Skaab Ruinator

What I said then: "This is one of the big ones, so let’s dig into it. It’s never going to be cast on Turn 3, and at this moment appears to only have a place in Pod decks. That said, it’s pretty solid there as a 1-2 of, since you will be able to cast it from the Graveyard in the late game. I’m pretty certain it is not a $20+ card, though I can see up to $15 holding for a while."

Now: We’re getting into the most-hyped cards of the set here, and I definitely called this one right. Didn’t expect it to drop as far as it has, down to $3 on SCG (and it’s not a bad spec target now at that price), but I’m glad I didn’t screw this one up.

Call: WIN

Snapcaster Mage

What I said then: "Yes, this card is awesome in Eternal formats. Yes, it’s probably playable in Standard. No, it is not a $30 card. Rares just don’t hit this point from current sets. Even Stoneforge Mystic never went this high.

Snapcaster will likely stay high for a while, then slowly come down to a normal price. I don’t see this thing being more than $13-16 by the time we’re done busting Innistrad packs, and more likely will be in the $9-12 range. From its rotation from Standard on, if it continues to be Legacy-playable we will see its price inch back up over time."

Now: Still incredibly $30 on SCG, though it went to $25 for a while. Frankly, I’m astounded this card hasn’t dropped more (though it is down to $20 on Ebay).

The thing is, we are literally seeing uncharted territory here. No rare in the post-Mythic era has held its price like this, and it’s still hard to believe. In a bit of defense, I would have changed my price projection if I had known Avacyn Restored would be a stand-alone set. Not in my defense, it wouldn’t have been by much.

If Tiago gets to a point where he isn’t as good in Standard (which seems pretty unlikely at this point), his price will drop off. As is, I still think you have some time to wait him out before actively picking them up. After all, the price hasn’t gone any higher, and I doubt it will until possibly next year.

Call: FAIL

Moorland Haunt

What I said then: "This card hasn’t been “officially” spoiled yet, but I’m pretty sure this card is insane. I haven’t seen much press about it yet, but this thing fits right into Neo-Cawblade lists to replace Tectonic Edge. Infinite Sword carriers seem pretty good. Keep an eye on what this thing presells for when it becomes available, because it could very well be too low."

Now: $3.50, and as insane as I predicted. This seems like a pretty can’t-miss target in trades right now, and if it goes the way of the Scars lands (which it could, though likely not to that extent), we could see this thing double in price in a year or so.

Call: WIN

Army of the Damned

What I said then: "Preselling at $3. While that price will probably be correct going on down the road, supply of this won’t be unlimited due to its rarity and picking up a few to flip to casual Zombie/EDH players will pay off for you."

Now: Recently up to $5 from $4 on SCG now. This card has been a gold mine for me, and for you too if you took my advice.

Call: WIN

Bloodline Keeper

What I said then: "Speaking of popular casual cards, check out our buddy Vampire Nocturnus and get back to me. Stock a few of these at all times."

Now: $6 on SCG. This has bordered on being Constructed playable a few times, but I have to believe the casual appeal is chiefly behind the price tag.

Call: WIN

Liliana of the Veil

What I said then: "In my limited testing, Liliana has been insane. She comes and edicts a player, then sticks around to accumulate value as you make them discard things they care about while you pitch something like a Vengeful Pharaoh. She probably won’t be staying at $35, but I see her staying pretty relevant as we move forward and price increases are possible. I’m interested in picking up as many of these as possible for reasonable prices."

Now: Still $35 on SCG. We saw a brief spike to $60+ in the first few weeks and since came back down but has stayed, as I predicted “pretty relevant.” Another call I’m proud of. It’s interesting that she did stay at $35 and not the $25-30 I was expecting, but combined with the fact I even called the price spike I have to consider this a…

Call: WIN

Reaper from the Abyss

What I said then: "Pretty sure this guy is actually just insane in Pod decks, and it will trade with a Titan (or just fly over it). Seems like the real deal here, and it’s a Mythic. It’s $5 right now, and keep a close eye on it as tournaments start rolling in, because it could explode quickly."

Now: $1.50 now. Pod decks never became the force we expected them to be, and this guy (and my call) appears to be a casualty of that.

Call: FAIL

Past in Flames

What I said then: "If and when this hits, it’s going to do so in Legacy, so you shouldn’t have much of a problem getting it cheaply from Standard players. No reason not to do so."

Now: It turns out this card actually hit in Modern (which wasn’t a thing at the time), and it did hit big, rocketing up to $8-10 for a month or so before settling back down. Made pretty good money off stocking these myself, and I hope you did too.

Call: WIN

Garruk Relentless

What I said then: "Not impressed. The idea for a flip Planeswalker is cool, but this guy does very little. If the meta becomes a ground-based board stall, Garruk is pretty reasonable, but the problem is going to be flipping him and then untapping again. Making deathtouch wolves is probably great in some matchups, but he’s just not high-powered enough to be Tier 1 in a lot decks. If the meta evolves right he’ll be very good on Turn 3, but his raw power level just isn’t there. $20-25 in the end."

Now: $18 on SCG. Pretty close to nailing this one perfectly. Relentless goes in and out of favor, so this guy could have a pretty roller-coaster ride throughout the rest of his time in Standard.

Call: WIN

Mayor of Avabruck

What I said then: "This guy is very good, but being a promo will keep his price down. Still, I’m in favor of trading aggressively for this guy on the cheap."

Now: $3.50 on SCG despite not seeing a ton of play, which is interesting. I called this one right price-wise even if thus far I’m not spot-on playability-rise. I think post-rotation this guy is going to get another shot.

Call: WIN

Parallel Lives

What I said then: "It will be very interesting to see if this catches on casually as Doubling Season did. There are going to be a lot of copies floating around by the end of next year, but once it bottoms out this is a pretty low-risk investment that could see some big gains in a few years."

