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Brainstorm Brewery #120 – #Ray4Rookie

Brainstorm Brewery 1:26:41

Ray Perez Jr. is back on the cast, and we have important business to get down to. There is a possibility that Jared Boettcher may have cheated in his bid for Rookie of the Year. These claims are unsubstantiated and are currently being investigated by the DCI. In the event that Jared does receive disciplinary action, the Rookie of the Year spot at Worlds is set to go to the top player at large rather than the next-place Rookie of the Year, who is Ray. Use the hashtag #Ray4Rookie, and let Wizards know the Rookie of the Year spot should go to the Rookie of the Year. Finance is discussed as well, a listener letter is read, and people are teased. It’s a strong episode with a strong guest, and you’re going to feel spoiled by how much value you get this week. Support Ray for his bid to go to Worlds.

Ray Perez Jr. (@RayFuturePro) is our guest
Use the hashtag #Ray4Rookie.
Pick of the Week comes early as Marcel says, “I’m driving this train.”
Do we really want Ryan to talk about his 0–1–1 finish? (No.)
Listener e-mail rounds out a nice episode.
Questions? Concerns? E-mail brainstormbrew at gmail dot com.

Cabe Riseau produced the intro and outro music for Brainstorm Brewery.

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Marcel White – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Conjured Currency #37: Cheating 101, The Finance Edition

Douglas Johnson

As you may be aware of, a recent cheating scandal has rocked our beloved game in the most recent weeks. Trevor Humphries was suspected of (and admitted to in a subsequent Facebook rant) cheating at the SCG Open in Worcester, and the well-known Alex Bertoncini got thrown in the cell for another three years.

As I sat back and watched the community raise their pitchforks, I was saddened that people still have to resort to trying to game the system to obtain an unfair advantage. In the back of my mind, however, I thought for an instant (naively and stupidly, I know), “I’m so glad I switched to the finance game so I don’t have to deal with people cheating and lying to obtain an unfair advantage.” That thought bubble lasted for about two seconds before I realized that our finance game is no exception to the rule. We hear horror stories all the time of stores cancelling orders after a card spikes, as well as brag stories of, “Yo, I traded this 12-year-old a [card]Shivan Dragon[/card] for his [/card]Rishadan Port[/card] that his dad gave him. We both were happy with the deal, so it was totally fair, duuuude.” Neither of those are exactly the same thing as stacking an opponent’s deck during a match worth thousands of dollars, but I think we can agree that there’s a degree of scumbaggery in it all.

This week I’m gonna take advantage of the fact that everyone’s mind is focused on ethics and behavior for the moment, and take a look at some “Finance 101” dos and don’ts in order to avoid garnering a bad reputation (and to avoid being a jerk without realizing it). I recognize that everyone has their own ethical line in the sand, so if you disagree with my logic then feel free to leave a comment explaining your side of the argument.

Ship Your Damn Orders

If you’re relatively new to the world of Magic finance (well, you don’t even have to care about finance to have experienced this), then you might have had the following situation happen to you at some point: you order a playset of a card ([card]Master of Waves[/card], [card]Dig Through Time[/card], take your pick) off of a website like TCGplayer, only to get an email in the next couple of days that states that your order has been canceled. Some stores will use the reasoning of, “Our system wasn’t able to adjust our inventory in time,” and sometimes that’s true. Crystal Commerce often lags behind by five or ten minutes after a transaction on one site (e.g., eBay), and the inventory doesn’t change on TCGplayer until it’s too late. Other times, the store just uses that as an excuse to not send you the card, then just relists it at a higher price.

You might save 20 or 30 dollars by reslisting your [card]Dig Through Time[/card]s at $15 a piece instead of $4, but you’d best be prepared for the scathing negative reviews that customers will leave after getting shafted. If you’re not worried about that, be aware that TCGplayer has been cracking down hard on sellers who don’t ship, and you can have your account canceled, as failing to ship violates the terms and agreements you signed up for when you registered as a seller on their website.

Don’t Burn Your [card]Trade Routes[/card]

This will probably be a much more hotly debated topic than the previous “obvious” tip. If I get asked to flip through a kid’s dusty, beat up, three-ring binder filled with bulk rares and old stuff from the 1990s that was a present from his dad, I’m going to pull out that [card]Rishadan Port[/card], [card]Deserted Temple[/card], or any other card, and tell my trade partner what they’re worth (assuming that he or she doesn’t already know). If he’s a casual player, he probably would have been more than happy to dig through my box of $.25 rares, pull out five or ten cards, and call it even. Though “both parties are happy,” I don’t feel comfortable doing that. Even if he’s willing to take bulk rares and dragons, make it worth his while and let him take cards until the value is as even as possible.

This topic came up rather recently in a debate on a Facebook thread regarding Alternate 4th Edition cards, and accepting your trade partner treating them as regular cards. I’m taking Corbin’s side here, because I would much rather remove asymmetric information from an open trade than have my trade partner look at that [card]Rishadan Port[/card] online when he gets home and realize that he got scumbagged. Keep your trade channels open and mutually beneficial (for real), and the whole “friendship/respect/repeat customer” thing is going to follow.

Personal Grading

I sleeve every card I own that’s worth at least $1 TCGplayer mid, and I try to keep up-to-date labels on the sleeves with a Sharpie. I jot a little “sp,” “mp,” or “hp” on the sleeve to keep track of conditions, or use abbreviations like “jp” and “chi” for languages. If you’ve ever sold cards at a grand prix, many stores will instinctively trust you on grading simply because of the large volumes that are moved at once. They don’t have time to unsleeve everything and check every little imperfection on your $3 [card]Beastmaster Ascension[/card]s to see if they should knock off $.50. When I sold my [card]Caged Sun[/card]s at Richmond after the spike, the vendor scooped all of them up without even counting, trusting my number. I had expected him to double check their condition, so I had to stop and mention that two of the Suns were pretty beat up. A vendors’ job can be extremely tiring and chaotic over the weekend, so try and help them out by pointing out your own cards’ imperfections, and not tricking them into overpaying for played cards.

Most dealers that buy bulk rares do so as long as the cards are all NM and English. While I was in Philadelphia (yes, I only get to go to a couple of grands prix a year, so all of my stories involve Richmond and Philly at the moment), I watched a vendor start going through some of the bulk rares that he had purchased. He had trusted the seller to be honest about all of the cards being NM, but it turns out half of the cards were MP, and several were just unplayable beyond hope. You could argue that it was the store’s fault for not checking thoroughly enough, but his only real fault was trusting the seller to speed up the process so that he could get back to the table and not keep other people waiting. If you’re going to sell bulk, please don’t try and cheat the vendors by upping your own number or lying about condition or language.

One Simple Adage

Thankfully, this entire article can be summarized in a few short words: don’t be a jerk. Finance used to be a wild west, and the fresh meat went to the wolves who were vicious enough to bleed new players for their cards when they didn’t know the values. We’ve grown since than, and should work just as hard as when we play the game to eliminate cheating behavior and scumbaggery from our culture. Profits can be just as tantalizing as the glory of winning, but it’s not worth the sacrifice of other players’ fun and love of the game. Until next week!

On the Rookie of the Year Race and the World Championship

Raymond Perez Jr.

Given the recent events that have taken place, I wanted to express my personal views and opinions on the Rookie of the Year situation. This will not be an article talking about the incidents that took place, but rather about the aftermath that could happen—depending on what the DCI decides in the near future. This is my story.

Rookie of the Year is a title only a rare few are able to have on their resumes. When I was finally able to qualify for the PT, I told myself to make sure to show everyone that I deserved to be there. I just so happened to end up qualifying for the first PT of the year, and thus had a very good shot at making ROTY myself. Rookie of the Year was not only something I wanted to attain for pride reasons. Starting this year, the title also rewards a slot at the Player Championship. The honor alone is a big deal, but with an entry to a major tournament, it’s worth so much more than it has been in the past.

I put in a lot of time for my first PT. So much, in fact, that it was taking a toll on me and my personal life. I wanted to give it my all and see where I could stand when it was all said and done. I ended up being featured in an article because I was winning so much and there happened to be a few of us rookies there. I ended my first PT in 11th place and had a great lead in the ROTY race. Fast forward to my third PT, in Atlanta, where I didn’t day two and was left with no invite for the last PT. I had come so far, and there was still hope to win the race, but I knew I needed to get to the last PT to even stand a chance. I had grinded hard the whole year and I wouldn’t go down without a fight. I ended up winning a PTQ and was featured in another article on the Mothership. This was my last chance at one last dance. All I needed to do to win the race was actually top eight or win the PT. I know that many think that is a tall order, but I was planning to give it my all like always, and after already making top 16 at a PT, a top eight was definitely not that far-fetched.

