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Secret Lair is no stranger to controversy, but that has not stopped Wizards from continuing to offer piles of product... and sometimes, product that are piles. The latest Commander-specific offering, From Cute to Brute, is an entire deck full of double-faced reprints. Does this deck make sense to buy? Is it strong? Is it worth it from a financial perspective? Let's take a look.
The Inevitable Comparison
The first full Commander deck offered via Secret Lair was Heads I Win, Tails You Lose. Debuting at a cool $99.99, I've now played against it numerous times... once it had finally got into the hands of players, that is. Absurd delays aside, the deck was reasonable in terms of value, playability, and theme. Also, by value, I don't mean solely the price of the singles in the deck; I mean the entire package, which came with a bunch of swag. Besides the deck, you also got the following:
1x Super Special Coin 
2x Display Commanders 
10x Double-Faced Tokens 
1x Deck box 
1x Life Wheel 
1x Strategy Insert 
1x Reference Card 
MTG Arena Sleeves
From Cute to Brute, on the other hand, gives you almost none of these add-ons, but you do get five more double-faced tokens and three more Display Cards. What are "Display Cards?" They are the very thick shiny cardboard cards you get in every Commander pre-con.
For an additional $50, this change certainly seems like a bad deal for you and a great deal for Wizards. One thing they did improve upon was getting the product completed, printed, and ready to ship on time. That being said, it seems like there are some issues that maybe could have been avoided with a little more time and care.
Financial Value
As always, there is a bit of stickiness to predictive analysis. Furthermore, I have covered Secret Lair product before and the same broad generalities apply, so I will truncate my points. The question at hand: is Brute worth your hard-earned cash?
If you took the entire deck right now and purchased it as singles, it would cost about $300. For $149.99 plus tax, that seems like a good deal. Problem is, that's the price of the cards now. There are always plenty of vendors who break their boxes for singles, so the supply of reprints goes straight into the secondary market, depressing prices quickly. In the meantime, the price of every card in this deck will tank upon release. If you like some of the artwork, but not all, then buying the one or two singles you may want a month or two later is a move with solid historical pedigree.
However, there may be a perverse incentive to buy and hold sealed product in this exact case. Overall, there is a fairly weak initial reception to From Cute to Brute, and decks have not immediately sold out like many other SL products have in the past. If nobody buys it, sealed product may end up being a bit rare... in several years. Unopened, unique, shiny, artwork that is somewhat limited tends to appreciate in value.
But realistically, who wants to tie up money for that long in this kind of product? I think there are plenty of other financial plays that would generate more value now, whether in Magic or the world at large. Still, it's something to consider for the gamblers and sealed aficionados out there, and if it's unexciting, it is safe. There are sure to be a select few stowing away one or more copies of this deck, and those copies are all but guaranteed to be worth more in a decade than they are today.
Deckbuilding Disaster
"I want to make a five-color double-faced deck!" Sure, that's a deck building prompt. At least the deck clearly has inspiration behind it. But does it work or make sense?
Unfortunately, I feel like this deck fails on several levels. The first of which is the inconvenience of having to constantly re-sleeve cards. Since they do not give you cool, customized checklist cards, you basically need to double sleeve. Plus, playing against this deck presents a nightmare for players that do not know every card. Have fun de-sleeving multiple times per card as your novice table gets a good look at both sides before choosing targets for their removal spells.
Next, the deck is five colors, but how many lands are? A generous interpretation is five. Consider thatVivid Grove fix colors twice, and Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds fix once, and there is only one Farseek. If Wizards had at least included Sylvan Scrying and Expedition Map, then maybe you could convince me that you could regularly tutor up The World Tree, but the deck has neither.
The fact that the double-faced lands only tap for one color of mana seems like a big mistake. Over half the deck is made up of double-mana symbols and multi-colored cards, so the land base makes casting difficult, and many hands awkward.
No-brainer auto-includes like Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun, Golden Guardian // Gold-Forged Garrison, and The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration are somehow absent. There's little sense of a "game plan" except for dumping stuff into play, and very limited removal as well.
Well, Pongify is here! Why? Because their deck-building algorithm showed they needed to reprint a blue instant? Recent Commander pre-cons include EDREC Top 100 cards. Having Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, or any signet over Altar of the Pantheon would just be better in every way.
Buy In-Print DFCs to Fix This Mess!
The real reason this deck has no synergy, no battles, is missing obvious includes and is five colors? To get you to buy more MOM, of course! In the least "Secret" move ever, Wizards had an obvious game plan going in:
1) Make a DFC Commander deck right in time for MOM 2) Re-print some older, value DFCs with no real synergy 3) Jam them into a pile and call it a deck 4) ???
Step four is profit, of course. This is where Wizards messed up, in my opinion. If you start looking at building a DFC-based Commander deck as your main focus, it's very likely you don't want most of the cards in From Cute to Brute. Unless you're absolutely married to the art style of the new deck, you'll build something entirely different, less expensive, or simply way better in terms of flavor and power.
So there you have it: Wizards made a product for a very limited audience and is charging them through the nose for it. This is the goal of Secret Lair, right? I'm all for releasing cards as cool art pieces. However, throwing a pile together and calling it a deck while simultaneously reducing value to the consumer and raising prices is, frankly, outrageous.
What They Should Have Done
Including any of the DFC Transformers with deck-defining abilities, mythic DFC lands, a slew of great options from among the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Sagas, and more five-color lands with better mana fixing would go a long way to turning From Cute to Brute into a deck.
The fact that Heads I Win, Tails You Lose is a completely functional Commander deck that does not require alteration, offers value in every way to the consumer, and showcases new art proves that Wizards can make good Secret Lair Commander decks. Besides being late to shelves, Heads was a great and beloved product. This time, though, Wizards has instead completely over-compensated and sacrificed everything from value to playability to make sure the deck released and shipped punctually.
Oh, and they also charged 50% more.
I Wouldn't Buy This With Your Money... Let Alone Mine
This is a hard pass for me on multiple levels. While it doesn't feel like a great investment, it could be an okay one. The deck looks difficult to play and not powerful at all, while also not looking very fun. There are definitely vastly more powerful Bridge-based decks that effectively cascade anything you want into play, and that is not this deck. But if you're in love with the art style then, by all means, buy!
One thing I do like about From Cute to Brute, though, is that it makes me want to build a DFC Commander deck. So thanks go to Wizards for all of the inspiration with none of the $150 charge. It seems like a two- or three-color deck will work harmoniously while containing sub-themes besides merely being double-faced. I'll get to brewing, see if I can match up with someone that has the deck on SpellTable, and report back.
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Having seen the full spoiler for March of the Machine: Aftermath, I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. As I mentioned last week, this set feels more like a carved-out piece of the main set than anything unique. Specifically, a piece that was carved out as Commander fodder, as most of the cards seem specifically designed to be used as commanders.
That said, there are a few cards that could make normal constructed formats. Assuming there's a need to fill their very specific niches. Today, we'll explore the most exciting standouts for Constructed play.
Metropolis Reformer
There is no shortage of three mana white hatebears with niche effects. The one that's seen the most play is Archon of Emeria, as Rule of Law stapled to Kismet is quite potent. The new addition, Metropolis Reformer is unique but isn't going to beat Archon for any slot.
Adding vigilance and a relevant creature type is a solid start but aren't relevant to playability. What matters is the actual hate effect, and Reformer's is too niche for widespread play. While giving players hexproof is sometimes relevant, the previous white creatures that did so (True Believer, Aegis of the Gods, and Keen-Eared Sentry) have never seen much play.
The problem is that all of these creatures are extremely fragile. Leyline of Sanctity still sees play because enchantments are hard to kill. If an opponent really needs to target you, they'll have a way to kill the creature. Also, most of the time the only effects targeting players are discard spells, and other than Leyline, none of these cards are fast enough to protect against them.
The Natural Home
Pioneer Angels could fit Reformer in with no issue whatsoever. I just have no idea why it would bother. Mono-Red is not a difficult matchup, and that deck doesn't go face with its burn much anyway. The lifegain is nice there, but not crippling. It might see play to slam the door shut, but there's no pressing need there, and Angels has other problems to sideboard against.
The other combo decks have ways to remove Reformer and/or win conditions that don't target. Mono-Green Devotion can simply wish for Skysovereign, Consul Flagship or Cityscape Leveler. Lotus Field has Otawara, Soaring City and Approach of the Second Sun. Against everything else, Reformer is an okay threat, but just doesn't stand out.
The Special Niche
I don't think Reformer will see Pioneer play. If it does see play outside of Standard, I suspect it will be in Modern. There, Reformer is easily the best anti-Burn card printed in years. The only card that's more devastating is Collective Brutality, at least among maindeckable cards.
Reformer is immune to Searing Blaze, which is a great start. The hexproof means there's no getting around it: Burn players will have to remove it to make their deck work again. Removing it with damage gains life, meaning that Reformer represents a net of -2 cards to the opponent. The first card is lost killing Reformer, and the second comes from the three life gained, which is an entire spell's worth of life. All without having to discard your own cards.
There's really no need to be this worried about Burn for most decks. Burn isn't that big a piece of the metagame, and there are lots of ways to answer it already. However, if that ever changes, here's a very strong answer.
Jirina, Dauntless General
Every time a new, even marginally useful human is printed, players always act like it's the thing that will return Humans to the top of the metagame. Never mind how many times it's been said already that this is the one! Please also ignore that Humans returned to the metagame recently by rediscovering the 18-year-old Shining Shoal. No, it's new cards that will revive the deck. Is my eye rolling coming through?
Aftermath is no exception, and there are a number of potential Humans cards within. The most commonly cited card is Coppercoast Vanguard. 2/2 for two is a standard rate, and increasing Humans' power and giving them ward isn't bad. However, the fact that none of that applies to itself is fatal, literally. Opponents will just kill it first or sweep the board rather than worry about the ward triggers.
Jirina, Dauntless General is a slightly different matter. Her sacrifice ability has been touted as a way for Humans to finally beat Fury. Again, please forget about Shoal. True, Jirina does also protect against Supreme Verdict, but UW Control doesn't always run that card anymore. These types of effects work great when they're surprises, but are mediocre otherwise.
The Natural Home
Obviously, Humans could play Jirina. However, that would require Humans to regress to an earlier era of the deck. The current version sacrifices Aether Vial in order to gain Shoal, and to an extent Emeria's Call // Emeria, Shattered Skyclave. This has weakened Humans against some decks but has proven worthwhile enough against the top decks put to get Humans back in the game.
Selfless Spirit saw a lot of play, but had the benefit of being played alongside not just Vial but Rattlechains and Collected Company. Thus it got to surprise counter Verdict very easily, while Jirina will have Vial at most. This severely limits the critical surprise factor with this effect. Otherwise, opponents will just kill Jirina end step, untap, and then sweep the board.
The Niche Application
That said, Jirina is phenomenal against Living End. The first ability is obviously good as graveyard hate, but the second ability is still relevant. While it doesn't protect against having your board wiped, it can still be sacrificed before Living End resolves, ensuring that you have a creature afterwards. While facing a board of huge monsters is bad, having to rebuild your own from nothing is worse, and Jirina fixes that problem.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Living End
If Living End becomes enough of a problem for Humans to want Jirina, she'll need to justify two significant changes to Humans. First, the mana base will need a rework. Shoal has moved Humans to mono-white, and Jirina requires black mana. That might be easy, but it might also require giving up something to maintain balance. The other issue is that Humans would need to readopt Vial.
In a hypothetical metagame where Living End needs such a specialized answer, that all might be worthwhile. The metagame would likely shift away from red removal toward counters, making Vial more useful. Blood Moon might be less of a concern as Living End always plays Foundation Breaker, sometimes even maindeck. Outside of that kind of shift, I'm skeptical of Jirina.
Reckless Handling
Wizards rarely makes tutors anymore, so anytime a cheap one is made it is immediately scrutinized. Which is unfortunate for Reckless Handling, as it is rather narrow. Finding only artifacts isn't bad, but remember that Whir of Invention isn't played anymore. Making matters worse, Handling is a riff on Gamble.
Gamble used to be a staple in Legacy Lands because Lands always needed Life from the Loam and didn't care if it was discarded. That time has passed, and now Gamble is only found in red combo decks that similarly don't care which zone the tutored card is in, but just that it's out of their library. It's reasonable to assume that Handling will only see play in a similar deck.
The Natural Home
The only deck (I can think of) that sees any play and fits all the criteria for playing Handling is Jeskai Urza. It already runs Goblin Engineer to find Sword of the Meek, so Handling provides some redundancy and a marginal upside. Emry, Lurker of the Loch also means tutoring for any other artifact isn't actually gambling, but rather a guarantee that the artifact will end up on the stack.
That's all well and good, but why would Urza bother with Handling? Engineer already does everything they need, and if another tutoring effect was needed, Whir exists. The fact that I haven't seen Whir in any Urza deck is a pretty strong indication that it just isn't good enough anymore. If a tutor that puts the card directly into play isn't good enough (and often costs no mana), how can Handling be?
The Brewer Traps
Every new set release leads to a surge in brewing, which is no bad thing. However, there are always a few cards that are effectively traps. They look like strong cards to either build around or provide so much theoretical value that they can't resist putting it into every deck, regardless of their deck's actual need for the card or overall strategy. Aftermath has several cards that will certainly prove potent traps.
Filter Out
Paradoxical Outcome is a Vintage-defining card, and Filter Out has shades of its utility. While there's a case for using Filter as a way to clear boards of prison pieces, Modern and later formats have Hurkyl's Recall for that job, and that's one sided. Filter not targeting will be mostly, though not entirely, irrelevant, while costing one less mana is always relevant.
Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that Filter would be used for any reason except to fill Outcome's role. In Vintage, I could see it making the cut as additional Outcomes, though significantly worse. Given that Outcome doesn't see play in Modern or Legacy as is, there would need to be a new combo deck to make it work.
I've heard chatter that players are working on it with Urza, Lord High Artificer and zero-cost artifacts, but at that point, why not just play Outcome? Once Urza is out, mana is largely irrelevant, so the difference between three and four mana becomes trivial. What isn't is Outcome drawing cards, which Filter can't do. As Outcome also doesn't automatically destroy tokens, I think working on Filter is wasted effort.
Cosmic Rebirth
This card is dripping with value potential. Instant-speed reanimation is extremely rare, and a spell that reanimates with upside is even rarer. Cosmic Rebirth may be limited to reanimating only three cost or less, but it can get any permanent. It can target higher costs too, though that's just being a bad Eternal Witness at that point. The life gain is gravy.