Now: $2.50 on SCG. Considering you could (and still can) get this thing at a dollar in trade, this will continue to be free money for the next year or so before it starts drying up in binders.

Call: WIN

Tree of Redemption

What I said then: "This card does literally everything you want against Red except block against a Hero of Oxid Ridge-led team. It blocks all day against anything else, and eventually gives you 8-10 life and leaves you with a small blocker. A very popular Pod target, it’s possible that his $4 price tag is too low, though I suspect it will be about right. It all depends on how much aggro infiltrates the format."

Now: $2.50 on SCG. With Red falling out of the meta (at least burn-based Red), the $4 was a bit optimistic, though in the end I was more or less correct with its usage.

Call: INCONCLUSIVE

Geist of Saint Traft

What I said then: "I think there’s a lot to like here. A lot of naysayers are saying “Well, I’ll just block.” This is misunderstanding the deck the Saint is going in. It’s going to be followed up by a Sword, an Angelic Destiny, or something else to take advantage of Hexproof. The question, then, is whether or not a UW deck can tap out and turns 3 and 4 without dying. It’s a pretty aggressive slant for UW in the post-Hawk era, but this card will be good if such a deck exists.

$15 seems high, but $6-9 sounds reasonable if he finds a good home. Being legendary hurts him as well, but Hexproof is a powerful enough ability that it can be abused in the right deck."

Now: $25 on SCG. I was pretty much right there with his usage, but I didn’t expect him to become as widespread as he has across so many formats, which caused me to miss him price-wise. Close, but pretty much a…

Call: FAIL

Olivia Voldaren

What I said then: "As many have said, this is going to be a hugely popular card for both casual and EDH players, and $8 sounds pretty reasonable in the short-term, though I think $4-6 long-term is more likely. Foils, on the other hand, are going to be pretty nuts as she catches on as a Commander."

Now: $10 on SCG, though most of this is still the holdover from the spike from Chapin’s Worlds deck. Nailed the foil call, though, as it is $25 right now. I think my price target ends up being correct in a few months, so coupled with my correct call on the foils I’ll for now consider this…

Call: INCONCLUSIVE

Lands

What I said then: "Like the Fastlands from Scars, I see the M10 Enemy Duals (Dueling Duals?) dropping down to $2-3 in trade before coming back up some later. These will, however, be in pretty large demand as the format develops, so I see you being able to move these quickly.

As for the specialty lands, the best one seems to be Moorland Haunt. If anything resembling UW Caw with Swords is Tier 1, this card is going to spike. It’s basically “Free” in a two-color deck and eventually provides you a very steady stream of Sword carriers. Nephalia Drownyard will probably have some casual appeal, and the whole cycle minus the Drownyard could see some serious Standard play.

That’s all for the primer. These are the cards I’ll be keeping an eye on as I go to the prerelease, and don’t be afraid to trade your Innistrad cards off for other goodies as well, since all the Innistrad cards will be overvalued for a few weeks. I expect I’ll be picking up a lot of Fetchlands at the prerelease by moving Innistrad stuff."

Now: Seems pretty much right. It’s about time to start snapping these up out of binders and hoard them for the cyclical spikes in a year or so.

Call: WIN

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my performance for Innistrad. It’s particularly hard to make calls when there is no format to base predictions off of, but I think I did pretty decent here, with the only major mistake being Snapcaster Mage, which (I believe) no one predicted to stay at $30. Either way, it’s not like you lost any money by trading away Snaps at $30.

When I review my predictions, my biggest hope is that I haven’t told people to buy into a card that turns into a bust, because that actually loses you money, whereas something like Snapcaster is more or less a break-even. I know I made money acting on the advice I gave above, and I hope you did.

Until next week, don’t be afraid to make your own predictions and act on them!

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler
@Chosler88 on Twitter

CommanderCast S5E6 | Get Your Cube Insured

Posted on February 16, 2012February 16, 2012 by CommanderCast Derp

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This week's CommanderCast is a machine wildly careening out of control, crashing directly into the largely-unexplored wilds of EDH Cube! Join Andy and Sean on a journey of discovery guided by Commander Cube veterans Justin and Hayley. Learn the wonders of this million-dollar contraption. Hear about the process behind building your own. Find out how to crush your friends while playing it in a 'friendly' game. All this and more!

Hit the button or play, or download the entire episode! The full show notes are here.

For more Wrexial-Approved stuff, hit up http://www.commandercast.com/

Dark Ascension Commander and PTDKA Analysis

Posted on February 16, 2012February 16, 2012 by Ryan Abcede

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Sadly I was not able to get my full DKA review out on time for it to really be relevant, so instead I am going to focus on the information that's come from PT:DKA.

Hopefully you all kept a close eye on the coverage and all the excellent emails Doug and Kelly sent out. If you don’t have Insider, this weekend proved its worth once again. If you followed their advice you could have easily doubled your money. A few of the calls were also discussed in the forums, which is also a benefit of an Insider account. There will be plenty of coverage for this upcoming weekend's Modern GP in Lincoln, so stay tuned.

The biggest cards of the weekend were obviously Huntmaster of the Fells and Drogskol Captain. Both put multiple players into the Top 8 and showed that they definitely can make an impact on our metagame going forward.

Huntmaster is currently $30 on SCG and should stay at least above $20 for at least a week or two, basically until Delver decks can adapt, if they can. If you are looking to sell, this is the perfect time to dump Huntmasters. I doubt he can go higher than $30 because at that point we are getting into Primeval Titan price levels and he is may simply not be as good as good old Prime Time.

Drogskol Captain is a solid $3 card but has the posisbility to reach $5 during its Standard peak.