ToysRUs

I ended up only in the top 50 of the last PT to end the season two points short of being a Gold Pro, as well as losing the ROTY race. I came to terms that I lost the race, but was content that I gave it my all and still had what most considered a great year. It felt good knowing that while I may have lost the rookie race in my eligible year, I would have won in almost any other past year (except for the year Hayne won a PT and thus won the rookie year very easily).

This past weekend I was attending the TCG Player 50K Championship in Indianapolis when someone mentioned that I could actually be the true Rookie of the Year. I won’t go into the details of what is going on, as that’s not the point of this article. This does, however, lead us to the main issue I want to discuss here.

If in the event that the current Rookie of the Year loses the ability to compete due to a suspension, there is nothing stating what happens to the title. Does the title get passed down to the next person? If it does, does that person now become the candidate who competes in the Player Championship? If you haven’t guessed by now, I am the next person in line to become Rookie of the Year.

Rotten Tomatoes

I went to Twitter to see if there was any information out there, as this matters not only to me, but many other pros and individuals in the community. I found a thread where Helene Bergeot stated that in the event of the ROTY becoming suspended, the Player’s Championship slot would pass down to the next at-large pro in the standings. This made no sense to me at all. Why would that be the case when the spot was specifically made for the ROTY?

Clearly, the logical thing that I assumed would happen is not correct. I assumed that if the rookie slot is left vacant, it would get passed down to the person next in line. All the benefits would then also be passed down as its part of being the ROTY. How can it make sense to have a specific spot in a tournament and then not fill that spot when there is the ability to do so? It would be one thing if there was no one else in the category, since then you would have no other choice but to fill the spot with a fair applicant, like the next at-large pro.

This is a very unique situation. This is one instance that has never came up in the history of the game. There is no precedent to this situation, and thus I think that there needs to be one set. If the spot is designated for a rookie, first assign the next eligible person who is in the standings the ROTY title, and then use said rookie in the designated rookie place at the Player’s Championship. Simple enough, right? I guess not, and so here I am making sure that I at least get a chance to say something and once again give it my all. I have never gone down in anything in my life without a fight—and I do not plan to start now.

I have worked hard and honestly to get to where I have in the world of Magic. I am not a savant at the game. I didn’t catch a hot streak out of no where to end up where I am at. I spent many weekends grinding PTQs, adjusting my hours at work to allow me to test, doing everything in my power to get better and better at this game. It means a lot to me. I had to put in hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to get to where I am today. When I read that I could be, in fact, cheated out of something that I would have otherwise earned, I was devastated. I was even more distraught when I became aware that even if I did get the title that I have earned, I would still in fact not reap the benefits of receiving it in the first place.

I just want something to be done. Even if this is all for nothing, in the event that the DCI concludes that there is nothing worth penalizing, I think there still needs to be language in Organized Play policies stating what would happen in the event that this situation ever arises again. I hope that WOTC does the right thing this time around, but even if they find a reason not to, I hope that anyone in a similar situation in the future can at least not have to endure the roller coaster of emotions that I have had to so far.

Weekend Magic: 10/24 – 10/26

Jared Yost

We continue to dive deeper into the Standard metagame this week with three Standard tournaments. This weekend there was a Star City Games Open in Minneapolis, MN, in addition to Grand Prix Stockholm. We can’t discount the Legacy being played on Sunday at the Star City Open, so I will cover that as well. In addition, this weekend also featured the TCGPlayer MaxPoint Series $50,000 Championship tournament, which gives us even more data on the new Standard format.

Finally, this weekend also included an event called Eternal Weekend. This is a series of tournaments that is hosted once per year in Philadelphia, PA, that has both a Legacy Championship and Vintage Championship tournament back to back on Saturday and Sunday. Keep in mind, the Vintage Championships is sanctioned, so all players are playing with real Moxen, [card]Black Lotus[/card]es, [card]Time Walk[/card]s, and [card]Ancestral Recall[/card]s, which I think is pretty insane.

That’s a lot of information to cover! Let’s start with GP Stockholm.

Grand Prix Stockholm – Stockholm, SE

Format – Standard

Decklists

Since the format is so wide open for Standard at this point, I don’t think there is much difference between the European and American metagames just yet—I think many of the Standard lists are going to be similar to what we’ve seen already over the past month.

That being said, the winner of the tournament was a Jeskai list piloted by Matej Zatlkaj, which was based on Sean McLaren’s build at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir—but with a few twists. Still included in the deck are your [card]Seeker of the Way[/card], [card]Mantis Rider[/card], and [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card], along with the burn package of [card]Magma Jet[/card], [card]Lightning Strike[/card], [card]Jeskai Charm[/card], and [card]Stoke the Flames[/card]. Different cards include [card]Brimaz, King of Orekos[/card], [card]Ashcloud Phoenix[/card], and a lack of [card]Dig Through Time[/card] (only one was in the decklist). Instead, there are one-ofs, [card]Gods Willing[/card] and [card]Banishing Light[/card], which seemed like they helped, since Zatlkaj won the tournament.

Good picks from this list include [card]Temple of Triumph[/card], which was found as a playset and is worth $4.75 (all prices cited in this article are based on TCGplayer mid). [card]Temple of Epiphany[/card] is worth $11.30 and is also a playset in the deck. There are probably more Triumphs than Epiphanys out there, given that Ephiphany is from Journey, but Temple of Triumph still seems like a good pickup to me if you can get copies for $4 or less. I think Temple of Triumph only has room to grow over the next few months with Jeskai being a very popular deck.

The second place deck was Temur Aggro, which is something to note because we haven’t really seen many Temur decks do that well at large-scale events yet. This Temur Aggro deck had playsets of [card]Savage Knuckblade[/card], [card]Polukranos, World Eater[/card], [card]Rattleclaw Mystic[/card], and [card]Boon Satyr[/card]. Boon Satyr is less than $1 right now, which means that it could be a good speculation target going into the winter, especially if Temur Aggro starts getting more popular. [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card] is also an appealing pickup if you can get copies for less than $3. I believe that [card]Rattleclaw Mystic[/card] doesn’t have much room to climb, so wait until the market is flooded before you move on the Mystic. [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] and [card]Crater’s Claws[/card] have shown up in the deck similar to previous lists. I think you should get in on these cards before they start moving up in price.

The rest of the Top 8 included Abzan Midrange, two Golgari Constellation (BG Devotion) decks, another copy of Jeskai Tempo, Red Deck Wins, and Sultai Aggro.

The BG Devotion decks were slightly different in build. Lukas Blohon opted to go with a more consistent list that did not include [card]See the Unwritten[/card], while Matteo Cirigliano opted to cut a few creatures in order to include three See the Unwritten and an additional copy of [card]Whip of Erebos[/card]. Cirigliano was also more focused on the [card]Doomwake Giant[/card] endgame, since Blohon only included two Doomwake Giants and instead tried out [card]Brain Maggot[/card] and Pharika in the main deck. I’m not sure which version is better, but [card]See the Unwritten[/card] still looks good to me at $4 or less because the B/G devotion decks are trying to make it work, and with some success.

Sultai Aggro, also known as the “Sidisi-Whip” deck, since it included playsets of both [card]Sidisi, Brood Tyrant[/card] and [card]Whip of Erebos[/card], tries to get more advantage from a longer game and pseudo-dredge attrition. It looks like the Sidisi-Whip deck is finally a real deck, so Whip of Erebos could be worth picking up at less than $2 if it continues to do well. [card]Sagu Mauler[/card] also appeared in this deck, with two copies in the main deck and one in the sideboard. This seems like a great casual card in addition to being tournament playable. I think getting Maulers for $1 or less is a good pickup.

Star City Games: Minneapolis, MN (USA) – Standard

Format – Standard

Decklists

Next we have the SCG Open in Minneapolis, another Standard event that happened the past weekend. The winner of this tournament was Andrew Johnson, piloting Jeskai Aggro. Another win for Jeskai! His version was more control-oriented, so the aggro part of the name is somewhat of a misnomer. His only creatures were four [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card], four [card]Mantis Rider[/card], and two [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card]. He was also main-decking two [card]Anger of the Gods[/card] with one in the board. He opted to play [card]Banishing Light[/card], similar to Matej Zatlkaj in Stockholm. There isn’t much financially relevant info based on the deck that hasn’t been mentioned before.