I've seen a lot of chatter about reanimating Teferi, Time Raveler in Modern in response to cascade triggers. Which I won't deny is really appealing. The issue is that such a situation isn't exactly optimal. Ignoring the possibility of Force of Negation, having Rebirth available to get around a failstate isn't the best use of a card. Furthermore, outside of that scenario, what exactly is Rebirth doing for any deck?
This is a card that almost any deck could play, but that won't do much for most of them. Yes, getting a land back to ramp is a thing, but three mana conditional ramp isn't really constructed-worthy. Pioneer, where I've seen this kind of talk the most, doesn't even have fetchlands to abuse. This is a card with too much value to ignore entirely, but unfortunately, it's useless value.
Design Consequences
Aftermath doesn't have much for non-Commander players. What is available is quite conditional and/or deceptive. They have their uses and can be great, but only in exactly the right situation. While I expect to see some of these cards played against me, I doubt that they'll be setting any format on fire.
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My name is Alex Blackard, but you can call me LessAlex, the Control Freak.
I am an avid Control player that specializes in Pioneer, Explorer, Historic, and Modern. I am a content creator and I couldn't be more stoked to get the opportunity to make videos and articles for Quiet Speculation. I’ve been playing competitive Magic since New Phyrexia came out in 2011. I stream on Twitch weekdays, have a YouTube Channel, and host a podcast called “The Control Freak” where I have guests on to chat about competitive Magic through the lens of a Control player.
Some of my Magic accomplishments include a Standard SCG Top 4 in 2014 with Jeskai Geist, a Modern NRG Series Trial 2nd place finish in 2017 with ol’ reliable Azorius Control, several SCG IQ Top 8’s, and a litany of Gameday wins.
Welcome to New Phyrexia.
In today’s video, I’m testing out the power of Invasion of New Phyrexia // Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir in Explorer Azorius Control.
Why, though? Invasion of New Phyrexia // Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir does an excellent Elspeth, Sun's Champion impersonation and is extremely good at gumming up the board. This is exactly what we want to be doing against some of the best decks in Explorer—Specifically Rakdos Midrange, Mono-Green Devotion, and Mono-White Humans. It's also good in the Azorius Control mirror. I have to say you don’t typically transform it and flip into Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir because more times than not when you resolve a large Invasion of New Phyrexia you win the game soon after. However, if you ever do get to cast Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir every ability is absolute gas. Looting two cards every turn is so powerful. The Emblem makes it so your tokens are often bigger and better than your opponents' creatures. The Ultimate does a good impression of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria’s “tuck” ability.
The Decklist
Azorius Invasion Control, Explorer
Planeswalkers
3 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
4 The Wandering Emperor
Instants
1 Fateful Absence
2 March of Otherworldly Light
2 Absorb
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Memory Deluge
2 Make Disappear
1 Censor
2 Change the Equation
1 Spell Pierce
Sorceries
1 Farewell
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Lay Down Arms
Enchantments
2 Shark Typhoon
Battles
2 Invasion of New Phyrexia // Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir
Land
7 Plains
1 Hall of Storm Giants
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Castle Vantress
3 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Irrigated Farmland
2 Field of Ruin
1 Island
Sideboard
2 Change the Equation
1 Rest in Peace
2 Dovin's Veto
1 Temporary Lockdown
1 Kaheera, the Orphanguard
1 Shark Typhoon
1 Sunfall
1 Temporary Lockdown
3 Regal Caracal
1 Invasion of New Phyrexia // Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir
1 Mystical Dispute
If you're looking for a fun new look at Azorius Control in Explorer I definitely recommend trying this one out! Thanks for reading and enjoy the Gameplay video! I’m looking forward to the future of Control in this format with the newest addition to the deck!
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Bad dad jokes aside, we have truly entered a new age of Magic collecting with the advent of the game’s newest “rarity” level, serialized cards!
A Brief History of Serialized Magic Cards
Magic introduced serialized cards with the printing of special mirrored Viscera Seers. These were initially discovered in November 2021 as the bonus card found in foil Phyrexian Praetors: Compleat Edition boxes. News of the uniquely numbered card took the community by storm. Copies of these otherwise-common cards sold for well into the thousands.
About a year later, in November 2022, Wizards of the Coast introduced new serialized cards that could be opened from Brothers’ War products. These were special versions of the Retro Frame Artifact series that were randomly added to booster packs. Everyone dreamed of opening a Retro Frame Wurmcoil Engine in their booster pack, but opening a serialized copy of the card yields a hefty payday.
Instead of being only limited to 100 copies like Viscera Seer, each of the 63 Retro Frame Artifacts had 500 serialized copies printed, meaning there were theoretically 31,500 new serialized Magic cards introduced to the market (not all of them will be opened).
Since then, we’ve seen multiple series of serialized cards either introduced or spoiled for release in the near future. Secret Lair 295 Shivan Dragons, Multiverse Legends, The Lord of the Rings, Secret Lair Giant Growths, and possibly others all contain cards that may have a unique serial number.
I’m beginning to wonder, however, just how “unique” these unique cards truly are.
We’ve Seen This Movie Before
We’ve seen Wizards of the Coast follow this pattern time and again. Remember when each new set launched with a simple 36-pack booster box, and each booster pack contained one rare, three uncommons, and eleven commons? Whatever happened to those days?
First, it was foils, introduced back in Urza's Legacy. I despised the idea at the time but foils back then were very sparse and difficult to open, so their impact felt easy to overlook. Over the years though, the distribution of foils became higher and higher until, eventually, some booster packs included a guaranteed foil.
Then Wizards of the Coast introduced the Mythic Rare with Shards of Alara, and a new level of rarity was born. Imagine opening a foil mythic rare! The odds were so low, it was like winning the lottery.
Having rarities that stopped at mythic still wasn’t enough. As mythic rares became normalized and the player base became desensitized to their special nature, Wizards of the Coast scrambled to introduce another level of rarity. In 2015, Wizards of the Coast did just that—they introduced the Zendikar Expeditions, these special-framed super duper rares were even more difficult to pull from a booster pack. I remember opening an Expedition Wooded Foothills during a game of pack wars with a friend of mine, and was thrilled! I had basically opened a $100+ card in my $3 booster pack.
After numerous sets with MasterpieceSeries cards—as they later became known—even these special cards lost their luster.
Too Much of a Good Thing?
The flavor of this generation, it seems, is the serialized card. When foils, mythic rares, and Masterpieces aren’t special enough, let’s slap some numbers on a card instead to make them really collectible.
At first, the idea sounded exciting. While not novel to card collecting (serial numbering first appeared on a football card in 1990), the introduction of numbered cards brought the same excitement as the previous rarity introductions in years past. Just like those former rarity introductions, however, this one seems to be losing its luster.
Sure, the original Viscera Seer cards still carry significant value and are extremely rare (only 100 made). The more desirable Masterpiece cards such as Sol Ring and Mana Crypt will always hold a significant premium over the less desirable ones. I’m confident that all serialized copies of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer will cost an arm and a leg due to its playability. Certain numbers will also always be more valuable than others.
Despite all this, I can’t help but wonder if we’ve passed a point of no return now, and the concept of serialized cards has become a mainstay in Magic. The most playable and desirable such cards will of course maintain a significant premium. The concept of owning a serialized card, however, will gradually become less special over time.
We’ve already seen some serialized cards selling for under $100 on eBay, and this trend is likely to accelerate as more such cards are printed.
In my humble opinion, Wizards of the Coast is taking the concept too far. Making serialized cards the norm and not the exception will gradually detract from the excitement they bring to the game.
At this rate, five to ten years from now, they’ll need to create some new level of rarity.
How Low Can They Go?
When the Zendikar Expeditions first came out, they were all worth at least $50, more or less. Nowadays there are a number of them retailing in the $20’s, and Tectonic Edge can be purchased for even less. While this is arguably the least exciting Masterpiece to be printed, the idea that a Masterpiece can be had for less than the price of a collector booster pack speaks volumes to their availability and desirability.
I predict a similar trajectory for serialized cards. I don’t care that only 500 serialized Tymaret, Chosen from Death cards exist. The card isn’t all that exciting, and will likely decline in price over time. The same goes for some of the other less-than-exciting Multiverse Legends cards that were recently printed.
To be fair, serialized cards will always carry some value much like the Masterpieces do. Don’t expect the less playable cards to maintain such a high price point, however. While supply and rarity definitely carry significant weight when determining a card’s price, demand needs to also be there. The serialized Tymaret, Chosen from Death is twice as rare as the cheapest Alpha rare, yet it already sells for 1/4 the price.
A Note on the One Ring
Before concluding, I wanted to spend a moment discussing the one-of-a-kind, 001/001 The One Ring, to be sold in a collector booster of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.
In a world where serialized cards are becoming more and more common, how much do you think this card should be worth? I’ve already seen public offers north of $100,000 for the card, and this completely baffles me.
While there is a novelty to being “the one” who owns the ring, fueling emotions that Frodo Baggins and Gollum must have felt throughout the novels, I still can’t imagine dropping a mortgage on a single card. I understand that this is a one-of-a-kind card, and that surely makes it special.
Do you know what else is one-of-a-kind? Original Magic artwork. In fact, since last week I successfully found and purchased my first piece of original Magic art! My gratitude goes out to Phil Li (@ThePheylop) who helped me find a piece I loved and negotiate a price I could afford.
I’ll share more once it arrives, but the reason I bring this up is that the art I purchased comes with a serial numbered COA. Do you know what the serial number is for this beautiful piece of artwork, which I plan to frame and hang on my wall for friends and family to see?
You guessed it. 1/1.
Does this mean my artwork is going to be worth more than a house? Of course not! I’m guessing there are thousands of 1/1 paintings that go along with some of Magic’s most beautiful pieces of art. Each one is one-of-a-kind, and each one carries significant value. Only a handful will be worth the same order of magnitude as the special 001/001 The One Ring, however.
If Wizards prints more 001/001 cards in the future, the ultimate rare will eventually become more affordable as well. Until then, this first and only 001/001 card could be the most valuable ever.
Wrapping It Up
When the serialized mirrored Viscera Seers first hit the wires, Twitter was much abuzz with the news of their existence. Now, just a few short years later, I see serialized cards show up in my Twitter and Discord feeds on a monthly (if not weekly) basis. No longer do I double-take, wondering how to obtain such a special card.
Instead, I marvel at their novelty less and less with each new printing. Based on recent spoilers for upcoming sets, I suspect there will be many more coming out soon. So many, in fact, that even if their rarity remains just as high, the demand and price point for the less desirable ones will continue to falter.
If you want a popular serialized card for play, it may not behoove you to wait—the best Masterpieces have become very expensive over the years. If you just want a serialized card to say you own one, however, and you aren’t particular about which one you own… I say wait. Wait another six months or year to see just how many more times Wizards of the Coast prints them.
At this trajectory, you may be able to find one for under $50. While they’ll still be just as rare, with only 500 of a given card to exist, the fact that 100’s of these only-500 printings will be created means that finding one for cheap will become relatively easy. These may be rarer than Alpha rares, but for many of them, they remain less valuable indefinitely.
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When opening a pack, we always hope for the busted rare. This format provides that surge of joy more often than most. March of the Machine (MOM) approaches the "Prince Format" problem, wherein lucky openers of great rares are significantly favored even against skilled drafters, by offering more opportunities for these exclusive pulls. Sheoldred, Whispering One and Invasion of Innistrad // Deluge of the Dead can join a third potent rare in the same pack!
So yes, rares have an outsized impact on the format. That being said, this is still Limited, and as always, Limited gameplay is defined by commons. There are many good commons in the format, but two stand above the rest. Today, we'll consider the commons of MOM and how to leverage that knowledge into more trophies.
1A and 1B: Preening Champion vs. Deadly Derision
Preening Champion has the highest GIH WR% of all commons, while Deadly Derision boasts the top IWD. These are the format's best two commons.
In one corner, we have an above-rate creature. Preening Champion is a Wind Drake with meaningful types that brings along a token to further enable convoke. This card plays well in any blue deck, and has archetypal synergies with blue's two strongest identities. Additionally, it puts us in the best color. While MOM's top color might be contested, blue's deep assortment of commons lets it support multiple drafters.
In the other corner we have... a removal spell. And while I'm embarrassed to admit it, I'm picking the removal spell.
In most formats, I would consider such a decision disgraceful. However, removal spells are just too important in MOM. While blue has a lot of tools for dealing with creatures, most lack the permanence and versatility of this point-and-click answer. Temporal Cleansing and Ephara's Dispersal don't always get the job done. But instant-speed kill anything plus a treasure is one of the safest effects we can include. In a world where every deck has a Chrome Host Seedshark, Boon-Bringer Valkyrie, or Vorinclex, we simply cannot be caught without an answer.
Other Commons to Consider for Pick 1
To be fair, it is disappointing to start a draft with one of these cards. Commons are never the flashiest first picks. Still, these cards are solid, and can help us build a strong deck. They boast flexibility within their colors and power within the format.
Ephara's Dispersal is still underrated. It has the second-best GIH WR% and is a big contributor to blue's stranglehold on the format. We've talked about the importance of tempo-positive interaction in this article basically every week, so I'll spare you the lecture.
While we should want to be blue, we shouldn't sacrifice power level to do so. Open colors will offer us more than the best color in a vacuum. Blue provides strong commons, but if the color isn't open, we won't see the many potent difference-makers. It's similar to red in All Will Be One (ONE) in being so deep at common that we can pair it with anything and get a good deck. The difference is that in ONE, aggro chased away the bombs. In MOM, we want to position ourselves to draft bombs.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Volcanic Spite
Red gives us the option to zig while the meta zags, and Volcanic Spite is a common we should consider as an "on ramp" to the color. Cheap interaction and filtering with the potential to flip a battle is an incredible amount of versatility for a two-mana instant. Once we're in red, this card moves up our pick order rapidly, but in a soft pack one, I'm not heartbroken to walk away with the better Fire Prophecy.
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Pest is a jack of all trades, but a master of none. Early on it smooths out land drops, while in the midgame, the ability to dig for a battles provides potent versatility. This card facilitates a green-based multi-color deck, and is often searching up Sultai-flavored battles to pull ahead of our opponents. We should move flip cards up our pick order once we secure a couple of pests.