That is the question I am asking myself at the moment. Is it ok to sell at $3? Yes, but is it okay to wait it out and see if can reach a little higher? The answer is yes as well. $3 is probably where they will sit a year from now because of its Standard playablity coupled with its casual allure, so selling now is fine.

But it isn’t that risky to wait it out a little, possibly even after Avycn Restored. At that point Dark Ascension will stop being drafted and, even though it is a lowly Uncommon, supplies will eventually dry up, especially if a new Spirit based deck or a rejuvenated Spirit deck comes out of Avycn Restored.

It could go up to $5 at that time, perhaps even more. I doubt it will reach Inquisition of Kozilek levels because it isn’t in a vast number of decks and will not see play in other formats, but it should see a steady amount of play and will be the center piece of any deck it is in.

Dungeon Geists is another card that broke out this weekend and from the deck tech, the great Jon Finkel stated that the deck should probably run more than 2 main as he was boarding the extras in almost every match up. This is good for its future value and as long as Spirits stays a deck, Dungeon Geists should hover around $5 for the weeks to come. If it ever shows up in a Control deck watch out for its price.

Another card that I would invest in is Lingering Souls. It is the real deal and should end up becoming a power Uncommon while in Standard, possibly more than Drogskol Captain because it fits in more decks. If it is strong enough to see play in Modern it will easily eclipse Drogskol, but that won’t likely happen. Pick them up at a buck all day long for as long as you can.

The final card I wanted to talk about is Faithless Looting. It did make a huge impact, just as I hoped it would. It only really showed its face in Raphael Levy’s 5 Color Reanimator deck. Levy’s deck could possibly be a player down the line if the meta twists the right way. Make sure you are prepared for it at FNM as it looks like a blast to play and every store will probably have at least one person trying it out. Even though it had a limited showing, I still have faith in the card. It still seems insane in RDW or any Red based aggro decks, at least in theory.

It has also shown its strength in Legacy as Adam Prosak won this weekend’s SCG Open with a Faithless Looting Dredge deck. This should at least keep the foil price from dropping for a few weeks.

Also watch out for the IDW comic promo version of Faithless Looting. This is the only place you will find that particular version and if it lives up to the hype, this version could end up being a higher end pimp version. There is nothing really to compare the price of this promo but $5 doesn’t seem unreasonable. It will be fun rummaging through 50 cent comic bins at comic conventions in the years to come hunting down possible $5 bills.

Dark Ascension & Commander

The following is salvaged from my unpublished review. They are some quick tips on the pricing of some important cards that most reviews will not focus on because they are mainly for Commander.

Archangel's Light
Price: $3+ foil
Analysis: Commander Hit but you will find people willing to trade these away to you just so they don’t feel bad for opening them.

Increasing Devotion
Price: $5 foil
Analysis: This card will show up in Cubes as well as Commander. The only format missing to help its foil campaign is Legacy. I think we can all agree it won’t show up there, but that doesn’t mean the other formats won’t create a demand for this card in foil.

Beguiler of Wills
Price: $1-$2 Mythic, $5 foil
Analysis: This should see play in Commander but it is viewed as a bulk Mythic by most. It is a great investment for down the line. Should be worth more than bulk for years to come.

Increasing Confusion
Price: $2, $5 foil
Analysis: It isn’t a big secret that there is a decent percentage of the player base that loves mill. There is usually at least one in every play group. Increasing Confusion is a dream card for these players. Pound for pound, it is not the best mill card around, that honor belongs to Glimpse the Unthinkable, however it is no slouch either. If Mind Funeral can be a $4 card Increasing Confusion, at the Rare slot should at least be worth that one day. For now though, it will stay around the $2 range until it stops being drafted and the casuals start to demand the card.

Mystic Retrieval
Price: $2 foil but could be more down the line
Analysis: This is an all-star card in Commander. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a $5 foil down the line.

Black Cat
Price: $2-$3 foil
Analysis: This is a very special card mainly because it is a black kitty with nice art. There will absolutely be people collecting as many kitties as they can, foil, foreign and misprints will all be great finds. As long as it doesn’t get reprinted it can also turn into a great common down the road. My advice, get foils if they are lower than $2 and pick up regular commons off draft tables and as throw ins. Bring your stack of cats to a big event and probably sooner than later you will find a cat crazed person willing to take them off your hands.

Increasing Ambition
Price: $5 foil
Analysis: Tutors are the name of the game in Commander. Increasing Ambition is a little over the casting cost curve, but it provides so much tutoring out of one card that it pretty much a lock on being a Commander staple.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Price: $5, $15-$20 foil
Analysis: Mikaeus will see a lot of play in the commander slot for most mono black decks. He is chock full of relevant abilities that should help you win at least a few games. If you ever find him for below $10 at foil that is a solid double up your money opportunity.

Zombie Apocalypse
Price: $5 foil
Analysis: This is purely a casual card, but it is dripping with so much flavour that casual junkies will be clamouring to get this card. In the right casual deck it is actually very good so it should be a Zombie staple for years to come.

Increasing Vengeance
Price: $3 foil
Analysis: the sole purpose for this card in Commander will be to copy Time Stretch. Infinite turns is nice, but 6 turns is usually more than enough to win a game or at least take it over. This will be regarded as jank otherwise so it should be easy to get it at undervalued prices.

Crushing Vines
Price: $1-$2 foil
Analysis: At common this card does not have much room to grow but it is a perfect card for Commander. Artifacts are the best card type in Commander and there is always an artifact on the battlefield worth destroying. Add on the ability to destroy fliers, a weakness that most Commander decks share and you have the perfect unsuspecting card for Commander. You will easily get this as a throw in. Use it yourself or trade it to a Commander junkie.

Grim Flowering
Price: $1-$2 foil
Analysis: This is just another Green conditional draw spell, but is very effective in Commander. This should draw you 5+ cards, and I feel the average is probably even higher than that. I am very excited to try this out in my Commander deck.