Second place went to Jeremy Bylander, who was piloting UW Control, a new archetype that we haven’t seen in a Top 8 list yet. Things to note in this deck are four main-deck [card]End Hostilities[/card], which has usually been a sideboard card in decks where we’ve seen it. However, the UW Control list wants to play it main deck to ensure the ability to wipe the board. [card]Prognostic Sphinx[/card] and [card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[/card] are the win conditions, but unfortunately, there is not a lot financially relevant there. If Prognostic Sphinx does go up in price, I don’t think it will go beyond $3. [card]Devouring Light[/card] is a card used in the deck that hasn’t been seen yet.

This UW Control deck used a lot of commons and uncommons so I wanted to know the price of the deck as a whole. If you want to play this deck, it will set you back $345. Pretty cheap for a Standard control deck right now.

The other decks rounding out the Top 8 include two copies of Abzan Midrange, GR Monsters, Mardu Midrange, another copy of Jeskai Aggro, and Temur Monsters. Abzan and Jeskai have been beaten to death at this point, so let’s take a look at the other decks.

Xenagos appeared in the GR Monsters list, which means he is still relevant in Standard. [card]Butcher of the Horde[/card] and [card]Sorin, Solemn Visitor[/card] appeared as three-ofs in Mardu Midrange, in addition to three [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card], which is looking like it will be played in the Mardu decks throughout Theros Standard. [card]Hordeling Outburst[/card] was a playset in this deck, which means that your Butchers can continue to be fed and your Goblin Rabblemaster will be extra pumped. Finally, Temur Monsters played the full playset of [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] and [card]Savage Knuckblade[/card], which to me signals that they will continue to see Standard play throughout their lifetimes. Also, [card]Crater’s Claws[/card] appeared in both the G/R list and Temur Monsters list. That makes me even more excited to pick up copies at $1 or less.

TCGPlayer Maxpoint Series $50,000 Championship (Indianapolis, IN – USA)

Format – Standard

Decklists

Yet another Standard tournament, the TCGPlayer Maxpoint Series $50,000 Championship was taken down by Mardu Midrange. You know, I really am disappointed that some form of Jeskai couldn’t pull a hat trick this weekend and take down all three large Standard tournaments. Guess Jeskai can’t have it all.

Not only did the winning deck, which was piloted by Andrew Baeckstrom, take down the tournament but second place was also a Mardu Midrange list, in addition to a third placing in the Top 8. Let’s take a look at the numbers of cards these decks played.

[deck title=Number of Copies Among Three Mardu Midrange Decks]
[Mythic Rare]
7 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
6 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4 Wingmate Roc
3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/mythic rare]
[Rare]
12 Bloodstained Mire
12 Butcher of the Horde
12 Crackling Doom
12 Goblin Rabblemaster
9 Battlefield Forge
9 Chained to the Rocks
9 Temple of Triumph
6 Caves of Koilos
6 Temple of Silence
[/rare]
[Uncommon]
12 Hordeling Outburst
12 Nomad Outpost
11 Seeker of the Way
3 Murderous Cut
2 Magma Jet
[/uncommon]
[Common]
12 Lightning Strike
[/common]
[/deck]

Apparently Brad Nelson was right: [card]Hordeling Outburst[/card] is indeed a card. If this token maker, along with the other pieces of the Mardu Midrange deck, was able to put three people into the Top 8 of a tournament, then Mardu is something I definitely want to keep an eye on moving into the future. Twelve copies of [card]Butcher of the Horde[/card] were played across all three decks, combining with Rabblemaster and Butcher to create some great game states for the Mardu player.

[card]Wingmate Roc[/card] isn’t played as much in these decks as it is in Abzan which is ironic since it has a Mardu watermark. Again, [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card] keeps showing up in these Mardu lists, so if you think you are going to play Mardu, you should pick up some of these for bulk since it will only get rarer once Theros stops getting printed.

Outside of Mardu, we have RG Midrange, Temur Midrange, and [card]Jeskai Ascendency[/card] Combo showing up in the Top 8, along with (of course) two Abzan Midrange decks. Again let’s talk about the non-Abzan decks.

The RG Midrange deck was interesting. It played four [card]Chord of Calling[/card] in addition to three [card]Setessan Tactics[/card] in the main deck, both of which combo with the four [card]Hornet Nest[/card]s the deck played. It was certainly an interesting build based on the surprise factor, since I’m sure not many people saw the Nest / Tactics combo coming. However, this can easily be played around if you’re aware of it. I don’t think either of these cards is going to see a substantial increase from the results, unless of course this combo is the real deal and I’m just not seeing it. Also present were two copies of [card]Nissa, Worldwaker[/card] in the main deck—she hasn’t been forgotten about yet, even though her results in Standard decks have been dwindling. Still, she hasn’t budged from around $35 regardless of the amount of play she has been seeing. Hold your copies for now, since I think she could still see play from time to time in Standard over her life.

The different part of this Temur build was that it was playing four [card]Ashcloud Phoenix[/card]es in the main deck, which is something to note if you like the card. Ashcloud has room to drop, but in the Standard of next year it could be quite the bomb. I will be targeting this card once the Khans lull hits us in anticipation of its play next Standard season. For now, pick them up if you want to play with them. However, I would not go too deep on the card.

Lastly, I want to mention the Jeskai Ascendency combo deck. There’s nothing new to note here, it is pretty much the list from the Pro Tour, however Jeskai Ascendency itself has taken a real dive from the $10 Pro Tour spike it experienced. It is back around $3, I guess because people have anticipated its banning in Modern for some reason? Either that or they know how to play well against it in order to beat it in Modern? Not sure, but I would stay away from Jeskai Ascendency for a while. Wait for more copies to hit the market and the price to stabilize a bit more.

Star City Games: Minneapolis, MN (USA) – Legacy

Format – Legacy

Decklists

Alright, we’ve finally gotten to the Legacy parts of the weekend. First up is the SCG Legacy Open in Minneapolis. Jeskai Delver (which, if you don’t know, is just the new name for what was previously American Delver), piloted by Anthony Leen, took down the event. Again, the only new thing is [card]Treasure Cruise[/card], which showed up as a three-of in the deck. Another thing to note is that [card]Meddling Mage[/card] was in the deck’s sideboard as a playset and is currently around $6. The Meddler seems to be popping up more and more in Legacy lists these days, and has gone from $2 to $6 over the last year, but it still has room to grow as long as it is not reprinted. The Modern implications are also present, but I feel like it can die much easier in that format.

Second place went to Miracles, which isn’t really that shocking. What is interesting is that this Miracles build played the [card]Helm of Obedience[/card]/[card]Rest in Peace[/card] combo in the main deck to kill people in one shot (essentially one shot—they would still have an untap step the following turn). Another interesting observation is that the deck played three copies of [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] in the sideboard. Both inclusions are not something you see in every Miracles build.

Third and fourth place were quite interesting. These spots went to Lands and Slivers respectively. Lands is definitely a pet deck, so even though cards like [card]Mox Diamond[/card] made an appearance again, I’m not sure if they are financially relevant quite yet. The win for Lands includes the [card]Thespian’s Stage[/card]/[card]Dark Depths[/card] combo while using the [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card]/[card]Punishing Fire[/card] synergy to help out with controlling the board until you get a Marit Lage token.

Slivers was the spiciest deck of this tournament. This version was a spin on the classic Counter Slivers strategy, playing [card]Force of Will[/card] and [card]Daze[/card] in addition to [card]Aether Vial[/card] and a ton of cheap slivers for value. It’s essentially another version of Merfolk, but with cheaper lords and better lord effects like [card]Crystalline Sliver[/card]’s “All slivers have shroud” or [card]Hibernation Sliver[/card]’s ability to save any of your slivers from death or exile at the cost of two life per sliver.

[card]Cavern of Souls[/card] and [card]Sliver Hive[/card] really make this four-color sliver deck’s mana smooth—the deck doesn’t even play any [card]City of Brass[/card] or [card]Mana Confluence[/card]! The four-color deck even played four [card]Mutavault[/card]s, which appears to be super greedy. The only financially relevant item from this deck is foil [card]Sliver Hive[/card], which can be had for $10 from TCGplayer. I think that is a fine buy-in price for foils of this land. I only see Sliver Hive gaining popularity in the future from casuals and potential Legacy enthusiasts that have a Slivers pet deck.