A Common Cause
Synergy matters a great deal in this format, and while we'd like to start that synergy with a card of higher rarity, doing so is not always an option. Once we commit to a path, an on-plan common will outperform an off-plan rare. Occasionally, we're so enchanted by speculation, we cast discipline to the wind.
In modern limited designs, we see a lot of reskinned effects in new environments. This can cause us to ignore them. We should instead reconsider how they perform in this meta and in our deck. The following cards play well in their archetypes and are easily overlooked. Don't be sure that they'll table. If we need them, we should take them.
It's always a blessing to be in an open color. This is especially true when we can position ourselves to snipe a higher concentration of rares than the average set might hold. Playing multi-colored bomb-soup is a reasonable way to ensure we have access to that plan, which is especially well-supported in green. If we sense ourselves being pulled in this direction, we still want to make sure we're disciplined... even while embarking on the greediest path archetype. That means prioritizing Blighted Burgeoning.
While it's not as powerful as Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave, it's a fixer that ramps at common. The card boasts a 2.5 point improvement when drawn, and is typically picked around pick five or six. It's very good in the decks that want it.
Portent Tracker pairs nicely with this aura. Generating seven mana on turn four can create a game-warping advantage if we're able to capitalize. Additionally, Phyrexian synergies are in four of the five colors. These two cards let us cast our spells while leaving mana to flip over our Incubators.
UW Knights is the premier aggro deck in the format, and its best play on turn two is Swordsworn Cavalier. It might be the most important common in UW Knights. With first strike activated, it's basically unblockable until the mid-game. Additionally, it has very powerful interactions with some of the Multiverse Legends.
Knights decks seeking early plays shouldn't wait to grab Swordsworn Cavalier. In UW Knights, this card has the second-highest Opening Hand Win Rate amongst commons (a scintillating 61.7%), second only to Preening Champion.
When we're in UW Knights, we might be tempted by Realmbreaker's Grasp, Phyrexian Censor, or even a rare like Gyruda, Doom of Depths, but be cautious. Swordsworn Cavalier is important for the archetype and should be selected as such.
While UW Knights wants to take an aggressive role, wars of attrition are more often the deciding factor in this format. As a result, Unseal the Necropolis is a powerful tool. It's going slightly before pick seven, so don't expect to see these on the wheel. If we know we need one, and we see it early, it might be time to bite the bullet. These double-Raise Dead effects can serve as strategy lynchpins. It would be a real shame if we missed out because we got greedy.
This card gains value for each bomb we can recover with it. It can create powerful loops with Halo-Charged Skaab. Most importantly, it helps us power through the mid-game while accelerating us toward an ending. The symmetrical mill and instant speed are huge additions to a generally powerful effect. Even getting back a pedestrian pair like Converter Beast and Nezumi Informant to nab a mysterious card from an opponent's hand can feel strong. We don't have to work hard to make this card a two-for-one, and with rares, it can feel much better than that.
Conversely, if we've already secured a couple of these effects, cards like Eyes of Gitaxias and Gift of Compleation should move down in our pick order accordingly. This card plays well with cards that are actually creatures, not just effects that create them. If we're building our decks poorly, we might find ourselves waiting for a second creature to die or hoping to spike one on the mill. That's the fail state for this card, but it's easily avoidable if we draft with it in mind.
March Onward!
This is a format of haymakers. Powerful rares and mythics sometimes dominate games, but timely removal spells and well-built decks can also balance the playing field. Synergies exist at the archetype level, but also within smaller deck-building decisions. By building our decks in a cohesive manner, and knowing the commons that facilitate our plan, we put ourselves in a position to win consistently. Even when we don't draw our game-breaking rares.
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Every time I venture back into this format, I feel like I'm discovering new synergies. Sometimes I'm eking out value with Nezumi Informant, and other times Halo Hopper snowballs into powerful convoke spells. Many of the overlooked cards can thrive in the right deck, which creates depth in an already beloved format. So don't be afraid to pick a card if you think it will work in your deck. You might just be a trailblazer, and there's no edge sharper than a fresh one.
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Modern has clearly moved towards stability since Modern Horizons 2 came out. The fact that the data for March and April look pretty similar confirms that conclusion. However, the data doesn't tell the full story. There's a lot more going on than the data conveys. Wednesday was about presenting the data; today's article is about explaining how the data happened and if it means anything.
The Song of Monkey and Archon
The headline data point in April was that 4-Color Creativity was #1 in paper and very nearly caught UR Murktide on Magic Online (MTGO). While Murktide has fallen in paper before, it was never by the extent it did in April and Creativity has never approached this mark online before.
Some might take that to mean that there's change in the air and that Creativity is the new top deck in Modern. The data backs this up, but only if you just look at the numbers. The story of how that happened paints a very different picture. Murktide, and to a lesser extent Rhinos, had a more impressive month than Creativity, which ended up underperforming.
A Marathon, Not a Sprint
At the start of April, I'd have agreed with the above assessment. After the first week of April, Creativity was out ahead of all the other decks by a significant margin. If I recall correctly, it was up in the 20s in both paper and online while its closest competition was Temur Rhinos with around 10 results. Murktide was barely on the board with around five results apiece.
However, over the following weeks, a trend emerged. After a phenomenal opening weekend, Creativity fell away. It had shown up in force for several Challenges, but on MTGO Creativity just wasn't showing up in the Preliminaries. Murktide did, and just kept putting up results during the week and then placing a few into the Challenges. Rhinos was doing the same thing, but not to quite the same degree.
I record data every Friday, and after April 7, Creativity had a big lead on everything else. By April 14, that lead had halved. Rhinos was closing the gap and Murktide had caught Creativity. On April 21, Murktide caught Creativity online, with Rhinos not far behind. By April 28, Murktide was out in front by a good margin, leaving Rhinos behind. The last-minute surge over the weekend wasn't enough for Creativity to come back, even if Murktide hadn't had a compensating good Challenge as well.
Feast And Famine
I've never mentioned this before, but in my experience tracing the data, most results come in feast and famine cycles. A deck will have a really good weekend, disappear for some time, and then return. The length of the disappearance is often determinative for tier status. The power Tier 3 decks that don't show up on the population tier yet are at or near the top of average power ranking are the kings of this. They almost always have one phenomenal weekend and then completely disappear.
The decks that rise to the top of the metagame limit their famines. They often maximize the feast, but that's actually not required. Consistent results over the course of a month do far more to move a deck up the rankings than single events. This is where Murktide and to a lesser extent Rhinos and Hammer Time excel. They can have exceptional weeks, but even if they don't, they'll still put up decent numbers in smaller events over the week. Rhinos and Hammer still have true famine weeks, but Murktide's never been missing a whole week.
Rakdos Scam and Creativity are big feasters but are also prone to famine. Especially online, they show up in large events in force but are often missing entirely during the week. When they feast, they gorge but the relative lack of consistency holds them back. Murktide is so consistent in putting up results that even when it starts behind (which is very rare) it's able to catch up thanks to its rivals having an off week. It just keeps on keeping on.
What About Paper?
This has been a consistent observation for me about MTGO's data. Paper is a different animal. The above-described effects were definitely happening in paper as well this month. However, Murktide and Rhinos didn't actually catch Creativity. In fact, Creativity maintained a fairly commanding lead all month.
This isn't something to read into. The MTGO data comes out in predictable intervals and produces a predictable number of events. Since Daybreak took over running the program, a minimum of three Challenges and seven Preliminaries will be posted every week. Frequently, there are more, but for the past few months never less.
There's no predictability for paper results. Tournament Organizers don't have to schedule any Modern events in a month, nor report them in a timely fashion. I checked today, and there were a number of events from mid-to-late April that are just now being posted. The effect I saw on MTGO was happening in paper, however, the gaps in the data and lower total results yielded a different result. The metagame isn't at fault for the difference, unreliable reporting is, so don't read into the results.
The Implication
It makes sense that Murktide would pull ahead thanks to its consistency more than anything else. The deck is following the Turbo Xerox formula with many cantrips and a low land count. It has more velocity than any other deck which leads to consistent games. This consistency has translated into a very long run as Modern's most-played deck. Even if it's not the best-positioned deck, players know what to expect.
The cascade decks are similar thanks to effect redundancy, and Hammer Time has tutors. They don't have the smoothing depth that Murktide does, but they do have enough to keep up. Creativity and Scam are lacking in this area. They have some redundancy and smoothing, but it's to a lesser extent and at a higher cost than the other decks. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki and Seasoned Pyromancer are powerful but aren't really smoothing cards like Consider, Mishra's Bauble, and Expressive Iteration. That's probably why Scam has been so volatile.
End Life Care
On the subject of challenging the top decks, what's going on with Living End? That's a genuine question, not remotely rhetorical. It was hot on the heels of the Big Five online, but just barely limped onto Tier 3 in paper. This followed a month where the deck was at the bottom of Tier 1 in both play mediums. Historically, the deck has been quite volatile, but it has never deviated from itself this much.
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It's possible that paper's poor reporting is a factor. However, given how far from Tier 1 it is, that seems unlikely. It'd be one thing if there was a positive trend that got interrupted, but it was completely absent from the results. This points to an actual change in pilots and/or metagame positioning for the paper fall-off. However, I don't see enough deviation between paper and online play for positioning to be the reason.
The only distinct difference I can see is that graveyard hate was down slightly online. The various Urza's Saga decks stopped playing Soul Guide Lantern, either maindeck or sideboard, and alternative graveyard hate was also minimal. The paper decks didn't follow this strategy. Endurance was as prevalent as it ever was, so this explanation seems weak but it's all I have.
Doctor's In
On a similar note, Yawgmoth made it back to Tier 1 online after missing in March. However, I wouldn't exactly call it good news for the deck. Its average points were so bad that it fell to Tier 2 on power and was tied for second worst performance for online decks. Not exactly a rousing success, especially when it was lower-mid Tier 3 in paper and underperformed against the baseline there, too.
While I don't know the ins and outs of its matchups, I do know that Yawgmoth has a reputation for beating Murktide. I'd guess that the high amount of play Yawgmoth saw was predicated on there being lots of Murktide to feed on. While there was a lot of Murktide out there, it wasn't to the extent of previous months, and therefore, the strategy didn't work out. There were too many other matchups out there.
Unfit Prime Time?
Something that the data article didn't show is that for the first time, Amulet of Vigor players are branching out. Rather than being all together on Amulet Titan, a few players got experimental. There were a few trying Aspiringspike's Door to Nothingness brew, and others trying other combos with Amulet. There was even one deck that was otherwise an unremarkable Amulet deck, except that it didn't play any Primeval Titans. That'd have positively been blasphemous before now.
You have to be an Amulet player to understand developments in Amulet Titan. However, the fact that the players are willing to experiment with what had been quite an orthodox deck is significant. It might mean that players are getting bored with the typical game plan, or it might also indicate that there are metagame concerns. Maybe Titan is finally getting pushed out? In any case, Amulet willingly changing itself without new cards is always something to watch.
Finance Corner
As always, I end in the Finance Corner. Here is where I gaze into the financial crystal ball to try and foresee the coming month of market trends. This month will leave many disappointed because I don't see much opportunity on the horizon.
There's no reason to think that the Big Five decks are going anywhere. Scam was quite weak in paper in April, but that's probably down to a lack of events. The deck has never shown up that much in local events but shines at the big events. I suspect there are social considerations/pressures at play. With fewer large events, Scam was down. It's still strong online, so it's not in danger of falling out of the metagame.
Consequently, there won't be a wild swing to drive upward price pressures for any deck. In fact, with all the reprints there continues to be gentle downward pressure on staple prices, with particular pressure on Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Thus, this is a (weak) buyers' market rather than a seller's market. Plan accordingly.
Aftermarket Aftermath
While there is another set coming out in May, I don't think it will mean anything for the Modern market. March of the Machine: The Aftermath looks extremely underwhelming, particularly for older formats but I have to imagine it's not great for Standard, either. It's less a new set and more like EA-style downloadable content (DLC). It's content that was meant for the main game but got carved out for a microtransaction. I'm not impressed.
There are a few cards I have my eye on that might see niche play in Modern. However, emphasis on the niche, there. They might adjust a few matchups slightly, but there's nothing to completely revamp any deck. Thus, the financial and metagame impact should be muted.
A Modern Stabilized
There's nothing foreseeable that will cause any dramatic change in Modern anytime soon. With prices falling Wizards might choose to make bans in the near future, or they might continue to wait and watch, I can't know. What I do know is that Modern is fine for the moment and will continue to be fine in May. Not great, not bad, just fine.
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Checking out a new shop can be intimidating, even for Magic veterans. A new venue is always a unique experience; you never know exactly what the store, players, or meta are like until you show up.
When a brand-new local store opened near me, I just had to go check it out. Today, I'll talk about how game night went, and then I'll share some do's and don'ts that are sure to make your next new LGS Commander experience smoother and funner.
The Newest of New Stores
The store in question, Sky High Comics and Games, is certainly a wild card. As the name suggests, they have comics, but they also carry vintage video games, pen and paper RPGs, and a variety of TCGs. They just opened a week ago, and this would be their first Commander night ever. I planned on spending a long night playing as many games of Commander as I could to get a feel for the player base.
I showed up very early because I wanted to check out the store's inventory, and incidentally, another player I knew also showed up. This was surprising because this store was further away for them, and they often commented on how long the drive was to the closer store. In any case, there was also another player who was ready to play, but no one else.
We all decided to play a three-player game and quickly went over a couple of Rule Zero ideas. None of us were looking for a fully competitive game, but one of the players only had one deck on them: an optimized, but not yet fully completed, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born pile with a few infinite combos, but lacking in tutors. I took this as a queue to run something with lots of removal, so I played Chun-Li, Countless Kicks, and the other player ran Sheoldred, The Apocalypse.
We wound up with a nice back-and-forth game with me in the middle of two mostly black decks that were running the exact same cards. Both players landed The Meathook Massacre and cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Between death triggers, Gary, and Sheoldred, my life points evaporated, and soon Sheoldred took the game. It was a fun warm up-game while we were waiting for others to arrive. I'd like to say we did not have to wait long, but that would not be accurate.
A Chance to Play Legacy and Pauper: Enter the Yu-Gi-Oh!
As our game finished, a new player showed up, and another was interrupted by a work call and excused themselves. The new player busted out a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck and challenged either of us to a duel. I sat and watched until the person came back from their work call.
Not wanting to interrupt the intense Yu-Gi-Oh! action, he asked me if I had any non-Commander decks with me, and I mentioned I did have a Pauper deck. Well, he had a Legacy deck, and I was fine with playing.