Diregraf Captain
Drogskol Captain
Stromkirk Captain
Immerwolf
Price: Drogskol, $2-$3, $5-$10 foil. The other 3, $1-$2, $5 foil
Analysis: For Drogskol Captain I initially had him at $2-$3, but he could go higher with the success of the Spirit deck. I admit, I forgot about the interaction with Phantasmal Image when I first assessed the card and that is a big factor in its playability in Standard. He should be $8-$10 as a foil going forward.

For the 3 others they will be $1-$2 initially, foils will hover around $5 until they find a competitive deck. Down the line though, all of these cards could go to $3-$5 easily for the non foil versions. They are casual hits as well as multi colored spells. They are basically the uncommon versions of the Shadowmoor/Eventide Liege cycle and those cards are all solid casual hits and I expect these Captains to follow in their footsteps.

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Price: $30-$40
Analysis: Sorin hasn’t entirely lived up to the hype, at least in Standard. There is lots of time for him to make his mark in Standard but he probably will just be riding on the coat tails of Lingering Souls. That doesn’t mean Sorin will drop, at least for the near future. Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas was a $30 for a while and I believe Sorin will stay in that range longer. Sorin has a few things going for him that Tezz never did. Vampires is number one, but BW for some reason is a favoured color combination for the casual crowd. He is also much better than Tezzeret is in Cubes and Commander which will definitely help his price.

Elbrus, the Binding Blade // Withengar Unbound
Price: $5+ foil
Analysis: Without Stoneforge Mystic to help this guy come into play he has no chance of showing up in constructed Magic. Commander gets around this because there are several creatures that allow you to put this directly into play that are fully legal and very much playable in Commander. I don’t think this card is good in any way, but it will see play in Commander due to its coolness factor alone.

Helvault
Price: $3 foil
Analysis: This card could actually end up being a Commander favourite, but I am not totally sold on it. It seems solid, but very reactive which could be its downfall.

Grim Backwoods
Price: $5+ foil
Analysis: This card is a perfect “spell land” for Commander. Every GB Commander deck will be playing this card. The fact that Green and Black are the best colors at manipulating the graveyard only makes this card better. Because it most likely won’t show up in constructed, I know it will be undervalued for a while.

Vault of the Archangel
Price: $10+ foil
Analysis: This is an extremely powerful card in slow creature based battles that are the norm for Commander. It is also part of that beloved color combination of Black and White. Having Archangel in its name, as silly as it may seem, also helps its value. This is a staple in BW Commander decks for years to come. It also has Cube and possible Standard applications as well.

Until Next Time

Thanks a lot for reading. As always shoot me some comments or suggestions. I will soon be writing another Commander article going back and looking at my original picks for Commander hits way back in December last year as well as some new cards that have jumped in recent months.

Insider: Supply, Demand, and Dark Ascension

Posted on February 16, 2012January 17, 2022 by Carl Szalich

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Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. Is he worth the hype? Will he keep his $45 price tag forever, or will he plummet like all other Mythics seem to after release? Will this apply to the other cards in Dark Ascension as well?

Through the Dark Ascension looking glass

It is widely accepted that Dark Ascension, as a whole set, doesn’t seem to have that many “money” cards in it. Its power level has fallen from what we’re used to seeing in the past, which has reduced the number of playable cards in the current metagame. As such, many players don’t find it as desirable to purchase multiple boxes to play the Mythic lottery since the “fringe” cards have little to no value.

Sure, you’ve got Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Havengul Lich, and Huntsmaster of the Fells, but nothing else that really jumps out at you aside from possibly the Graffdigger’s Cage, Dungeon Geists (which broke out at PT Honolulu) and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in the rare slots. There are plenty of great uncommons, but we all know they will be opened time and again until we’re so sick of seeing them that even they become unexciting. (Note: That doesn’t mean throw them out, they should clearly be kept to profit on later!)

It is for these reasons that I take an opposite stance to most and feel that this set will retain value, and may even go up!

What?? That doesn’t make sense!

So why would having “bad” cards in a set make it worth more? How can that be possible? Clearly if it’s a bad set, no one is going to want to buy it!

And THAT is my point!

Supply and demand on the “money” cards in this set will be skewed. While teh hardcorez might have normally bought a case (6 boxes), perhaps this time they’ve decided that since the set is bunk they will only purchase 2-3 boxes in order to avoid the losses that naturally come with packs filled with $0.35 cent rares. Less product opened naturally equates to less cards in circulation, which means that the cards that people do want in the set will be harder to find, and therefore, more costly.

Dark Ascension = Worldwake?

Drawing the common comparison to Worldwake (another 2^nd set with a chase Mythic), we can see that the sets are actually quite different. Jace and Sorin are the chase cards, but Worldwake just had so many other good playable cards in it (Stoneforge Mystic, the Man-Lands, Basilisk Collar, etc…) that the EV (expected value) of each Worldwake pack was much higher from the get-go than that of Dark Ascension.

So people kept opening more and more Worldwake, putting more and more individual cards into the open market. This eventually reduced the price of every card in the set to the point that staples like Raging Ravine went from $4 to $1 PRE-Rotation! What are the odds of Dark Ascension being opened in that quantity? Sorin is NOT Jace. People will not be able to (almost) pay off their entire box investment by cracking Sorin.

Because of these reasons, I don’t feel that comparing Dark Ascension to Worldwake is valid. As such, we cannot follow its model for price deflation after release.

The Sky is the Ceiling!

If any cards break out in Dark Ascension, you may be hard pressed to find them cheap. The perfect storm of less availability combined with an increase in demand will impact individual cards much more than in previous sets. If you think that Increasing Devotion, Predator Ooze, or Vorapede are the next big thing, don’t wait… get them now!

Sorin may have dipped after the results of SCG Richmond / PT Honolulu, but if he posts any future results, expect him to go back up. Plan accordingly!