The rest of the Top 8 included U/R Painter, Storm, Reanimator, and U/R Delver—all decks that have been in the recent metagame in some form or another. Nothing much financially relevant in any of these decks right now.

Eternal Weekend – Legacy Championship (Philadelphia, PA – USA)

Format – Legacy

Decklists

The Eternal Weekend Legacy Championship also happened this weekend. U/R Delver took down the event, piloted by Kevin Jones. Nothing new financially relevant here, except that maybe [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] could be banned during the next update. I’m not saying it should or shouldn’t, but I can’t discount the rumors that have been floating around pertaining to its ban. If banned, it obviously has implications for the foil price.

Two Jeskai Aggro lists made the Top 8, along with Maverick, BUG Threshold, Canadian Threshold, Tez Control, and another U/R Delver list.

If Maverick makes a comeback in Legacy, expect [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] to see an uptick in price. Also expect [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] to start seeing upward mobility. However, I think Maverick has been relegated to the pet deck category at this point, and I don’t think any cards in the deck are financially relevant outside Knight and Zenith.

Looking at Tez Control, we can see that there are plenty of Stax components to the deck, like [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] and [card]Trinisphere[/card]. However, the deck also plays four main-deck [card]Leyline of the Void[/card] along with two main-deck [card]Ensnaring Bridge[/card]. The deck also plays the [card]Thopter Foundry[/card]/[card]Sword of the Meek[/card] combo, which can be brought out with [card]Transmute Artifact[/card]. Unfortunately, Transmute Artifact already spiked once this deck started making waves in Legacy, so I don’t think there is opportunity there. The deck’s namesake, [card]Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas[/card], is around $17 and could continue climbing without a reprint if Tez Control garners a few more players amongst the Legacy crowd.

Eternal Weekend – Vintage Championship (Philadelphia, PA – USA)

Format – Vintage

Decklists

Mark Tocco took down the event playing [card]Oath of Druids[/card], with [card]Griselbrand[/card] and [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] as win conditions. Griselbrand is seeing Legacy play as well, but unfortunately, he is next year’s GP Promo, so that will stabilize his price for at least the next year as more copies enter the market.

There isn’t much financially relevant in Vintage except for [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] making waves in this format too. Randy Buehler was extolling the virtues of the card all weekend and commented that he believes during the next B/R announcement that Cruise should be restricted in Vintage along with [card]Chalice of the Void[/card] (because I guess apparently Stax, the artifact prison deck, is getting out of hand in the format). UR Delver has become quite insane in Vintage due to Treasure Cruise. [card]Young Pyromancer[/card] and friends were nicking away at players’ life totals the entire tournament.

Another note to be made is that [card]Dack Fayden[/card] is quite nuts in Vintage due to all these Stax variants floating around. Foils have already climbed up to $280 and haven’t budged from there. Non-foils are around $20 now, about a third of the release price of $60. I think the time to pick up non-foil Dacks is approaching, especially since Conspiracy wasn’t opened nearly as much as people thought it was going to be. You also have to consider that Dack is a sweet planeswalker and is going to continue being a casual hit in the long run.

Summary

Wow, there were so many tournaments this weekend! Some of the highlights include:

Standard
- Mardu is starting to do quite well for itself. Cards to watch out for include [card]Butcher of the Horde[/card], [card]Crackling Doom[/card], and [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card].
- Temur is starting to appear in Top 8 lists. [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card] should be on your radar in addition to [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] and [card]Boon Satyr[/card].
- BG Devotion is still putting up results. [card]Whip of Erebos[/card] is a good pickup since it sees play in BG Devotion and the Sultai Aggro (Sidisi-Whip) deck.
- [card]Sagu Mauler[/card] is a good spec if you can get copies for $1 or less
- [card]Ashcloud Phoenix[/card] appears across multiple archetypes, though not as a playset. Definitely something to watch closely, but the price really shouldn’t spike until Standard season of next year since it is not included consistently in any one deck as a playset.
- [card]Jeskai Ascendency[/card] has tanked in price. If you want to play the Standard combo deck, the card is quite cheap right now. However, if you want to speculate on it for Modern, I would wait a bit more until more copies enter the market to get the lowest price.
- [card]Hornet Nest[/card] could be a decent spec if you can out them to casual players. Otherwise, I would avoid it for other cards.
Legacy
- [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] is still doing quite well. Talk of a ban has been rumored but if it doesn’t get banned at the next B/R announcement, then I would suggest picking up foils.
- If Maverick turns out to be more than a pet deck, then [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] could be a good pickup.
- [card]Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas[/card] isn’t getting any cheaper without a reprint. Pick this guy up if you like him in anticipation for GP New Jersey.
- Foils of [card]Sliver Hive[/card] look good to me for mostly reasons outside Legacy (Commander and casual appeal).
Vintage
- Not much financially relevant here, except again watch out for foil [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] and both foils and non-foils of [card]Dack Fayden[/card].
- Griselbrand would have been a good pickup if not for the GP Promo. Stay away until the market becomes saturated to get a good price.

Pitt Imps Podcast #91 PT Khans

Pitt Imps 02:30:24

First off, let me apologize for the bad sound quality this week. After multiple editing attempts, I was unable to fix it and still missed things. I’m sorry.

We go over the PT, because really, there is nothing else worth covering. Between the actual play and all the news that gets dropped at these things, that’s a full show.

Host Angelo twitter @ganksuou

Co-Host Ryan Twitter @ brotheryan

Co-Host Will

Show Email [email protected]

Privileged Perspective 2: A Fistful of Bullet Points

Ross Lennon

No time to chit-chat, we’ve got a lot to get to. What are you doing?! Go to the next paragraph, hurry!

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

I’ve lived through a lot of changes to Organized Play. I saw the fall of the Junior Super Series, the old States, Regionals, Player Rewards (I’ll mention these again later!), and more, but this is the strangest of them all:

There are several interesting takeaways here.

First, the idea of consistently being able to fire a cube draft as a part of, rather than as opposed to, the FNM structure is exciting. It’s always hard to get enough people at the table all at the same time, and using the built-in attendance of Friday Night Magic is a great way to draft your cube with sketchy strangers and kids who don’t know what half your cards do.
They have just about every format but Vintage listed. Sure, it wouldn’t matter if they did, since they would almost never fire, but still—it’s disrespectful.
The fact that they have a choice called “Invent Your Own Format” followed immediately by “Any Combination of the Above” is possibly the most nihilistic thing I have ever seen. Screw it! LET THE PEOPLE PLAY WHAT THEY WANT. THERE ARE FANATICS OF XENAGOS TO BE WON.
If you’ve ever run FNMs, you know there is always a new kid who has a deck that is basically every white card he has ever seen, and there are usually some non-Standard cards in the mix. The first thing I thought of when I saw this announcement was, “Well, I guess I won’t ever have to worry about that again”. I’ll call my new format “Standard Plus Shitty Grab-Bag Commons for Middle Schoolers.”You can’t stop me!
Emperor is seriously underrated. That was my favorite multiplayer format, and I guess still is.
Story time: The only time I ever played Archenemy was at Pro Tour San Juan (what we would now call Pro Tour Rise of the Eldrazi), and they were debuting the format as a part of their “Summer of Multiplayer” program. I was pitted against Randy Buehler (the archenemy!), and my team was a couple of Puerto Rican kids who had come to visit the event site and spoke no English. Now, I speak enough Spanish to lie my way through a job interview, but trying to translate how to play actual Magic against a Hall of Famer who has, like, 1000 life and keeps drawing extra cards somehow wasn’t in my linguistic wheelhouse. So yeah, Archenemy sucks.
I’ve never heard of Wizard’s Tower before and it sounds dumb. I bet WUBRG the Muppet plays it a lot.

COMMANDER-ALT-DELETE

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Ross, these stories are really great and entertaining, and I would love to send you money on Patreon, but what about the REAL NEWS? We can play Commander FNMs now!”

That’s true! But I don’t think that this is going to be a major change for the format as a whole. Like any good researcher, allow me to walk you though personal experiences I’ve taken from a small sample size:

There are a handful of guys that show up at my LGS to loiter play Commander on FNM night. They do not play in the Standard tournament. Most of them have what you would consider to be competitive or powerful decks, and they never fail to show up weekly, even though the only thing they are doing is taking up valuable table space and cursing loudly. Your first thought might be, as mine was, along the lines of ,“Now they can play FNM!”