Legacy versus Pauper: who will win? Well, no surprise there. Turn one Dark Ritual, Entomb, Reanimate on Griselbrand killed me easily. However, I did take game two with a timely Fog that stopped his Animate Dead- enchanted Grisel from gaining life on attack. Since he had already drawn a bunch of cards by paying life, he was low enough that he died from my attack. Of course, game three I was on the draw, and died horribly. Still, my entire deck was 1/100th of the cost of that deck, and I had fun scoring a win. Once our individual duels cleared up, we joined together for a pod of four, and this game was quite a bit different.
A Trend Emerges
Two of the four players only had one deck with them. One had the Draconic Rage pre-constructed deck, and the other, a partially-completed cEDH deck with Tymna The Weaver and Thrasios, Triton Hero. In my head, there was no way to reconcile the power level difference, so I talked about expectations and really leaned on the pre-con player to spell out what would make the game work for them.
They were only interested in seeing the game progress, and did not care if it was over in two turns or lasted an hour. Since all the players were fine with pretty much anything, I picked a higher-powered deck in Tivit, Seller of Secrets because it ran a lot of counter magic, even though the only threat was Tivit himself. In this set, I basically sat back and allowed two of the players to play, keeping up counter magic and removal to prevent the game from ending.
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Even though an Enlightened Tutor fetched up a Counterbalance for the Tymna player with Sensei's Divining Top in play, I feared no evil because I had a Nimble Obstructionist in hand. Tivit hit the table and made me a ton of Treasure tokens; Counter Balance hit play and we went around the table.
My draw was too good: Expropriate! After attacking and generating a ton more Treasures, I cast it. The player piloting the cEDH deck knew they could not stop a nine-mana spell, because cEDH decks don't typically run nine-mana spells. Extra turns resulted in eliminating a player, playing an Archaeomancer to get back Expropriate, and re-playing it the turn after. With several extra turns coming up and another Flicker effect ready, the remaining players scooped.
During that game, a lot of players arrived, and multiple pods were firing. There was a pretty large wait until my next game as people made purchases, grabbed a snack, used the restroom, or paired up for other games. I used this time to talk to store management and ask about future Commander events. They were open to suggestions and mentioned the events they already planned. I mentioned just a couple of ideas to spice up the format, but wanted to interact with more players to see how interested they would be in variants. Turns out, quite a bit.
It was very late by the time the final pod started, and it was a group of us all playing slightly modified pre-cons. That game dragged on for nearly two hours due to board wipes, removal, and lack of win conditions. Eventually, I did manage to claw my way into a win by copying three artifacts a turn with a fully leveled-up Artificer's Class, Mishra, Eminent One and Strionic Resonator, but it may have been smarter for us to just call the game sooner because it was such a slog for all involved.
I had just played Commander for about five hours, met a dozen new people, and had a good time. This result begged the question: could my results be replicated? Here are the promised tips to your next trip to a new venue that much better.
1) Do: Bring Lots of (Toys) Decks
This is one of the best moves for a variety of reasons. Most of the other players were relatively new to Commander, and so many had exactly one deck. However, that did not mean those decks were anywhere near the same power level. Yes, there were both extremes present at the same table, those with pre-cons and cEDH decks. Being able to pick something that matches up well with the table will generate a far more interactive experience than picking your best deck to pub stomp.
Obviously, for new players who own one deck, this is not always an option. The idea is that if everyone else brings a few decks, they may be able to lend a deck that can make a better experience for the entire table. Furthermore, some players forgot dice, tokens and play mats. I had enough to help a couple of people out, which broke the ice and made everyone extra friendly.
2) Don't: Expect Everyone to Want the Same Type of Game
Far too often, one player wants to play one deck, and they do not care about the rest of the table. If you want to play a casual deck when everyone else is looking for tournament practice for an upcoming cEDH event, you are the problem.
Want to play your mass land destruction deck and not having luck finding a table that will tolerate it? Having multiple decks is the easiest way to still get games while telling everyone that you are looking for a pod that wants to experience the "joys" of mass land destruction. When the MLD deck meets the stax deck meets the degenerate deck and is completed by the Rule Zero meme deck, you likely have four happy players who are all playing decks that are generally not as well received in more routine pods.
Some players simply dislike mill or infect or control but, of course, others love those archetypes. In an odd-person-out scenario, try your best to gain a new perspective. Maybe it's not the decks or playstyle you don't enjoy, but a combination of previous players and decks that resulted in a less-than-ideal time. At a new venue, there's always room for a new outlook. As an additional option, ask if you can pilot someone else's deck. Maybe a deck you hate playing against is one you would rather be playing.
3) Do: Know What Type of Game You Are Looking For
Slow and grindy, explosive combos, and completely reactive are very different vibes. Expectations that are not set cannot be met. Practically everyone I asked at this new store said they wanted to participate in cEDH events (tournaments for prizes), but outside of that were looking for casual tables.
Another way of saying this is that no one was looking for explicit cEDH tournament practice that night. This mindset is far from unique, but many Commander players seem to not have gotten the memo. There's a very different feeling between simply wanting to cast your Commander and move to combat versus having to keep up mana for responses every turn or play with tight sequencing. In casual Commander, there are a lot of takesies-backsies that will never fly at a competitive event, but are completely permissible at lower-level tables.
4) Don't: Be Afraid to Challenge Your Assumptions
As previously described, a lot of the players who showed up were very interested in cEDH at the tournament level; far more than I would ever expect. While we played, I pressed for details, and a fairly common, unifying theme was the speed of the format. Many of the players at this venue wanted to play a lot of games, and quantity had a quality they were after.
Overall, they were not overly concerned with winning, interaction, or complicated board states. They were more excited to see higher-powered cards and strategies hitting the table, even if that meant the game was over. It was refreshing to see appreciation for a completely different aspect of the game.
5) Do: Bring Something Besides Commander
Whether Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, or Legacy, there is likely some down time between pods as games finish. In particular, there were a couple of "waves" that joined, with a lot of waiting in between. By having a deck of another format available, I could spend my downtime enjoying Magic in another form instead of merely waiting.
However, there is always something to be said for having a good book on hand just in case a game drags on particularly long while you are waiting for a pod to open up. In either case, a tiny bit of preparation can lead to a significantly better experience.
6) Don't: Forget to Have Fun!
Remember: ultimately, everyone comes out to have fun. Other players are fellow enthusiasts, trade partners, and maybe future tournament rivals. You really don't want to give them another reason to go after you in a competitive game with actual stakes on the line, right? Be on your best behavior, and have a good time. It will pay dividends now and in the future.
My New Competitive-Casual Venue?
As for Sky High, It's a very interesting environment with a wide-open meta, at least at first glance. While there was a lot of EDREC style groupthink, there was also enough interest in things like Planechase to keep events fresh. It was an enjoyable new place to play Commander, and I look forward to writing cEDH tournament reports if they do move forward with events as planned.
Currently, this venue would not be as casual and relaxed as another one of my LGS options, and likely not quite as competitive as yet another. So is it too hot, too cold, or just right? That remains to be seen. But as a final tip, I find it can be productive to consider how a new LGS fits into your own local game store ecosystem to get the most out of available options.
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New month, new metagame update. Not a new metagame, though. As I've been explaining for months now, Modern has settled into an equilibrium. The top of the metagame looks basically the same as it did in March. The rest of the metagame has been in flux, but not of the kind that will actually disturb the overall status quo. I have doubts that anything in the coming months will be able to change things, either.
Confusing Outliers
As has been the case since March 2022, there are outliers in the data. However, the number of outliers is not entirely clear. When I do these calculations, I use a variety of tests which use a variety of methods. Normally, their conclusions are consistent, but that was not the case for April.
For the Magic Online (MTGO) results, tests using the interquartile range (IQR) said that the top five results were definitely outliers, and the next two were on the bubble. Which makes sense, given the data. IQR tests look at the spread and gaps in the data, and it is quite large, though not as bad as last month.
However, tests using the z-statistic said there's no outliers. They're focused on the standard deviation and skew in the data, and while both were large, they weren't as bad as in previous months. The unadjusted MTGO population StDev is 22.80 and kurtosis of 10.30 in April where March had 23.58 and 22.68 respectively.
Thus, the stats aren't clear. I went with the IQR conclusions in order to include more decks on the tier list.
For paper, the results gave a clearer answer, but not a clear reason. All tests agreed that the top result was an outlier. After that, there was no agreement. Some z-tests said that only that top result was an outlier, others said that the top four were outliers. Some IQR tests had four outliers, some had six, some had only one.
I decided to only treat the top result as an outlier as every test agreed that it was, but this stands as a testament to how weird the data is this month. As always, outliers are removed from the tier calculations, resulting in adjusted averages and STDev's. The decks remain in their correct place on the tier list.
April Population Metagame
To make the tier list, a given deck has to beat the overall average population for the month. The average is my estimate for how many results a given deck "should” produce in a given month. Being a tiered deck requires being better than “good enough.” Every deck that posts at least the average number of results is "good enough" and makes the tier list.
Then we go one standard deviation (STdev) above average to set the limit of Tier 3 and the cutoff for Tier 2. This mathematically defines Tier 3 as those decks clustered near the average. Tier 2 goes from the cutoff to the next standard deviation. These are decks that perform well above average. Tier 1 consists of those decks at least two standard deviations above the mean result, encompassing the truly exceptional performing decks.
The MTGO data nearly exclusively comes from official Preliminary and Challenge results. Leagues are excluded, as they are curated lists and thus invalid. The paper data comes from any sourceI can find, with all reported events being counted.
The MTGO Population Data
In April, the adjusted average population for MTGO was 6.21, setting the Tier 3 cutoff at seven decks. Tier 3, therefore, begins with decks posting seven results. The adjusted STdev was 7.91, which means that Tier 3 runs to 15 results. Again, it's the starting point to the cutoff, then the next whole number for the next Tier. Therefore Tier 2 starts with 16 results and runs to 24. Subsequently, to make Tier 1, 25 decks are required. The stats have changed marginally, but the tier cutoffs are the same as in March. Which makes sense, given the removal of outliers.
April couldn't match the heights of March. Due to fewer events and smaller Preliminaries, the population is down. January 2023 had 840 decks, February had 876, and March had a staggering 1,003 decks. April fell short at 949 decks.
Along with population, diversity is down. January had 74 unique decks, February had 84, March mustered 88, and April hit 82. The fact that April is below February's mark either says a lot about February's diversity or indicates an actual decrease in diversity. Hard to say.
Of the 82 decks, 29 made the population tier. Which is up from March's 25 decks, though again the extreme adjustment is more at fault for that than the metagame.
Deck Name
Total #
Total %
Tier 1
UR Murktide
109
11.49
4-Color Creativity
104
10.96
Temur Rhinos
96
10.12
Rakdos Scam
94
9.90
Hammer Time
68
7.16
Living End
49
5.16
Yawgmoth
30
3.16
Tier 2
Burn
22
2.32
Amulet Titan
21
2.21
UW Control
21
2.21
Merfolk
20
2.11
Tier 3
Bring to Light
15
1.58
Mono-Green Tron
15
1.58
Affinity
15
1.58
Izzet Prowess
14
1.47
Mill
14
1.47
Coffers
12
1.26
Jund Saga
12
1.26
4-Color Blink
11
1.16
Temur Creativity
11
1.16
Goryo's Kitchen
10
1.05
4-Color Elementals
9
0.95
4-Color Control
9
0.95
Counter Cat
9
0.95
Humans
9
0.95
Jeskai Combo Breach
8
0.84
Belcher
8
0.84
Jeskai Value Breach
7
0.74
Mono-Blue Tron
7
0.74
To carry on a point from last week, the 5-deck concentration ratio is up to 49.63. Tier 1 has consistently taken up a huge chunk of the metagame since I started tracking that stat, while in the past it was more evenly distributed between the member decks. Living End and Yawgmoth's contributions are negligible, and that's worrying.
The Paper Population Data
The paper tiers are calculated the same way as the MTGO tiers, just with different data. In most months there are far more reported paper events than online, but paper also tends to report fewer results per event. It's quite annoying, but paper events rarely report more than the Top 8, and far too often for my purposes, only the Top 4. This makes the paper data far more variable than MTGO.
January saw 667 decks, February is up to 807, March hit 962, but April has plunged to 551. There were a number of large events that reported scattered results (not even the full Top 8!) and others are simply missing. Face to Face Games had an open in Montreal last weekend, but I haven't seen any of the data, or even any talk about the event. They're not alone. Tournament Organizers: get it together! We need data!
Paper events often report the actual records alongside decklists. Thus, I've decided to change how I record decks when win rates are available. For smaller events, I take any winning record which sometimes means I don't include the full Top 8. For larger events, I'm taking the Top 32 and all the decks with the same record as 32nd place. Tiebreakers are a strange and mysterious alchemy, after all, and may benefit or screw players on a whim.
That said, significantly fewer decks recorded did yield a significantly less diverse dataset. January had 101, February 108, March just 103, and April 89. That is almost certainly a function of the lower population rather than metagame forces. 24 decks made the tier list, which is low but again makes sense in context. The adjusted average population was 5.58, so six decks make Tier 3. The adjusted STDev was 8.61, so the increment is 9. Therefore, Tier 3 runs from 6 to 15, Tier 2 is 16 to 25, and Tier 1 is 26 and over.
Deck Name
Total #
Total %
Tier 1
4-Color Creativity
60
10.89
UR Murktide
44
7.99
Temur Rhinos
44
7.99
Hammer Time
42
7.62
Tier 2
Rakdos Scam
24
4.36
Amulet Titan
22
3.99
Burn
21
3.81
Tier 3
UW Control
15
2.72
Izzet Prowess
13
2.36
Merfolk
12
2.18
Mono-Green Tron
11
2.00
4-Color Elementals
11
2.00
Yawgmoth
11
2.00
Jeskai Combo Breach
10
1.81
Goryo Blink
10
1.81
Bring to Light
10
1.81
Boros Moon
9
1.63
Mono-Blue Tron
9
1.63
Counter Cat
8
1.45
Jund Saga
8
1.45
Living End
7
1.27
Ponza
7
1.27
4-Color Rhinos
6
1.09
Grixis Shadow
6
1.09
Tier 1 is much smaller in paper than on MTGO. That's good, but I suspect it's down more to the lower population than anything else. That Tier 2 is similarly tiny lends credence to this idea. It is notable that UR Murktide was not the top deck in paper, having been replaced by 4-Color Creativity. However, don't celebrate just yet. The story of how that happened (in paper and MTGO) is a big piece of Friday's analysis article, and the reason for this isn't quite what you'd think.