I hope this article has helped point out the possible supply / demand issue that may be created by this set, especially after Scars block rotates and people clamor for cards that were once undesirable. If no one is opening product, no one is putting more Sorins into the market, and those that are already out there can only continue to rise along with their demand.

Cheers,
Carl Szalich

On a more personal note: I'd been recovering nicely only to be faced with another health challenge that requires addressing. As they say: "When it rains, it pours". It's challenging to balance Magic into a life full of turmoil, but I'm trying to get at least a few articles submitted here and there as ideas arise and time permits me to write them. Hopefully I'll be back writing more regularly soon, but that's not something I can guarantee at this point. It's ironic that the article that I last wrote before taking a leave of absence was about balancing your priorities, as it's something I find myself now in the position of needing to do, but NOT for financial reasons.

Insider: Debriefing the Pro Tour and Moving on to Modern

Posted on February 16, 2012January 17, 2022 by Chad Havas

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I hope you all had a chance to check in on Pro Tour Coverage this past weekend, the QS coverage team of Kelly and Doug did a great job of keeping us all up-to-date of the goings on of the weekend. There are a few key highlights I want to address and see where this knowledge can take us going forward.

Standard

Dungeon Geist vs. Huntmaster of the Fells

So, in every article since the spoiling I’ve talked about this card. Glad I got mine while I could, and my buddy cleaned our LGS out of them at $2 before the Pro Tour weekend.

Fast forward to the event and we see Jon Finkel and Tom Martell, One Hall of Famer and the other a notable pro in his own right, piloting an Esper Sprits deck. Although Finkel didn’t make it past the Semi-Finals (if you didn’t watch this match, go watch it, now!), the deck performed extremely well for both players in the Standard portion of the event.

Personally, my big winner here is Dungeon Geists. The list ran 2 and Finkel said himself that he’d like to bump it up to 3. I had a chance to ask Tom Martell a few questions on Twitter (@semisober). Keep in mind that Pro Tour Decks are tuned to deal with a very precise metagame, while when you sleeve up a version to play at your LGS it needs to be able to beat a much broader field of decks.

Specific hate cards like Revoke Existence and Divine Offering probably wouldn’t sit in the main deck, while you'd instead include additional good cards like Dungeon Geists and Mana Leaks. The more people play with this card, the quicker it will catch steam.

As you can see, it’s increased by 150% on StarCityGames.com since the Pro Tour: it was at $1.99. And it’s sold out. Yup. And people are likely still testing the version with 2 copies. I’m not ready to dump yet. I don’t think we’ll see it go too much higher, but I don’t see it dropping anytime soon, either.

Let’s compare this to a card like Huntmaster of the Fells. This is a card that also saw a big jump at about the same return. For quick grabs in response to the Email blasts that go out, this was a great move. But unless you’re the next Nostradamus, I’m still feeling fine about waiting on the guy.

Sure, he saw a whopping $20 price bump, but required a $12 investment and I feel he’ll likely return to a $15 range at most. This card is fairly narrow and only belongs in R/G decks. While a great pick up if you were able to snake some before the news got too big, it's reached a potential peak as a speculation target.

Dungeon Giests is the type of card I love speculating on because the initial investment is low and there is very little possibility of downward movement. Through my typical outlets I have an entire season to milk as much value as I can from my Dungeon Geists, but likely only have about a week before value starts oozing out of any Huntmasters I might have.

These are clearly two different schools of thought. Which is right? They both are. You need to be aware of both of them and be ready to take aim next time if you didn’t take advantage of these two huge winners. Use the articles leading up to Pro Tours to stash some low risk, long term specs, while during the weekend itself be in a place where you can take advantage of the breaking news--whether that's from your desktop at home, at your LGS, or even from your smartphone while running around town with the family.

Modern

With a blur, my twitter feed suddenly stopped talking about Standard this week and has shifted to Modern.

With a big batch of PTQ’s this weekend, we’re bound to see some decks emerge. The format is still pretty open and, with DKA releasing shortly on MTGO, you’ll have some opportunities to get in on Modern shifts just in time if MTGO is your game.

Twitter will be a great resource for this. PTQ’s typically have very little, if any, public coverage available. PTQ winners and other Top8 competitors will be tweeting their results and decklists throughout the weekend. Instead of waiting for Monday's articles, use this window and be ahead of the crowd and net some serious bucks.

I’ll be at the LA PTQ this weekend and scoping buylists and I'll be sure to tweet (@torerotutor) any hot tips I pick up on.

Breaking Yomiji, Who Bars the Way

Posted on February 14, 2012February 13, 2012 by Carlos Gutierrez

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There are a lot of legends you can use as the Commander of your awesome deck, and so many of them do unique and interesting things.

A number commonly thrown around is that out of the 473 legends that are currently in the game, only 70 or so are commonly played. This is part of the reason that Commander is such a fun format: there's so much unexplored space and so many interactions that haven't come up yet. It's a huge part of the reason I enjoy the format so much and is the entire reason I write about it.

Yomiji, Who Bars the Way is a great example of a Commander that can do a number of very powerful things but sees little to no play.

He has the classic indicators of being a legend from Betrayers of Kamigawa: a confusing effect, low power and toughness, and a very high mana cost. It is also unfortunate that Yomiji's ability effects all players, but generally it only takes a little bit of work to break the symmetry of these kinds of cards.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when you're building a deck is what you want your deck to do. Each card should contribute something to your theme or plan. This idea is even more critical when you're playing with an under-powered Commander, since you generally won't be able to rely on just overpowering other players, especially when you're in mono-White.

The plan for this particular deck is to play a more controlling game so that you can use Yomiji as a card advantage engine with a bunch of sweet legends. Since the deck is going to be a slow and grindy control deck, let's start by looking at the legends that can win the game in conjunction with Yomiji and lots of mana.