But in reality, they may not want to.

As generous as these new formatting options may seem, they are still sanctioned Magic tournaments. Many players, for one reason or another, use proxied cards in their decks, and these guys are no exception. This is our first snag to getting people to play CMDRFNM: card availability. Card availability is always an annoying argument to make, and it exists to some degree in all formats. In this case, cards may be more than a decade removed from printing, and may not be available for purchase in the store at all. The players who want to participate will power down their lists, while the rest will continue to play unsanctioned, proxy Magic for free.

What will happen to those that do play? Well, the local environment will quickly dissolve into Haves and Have Nots. Competitive Commander is in many ways less balanced than Legacy or Vintage, in the sense that the padded life totals and deck restrictions actually favor combo, while pushing out aggressive strategies almost entirely. This means that the winner of the events is going to consistently be the guy who shows up with Five-Color Tutors for Turn-Two Combos, which will get old fast. The idea of a “gentleman’s agreement” in this format goes out the window when you pay $5 to play. It won’t be long until the fish go back to playing free, proxied, unsanctioned Commander, and the sharks go back to Standard, sanctioned Draft, or Wizard’s Tower.

#MTGFINANCE INCARNATE

The best weekend of the year is coming up for MTG finance people, and you may not have even been aware of it. I don’t mean some sort of cyclical, Farmer’s Almanac sort of week where prices are at their lowest (I’ll take that secret to my grave!), but it’s a week where anything can happen, and where you can get really good deals on high-profile cards. It’s Legacy GP weekend! If you aren’t sure why these are a big deal, let me walk you through a couple quick points, and then we will dive in deeper from there.

This is one of the few high-profile Legacy events on the yearly calendar. Sure, SCG has their circuit, but these are typically more in line with the Bazaar of Moxen or Eternal Weekend (formerly just known as GenCon). You will see a lot of players fly in from out of the country for this.
This is the only grand prix where players have access to Reserved List cards, or anything else below the Mirrodin line. This creates some very interesting opportunities for floor-traders and dealers going into the weekend.
The dealer situation at these events is typically the best of the year. You may get the big boys at most of the GPs (SCG, CoolStuff, etc), but Legacy Weekend draws out more than usual, and they bring all their high-dollar items with them.
Those vendors I just mentioned? They typically end up with more stuff than they want to take back home, creating a great opportunity for buyers with cash in-hand. The smaller vendors that end up with high-dollar items are also more than happy to trade for Standard staples, if you’ve ever wondered how many Elspeths it would take to make a [card]Mox Emerald[/card].
If you have any interest in the niche Magic markets like #JPFoils, these are basically a family reunion. Who’s hungry for casserole!

Some of those are self-explanatory, but let’s walk through the important parts. Legacy is a tough format to crack, since it is one of the few formats that is still defined regionally (every store has Khans, but how many have Revised?). The list of decks in the format is staggering, but there are some that you will see more often because they are easier to assemble for newer players. The percentage of those decks appearing scales with player attendance. To put it plainly, the guy with the set of Candelabras is going to show up no matter what, but the majority of people who decide to come either on a whim or with friends is likely going to register some number of [card]Fireblast[/card]s. If Grand Prix New Jersey even comes close to its lofty attendance expectations (I’ve seen numbers that would put GP Vegas to shame), then the amount of people registering these more common decks becomes a serious metagaming consideration.

Let’s use an example of this to discuss the second bullet point. Grand Prix Providence was the Legacy GP in 2011, and the format was starting to see serious growth due to the SCG circuit in the US (Europe has, for various reasons, a much longer pedigree with eternal Magic). One of the better decks in the format at the time was Merfolk, which was (and still somewhat is) very easy to put together by Legacy deck standards. The deck was all over SCG streams, and was considered by many to be a known quantity going into the tournament*. Prior to the start of the main event, Merfolk pieces saw a rise to match the obvious demand, but what really shot up were the expected hate cards. I am not proud to say how much I spent on my two of [card]Llawan, Cephalid Empress[/card], but they were some of the only available copies left in the building. Dealers were paying great percentages on them because they knew they could make a quick flip before the event started, but by Sunday evening they were back to reality. One copy of Merfolk made the top eight of that event, and I played it twice on Saturday.

*If you are playing in a Legacy tournament, knowing that you will play a certain matchup at least once is a considerable advantage, since Sideboard space is limited. Knowing you may play it multiple times over the weekend? Valuable.

Let’s skip past the next bullet, but make sure you read it. Got it? Okay.

In 2014, it’s going to be rare that you go to a GP or equivalent-sized event in the US and don’t see some combination of Star City, Cool Stuff, Card Kingdom, Strike Zone, Troll & Toad, etc. At the very big events (like this one!) though, you’ll see smaller shops come out of the woodwork, and boy, do they want to make a splash. Come Sunday of Legacy GP weekend, though, and they are looking at a lot of cards they don’t want to lug back home. You see, Star City Games (and a very small percentage of their competitors) is large enough that they have the luxury of being able to “sit” on that crimped, miscut, artist-signed [card]Moat[/card] they bought Saturday morning—they know the right buyer will come along eventually, and when he does, they will get whatever they want for it. The vast majority of vendors, however, are going home to a much more predictable market. Maybe they are bringing back some beat up dual lands because they know there are a couple guys who will pay cash for them, but for the most part, they are burdened with a lot of stuff that is going to rot in a display case for a long time.

Haunted Game Cafe

This creates the second great phenomenon of Legacy GP weekend—the buyer’s market. Bring cash, and negotiate prices (within reason. Being a jerk by offering insulting prices is the quickest way to lose out). When negotiating with a vendor, especially on high-dollar items, consider the following:

How much do they have in this already? Assume that they were likely buylisting for at least 55 percent. If they weren’t, who would have sold it to them? If it is a very unique or expensive item (think Power or an absurd foreign foil), it is not rude to ask what they have to get out of it to make a deal (although I wouldn’t ask anything much more probing than that unless you have an established relationship with this dealer).
Keep perspective of what you’re buying. The Reserved List isn’t going away, so these prices don’t have the same risks inherent in Modern cards. With the exception of Kai Budde’s house, dual lands don’t just show up out of the blue anymore, so getting 85 percent on an [card]Underground Sea[/card] is going to be a real value.
Condition is always negotiable. Again, don’t be a jerk, but if you honestly don’t feel happy paying $X for Y, tell them. They will either talk it down with you, or let you walk.

With all that being said, here’s a little cheat sheet on how to plan your weekend, if you are going to GPNJ and don’t care about actually playing in it:

FRIDAY: Sell into hype with vendors, trade with players (remember, no selling to players!)

SATURDAY: Trade with vendors (how many [card]Steam Vents[/card] for your [card]Time Walk[/card]?) since they have nothing to do during the early rounds anyway. Try to learn what they need, and build a rapport. Identify which ones you will want to check in on tomorrow.

SUNDAY: Starting around lunch time, have cash and make deals.

I hope this all helps! Legacy GP weekend is also a lot of fun, so don’t spend all your time wheeling and dealing.

Come back next time, when I answer all the questions you’ve ever had about Legacy (but were too afraid to ask).

Best,

Ross

Brainstorm Brewery #119 – Reunited

Brainstorm Brewery 01:19:24

Corbin’s back, and he shows no signs of having any willingness to listen to last week’s episode. He still has time to use the code word (cricket) and not lose the bet, but we sure would love it if no one told him. He can almost be forgiven for his absence last week, as he comes correct with tales of coverage at the Pro Tour in Hawaii, a Pick of the Week, and his general tendency to fill dead spaces. In fact, every cast member brings his A game this week and delves into some important finance topics and discusses some of the goings on in the community at large. This cast will be more fun than being on the giving end of a fourteen-minute Jeskai Ascendancy combo turn. Who eats some crow about bad calls during the set review? Who has his Pick of the Week sniped? Who listens to Eminem with a regularity that would embarrass most people? Find out the answer to all of these questions and more on a very special episode of your favorite podcast that will leave you asking, “What does cricket mean?” Join us for Brainstorm Brewery.

After a few false starts, Finance 101 is launched into early.
Listener e-mails double-dip, knocking out a few letters from a dedicated fan.
Does Alex Bertoncini have competition in the Biggest Cheater Ever race?
Do we really want Ryan to talk about deck-brewing? (No.)
Corbin steals Jason’s Pick of the Week—not cool.
Questions? Concerns? E-mail brainstormbrew at gmail dot com.