March Power Metagame
Tracking the metagame in terms of population is standard practice. But how do results actually factor in? Better decks should also have better results. In an effort to measure this, I use a power ranking system in addition to the prevalence list. By doing so, I measure the relative strengths of each deck within the metagame.
The population method gives a deck that consistently just squeaks into the Top 32 the same weight as one that Top 8's. Using a power ranking rewards good results and moves the winningest decks to the top of the pile and better reflects their metagame potential.
The MTGO Power Tiers
For the MTGO data, points are awarded based on the population of the event. Preliminaries award points based on record (1 for 3 wins, 2 for 4 wins, 3 for 5), and Challenges are scored 3 points for the Top 8, 2 for Top 16, and 1 for Top 32. If I can find them, non-Wizards events will be awarded points the same as Challenges or Preliminaries depending on what the event in question reports/behaves like. Super Qualifiers and similar higher-level events get an extra point and so do other events if they’re over 200 players, with a fifth point for going over 400 players. There were a few 4-point events and no 5-pointer in April.
Total points fell just like the population, from 1631 to 1477. The adjusted average points were 9.74, therefore 10 points made Tier 3. The adjusted STDev was 13.33. Add 14 to the starting point and Tier 3 runs to 24 points. Tier 2 starts with 25 points and runs to 39. Tier 1 requires at least 40 points.
Yawgmoth fell out of Tier 1 because it had a terrible conversion rate. As the average power stat will show, it was present, but not actually winning, a lot of events. Meanwhile, Living End did exceptionally well. It must have been very well positioned, but I don't know enough about its matchups to see how or why it was in April, but no other month. It could also be down to the whims of MTGO's volatile player base.
The Paper Power Tiers
Due to paper reporting being inconsistent compared to MTGO, I have to adapt how the points work. Applying the MTGO point system just doesn't work when I don't know how many points to award and there are data gaps. Thus, I award points based on the size of the tournament rather than placement. That way, I'm being internally consistent with the paper results.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Living End
For events with no reported starting population and those up to 32 players, one point is awarded. Events with 33 players up to 128 players gets two points. From 129 players up to 512 players gets three. Above 512 is four points, and five points will be reserved for Modern Pro Tours if they ever happen again.
April saw a number of absurdly large events early on, then started drying up. January saw 1178 points, February hit 1316, and March had 1890, but April clocked in at only 964. The adjusted average points were 9.61. This sets the cutoff at 10 decks. The STDev was 15.76, thus adding 16 to the starting point and Tier 3 runs to 26 points. Tier 2 starts with 27 points and runs to 44. Tier 1 requires at least 44 points. The total decks stayed the same at 24, though Ponza and Jund Saga fell from the list, replaced by 4-Color Blink and Temur Creativity.
Deck Name
Total Points
Total %
Tier 1
4-Color Creativity
118
12.24
UR Murktide
93
9.65
Hammer Time
75
7.78
Temur Rhinos
69
7.16
Rakdos Scam
48
4.98
Tier 2
Burn
37
3.84
Amulet Titan
32
3.32
UW Control
27
2.80
Tier 3
Izzet Prowess
20
2.07
Mono-Green Tron
20
2.07
Merfolk
19
1.97
Jeskai Combo Breach
19
1.97
Bring to Light
19
1.97
4-Color Elementals
18
1.87
Yawgmoth
18
1.87
Counter Cat
17
1.76
Living End
17
1.76
Goryo Blink
16
1.66
Boros Moon
12
1.24
Grixis Shadow
12
1,24
4-Color Blink
12
1.24
Temur Creativity
12
1.24
4-Color Rhinos
11
1.14
Mono-Blue Tron
10
1.04
Rakdos Scam has usually underperformed relative to the other top decks in paper compared to MTGO. I'm not sure why this happens, other than it shows up at big events and is missing from small ones. I suspect, therefore, that social considerations are more at play than anything else. With fewer big events reported (many more happened than were reported), it fell considerably.
Average Power Rankings
Finally, we come to the average power rankings. These are found by taking the total points earned and dividing them by total decks, to measure points per deck. I use this to measure strength vs. popularity. Measuring deck strength is hard. There is no Wins-Above-Replacement metric for Magic, and I'm not certain that one could be credibly devised. The game is too complex, and even then, power is very contextual.
Using the power rankings certainly helps, and serves to show how justified a deck’s popularity is. However, more popular decks will still necessarily earn a lot of points. Therefore, the top tier doesn't move much between population and power, and obscures whether its decks really earned their position.
This is where the averaging comes in. Decks that earn a lot of points because they get a lot of results will do worse than decks that win more events, indicating which deck actually performs better.
A higher average indicates lots of high finishes, whereas low averages result from mediocre performances and a high population. Lower-tier decks typically do very well here, likely due to their pilots being enthusiasts. Bear this in mind, and be careful about reading too much into these results. However, as a general rule, decks which place above the baseline average are over-performing, and vice versa.
How far above or below that average a deck is can "justifiy" its position on the power tiers. Decks well above baseline are undervalued, while decks well below baseline are very popular, but aren't necessarily good.
The Real Story
When considering the average points, the key is looking at how far off a deck is from the Baseline stat (the overall average of points/population). The closer a deck’s performance to the Baseline, the more likely it is to be performing close to its “true” potential.
A deck that is exactly average would therefore perform exactly as well as expected. The greater the deviation from the average, the more a deck under or over-performs. On the low end, a deck’s placing was mainly due to population rather than power, which suggests it’s overrated. A high-scoring deck is the opposite of this.
I'll begin with the averages for MTGO:
Deck Name
Average Points
Power Tier
Niv to Light
2.50
3
Jund Creativity
2.00
3
4-Color Elementals
1.89
3
Living End
1.82
1
Mono-Green Tron
1.80
2
Izzet Prowess
1.79
2
Humans
1.78
3
Coffers
1.75
3
Temur Creativity
1.73
3
Amulet Titan
1.71
2
Mono-Blue Tron
1.71
3
Burn
1.68
2
UR Murktide
1.63
1
UW Control
1.62
2
Merfolk
1.60
2
Temur Rhinos
1.59
1
Jeskai Value Breach
1.57
3
Baseline
1.54
Rakdos Scam
1.53
1
Bring to Light
1.53
3
4-Color Creativity
1.52
1
4-Color Control
1.44
3
Mill
1.43
3
Jund Saga
1.42
3
Hammer Time
1.38
1
Jeskai Combo Breach
1.37
3
Belcher
1.37
3
4-Color Blink
1.36
3
Affinity
1.33
3
Yawgmoth
1.30
2
Goryo's Kitchen
1.30
3
Counter Cat
1.22
3
Well done, Living End. As the highest ranked Tier 1 deck, you're the MTGO Deck of April. Meanwhile, Hammer Time, what happened? Is Living End at fault (genuine question)?
Now the paper averages:
Deck Name
Average Power
Power Tier
Temur Creativity
3.00
3
Living End
2.43
3
4-Color Blink
2.40
3
Counter Cat
2.12
3
UR Murktide
2.11
1
Rakdos Scam
2.00
1
Grixis Shadow
2.00
3
4-Color Creativity
1.97
1
Jeskai Combo Breach
1.90
3
Bring to Light
1.90
3
4-Color Rhinos
1.83
3
Mono-Green Tron
1.82
3
UW Control
1.80
2
Hammer Time
1.79
1
Burn
1.76
2
Baseline
1.67
4-Color Elementals
1.64
3
Yawgmoth
1.64
3
Goryo Blink
1.60
3
Merfolk
1.58
3
Temur Rhinos
1.57
1
Izzet Prowess
1.54
3
Amulet Titan
1.45
2
Boros Moon
1.33
3
Mono-Blue Tron
1.11
3
This is a first. UR Murktide actually managed to be the Deck of April in paper. I don't think that's ever happened in either medium before. Just goes to show how everyone underestimates the deck, even now.
Composite Metagame
That's a lot of data, but what does it all mean? When Modern Nexus was first started, we had a statistical method to combine the MTGO and paper data, but the math of that system doesn't work without big paper events. I tried. Instead, I'm using an averaging system to combine the data. I take the MTGO results and average the tier, then separately average the paper results, then average the paper and MTGO results together for final tier placement.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Primeval Titan
This generates a lot of partial Tiers. That's not a bug, but a feature. The nuance separates the solidly Tiered decks from the more flexible ones and shows the true relative power differences between the decks. Every deck in the paper and MTGO results is on the table, and when they don't appear in a given category, they're marked N/A. This is treated as a 4 for averaging purposes.
Deck Name
MTGO Pop Tier
MTGO Power Tier
MTGO Average Tier
Paper Pop Tier
Paper Power Tier
Paper Average Tier
Composite Tier
UR Murktide
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
4-Color Creativity
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Temur Rhinos
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Hammer Time
1
1
1
1
1
1
1.00
Rakdos Scam
1
1
1
2
1
1.5
1.25
Living End
1
1
1
3
3
3
2.00
Burn
2
2
2
2
2
2
2.00
Amulet Titan
2
2
2
2
2
2
2.00
Yawgmoth
1
2
1.5
3
3
3
2.25
UW Control
2
2
2
3
2
2.5
2.25
Merfolk
2
2
2
3
3
3
2.50
Mono-Green Tron
3
2
2.5
3
3
3
2.75
Izzet Prowess
3
2
2.5
3
3
3
2.75
Bring to Light
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
4-Color Elementals
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Counter Cat
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Jeskai Combo Breach
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Mono-Blue Tron
3
3
3
3
3
3
3.00
Jund Saga
3
3
3
3
N/A
3.5
3.25
4-Color Blink
3
3
3
N/A
3
3.5
3.25
Temur Creativity
3
3
3
N/A
3
3.5
3.25
Affinity
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Mill
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Coffers
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Goryo's Kitchen
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
4-Color Control
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Humans
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Belcher
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Jeskai Value Breach
3
3
3
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.50
Goryo Blink
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Boros Moon
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
4-Color Rhinos
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Grixis Shadow
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
3
3
3.50
Jund Creativity
N/A
3
3.5
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.75
Niv to Light
N/A
3
3.5
N/A
N/A
N/A
3.75
Ponza
N/A
N/A
N/A
3
N/A
3.5
3.75
Thanks to paper's low concentration, the overall share for Tier 1 fell in April. Again, I'd advise against reading too much into that, as all the unreported events would have likely changed that finding.
An Era of Stability?
With me reporting the same top five decks for the second month in a row across all play platforms, this is feeling more like a 2015 update than anything I've done before. Strap in, readers; I don't think this will be changing anytime soon.
As always, this first-of-the-month article merely presents the collected data, offering little in the way of analysis, metagame implications, and financial opportunities. Join me on Friday when I dig into these results and discuss exactly what has my hackles up.
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
My hunt for a piece of Magic: the Gathering original art remains ongoing. Currently, I am working to reconcile a reasonable budget and browsing the market for what is available. Unfortunately for my budget, I sold many valuable cards from my collection in Las Vegas last year. I of course allocated those proceeds toward my kids' college fund. I could dip back into the fund if I wanted, to put some of that money back into Magic, but I try not to do that.
Maintaining that discipline necessitated taking a finer comb to my remaining collection. I needed to pull out cards and sealed product I’m willing to part with in order to enable the anticipated, costly artwork purchase. After identifying the lowest-hanging fruit, I am now faced with tougher decisions.
What to Sell?
Do I sell items that I am attached to, or do I sell things I wouldn’t mind letting go of, but at a loss? Not all my Magic purchases over the years have led to financial gains—there are a good number of Magic-related products I own that are valued below what I paid. It’s bound to happen with a volatile market. Everyone knows how prices spiked during the peak of the COVID pandemic in 2021-2022, only to come tumbling back down again a year later.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Singing Tree
Almost any Old School card purchased during the peak is going to be in the red today. Of course, some cards have held up better than others. I've noticed that Dual Lands have remained particularly resilient during this cooldown period. My Beta rares have held up somewhat poorly, but at least I purchased these at a steep discount via ABUGames’ eBay auctions.
I have heard that sealed product and artwork have gone through a similar trajectory, so at least on the buying side I will see some relief. The fact of the matter remains, however, that I need to lick some wounds and move cards at a modest loss if I want to quickly raise funds for another purchase.
Three Reasons to Sell for a Loss
As I considered my eagerness to sell, I realized that I’m OK with taking a financial loss on some cards and sealed products because it is a means to an end. If I'm selling something because there’s something else I am eager to buy, and I don’t want to wait the required months it would take for the market to (potentially) recover, I need to accept the prices that the market is willing to bear at the given time.
What’s more, if I did decide to wait, in the hopes that my cards would jump back up in value, it’s equally likely the item I wish to buy—in this case, a piece of original Magic art—would also climb up in step with the rest of the market. I must expect this trend, so waiting isn’t a good enough solution. As I considered this decision seriously, I thought up other reasons it may be perfectly acceptable to sell something for a loss.
Reason 1: Opportunity Cost
I’ll bucket my motivations to buy something else within this category. Owning something with monetary value carries opportunity cost—that is, the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. By owning item A, you forfeit the opportunity that investments B, C, D, etc. have to offer.
A commentator on CNBC will sometimes state that the decision to not sell a stock on any given day is equivalent to the decision to buy that stock for that day. What does she mean by this? It’s another way of describing opportunity cost, and it indicates the passive choice being made by someone who sits on an asset without selling. It implies that one could have bought other things with that money, but they instead decided to hold that same asset, so that’s where they are deciding to put their money to work.
This goes beyond simple investment allocation management as well. Since we are talking about highly fungible, liquid assets in Magic cards, the resources could be spent pretty much anywhere cash is accepted. Do you want to redo your kitchen or own a Black Lotus[card]? Do you want that [card]Underground Sea or would you rather use that money to pay for urgent car repairs? Would you rather have a large Old School collection or money in a college savings account?
We make these decisions every single day we don’t sell our cards. We’re frequently happy with this choice because of all the enjoyment we get out of the cards, in addition to the financial upside they offer. Sometimes, however, the alternative is correct, and this could be a time it’s OK to sell even for a loss.
Reason 2: New Risks of Value Erosion
You’ve heard the expression, “Don’t throw good money after bad.” Good Life Project explains this concept as follows: once you realize something you’re invested in is not what you thought and likely never will be, don’t keep putting new money into it just because of what you’ve already invested.