Let's Get Legendary

Yosei, the Morning Star
Mindslaver
Lieutenant Kirtar
Mangara of Corondor
Hokori, Dust Drinker

Phyrexian Altar
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Astral Steel

The two most absurd interactions this deck is capable of are using Mindslaver or Yosei, the Morning Star with Yomiji in play. Yosei plus a sacrifice outlet lets you lock one or more players out of their untap steps, while Mindslaver will let you take someone's turn for every ten mana you can produce. If you get either of these going, it's important to lock out the players most likely to have graveyard hate, countermagic, or spot removal first, since they can disrupt your lock. If people make the mistake of tapping out too low, you can jam Hokori, Dust Drinker to tempo them. If you have a sacrifice outlet and Yomiji, then you can Winter Orb everyone else by sacrificing Hokori on the end step before your turn.

Beyond that, you have Mangara of Corondor and Lieutenant Kirtar to protect yourself from creatures and permanents of different varieties. Then you've got your an infinite storm combo in mono-White! Just cast Isamaru, Hound of Konda, then sacrifice it to Phyrexian Altar with Yomiji in play. Return Isamaru to your hand and recast it as many times as you like, then kill someone with Astral Steel on an unblocked creature.

Suit 'em Up!

A lot of decks are heavily reliant on powerful equipment like Skullclamp and Nim Deathmantle to generate card advantage, and this deck is no different. It's important to note, however, that White-based decks are much more reliant on equipment than most decks of other colors because it has very few other sources of card advantage and because of tutors like Stonehewer Giant and Stoneforge Mystic.

Steelshaper's Gift
Stonehewer Giant
Lightning Greaves
Skullclamp
Nim Deathmantle
Pariah's Shield
Darksteel Plate
Shield of Kaldra

There are a few interactions that these equipment allow for that we'll get into a little later, but the important ones are the Darksteel Plate and Shield of Kaldra. Making Yomiji, Who Bars the Way indestructible is huge because then you can start leveraging wraths and other removal while rebuying your legends. These equipment just make it much harder for most decks to interact with your late-game plan.

Nim Deathmantle and Skullclamp are there for some much needed card advantage. Both of these equipment make your plans of sacrificing a number of different creatures much better. In a lot of ways, these are back-up copies of Yomiji! Pariah's Shield is certainly the most awkward card out of this list, but it's there mostly because of some of the other sweet legends you can play, which we'll go ahead and talk about now.

Superfriends

Cho-Manno, Revolutionary
Commander Eesha
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
Myojin of Cleansing Fire
Predator Flagship
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
Linvala, Keeper of Silence

The most important thing here is that each of these legends is relatively inexpensive. This deck wants legends to die or be sacrificed to various effects so that you can get value out of them. That they all also have sweet abilities is mostly just a bonus! That said, there are a few of these abilities that the deck is built around. Pariah's Shield is much better in a deck that has Cho-Manno, Revolutionary and Commander Eesha. Similarly, Myojin of Cleansing Fire is a great way to control the late game once you can make Yomiji indestructible and find a sacrifice outlet for your Myojin.

Eight-and-a-Half-Tails is a card that gives you ways to deal with cards that normally are unbeatable for mono-White, such as Capsize. This guy has always been a great Commander, but he's also very good in your 99 as a combat trick and protection for all of your key permanents.

Last, Predator Flagship is a card that doesn't see much play but certainly ought to in big mana decks. White doesn't typically have trouble dealing with creatures, but this gives you a repeatable source of spot removal so that you don't have to wrath the board away since so much of your deck is based on having creatures in play.

Salvaging Station Package

With so much of the deck built around getting extra cards and effects off of creatures dying, it only seems reasonable that you'd think about running a card like Salvaging Station. Honestly though, Salvaging Station is a card that more people ought to be able to run. You have to run a few underpowered one-mana artifacts, but you'd be surprised just how many activations you get off of a Salvaging Station.

Salvaging Station
Razor Hippogriff
Auriok Salvagers
Sculpting Steel

Scrabbling Claws
Wayfarer's Bauble
Origin Spellbomb
Expedition Map
Phyrexian Furnace
Wanderer's Twig
Dispeller's Capsule

This suite of artifacts accomplishes a few things, the most important of which is giving you some much needed graveyard hate. Each of these artifacts effectively nets you a card each time you get to recur them and puts you very far ahead over a longer game.

Expedition Map lets you take advantage of some of the strong utility lands you have available to you in White and finds sacrifice outlets for your various legends. Wayfarer's Bauble and Wanderer's Twig both help you get to the late game and have enough mana to start leveraging your recursion loops to actually win the game. I'm not sure if the deck wants a Traveler's Amulet in addition to the Twig, since at that point you'd have to start cutting lands to make space for the Amulet, but it's worth considering.

Get Big!

Every deck needs ways to go over the top and actually win the game. This deck can do that in a couple of different ways, which is kind of unique for a White deck. This deck has a number of angles to attack from, each of which has to be managed separately.

Culling Dais
Helm of Possession

Karmic Guide
Sun Titan

Decree of Justice
White Sun's Zenith
Sacred Mesa
Day of Destiny
Emeria Angel
Deathless Angel

The first two cards are Culling Dais and Helm of Possession, which play into your plan of getting value out of sacrificing Legendary creatures. These also give you ways besides Phyrexian Altar and various land-based sacrifice outlets to lock people with Yosei, the Morning Star and Hokori, Dust Drinker.

Karmic Guide and [/card]Sun Titan[/card], on the other hand, let you straight up out card the other players at the table. If they don't exile one or both of these, you can eventually grind out so many extra cards that you'll have an overwhelming presence on the board.