Cabe Riseau produced the intro and outro music for Brainstorm Brewery.

Contact Us!

Brainstorm Brewery – Website – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Ryan Bushard – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Corbin Hosler – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – QuietSpeculation

Jason E Alt – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – QuietSpeculation

Marcel White – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Conjured Currency #36: Battle Plan

Douglas Johnson

What’s the first thing you decide to do when you cement plans to attend a grand prix? If you’re a player and not a financier, the answer might be “figure out what deck I want to play, and start testing for various matchups.” If the event is local and within your home city, you might make the decision to roll out of bed Friday morning and hang out at the convention center on a whim (I’d also be jealous of your situation, considering upstate New York doesn’t have that luxury), and in that case, there might not be any planning involved at all. However, if you’re planning on using the convention center as an out for a large number of cards to a large number of dealers ( for me, it’s Grand Prix New Jersey), there are a number of steps that I’m going to take in advance to try and maximize my time and money spent during the trip, so I can make things go as smoothly as possible.

[card]Travel Preparations[/card]

Are you going to GP:NJ on the weekend of November 15th? If so, do you have your sleeping arrangements already planned out? If not, I highly recommend getting on that, because the prices of hotels will only go up as the date creeps up, and removing the stress of needing to secure a place to stay has value in itself. Figure out who’s going to be making the trip with you, and make absolutely sure that nobody’s going to have to drop out at the last minute. Liking the event page on Facebook can also help you find sweet deals on hotels, information on the best places to eat while in the city, and additional details about the event itself.

Speaking of the event page, it’s always a good idea to keep checking the actual website of the tournament to know the address to jam into your GPS on the day of departure, a schedule of potential side events, a link to preregister for the main event, and my favorite: the list of vendors that will have tables set up for people like me to buy and sell cards to.

[card]Strategic Planning[/card]

The amount of preparation you need to do will obviously scale with the amount of cards you want to bring. In my case, I am planning on bringing a rolling suitcase I refer to as the Red Luggage Case of Death.

As such, I e-mailed SCG a couple of weeks ago, and sent them pictures and measurements of the case, as well as my intentions to only sell cards to the established vendors. I assume that most of you don’t intend to bring that much stuff for the purpose of selling, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind so you don’t get stopped and asked to leave because you didn’t ask first. You can also send out emails to every individual store that will be attending the event, asking them questions so that you can formulate a plan ahead of time of who to sell to. Here are a couple of example questions that I’ve asked in the past when preparing:

Are you interested in buying bulk on-site? If so, how many rares/mythics/foils/etc. are you interested in purchasing, and at what prices?
Will you be willing to match your online buylist price on the day of the event?

Usually you can find at least one store that wants bulk rares at around $.12 or $.13 each, as long as they’re all NM, English, and have a gold rare symbol. These deals don’t last long though, as there are several other sellers who want to dump 50,000 Theros block bulk rares and satiate the dealers until they don’t need anymore. On the other hand, some stores don’t even want to touch the small stuff, and are only there to buy and sell hot singles that will move to the players who need them for that weekend.

I wouldn’t worry about bringing bulk commons and uncommons to a GP unless you explicitly have an arrangement already set up. They’re, well, bulky, and take up a large amount of space in both your vehicle and the store’s. Even if you’re happy cashing out at $3 per thousand, you don’t want to be turned away because you didn’t make an appointment first. Then you’re left lugging 200 pounds of cards back to where you parked your car a half mile away.

[card]Seasoned Tactician[/card[

If you’re lucky, you might even find a store that’s willing to match the buylist prices of other vendors who are on site. When I attended GP Philadelphia this past year, LegitMTG was willing to hunt down a paper copy of all other buylists in the room, and then match almost every price if you could prove someone else was willing to pay it. I was able to get almost all of my selling done in one easy stop, and hang out for the rest of the day meeting new people. Obviously most vendors won’t do this, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask ahead of time and potentially save a ton of time on site.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in previous articles, but learn the process of “ogreing” your cards that you want to sell if you have a large quantity to move, and don’t want to waste a ton of time at the table across from a vendor. Basically, sort all of your cards by the price you want to get for them, and let the vendors pick through what they want at those prices. It’s much faster than having them point at every single individual card in your binder and calling out a number.

[card]Early Harvest[/card]

This is going to sound like another obvious tip, but get to the site early if you want to avoid waiting in line for four hours. Friday morning is optimal so you can be one of the first ones to scan over the display cases, potentially finding underpriced gems that can be flipped to another store’s buylist if you have a close enough eye. As an example, I bought eightChromanticores from one vendor at Philly for $1 each, then walked across the hall to sell them to another for $1.50 each. I got paid $4 for less than ten minutes of my time, just because I got to the buylists before almost anyone else.

At this point I’m going full-on Mom mode, but here’s a piece of advice that I never remember to follow myself, and then regret it during the entire weekend. Pack some degree of snacks, fruits, water bottles, etc, so that you don’t have to suffer $8 convention center sandwiches and hour-long lines for food. Whether you’re a financier or a grinder, these weekends are long.

Have a Plan, and Stick to it

If you just decided that you’re going to your first large-scale event, I’m happy for you. They’re a lot of fun, you get to meet a ton of new people, and often experience new cities that you might not have been to. However, it’s also easy to get caught up in the moment and spend way too much money, or waste unnecessary time in lines to buy cards, sell cards, buy food, or sell foo—

Do your homework first. Research what vendors you want to stop by as soon as possible (StrikeZoneOnline, LegitMTG), and what ones you want to avoid.

Also, [card]Waves of Aggression[/card] spiked this past week because of a silly combo deck that Travis Woo brewed up that involves [card]Narset, Enlightened Master[/card] being able to attack repeatedly on turn two after bringing her back with [card]Goryo’s Vengeance[/card]. Dig Waves out of bulk boxes, and take a look at the list here. I like [card]Goryo’s Vengeance[/card] as a buy, even if the deck is interruptible and inconsistent. It’s a hard-to-reprint combo enabler that has already proven itself with [card]Griselbrand[/card], and will only become more powerful with additional legendary creatures being printed.

That’s all for this week, everyone. Let me know if you have any comments or questions, or topic ideas that you want written about.

Vengeance Shall Be Mine (in the Form of Cooperating with an Investigation): Playing Trevor Humphries in a Top Eight Last Weekend

Max Perlmutter

This past week has been a whirlwind of good luck and bad fortune all tied into one.

On Saturday morning around 1:00 a.m., I was in a car accident driving my friend Barrett home from a night of Magic at Stomping Grounds in Hatboro, Pennsylvania (yes, that was a shameless plug for a good store). We both walked away from the hunk of metal scrap that used to be my car alive and relatively uninjured but I spent the week leading up to SCG Worcester talking to lawyers and insurance agents and I was really looking forward to a stress-free day of Magic.

My sister lent me her car so I could drive back to Hampshire College and still be able to drive around to work and, most importantly, Magic tournaments.

I woke up at 6 a.m. on the 19th, excited to spend the day playing Magic with my friend Leandro Taveras and hang out with everybody’s favorite person, SCG NJ Open winner Kevin Jones. After an hour and forty-five minutes of driving, including getting lost in Worcester, I was able to find parking where I was subsequently gouged for $20 cash. I only had $40 cash in my wallet and so I was short $10 for entry to the tournament, but luckily, Leandro saved my day and lent me the money. After buying in to the tournament I checked a post I had made on Facebook asking my friends what my 15th sideboard card should be.

I went with Brett’s suggestion and it almost cost me big time! I had jammed a bunch of change in my pocket to pay for vending machines, but I decided Magic cards would be a much better use of the money. I walked up to the counter, placed my black wallet on the black counter, and dug around for the $2.50 to pay for a [card]Deflecting Palm[/card]. In my haste to add Deflecting Palm to my sideboard, I forgot my wallet on the counter. A couple minutes later I heard my name over the loud speaker calling me to the stage and someone had returned my wallet with the $1 and my debit cards/bank info all intact. I walked over to Leandro and I excitedly told him this was going to be a lucky day.

After making fun of Kevin Jones for registering his Legacy decklist at basically the last minute as a judge impatiently waited next to him, I was off to play Modern.