This expression is what I think of when I consider the motivation to sell something, even for a loss. A great example here is the risk of impending reprints. You may have speculated on a card for potential long-term growth, only to see it coming up as a reprint in a new supplemental product. The best action to take at that moment is to liquidate, even if you’re still underwater on the card. The price is likely to decay even further before it has any chance of recovering.
Consider Liliana of the Veil’s reprint in Dominaria United, and what it did to her price. This card once flirted with a $100 price tag, but can now be purchased for under $20. If you had picked up a few copies for Modern play a year or two ago, it would have been wise to cash out of the cards as soon as there was news of her reprint in Standard. Back in August, Dominaria United copies were pre-selling in the $50 range; contrast that with her $19 price tag eight months later.
In today’s environment, reprint risk runs rampant. If the card isn’t on the Reserved List, it isn’t safe (with few exceptions). Every time Force of Will tries to break $100, it sees another reprint and pulls back. Fetch lands and shock lands are also perpetually at risk of a reprint—Wizards knows the inclusion of these cards can boost a set’s sales considerably.
In addition to reprints, there is downside risk if a card is about to rotate out of Standard. Metagame shifts can also impact pricing, as can a card’s risk of being banned. All these factors merit a decision to sell a given card, even if your price of entry was higher. There is no sense in holding something simply because you paid more for it—cut your losses and move on.
Reason 3: Altruism
I want to share a personal story that doesn’t put me in the best light—it’s a decision I made many years ago that I regret to this day. Around 15 years ago I was at my LGS trading with folks as was the norm back then. There was a newer player who was interested in one of my cards (I don’t even remember which one anymore). I knew the cards she wanted were valued at around $20, and when I browsed her binder, I didn’t find anything of interest. After hemming and hawing for a few minutes, I apologized and handed her the binder back, declining to trade.
Why is this a regret of mine? I’m disappointed in how I handled the situation. This was a new player, and I had an opportunity to help her out and give her a positive experience in the hobby. This would have been a win for her, a win for Magic, and possibly a win for me in the long term. Instead, I was shortsighted and too value-conscious—I didn’t want to take a small loss and so I declined to trade.
Since when had I become such a miser? I’d like to think that, if faced with the same decision today, I would have been happy to give a new player a great deal in order to help them bolster their collection and strengthen their first deck. It’s not like this player wanted a dual land and only had bulk Standard rares to offer. She wanted some new Standard card, and I balked at a loss of a few bucks.
Don’t be like me. I remember that greedy decision even today, many years later. Helping out a new player is a perfectly good reason to take a small loss on cards if you can afford it. I don’t know if people trade cards anymore, but if there’s an option to help a new player out at a cost of a few bucks, I say it’s worthwhile to make the altruistic investment. What’s good for new players is good for the Magic community.
Wrapping It Up
In an ideal world, every card we purchase increases in price afterwards and every card we choose not to buy continues to become cheaper and cheaper. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Sometimes the cards we purchase decline in price over time, and it leaves us with some negative returns on our investments. Businesses can use these losses as tax write-offs, but for the average player, this isn’t a significant consideration.
Despite the lack of tax help, there still may be a few good reasons to sell cards for a loss. This includes opportunity cost considerations, changing risk profiles, and a desire to help a player in need. I’ve had experiences in all three of these situations, and while I never love taking a loss on cards, I have accepted that it’s the nature of the beast. I am confident I haven’t sold my last card at a loss, especially as my priorities within the Magic world shift away from playing in paper.
As you move forward with your day, I encourage you to scrutinize your collection to see if you’re better off cutting some losses to shift priorities as I have. If nothing else, you’ll develop a greater appreciation for the cards you already own!
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My longtime readers know I love bulk rares. I think that started around the time I got into Legacy, back in 2012. I met a gentleman gladly trading dual lands, power, and other expensive cards for bulk rares and mythics. At the time, I thought it was fantastic trading him all these cards I wasn't using for expensive cards I then didn't have to buy. While he only gave $0.10 on rares and $0.25 on mythics, it was still easy to trade into $50 played Savannahs and $30 played Plateaus. What I didn't realize was that he was collecting all these bulk rares and mythics, trading them to the big vendors, getting credit with the trade-in bonus, and then picking up those same duals with that credit, and netting a nice profit in the process.
There was an error retrieving a chart for Savannah
Fast forward a few years and I am now on the other side of those bulk trades. I am the one who has bought extra dual lands and other high-dollar legacy cards to trade people for bulk rares. Admittedly, it is harder to find people willing to make those trades and I often resort to just buying bulk rares and mythics at the going rates of $0.08 per rare and $0.25 per mythic.
ONE Deal Too Good To Resist
The reason I bring this up is that in March I noticed an interesting trend in Phyrexia: All Will Be One (ONE) rares. Many vendors were selling them below this $0.08 threshold. I began to scour TCGPlayer for sellers with large numbers of these bulk rares. I added all rares that they had below that $0.08 value and all mythics below $0.25. Then I added in shipping and taxes to see if the order made sense. If, with the shipping and taxes, the average card value was still less than $0.10 for a rare or $0.28 for a mythic, it was a good deal. In the end, I ended up with seven orders I could justify pulling the trigger on. Would these stores honor these prices?
There was an error retrieving a chart for Minor Misstep
The Experiment
I was curious to see if the stores I ordered from would actually ship large numbers of bulk rares at or below the going bulk rare and mythic rates. From my perspective as a seller, it doesn't actually seem like a good business plan. When you factor in the selling fees, each transaction likely ends up as a loss. From the start, I wondered how many of these stores might not even ship these orders, and just use USPS as an excuse and refund my order when I brought up that it never arrived. I'll admit, I was concerned about the possibility that if most of the stores refunded my order claiming it was lost in shipping, my account might get flagged by TCGPlayer, thinking I was the one trying to scam people. While I was curious enough about the outcome to go through with it, after this experiment, I'm holding off on more bulk rare orders like this for the immediate future.
A Breakdown of My Seven Transactions
Store 1
This is actually the order that inspired it all. Originally I was looking for Minor Misstep in bulk as a potential speculation target. This store listed 14 copies at $0.09 each. Whenever I buy cards from a store on TCGPlayer I always do a quick look to see what else they have since dividing the shipping costs over more cards lowers the overall buy-in price of each individual card. That is when I noticed them offering a bunch of ONE rares at $0.03, $0.04, and $0.05 each. It took me about half an hour of digging through their inventory to come up with 185 cards at a grand total of $14.86. This made the average price per card about $0.08.
Store 2
This store didn't have any Minor Missteps, but they did have a lot of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate (CLB) bulk rares under $0.08 each. Previously, I've mentioned how I think Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate is a set that has a lot of potential from a speculation standpoint. It was released close to Double Masters 2022 (2X2) which had insane value in it. Most Magic players have limited income for buying product. Talking with some local store owners, it was clear that when given the option of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate packs or Double Masters 2022, players almost universally picked the 2X2 packs. My transaction with this store came to 130 cards for $14.02. This made the average card cost about $0.11.
Store 3
The third store had 11 copies of Minor Misstep for $0.03 each, so I dug through what other rares they had and again found a lot of CLB bulk rares under my $0.08 threshold. I also noticed they had a fair amount of Dominaria United bulk rares under $0.08. Given that this set will remain in standard after rotation it seems that there's always a decent chance that some cheap rare from the set ends up finding a home when the format's card pool contracts. This order came out to 62 cards for $11.08. This makes the average card cost $0.18, which is higher than I expected, but there were a fair number of mythics in this order.
Store 4
This store had five copies of Minor Misstep and a bunch of cheap, but not bulk, ONE rares. I only bought 27 cards in this order, but every single one was from ONE. I am trying to finish a playset of Mercurial Spelldancer and they had a copy for $0.75. Other notable pickups were copies of Green Sun's Twilight and Blue Sun's Twilight. This order ended up costing $7.46, with a per-card cost of about $0.28.
This store had a fair number of bulk rares below my $0.08 threshold that are currently Standard-legal. At the time of this order, I was hoping to participate in one of my LGS's Buy/Sell/Trade day events and I currently have almost no Standard cards. The scene there is very casual-oriented, so I figured if I could stock up on a bunch of fun-looking Standard rares I could either trade them towards something I wanted or sell them at $0.25 cents each and still be the cheapest in the area. This order was 58 cards and totaled $8.26 with an average card cost of $0.14.
Store 6
This store had a fairly decent assortment of ONE bulk rares at $0.08 or less, and quite a few Dominaria Remastered (DMR) ones as well. I realized I currently have no DMR bulk rares, so I picked up all of those. I'm not sure how well that set will do ultimately. If it ends up being less opened the rares have a bit more upside. This order was 71 cards for $7.84 with an average card cost of $0.11.
The last store I was able to make a worthwhile transaction with had a lot of Kamigawa: Neon Destiny (NEO) rares listed at less than $0.08 and helped fill out a pretty meager NEO spot in my bulk rare collection. They also had a lot of ONE bulk rares below $0.08 and I managed to buy a large number of them as well. This order was 174 cards for $14.94 for an average card cost of $0.09.
Order Summary
Store 1: 185 cards for $14.86 ($0.08/card)
Store 2: 130 cards for $14.02 ($0.11/card)
Store 3: 62 cards for $11.08 ($0.18/card)
Store 4: 27 cards for $7.46 ($0.28/card)
Store 5: 58 cards for $8.26 ($0.14/card)
Store 6: 71 cards for $7.84 ($0.11/card)
Store 7: 174 cards for $14.94 ($0.09/card)
Total: 707 cards for $78.46 (about $0.11/card)
The Outcome
Overall, four of my orders actually arrived at my doorstep. Store #2 canceled a day after I placed the order. The seller claimed they had inventory issues. Stores #1 and #3 both claimed they shipped, but have not arrived at the time of this writing. These hurt the most as they were some of the largest, and included a large number of the Minor Missteps I was after.
As expected the smaller orders that had an average card cost above $0.20 were all sent and arrived. I should mention that in every case those orders required a padded envelope and oddly enough only two supplied a tracking number despite the fact that all the others ended up having one on the envelope.
Store #7 actually messaged me asking me not to order a bunch of cheap cards from them again, claiming they made no money on my order. Looking over it now, they're probably right.
The two stores that refunded me after claiming they shipped my orders out both came off as very sketchy to me. Speaking as an experienced seller, I know you can't ship 100+ cards without using packaging that would include tracking. I will not be ordering from those sellers ever again. Ultimately though, what this experiment has exposed is more than just problematic individual sellers. It's an issue with how TCGPlayer charges shipping on orders as a whole.
The Issue With TCGPlayer Shipping
I think the above experiment demonstrates that it's ridiculous for TCGPlayer to have a single shipping price for any number of singles. If any of these sellers broke even on these transactions, they were lucky, as my conversation with Store 7 shows.
Smart sellers are going to realize that it's not in their best interest to list cheap cards on TCGPlayer unless they have TCGPlayer Direct or have really high shipping fees. I'd recently been debating whether I would lower my current threshold of $0.79 on singles to increase available inventory in my own TCGPlayer store. However, after this experiment, I think I will keep that threshold in place and pass on trying to sell cheap cards on TCGPlayer.
Fixing TCGPlayer Shipping For Sellers
My suggestion to TCGPlayer would be to break singles shipping down into multiple tiers to allow sellers to charge more for shipping singles when they will have to pay more to ship them. Something like:
0-12 cards: Can easily be sent in a plain white envelope (PWE) with one forever stamp
13-24 cards: Can be sent in a PWE with non-machinable postage paid
25+ cards: This likely requires a small padded envelope which will then include tracking and likely cost somewhere in the $3.50-$4.25 range here in the United States.
Admittedly, had this type of system been in place, my own ordering would have turned out differently. I'd likely have gotten the Minor Missteps that I really wanted, and that would have been the end of it.
Final Thoughts
I'll admit I went into this with the mindset that I could buy a bunch of Standard-legal bulk rares at the same rate I would normally buy random bulk rares in person. While I still got arguably the better end of the deal than all these sellers, my average card cost exceeded the original $0.08 threshold. It just goes to show that even when buying a large number of cards under a certain cost, once you factor in shipping and taxes you can easily exceed your threshold.
Given how Standard cards often spike in price after a Pro Tour, or at rotation when the format shifts, this experience felt like buying a bunch of lottery tickets that I couldn't lose on. Sure, for most of them, I'll just be breaking even. Should one or two hit though, I'll get that rush of success one feels when a speculation target hits. It's a rush I haven't felt in a while.
I mentioned earlier that I'm putting these sorts of bulk rare buys on hold at the moment. It actually takes a fair amount of time to find sellers with enough bulk rares to justify the shipping cost from a bulk buyer perspective. However, I think that if you own a brick-and-mortar shop and have a lot of casual players in your local scene, buying up other online stores' cheap rares could be a viable inventory acquisition strategy.
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Sometimes the secret of a Draft format glimmers in the smallest details.
Consider the combat trick Arachnoid Adaptation. Combat tricks are typically optimized during attacks. We want to use them when our opponent's mana is down to avoid being blown out by instant-speed interaction.
The granted keyword reach, however, does nothing for attacks. Had it been trample or menace, it would clearly lean towards being an aggressive card. First strike and deathtouch are abilities that are good on either side of combat. Yet March of the Machine's (MOM) best-performing combat trick is designed as a defensive card.
In our preview article, we discussed the expected impact of battles. It was hard to overlook a new card type being introduced to the game. These cards suggest a snowballing format, where aggression leverages into board advantage. However, the format's emergency brake for this specific issue has defined game play. This best interaction in this format are defensive cards, or "blocking" spells.
Block party
These cards are designed to play defense. They are designed to protect battles. They've stymied aggression early in the format. The convoke instants accentuate this aspect of gameplay, as creatures hanging back to block can tap to cast them. Stoke the Flames, for example, plays well on offense or defense. While this card has a pedigree of being extremely aggressive, especially in constructed, it might be better on defense in MOM Limited. When our creatures attack, they can't convoke. When they're back on defense, they pull double-duty, as mana sources and as red zone participants.
All of these effects advantage the defender. The result is clear. Flipping battles is more difficult than we may have expected.
Are Battles a Bust?
Battles still have a place, but the aggressive decks struggle to optimize them. RG, the archetype designed to utilize battles, has struggled mightily. It's tied for the second-worst-performing deck, and its struggles are at the heart of what it's fundamentally trying to do.