You also have a bunch of token generators and other anthem-style effects. Deathless Angel is sweet at protecting your guys, ensuring that you live through your own sweepers and can get in some big hits. Similarly, Day of Destiny is insanely good with the number of legends that you're playing, especially with how difficult they can be to get rid of.

Finally, the token generators. These particular generators are some of the best in the format because they play around countermagic so well, which is something that White isn't typically good at. That flexibility gives you a great way to fight against Blue decks, which is something that you're generally pretty weak against.

Card Advantage and Utility

Every deck needs some flexible tools and this one is no different. There are some effects you just need to have access to in order to be able to interact with other players: creature removal, graveyard hate, artifact and enchantment removal, for example. A lot of these tools showed up above, either as part of your creature-engine or Salvaging Station package, but there's always space for a few more, right?

Crystal Ball
Stonecloaker
Return to Dust
Austere Command
Swords to Plowshares
Martyr's Bond
Mass Calcify

Ranger of Eos
Weathered Wayfarer
Martyr of Sands

So, like I said, there're ways to fight creatures, artifacts, and graveyards, all at instant speed. People generally don't expect White decks to play tricks in Commander, which makes having them even more important since a good number of opponents will play right into them.

We've also got Crystal Ball, which I think it better than Sensei's Divining Top in this particular deck due to a lack of shuffle effects. You could just add some fetchlands and Crucible of Worlds to make Sensei's Divining Top better, but that puts the deck further out of reach of most people's budgets. Honestly though, Crystal Ball is not much worse than Top, if it really is at all. Scrying is a very powerful effect, especially on a repeatable source.

Last is the Ranger of Eos package. Ranger is a card that I really like for White and White-based decks. It's both card advantage and a tutor, even if it finds cards that are typically low-impact. You can build your deck to take advantage of your one-drops by running things like Mother of Runes if you have to protect key creatures, Weathered Wayfarer if you have important lands, Serra Ascendant for beats, and so on. Ranger does a lot of interesting things and I'm actually pretty sad I couldn't find more space for one-drops for him to tutor up.

The Mana Base

This is the most important part of most decks, but this one in particular needs a lot of help from its lands. The deck is so mana hungry that you want to do as much to maximize how much mana you'll have on a given turn as you can. Mana sources that can scale up over the course of a game are especially important and are going to be emphasized over "fixed" acceleration.

Mana Rocks

Mind Stone
Dreamstone Hedron
Everflowing Chalice
Honor-Worn Shaku
Caged Sun
Gauntlet of Power

This is a pretty typical suite of acceleration, besides Honor-Worn Shaku. I initially ran it just because it was a cool card from Champions of Kamigawa block, but it will typically give you two to three mana on a given turn from sources you wouldn't typically get it from. Plus, the first time you tap your Shield of Kaldra for mana is sweet!

Lands!

Eiganjo Castle
Flagstones of Trokair
Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
Miren, the Moaning Well
High Market
Vesuva
Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper
Ghost Quarter
Ancient Tomb
Mistveil Plains
Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Urza's Tower
Urza's Mine
Urza's Power Plant
Vesuva
Glimmerpost
Cloudpost
Temple of the False God
Urza's Factory
Winding Canyons
18 Plains

There are a ton of sweet interactions going on with the lands here, I just hope I have time to go into them all! The most important lands are your High Market and Miren, the Moaning Well, since they provide sacrifice outlets to go with Yomiji, Who Bars the Way.

You also have a ton of interesting interactions with Flagstones of Trokair and Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai, most notably with Ghost Quarter and Vesuva, especially if you can stick Yomiji.

Mistveil Plains is a card that does a lot of things for a lot of decks. It's an awesome piece of recursion, and is great at protecting your graveyard. For this deck, you can recycle your equipment, lands, and one-drops, each of which can be tutored up fairly easily.

Lastly, you have Winding Canyons, which can let you flash in legends to do tricks on other players' turns, and is another way to give Mangara of Corondor pseudo-haste.

Now that we've gone over the lands, let's look at a finished list:

[deckbox did="a147" size="small" width="560"]

Like most mono-White decks, this one is pretty slow and very clunky, but it does have a number of very powerful interactions that a lot of people aren't really prepared for. Most importantly, it exemplifies the one characteristic that mono-White Commander decks must have to be successful: your Commander either has to be very aggressive, have a source of card advantage, and/or feature disruption.

That said, I'm pretty happy with the deck. There are certainly some interactions a lot of people haven't thought about and aren't prepared for and you have an incredibly brutal end game that's fairly difficult to disrupt.

That's pretty good for a Commander who is largely considered unplayable.

Next week we'll be taking a look at the mono-planeswalker control deck that Becca wants me to build for her, so be sure to check it out!

Carlos Gutierrez
cag5383@gmail.com

@cag5383 on Twitter

Insider: Dark Ascension in Pro Tour Honolulu

Posted on February 14, 2012January 17, 2022 by Sigmund Ausfresser

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I want to open this article with a word of praise to Wizards of the Coast. Their Pro Tour Honolulu coverage was phenomenal. High quality video, relevant commentary and interviews, and frequent updates of player results all created an enjoyable viewing experience. They took an idea that has proven successful by Star City Games and kicked it up three notches. Well done!

Amidst all this coverage, information has been flying at us from many angles. Wizards’ own website consistently summarized various deck techs and cards to watch. Additionally, Quiet Speculation has been sending out frequent emails throughout the weekend highlighting key cards impacting the Pro Tour. Although somewhat overshadowed, Star City Games had one of their largest Standard opens yesterday in Cincinnati.

What Were the Key Highlights?

This is a time of flux. Dark Ascension is finally beginning to have an impact on Standard, and this was reflected at both the SCG Cincinnati open and the Pro Tour.

The largest splash, in my opinion, was the ubiquity of Huntmaster of the Fells. When this card was initially spoiled it pre-sold on Star City Games for $17.49. This was short lived, however, and the popular retailer dropped the price to $14.99 shortly thereafter.