[deck title=My List]
[Creatures]
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
[/creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Ajani Vengeant
[/planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
[/spells]
[Lands]
2 Forest
2 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Batterskull
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Blood Moon
2 Choke
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Deflecting Palm
1 Bow of Nylea
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Round 1: William Grogan, UR Delver

This was a quick round and made me feel quite confident in myself because the field was majority UR Delver. I believe I took game one of this matchup and dropped game two only to win game three in convincing fashion.

1-0

Round 2: Tanner Hall, UR Delver

Tanner outplayed me this round and crushed me with [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card]. Game one, he had a triple Swiftspear opening and destroyed me before I put up much resistance. Game two, I was able to muck up the ground and stop his pressure to take a solid win. Game three, I misplayed by not bolting a Swiftspear turn one and I lost the match because of it. 1-1

Round 3: Joseph Chagnon, R/u Cruise Burn

The whole day was moving at such a whirlwind pace that I don’t remember much from this match except our game three. I was at seven life and he was at 12. I passed the turn and he played [card]Searing Blood[/card] on my [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] which I shrugged off and pointed out that nothing would happen. Unfortunately, I forgot to respond with my [card]Lighting Helix[/card] to go up to 10 life. He drew for turn and did nothing, so I cast Helix into a [card]Skullcrack[/card] on his end step. I untapped and attacked with two [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s and a 6/6 [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card], stealing the match from under his nose.

2-1

Round 4: Karl Delatorre, Melira Pod

Game one, I was able to stick an early Thrun and protect him from my opponent’s Shriekmaws until I landed some big creatures to punch through to kill him. Game two, I was able to stick an early [card]Bow of Nylea[/card] followed by Thrun to make a humongous threat to beat down with. After my opponent podded a [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] into a [card]Siege Rhino[/card], I played two [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s and he conceded.

3-1

Round 5: Joshua Hoppenbrouwer, Affinty

Somehow I beat Affinty two games in a row on the draw… I don’t know how.

I don’t remember which game was which, but I know one game was won with a huge [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] and tons of removal, while the other game was won with two huge Knights. The games felt very close and I should have lost game two, but I got lucky and squeaked it out.

4-1

Round 6 Leandro Taveras, Scapeshift

Getting paired against a good friend in a tournament, especially in a do or die situation, can be stressful. Leandro and I had been discussing strategy and card choices leading up to the tournament and we both knew that my matchup, especially post board, was incredibly favored against him. Going into the round, I was in 6th place at 4-1 with 64.8-percent breakers while Leandro was in 11th place at 4-1 with breakers somewhere around 50 percent. Leandro asked me for an intentional draw and after we discussed it, we agreed that if we were 1-1 going into game three we would intentionally draw to both try to get into win-and-in situations to meet up in the top eight later on.

Game one, I was able to come out of the box quickly and Leandro got stuck on only blue and red mana with multiple ramp spells and [card]Scapeshift[/card] in hand. Game two, I came out much slower off of a mulligan and he was able to [card]Cryptic Command[/card] when I tried to cast [card]Blood Moon[/card], only to follow up with an 8th land and [card]Scapeshift[/card] to end the game.

Since we were 1-1, we drew game three so we wouldn’t completely knock each other out of contention.

4-1-1

Round 7: Zachery Erickson, Affinity

I was paired down this round, with my opponent on 12 points while I was on 13. I told him that the way the standings looked, not a single 15-pointer (5-2 record) would make it into the top eight, and I asked him to concede. This is probably my least favorite question in Magic to ask or be asked, and I don’t really know if it is right or wrong to do so. On one hand, my opponent could give me a top eight berth, but on the other hand, he still had the difference between $50 and $100 hanging in the balance. I don’t know if my question was right or wrong but all I know is that he told me he was going to make me sweat, so sweat I did. These were the standings after round six:

In game one, I was utterly demolished. I put up no fight and got crushed. I was starting to stress and I could feel my anxiety building up. I had put myself on this bubble and I was not ready for it to burst out from under me!

Game two, I looked at an opening hand of three [card]Qasali Pridemage[/card], one [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card], one [card]Lighting Helix[/card], a [card]Wooded Foothills[/card], and a Forest. I think about it for a little while and decide to keep. On turn one, I had to fetch for a [card]Temple Garden[/card] so I could play my Pridemages out before (hopefully) stabilizing with [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card]. He kept me pinned pretty tight but I drew into a red source and [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] when I needed it most to crash through and win the game.

Game three was incredibly tight. He committed some early pressure with an ensouled [card]Ghostfire Blade[/card] but I was able to use Pridemage to take it away. I was able to topdeck an [card]Ancient Grudge[/card] and used a [card]Path to Exile[/card] to remove two [card]Arcbound Ravager[/card]s and an [card]Ornithopter[/card] and finally push through the lethal damage.

I wouldn’t say I celebrated that victory as hard as Ari Lax or Lee Shi Tian, but there was a lot of jumping around and fist pumping until the sweat settled in. I found Leandro and unfortunately saw him lose his match to Storm because he couldn’t find a Scapeshift. I’m not sure he would have made it anyway, but it always sucks when a friend loses. I went over to the pairings board and began to sweat until final standings would be posted.

When I saw a judge carrying the green paper that contained my future, I ran to it to see if I made the cut. As I looked up at the sheet, I heard, “In eighth place: Max Perlmutter!” I went nuts. This was the SCG IQ version of Owen Turtenwald making the top eight of PT M15. I jumped for joy and ran back into the main hall excited to be in…but the sweat wasn’t over. There had been a mishap with the results and some placement had been in contention and the word was it might affect the top eight. A kind judge could see my anxiety and came over to reassure me that I should be fine. I don’t know who you were, but thank you for that.

I made it by 1.4 percent, but I was in!

Quarterfinals: Frederic Boileau, Little Zoo

I know I should pay attention to the top tables when I am doing well, but I completely overlooked it this time and had no idea what deck my opponent was on. I got a little anxious when I saw him drop [card]Horizon Canopy[/card] on turn one, fearing my worst matchup (Boggles) only to erupt into smiles and laughter when he dropped [card]Wild Nacatl[/card]. I quickly bolted it and countered his follow up ‘Goyf with one of my own. Soon I had him down to one life and was able to push the final damage through thanks to [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] and [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card].

Our match ended very soon after when I was able to drop a turn-three [card]Blood Moon[/card] into turn-four [card]Ajani Vengeant[/card] to kill his Nacatl. I followed up with turn-five [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card], into turn-six [card]Batterskull[/card]. He extended his hand and wished me luck in the remainder of the top eight. Unfortunately for me, luck cannot beat a cheater.

The Part of the Article You’ve All Been Waiting For

This is where I diverge from a regular tournament report. I was paired against a man who was seemingly unknown, at least to me, going into this weekend—but is now sitting in infamy along with names like Alex Bertoncini and Mike Long. I 100-percent believe that Trevor Humphries cheated in both the top eight of the Standard Open and against me in the top four of the Modern Premier IQ.

In our first game of the semifinals, I had a decent opening after a mulligan and then flooded out as he comboed with [card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card] and [card]Restoration Angel[/card]. After our first game, the two judges sitting next to us stepped away to talk. Upon returning, they pulled Trevor aside and told him his shuffling looked fishy and not to shuffle like that. I played a Blood Moon in our second game and it quickly led to a concession. Our third game is where the evidence in my mind truly lines up.

In the video posted here, you can clearly watch Trevor stacking his opponents deck and reddit user u/Divisionbyzorro broke it down very clearly.

“This is one of the more obvious cheats we’ve seen on camera in a long time, but I feel like breaking it down anyway. Starting from the 1:00 mark, with repeated pauses and unpauses, you can observe the following:

He’s shuffling the deck “underhanded” (for lack of a better term) which means that the cards are clearly visible from above. Normally when I shuffle an opponents deck, I do it “overhanded,” where my hands block the view of the deck.

His eyes are constantly flicking down to look at the deck as he shuffles. This is particularly concerning because of the aforementioned shuffling style. I would understand a player wanting to watch what their hands are doing if they’re not confident in their shuffles, but he’s clearly quite adept at using his hands to shuffle. (Personally, when I shuffle, I look away from the deck, off into space.)

He has two shuffling patterns (watch this very closely). The first is a traditional “mash,” which he does underhanded. He picks up part of the deck, and “mashes” it into the rest of the deck. He then fans out the deck slightly to let the cards fall back into place. Critically, this lets you see how well the deck is actually being shuffled. You can see that the cards at the top of the deck are “stuck” together each time he does this, meaning they’re staying on top.