Because of the potency of the defensive cards, it's hard for two-drops to earn their place. While Thrashing Frontliner, War-Trained Slasher, and War Historian look like potent attackers relative to the offerings of earlier expansions, they don't match up well with the format's interaction. And when they get hit, they don't leave behind any value.
RG wants to apply pressure, specifically to battles. However, the battles don't support that pressure, at least not on the front side. The differing goals of aggro creatures and value battles greatly dilute the deck's plans and cripple the archetype.
No pressure
So many of the RG battles don't help the central gameplan. By flipping these cards, pilots get an additional attacker, oftentimes one with impressive stats. However, if we're going to play this slower, grindier strategy, we need to win on the first surge, and then win again when it comes to actually finishing off our opponents. It's simply more work than ignoring battles and winning once, when it counts.
Invasion of Muraganda // Primordial Plasm actually does support the RG game plan. It's a combat trick that leaves behind a counter, and we can leverage those abilities to flip a battle the turn we play it. Of all the tools RG has, this is the one of the most important non-rares to the archetype's stated goals.
Battles Are Game Pieces, Not Side Quests
RG wants to pressure battles, but unfortunately, the battles don't really help the deck do so. Conversely, UB wants to grind out games with card advantage, something the Siege battles happen to be great for.
UB Battles 7-2
Creatures
1 Aetherblade Agent
1 Baral, Chief of Compliance
1 Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
1 Ichor Shade
1 Nezumi Freewheeler // Hideous Fleshwheeler
1 Halo-Charged Skaab
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
2 Phyrexian Gargantua
Sorceries
1 Traumatic Revelation
2 Eyes of Gitaxias
Instants
1 Assimilate Essence
1 Final Flourish
2 Collective Nightmare
2 Deadly Derision
1 Meeting of Minds
1 Merciless Repurposing
Battles
1 Invasion of Amonkhet // Lazotep Convert
1 Invasion of Vryn // Overloaded Mage-Ring
1 Invasion of Fiora // Marchesa, Resolute Monarch
Land
1 Dismal Backwater
1 Scoured Barrens
8 Island
7 Swamp
The battles here have a specific purpose. Our deck wants to grind out our opponents, and these effects all contribute to that gameplan. In the above deck, Yorion, Sky Nomad flickering my battles coerced more concessions than I ever could predict. Invasion of Vryn // Overloaded Mage-Ring is good because, in this archetype, Sift would be good.
While this deck got absurd advantage from the legendary rare, UB has a number of reasonable attackers that can pressure battles. Preening Champion, Aetherblade Agent, and Order of the Alabaster Host all do a good job pressuring battles. Furthermore, this deck doesn't need these battles defeated immediately. When RG leaves a battle on the field, it becomes harder for them to flip it later on. As RG falls behind in the resource war, their attacks get weaker. As UB begins to snowball value, our attacks grow stronger.
Being Aggressive With Battles
When it comes to successfully flipping battles, RG decks should consider some unconventional options like Kitesail to pair with the better commons like Chomping Kavu and Volcanic Spite. We also want to make sure that we're playing an appropriate number of battles. In personal experience, an excess of four battles has caused decks to feel bloated and clunky. More importantly, however, are the battles we choose to play. Because so few of RG's battles impact the board in a synergistic way, we should prioritize the cheap ones. While Invasion of Mercadia // Kyren Flamewright doesn't exactly pressure an opponent, playing it with a second spell to set up an attack that turn can lead to an easy flip.
These numbers are impressive for an archetype that wins below 55% of the time. Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave is just a very strong card in the format, allowing us to actually get ahead of our opponents, which this strategy struggles to do. With more mana, we access our splash cards and can cast more powerful creatures, allowing us to defeat more battles and eventually create an insurmountable advantage.
Unfortunately, we can't really build around a highly-sought-after uncommon. There is a scarcity of on-plan battles, and all of them are at uncommon or rare. It's difficult to capitalize on an archetype when it faces that type of obstacle, a fact that contributes to RG's lacking numbers.
Choosing Wisely
Aggressive decks can still capitalize on battles, but because of their scarcity, we need to get a little more creative. This RB Battle deck performed well for a couple of reasons. What do you notice about its battles?
RB Battles 5-3
Creatures
2 Scorn-Blade Berserker
1 Dreg Recycler
1 Pyretic Prankster // Glistening Goremonger
2 Thrashing Frontliner
1 Compleated Huntmaster
1 Harried Artisan // Phyrexian Skyflayer
1 Etched Familiar
1 Redcap Heelslasher
1 Furnace Host Charger
Sorceries
2 Wrenn's Resolve
1 Render Inert
2 Eyes of Gitaxias
Instants
1 Vanquish the Weak
2 Deadly Derision
Artifact
1 Bladed Battle-Fan
Battles
1 Invasion of Azgol // Ashen Reaper
1 Invasion of Mercadia // Kyren Flamewright
1 Invasion of Tarkir // Defiant Thundermaw
Land
8 Mountain
8 Swamp
This deck's battles are all cheap and on-plan. They help us play a low-to-the-ground, aggressive strategy. Two of them are removal spells that flip; the other one is a Tormenting Voice. All three are great at ending the game once flipped.
The two-drops are supported to help pressure battles and we had solid removal. And Render Inert was surprisingly strong. Killing a big incubate token gives it utility when we have no battle in play. Unfortunately, it is devastatingly easy to accidentally select zero counters. Still bitter about that one.
However, this build also had some weaknesses. Dreg Recycler and Compleated Huntmaster are filler without more support. Wrenn's Resolve sometimes felt a little too small-ball, but was generally fine. In short, it could have used some power. A Stoke the Flames, Volcanic Spite or Fearless Skald might have pushed me into 7 wins.
Key Questions
Battles are exciting. They promise a tantalizing upside. Value and a creature? Sign me up! But Magic is not played in a vacuum. Value is only valuable when it can be leveraged to win the game. A creature is only an asset if we can get it onto the field. Otherwise, these cards are just that: cardboard.
When we draft battles, we need to ask ourselves:
Is the frontside on-plan?
Do we have a reliable means of flipping this battle at a point in the game when it is still relevant?
How powerful is flipping this card?
Ultimately, these all culminate into one single decision point: will this card be a meaningful game piece for us to win this game? Or is it a clunky side quest, in which the juice will rarely earn the squeeze? If we're going to commit to a battle, we need to make sure that we have a battle worth fighting for.
A Battle Worth Fighting
Battles can certainly offer a lot of power and some very interesting gameplay, but we need to make sure we're able to get the most out of them. Often, maximizing their worth will mean overcoming the setbacks the format's defensive spells can create.
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Magic is no stranger to factory errors. Missing cards, wrong power toughness, wrong color, wrong mana cost, and wrong artist attribution have occurred since Alpha. However, misprinted cards have also existed just as long, and are some of the rarest and most sought-after cards for a small but growing group of dedicated players and collectors.
In 1994, I was one of the only people that was always fascinated by "error" cards. From misprints to miscuts to crimps, I have collected them all. For most of Magic's life, the group of players looking for these types of cards remained relatively small. Then again, so did the Magic population. With Magic growing larger every year, primarily fueled by Commander players, a new breed of collector has emerged. There is now a significant number of players building Commander decks composed entirely of error cards, which brings demand to a new level. Well, that is, unless Wizards has something to say about it.
Common Errors: A Primer
There was an error retrieving a chart for Trial // Error
For an excellent beginner's guide, I can do no better than recommend MisprintedMTG. They have not only the most common of errors all laid out in an easy-to-digest guide, but also plenty of pictures of examples. I'm going to briefly go over just a few of the most common misprints and then point out where and how you can benefit from this knowledge.
Miscuts, Off-Centered, and Corner Cuts
These are examples of miscut cards
The defining characteristic of a miscut card is that you can see another card somewhere. Even just another card border can be enough for most people to agree it's a miscut. Of course, with this market, there are degrees to everything. Horizontal miscuts tend to be far rarer than vertical ones, and seeing a name of one card on the artwork of another tends to be a sweet spot that is ideal for most collectors. Since the name of the game is showing off the card, few people tend to care how the miscut looks on the back.
A highly off-centered card
This is a very clear example of an off-centered card. Some collectors prefer all the cards to have the same alignment, and others don't have a preference of orientation but are looking at how extreme the error is. Like miscuts, few people seem to care if the back of a card is off-centered.
There are also NFCs, or non-factory cut cards. Wizards has given people uncut sheets of cards as prizes, and enterprising people decided to have the sheets deliberately miscut to increase their total value. Most error collectors are aware of NFCs and are not interested if more than two cards are showing.
Crimps
A top-crimped card
Crimps are another highly visible error. Sometimes your cards get into a fight with the crimping machine, and, well, the crimping machine wins. There are top crimps, bottom crimps, and even some across the center of card. Occasionally, a card gets crimped so hard it's cut in half, and each piece goes into a different pack. The physical look of a crimp is based on what set a card is from, and they can be extremely wide or just barely glancing an edge of a card.
However, note that it's entirely possible that a card was crimped outside of the factory. Because of this, it's a "buyer beware" error type. Still, crimps are very popular, even though they are technically damaged and could be inauthentic.
Corners
There are two main examples of corner cut errors. First, one or more perfectly square corners. Secondly, and this mostly applies to older cards, mainly 4th Edition, there are extremely rounded corners similar to the Alpha set. Square corners in particular seem to be a fairly prolific error in newer sets. Of course, much like a few of the error types above, "Alpha corners" technically could have been shaved down by unscrupulous actors, and may not be true factory errors.
Ink Dots and Color Errors
An ink dot, or "printer hickey"
"Dark Visions" is one of many examples of potential color errors
These are just a couple of examples of common printing errors where ink gets on a card, and too much or not enough color makes it to the final product. While it is easy to identify printer hickeys and ink splotches, or areas where a card is completely over- or under-saturated in ink, new cards are simply not as consistent as older cards in this way.
Because new cards are printed at multiple different facilities, they have higher, completely normal, color variance. The same goes for foils. There is a massive amount of variance in foils made today, and just because a foil is a little lighter or darker than normal it might not pass as a misprint.
Stamp Collectors, Rejoice!
A Missing Stamp or Added Collector Value?
It did not take long for collectors to notice that once Wizards started adding holographic stamps to cards, there were notable errors. Stamps could be completely missing, significantly off-centered, partially missing, or indented into the card, and some cards received two stamps. Some collectors look for stamps that can be aligned perfectly, but are actually upside down.
Yes, looking at every single stamped bulk rare can yield a somewhat rare error that has a premium attached. Furthermore, pre-release and promotional cards which have date or logo stamps are an even rarer base card which can also have these types of errors, and are highly desirable.
Class Is Over; What Have We Learned?
Wow, there are a lot of different errors, and we only covered some of the most common ones. There are more color and foil variations than could ever be described. But what good is this information?
Well, there are collectors out there looking for even the smallest of variations in color, alignment, or foiling. While this has always been so, the total number of people looking for obscure rarities was relatively low... until Commander.
The Commander Effect
There was an error retrieving a chart for Nicol Bolas
Commander has made the market for misprints crazy. Sure, there were a handful of players looking to build 60-card misprint decks and increase the size of their collection of oddities, but that was a minuscule pool. Now, there are a considerable number of players looking for a full 100 misprints for Commander, and oddity collectors on top of that. This creates a massive amount of demand that simply did not exist several years ago. When you look at price spikes for cards like Dan Dan based on a game variant and then consider the much more massive player base of Commander, it does not take a genius to see value appreciating. However, there are caveats.
Wizards is doing an incredibly bad job with quality control. It is empirically easy to see that virtually every single new card, no matter what edition, variant, or special treatment, has a few misprints available. In particular, the centering on modern cards is atrocious. Entire packs and boxes are off-centered or close enough to count. Furthermore, entire pre-constructed Commander decks are somewhat regularly miscut or off-centered directly from the factory.
Still, while the supply of misprints is growing alongside regular cards, the demand for these misprints is vastly outstripping it. Furthermore, as the population of rarity collectors increases, "what counts" for a misprint is becoming far more relaxed. Years ago, a modestly off-centered card would get a nod or a normal full-priced offer; no premium. Nowadays, many cards that are only slightly off-centered can easily net a bonus of twenty to fifty percent. For in-demand meta cards, two, five, or ten times normal retail value is relatively common, and more extreme misprints can yield exponentially more extreme values.
Are All Misprints Instant Money?
The short answer is "no," and the long answer is "it depends." Right now, there is an auction for a Nemesis foreign language double-printed card listed at $2,000.
This is an ultra-unique card, and it's very likely a one-of-one in existence. However, a regular copy of the card is one dollar.
The card in question, Volrath the Fallen, is not a super popular card in Commander or Magic history at large. There might be one super Volrath fan that needs this exact card or perhaps a general oddities collector interested in it.
Greener Pastures
However, the opportunity cost of acquiring this one card is extreme. You can get several other, better, misprints for that amount of money, and those cards have a much greater chance of appreciating in the future.
Volrath? Not so much. Tying up money in expensive assets that have a low chance of appreciating is not a good idea, and it can be easy to do so if you're chasing the misprint market. It's far better to find deals that have an exceptional upside with virtually no downside.
The misprints market was once a bit insular and obscure. Now it's significantly larger and known. There are several Facebook groups dedicated solely to misprints, and they have card auctions daily. Large online retailers have misprint sections on their websites, and of course eBay auctions include oddities all the time.
Profiting From Misprints
If you have a large collection but have not scrutinized your cards very closely, now may be the time! Unlike something intentionally printed by Wizards to have artificial scarcity, misprints are the real deal and truly "one of one" in some cases. To the right buyer, it's a name-your-price kind of transaction. Here are four tips to profit from misprints.
1. Check Your Existing Inventory
You've already paid for what you own, so the cost here is simply in additional time. However, it's a massive time commitment to thoroughly check every single piece of cardboard. Your best bet is to focus on meta cards like the EDREC top 100, and anything commanding a high price is worth a closer look. If you have many thousands of cards from across the years, it's likely you may find a couple of hits.
2. Bulk Buys
When going through bulk, keep an eye out for misprints! These can be the best pulls that you may not even notice you're passing up. I've been to several stores with large inventory that charge full retail for bulk commons and uncommons, so if you did find a three-dollar common, they will charge you three dollars. However, paying full retail for misprint cards is one way you can win in this situation.
3. Binder Buys
Sometimes a binder contains a high-priced meta card that is a misprint, but it's priced normally. This scenario is surprisingly common and an easy way to plus on a transaction. The best part is that the high-demand meta cards are already picked out for you. This is an extremely easy way to turn $20 into $50.