Let’s see where the card stands right now (as of Sunday):

Star City Games has increased their price a healthy five dollars. Their buy price is eight dollars, which to me does not reflect an immediate increase in demand by itself. I have noticed recent eBay prices around $15, which does reflect a price increase. How do I know? Yesterday (Saturday) I purchased three of these Werewolves for $10 each.
A few other cards from Dark Ascension made a smaller splash worth noting. Dungeon Geists demonstrated potential value in blue [card Delver of Secrets]Delver[/card] decks. Whipflare made an appearance as a 1-of in PV’s and Kibler’s decks – both players made Top 8. Finally, Drogskol Captain, Strangleroot Geist, and Lingering Souls were a few Uncommons that appeared in Pro Tour Honolulu Top 8 deck lists.

Meanwhile, in the SCG open, Huntmaster of the Fells broke into two decks of the Delver-dominant Top 8. Heartless Summoning made an appearance in one SCG open Top 8 deck, combining with Havengul Lich.

The chart above (courtesy of blacklotusproject.com) shows the rebound in the price of Heartless Summoning. A more dominant showing at the Pro Tour would have had a more significant impact on this card’s demand. Still, the price has bottomed for now, and Star City Games now sells the once-dollar-rare for $2.99.

So What Do We Do With This Information?

Please. I beg of you. Do NOT go directly to Starcitygames.com and buy out their Huntmasters (unless you are buying Lys Alana Huntmaster, which is only currently available in Japanese foil for $5.99).

If you were following along with Quiet Speculation’s emails, you would have had a window to pick up Huntmaster of the Fells for $10, as I did. I already regret not buying more than three. But it is a lot more difficult to convince myself to buy at $15 than it was at $10. I considered $10 very nearly a price floor, much like it is for other Mythic Rare hits such as Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Geist of Saint Traft.

It is incredibly difficult to predict where the card will go from here. I suspect the price jump is not finished. Purchasing a set of Huntmasters at $15 each on eBay may still be a worthwhile investment, since the card’s popularity is likely to increase now that the Pro Tour results are in.

Keep in mind the old adage of economics: buy low and sell high. If you are going to purchase this card, or any others that have proven their worth in this weekend’s results, the time to move in is now.

If you do decide to move in on these cards, I urge you to monitor quantities in stock at Star City Games. Their website is a barometer for a card’s popularity. A great example of this is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (chart courtesy of blacklotusproject.com).

This card was seeing play as a 1-of in a few decks across formats. Esper Control (Standard), Melira Pod (Modern), and Reanimator (Legacy) all had reason to play a copy of this powerful Mythic Rare. To me, this level of play did not justify a price tag over $10. Yet, Star City Games was “sold out” of this card for the longest time with a price of $14.99. This should have been my buy indicator.

The card’s play has picked up a bit in recent events. Now the card sells for closer to $15 and Star City Games sells them at $19.99. A trend identical to that of Huntmaster of the Fells. Huntmaster, however, is not legendary and is played in multiples. Further evidence that this card’s run may not be over yet.

As for the other breakout cards, I am only moderately impressed with their results. Seeing two copies of Dungeon Geists appear in two Top 8 decks of the Pro Tour earns the card a second look. Star City Games is selling this 3/3 flyer at $2.99 much like Heartless Summoning, and I agree with their pricing. As a 2-of in one deck, this card’s price will not jump much higher. Should it become a staple across Blue decks, this card would move up another few bucks. I may pick up a set of this card now while it is cheap, as there is limited downside at this price point.

Is Dark Ascension Still Underpowered?

In a word, yes. One Mythic Rare… count them… ONE!... appeared in the main deck Top 8 at both the Pro Tour Honolulu and SCG Cincinnati. Havengul Lich managed to make the Top 8 of SCG Cincinnati, but the Heartless Summoning deck lost in the quarterfinals and hype around this card is significantly less.

Even on the Rare front, I would hardly consider Dungeon Geists and Whipflare as breakout cards impacting the metagame. They merely fit in nicely to already-established archetypes.

Based on these results, I will maintain my current position of this set with one slight amendment. I still recommend picking up older Standard cards that are putting up consistent results rather than Dark Ascension cards. Cards like Primeval Titan, Snapcaster Mage, and Champion of the Parish are all still showing consistent results and remain in high demand.

The amendment: I would consider picking up Dungeon Geists, Whipflare, and perhaps Huntmaster of the Fells. I will not go in deep on these, as that’s not my style. But now that these cards are on everyone’s radar, they will see much more play at FNM’s and local tournaments. This should keep these cards high in demand for the time being.

UPDATE!

It is 8:45pm on Sunday, and the Pro Tour Honolulu Finals consists of PV and Kibler. Both players running a Kessig Wolf Run build with Huntmaster of the Fells. The financial impact? Take a look at Huntmaster's listing on Star City Games now:

I was fortunate to pick up a couple of these at $10 on eBay. They are nearing $20 on eBay now, and Star City Games has them at $25! The window to purchase this card is nearly closed, and the window to sell this card is nearly open!

-Sigmund Ausfresser
@sigfig8

CommanderCast S5E5 | Buzz Killington and the Downers

Posted on February 13, 2012 by CommanderCast Derp

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It's more of Commander's realest talk as Andy is back on deck with his elite squad of conversational killers! Carlos, Imshan and Max round out this episode's panel, making it a very writer-y episode (obviously I am not a writer, I make up DEM WORDZ). But we form like Voltron to produce an episode where we explore that divide between competition, fun and the howling abyss between them. Buzzkill cards, threat assessment, and Reliquary Tower are all debated in this episode.

Hit the button or play, or download the entire episode! The full show notes are here.

For more Wrexial-Approved stuff, hit up http://www.commandercast.com/