4. Know Your Clientele
Finally, join a few dedicated misprint groups on Facebook or elsewhere and learn who collects what. Soon, you will readily sell crimps to Bill and right aligned off-centered cards to Sarah. This is the easiest way to turn cards you purchased for 50 cents into five dollars. Most collectors are always buying, and have a price range they tend to stick to. Learn what they are willing to pay and you can easily win on multiple cards.
Perfectly Imperfect
Hopefully you've learned a little bit about the misprint market and some of the strategies that can earn you a tidy profit. Do you collect error cards? What's the best misprint you have seen in the wild? Let me know in the comments. And happy digging!
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Modern is in a very strange place. UR Murktide has been sitting atop the statistics for 13 months, and by a wide margin. However, despite what the statistics say, Murktide doesn't feel like a Tier 0 deck. I've refused to call it one despite being technically justified by the statistics, and most players agree.
Many would argue that Murktide isn't actually the best deck in Modern, and that Modern isn't remotely unhealthy. Obviously, this is met with pushback.
My take is complicated. The short answer is that Murktide isn't the best deck and Modern is fine. The long answer is that Murktide is unequivocally the best deck, and Modern's health is complicated.
The Short Answer
It is no secret that UR Murktide has been sitting, nearly uncontested, at the top of Modern's metagame statistics since March 2022. It has done so by statistically significant margins on Magic Online (MTGO) every month, and in paper most months. However, it doesn't actually win events. There have been 14 Challenges reported from MTGO and Murktide has won just three of them. That's about 21%, or not great. It hasn't won any of the big Modern events (that I've seen reported, anyway). When Twin was banned for being everywhere, it was also winning everything.
Even beyond the event wins, Murktide doesn't have that great of a winrate. The Grand Open Qualifier Prague reported that Murktide's match win percentage was 50.70%. That's solid, but not exceptional, especially when 4-Color Creativity managed 57.36%. This has been a consistent tale since Murktide's inception, and this evidence and player stories indicate that Murktide isn't too powerful, but just incredibly popular.
As for Modern's health, there's no pressing problem, though things could be better. The card diversity isn't great, and some decks are definitely overrepresented. However, there's nothing overtly oppressive, and whenever Wizards discusses Modern, they mention that win rates aren't concerning and the top decks seem quite even. Thus, Modern is in a good (if not great) spot, so there's no need for concern.
Pedantry Corner
That's all well and good, if we're looking for a simple answer. However, if what we're after is a complete answer, we can do a lot better. The short answer was all hearsay and intuition with some cursory, unquestioned data. But for a deeper and more involved look, more work is needed.
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Which means that some definitions are required. I know it sounds unbearably pedantic, but it is actually completely essential to define exactly what is meant by "best deck." Every player can recognize a true Tier 0 deck by its overwhelming impact on a format, but below that level, things become exponentially muddier. What makes a deck "the best?" If it were clear, it'd never be argued over.
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The previous section mentioned overall win rate, event wins, and metagame percentage as ways to judge the best deck. Those are good criteria, but they're just criteria. Also, they're not the only criteria for this job. Criteria are used to make the definition; they're not the definition themself.
The Bigger Problem
Event wins, overall win rate, and metagame percentage are all good criteria for judging the best deck in Modern. However, where do you draw the line? Which percentage, what win rate, or how many event wins does it take to become the best deck in Modern? What other criteria should be included, and how should any of it be weighted?
I'm not just being pedantic and rhetorical here. There are indeed an infinite number of ways and means to define something, and choosing one way will necessarily preclude other ways. There is no truly concrete answer that would satisfy everyone. So, disclaimer: I'm going to work with the criteria I can find data for and that make sense to me.
Defining the Best
As they're the ones that most players cite, I will obviously investigate event wins, overall winrate, and metagame percentage as metrics for Modern's best deck. There's no red line for any of this, as everything is contextual. Instead, I'm going to see which deck is leading in each category. The best deck doesn't have to win every one, but it will probably lead most of them. If there was one deck winning every possible category, we'd have an obvious Tier 0 situation on our hands, as with Hogaak Summer. Again, that is not the case, even if we can identify a definite best deck according to our chosen metrics.
Based on how previous best decks were judged, I'm adding two other criteria: longevity and metagame warp. The former is straightforward, measuring how long has a deck been able to hold its position. Any deck can have a good tournament, or a good month. But the best deck should be able to hold that position consistently for a decent run of months, even with the metagame increasingly adapting to reclaim its shares.
Best decks also exert pressure on the metagame, either gradually or immediately forcing everything else to adapt with it in mind. This can be overt, as with decks maindecking graveyard hate against Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, or subtle, as when players leaned into card advantage to hedge against Grixis Shadow in 2017. Sideboard cards count less than maindeck changes, since that's what a sideboard is for. A true best deck should have some visible effect on the other decks.
Long Answer
As I stated in the introductory paragraph, Murktide is in fact Modern's best deck according to my criteria, and by quite a bit. I was actually surprised when I went through the data investigating the question, but Murktide is going to win a lot more of these categories than I was expecting. When I decided to write this article, I thought I was going to give a hedgier or even ambiguous answer. That is far from the case. Let's explore the criteria point by point.
Longevity
Murktide wins this category. It has been not only Tier 1, but at the top of Tier 1 since March 2022. The worst it's ever done is fall to #2 in both paper and MTGO. There's no deck that has come close to this run in the current metagame, so Murktide obviously wins if we're talking the best deck of the past year.
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However, if we expand further, then things change. Murktide and Temur Rhinos showed up immediately after Modern Horizons 2 released, though Murktide was doing far better than Rhinos for a while, then fell off. Hammer Time found that cute, as it was the #1 deck during the last half of 2021. It had already been in my updates since November 2020, and had first made Tier 1 in January 2021.
When Murktide hasn't been the #1 deck, Hammer Time replaced it all but one time. The other time, Rhinos made it. Hammer Time, too, has never been less than Tier 1 in paper or MTGO since before MH2, while Rhinos has been all over the place.
Thus, there are two answers for the best longevity deck. Murktide wins for any length up to a year ago. Beyond that, Hammer Time has the advantage. Since I'm more interested in the current Modern, I'd pick Murktide for the deck with the most longevity, though Hammer Time is a very close second.
Winner: Murktide
Metagame Percentage
As with longevity, the winner of this category depends on the desired timeframe. As my metagame updates have shown, Murktide is the #1 deck in terms of metagame percentage and has been since March 2022. It really isn't close.
However, if we go back to MH2's release, it again gets much closer. While it's had its ups and downs, Hammer Time has been #2 on the Tier list more often than other decks during Murktide's run. Before that, it was the #1 deck from June 2022 until Lurrus of the Dream-Den was banned in March.
Hammer never achieved the level of dominance that Murktide has enjoyed, but it was solidly on top. Murktide was initially #2, but fell off into Tier 2 prior to the Lurrus ban. Thus, Hammer does gain some ground on Murktide and prevents it being a total runaway win. Murktide still clearly wins, though.
Winner: Murktide
Overall Winrate
I dislike using winrate to judge decks for two reasons. The first is that, regardless of the deck's power, a more popular deck will have a lower winrate than other decks simply because inexperienced players will gravitate towards just playing the best deck. That inexperience translates into fewer wins. It was said that the only thing keeping Krark-Clan Ironworks from being a metagame monster was that it was too difficult for mass adoption. That's not a problem for Murktide, which is a good deal more forgiving than that now-banned combo deck.
The second is that a deck's true winrate is rarely the one that can be found and reported. Daybreak and Wizards know (or at least could know) the exact win/loss record of every match played on MTGO, but they don't report that data. The best we get are the reported records from the Premier events, and those records are rarely worse than 50%. To get the true win/loss requires all the decks that didn't Top 32, which aren't reported. It's worse in paper, where records often don't get reported at all. Thus, the winrate is reflective of only some decks and incomplete data.
That said, the primary source I use for the metagame update does publish winrates. According to them, Murktide's overall winrate is just under 50%. Their listed matchup percentages average to 49.75%, and they report and overall rate of 49%.
The best winrate among decks with at least 1,000 recorded matches is 4-Color Creativity at 55%. Jeskai Breach comes in at 54% to take the #2 slot. Thus, Creativity would be the winner of this criterion. However, I personally wouldn't weight this category too heavily given my above concerns.
Winner: 4-Color Creativity
Event Wins
A rant: What happened to the "sort by result" feature? I distinctly remember a time when sites that recorded results let me sort through the results easily to see which decks placed where. The only one that has any kind of list anymore is Star City Games, but that's only for their events, and it's not even complete! This made evaluating wins much harder and take far more time than expected. End rant.
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While it's true that Murktide doesn't win many events, the real question is which deck does win. Not just random events, but the big ones. As big paper events are rare and inconsistent in scale, I'm not going to evaluate them. The data wouldn't look like anything because there are too few data points, and the ones that exist aren't really fair comparisons. However, there are plenty of MTGO Challenges every month, and they do resemble each other enough to be compared for our purposes.
As the number of events increased in 2023, I'll focus on this year for consistency. Going through the complete data for January, February, and March, plus the 14 posted Challenges as of me writing this article, records the following decks as placing first:
Deck Name
January Wins
February Wins
March Wins
April Wins
Total
UR Murktide
1
2
3
3
9
4-Color Creativity
0
1
4
1
6
Rakdos Scam
1
3
1
1
6
Temur Rhinos
1
1
1
2
5
Yawgmoth
0
1
3
0
4
Hammer Time
2
2
0
0
4
Mill
1
0
0
2
3
Living End
1
0
0
2
3
Jeskai Value Breach
1
1
1
0
3
Mono-Green Tron
1
0
0
1
2
Goryo's Kitchen
0
1
0
1
2
Izzet Value Breach
0
0
2
0
2
Jund Saga
0
1
1
0
2
4-Color Rhinos
1
1
0
0
2
Amulet Titan
0
0
0
1
1
Glimpse Combo
0
0
0
1
1
Rakdos Rock
0
0
1
0
1
Goryo Blink
0
0
1
0
1
Humans
0
1
0
0
1
Mono-Red Moon
0
1
0
0
1
Boros Moon
0
1
0
0
1
Temur Creativity
1
0
0
0
1
Merfolk
1
0
0
0
1
Mono-Red Artifacts
1
0
0
0
1
Counter Cat
1
0
0
0
1
I wasn't expecting anything about that table. I didn't expect the diversity present, I didn't expect to see many of the decks in the list period, and I definitely didn't expect Murktide to actually win this criterion. I'd bought into the narrative that Murktide doesn't win events and until now, had never bothered to check. But win it does, and by an impressive margin, too: 50% better than the runners-up.
As it turns out, Murktide hasn't won many Challenges/Challenge level events in 2023; just 9/64, or 14%. Which is still better than any other deck. Murktide wins.
Winner: Murktide
Metagame Warp
I started thinking about this article back in March. At the time, I'd have said that the evidence for Murktide actively warping the metagame is thin at best. There's plenty of evidence that decks are prepared against Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and graveyards, but that can't be traced to Murktide specifically. In fact, the last time there was an obvious warp was during the Lurrus era, when Chalice of the Void saw far more play in far more decks than any time before or since. That hit Hammer Time more than other decks, but I can't say it targeted at the deck as much as the card, so partial credit at best.
However, April has produced something interesting. Temur Rhinos has started maindecking Mystical Dispute. I thought it was a blip the first time it happened, but over the month it has become increasingly, though not universally, standard on MTGO, and it's working its way into the paper results, too. Dispute is not a dead card outside of blue matchups, but it does specifically shine in those. As the only dedicatedly blue deck at the top of the metagame is Murktide, I'd argue it's a targeted choice against the top deck. It's not the strongest evidence, but it is evidence.
Murktide Is the Best Deck
With clear and expected wins in two categories, a clear and unexpected win in a third, and at minimum partial credit in a fourth, Murktide emerges as the clear best deck in Modern. Its nearest challenger is Hammer Time, with two second place finishes and (maybe) a partial credit. I knew Murktide would get two wins when I started planning this article, but I didn't expect it to get more. Seems like I'm among the many who have been underestimating the deck.
On Metagame Health
As for the overall health of the Modern metagame, I write a yearly article on that subject already, so a more in-depth review isn't necessary. I stand by my evaluation from that article: Modern is okay. It's not great; it's not terrible; it's just okay. However, there is something I want to add to the analysis in that article. I had and still have a problem with Modern's trajectory, but only just realized how to express that problem.
In economics, we teach that a concentrated market is a bad market. Monopolies and oligopolies are bad. An unconcentrated monopolistically competitive market is the best attainable outcome. However, the line between an oligopoly and monopolistic competition is often blurry. Both can have a large number of firms in them, but in the former only a small number of big ones matter. To determine if there's a problem, concentration ratios are used to measure market concentration. There's no red line on concentration, but if an unconcentrated market is moving toward concentration, then there's a problem.
Modern's Concentration
The way that concentration is taught normally focuses on the 5-Firm Concentration Ratio. The more firms are included, the more concentrated the market will necessarily be, so five is a good indicator. The only source I know of that has data going back to Modern's creation is MTGTop8.com, so I'm using their data. Here are the combined metagame percentages of the top five decks in Modern for each year according to MTGTop8.
Year
5 Deck Concentration Ratio
2023
46%
2022
35%
2021
28%
2020
29%
2019
32%
2018
31%
2017
36%
2016
35%
2015
42%
2014
41%
2013
49%
2012
48%
2011
50%
As you can see, Modern started off quite concentrated, with the top decks taking up a huge metagame share, and gradually moved towards a non-concentrated state. In 2022, that trend sharply reversed, and if the data for the start of 2023 is any indication, it's getting worse. This is the most concentrated Modern's been since Splinter Twin was legal. Whether the concentration itself is bad is, of course, up for debate. But to me, the fact that concentration is increasing is deeply concerning.
The Numbers Are Unequivocal
There's no doubt that Murktide is Modern's most popular deck. It also appears to win more events than other decks, even if that number is a far cry from winning the vast majority of events (as is more likely in a Tier 0 event). And we've also explored why the deck is so good on a strategic axis.
A deck can be popular for no reason, but it can't sustain that popularity without good reason, or without rewarding its pilots. There's no doubt in my mind that Murktide is Modern's most successful deck over the past year. Whether that's a good or bad thing is something to discuss in the comments. I'll see you there!
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