The second shuffling pattern is the most damning. A few times (usually right after glancing down at the deck), he switches it up and uses his right thumb to push the card at the bottom of the deck to the top. I don’t want to prematurely pitchfork here, but an honest person would never do this. There’s no reason to, as part of your natural shuffling routine, push one card from the bottom (the part of the deck that you could see, deliberately or accidentally) to the top for any honest reason.

He’s clearly very, very practiced at this. I have no evidence for anything other than the taped match we have here, but it would shock me if he hasn’t been doing this for a very long time and screwing over numerous opponents.

Why does he get away with it? He seems nice. He’s a good-looking man. He has a powerful presence about him as well. Even if something “feels” wrong, his stature is intimidating. And you have to be watching your deck carefully to see what he’s doing when you don’t have an overhead angle.

The last statement truly hits home. Trevor is an intimidating person. I was intimidated and he used this to his advantage. I would not consider myself timid, but I am not an overly aggressive person. Magic is a hobby to me and it just so happens to be one I am somewhat good at. I like to spend my games having a fun conversation with my opponents while playing the game I love dearly. Not only is Trevor intimidating, but he is also quite rude to play against. His trash talking definitely goes too far and I felt like I needed to keep up and dish some back to keep my head in the game. In hindsight, I should have asked the two judges next to us for assistance. However, when I started to dish it back, I feel as if I consented to the verbal abuse.

The third game of our match, his cheats worked. I was distracted and intimidated by the verbal abuse he would spit out and I was too trusting in him. I like to believe there is good in most people and I don’t like feeling suspicious of someone that I don’t know or know the reputation of—and this played right into his trap.

I mulliganed to five cards, keeping four fetch lands and a [card]Wild Nacatl[/card].Turn one, I drew a land and fetched a [card]Stomping Ground[/card] to play [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] and passed. Turn two, I dreww another land. I proceeded to fetch and attack for three. Turn three, I drew another land and played a fetch. At the end of his turn, I cracked it, only to be greeted by a land off the top again. I repeated this process again and am gifted another land off the top. I drew one more land on turn five and played it. I passed the turn with five lands in play with a [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] and four more lands in hand staring down a packed board from him. Turn five, I had not played a fetch land and drew my first nonland card of the game: [card]Grafdigger’s Cage[/card]. I looked at my hand and the board and conceded.

Ouch

Let’s dig deeper. I played 22 lands in my deck.

12 Fetch lands

4 Shock lands

4 Basic lands

2 Utility lands.

With four fetches, five lands in play, and four more in my hand, I saw 13 of my 22 lands in this game. After the game I spoke to Kevin Jones who was watching me play and we chalked it up to a good run ended by bad luck. After looking at the footage of Trevor’s other matches and his shuffling, I feel like I can comfortably accuse him of cheating.

I have spoken briefly and sent what I would consider a rushed and hurried statement to both Jared Sylva and Eric Shukan (who is an L3 Judge and leader of the Investigations Committee in the judge program). I will not divulge what they said to me in this public of a fashion in case it has any affect on their current investigation. I have also spoken to a few other players who were his opponents that weekend and in the past, but again, I do not feel comfortable divulging what they said in private to me on such a public forum. All I can say is similar issues with land flood/screw were frequent.

I would like to thank my friends Leandro Taveras, Kellen Pastore, Chris Tartamella, and Barrett Goss for pointing out the Reddit thread that alerted me to this almost immediately after it happened. It means a lot to me, so thank you again, guys. You can find the thread here.

Now we get to the fun part: Zoo is back on the map!

I feel that with how the current metagame of Modern is playing out, Zoo feels well positioned. Unless I find through testing that Little Zoo is stronger against the field, I will remain on Big Zoo.

[deck title=My List, Azooni]
[Creatures]
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
[/creatures]
[Planeswalkers]
2 Ajani Vengeant
[/planeswalkers]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
[/spells]
[Lands]
2 Forest
2 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Batterskull
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Blood Moon
2 Choke
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Deflecting Palm
1 Bow of Nylea
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

[deck title=Frederic Boileau’s List]
[Creatures]
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
[/creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
[/Spells]
[Lands]
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Stony Silence
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Boros Charm
1 Magma Spray
2 Wear // Tear
3 Molten Rain
[/card]
[/deck]

I see a few key differences between these builds. Frederic is trying to go under and beat people with [card]Steppe Lynx[/card] and Ghor-Clan plus burn spells for a quick win, whereas my build tries to smash through you. I think both builds are great jumping-in points for any new Zoo players. I feel that his deck has a better matchup pre-board against UR Delver, while my deck is stronger post-board. I think Frederic’s build also has the ability to set the tempo and be the beatdown versus Affinity, where with a Big Zoo build you have to try and stabilize then turn the corner before you can really go for a kill shot. I think my deck has a stronger matchup when we need to go big and midrange versus [card]Birthing Pod[/card] decks, but I don’t know where they will fall in the current metagame yet.

I had not been intending to write an article this weekend, but I feel that with how this week played out, I wanted to get my side of the story out there. Hopefully I can come back soon and give a more in-depth analysis on Zoo in the current metagame—and I will if time and my college course schedule allow me.

Thank you for reading,

Max Perlmutter

Weekend Magic: 10/17-10/20

Jared Yost

As Khans of Tarkir continues to showcase itself across all of Standard, more results keep coming in that will solidify the decks we will continue to see over the next year. Last weekend Star City Games: Worcester (MA) and Grand Prix Los Angeles added more excitement to Standard by showcasing the power of new decks and twists on existing archetypes. In addition, results at the Legacy Open at Worcester will show how [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] and [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card] have shaken up Legacy. Let’s go!

Grand Prix Los Angeles, US (GP LA)

Format – Standard

Decklists

Not surprising was that Abzan decks were dominating the Top 8 of the tournament. However, the finals were a match between G/R Devotion and Rabble Red. Something notably absent from all the lists? The color blue! Does this mean that blue is dead? Certainly not, as we’ve seen that players at the Pro Tour are able to do quite well with Jeskai. At this particular event, the linear strategies seemed to be key in pushing through 1700+ players in order to launch players into day two of the tournament and ultimately the Top 8.

The winner of the event was Daniel Scheid playing G/R Devotion. Included in the deck were four copies of [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card]—a card that I claimed was undervalued last week after I wrote about what happened at PT Khans. Stormbreath is the real deal, and with Jeskai Tempo and Abzan still running rampant everywhere (and Mardu popping up from time to time), it only stands to gain as the winter months go on.

Other cards to watch from the winning deck include [card]Crater’s Claws[/card], [card]Xenagos, the Reveler[/card], and [card]Temple of Abandon[/card]. Based on comments from Emostarcraft on the /r/spikes subreddit, the deck has real power:

“In playtesting, we had what seemed to be a 70% win rate against abzan, 55% against jeskai, and control was just a joke (you have to try to lose). The only somewhat difficult matchup is ascendancy combo.”

The format is still pretty open and the dominant decks will slowly show themselves over the next few months. Based on this win, it looks like G/R Devotion could be one of those top decks. More results will need to come in before any conclusions can be made, but if you want to play G/R Devotion, you should pick up your Theros and M15 needs sooner rather than later, including [card]Hornet Queen[/card] and [card]Genesis Hydra[/card]. Even [card]Anger of the Gods[/card] is looking pretty good right now, as Star City Games is sold out at $5 and the buy list price on the card seems to be going up.

The second-place deck was Rabble Red, which as everyone knows is this Standard rotation’s version of mono-red aggro. The one thing I noticed about this deck is the land count—I play more than 17 lands in my Legacy decks, yikes! Guess it was fine, though, since Dennis Ulanov got second place and all. Nothing financially relevant here barring [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card], which has creeped up to $8 per copy on TCGplayer. If you want copies on the cheap, you are going to have to wait until rotation next year for them to go down.

You wouldn’t know this from my first paragraph in this section, but the Abzan decks were split into two camps—Abzan Aggro and Abzan Midrange. Both decks might seem similar at first glance if you just read the posted deck names, but looking at the lists tells a different story. Midrange does what Ari’s deck did to win the Pro Tour, which is to grind out the games long enough to drop a critical mass of planeswalkers to overwhelm the opponent. The aggro list runs cards like [card]Anafenza, the Foremost[/card], [card]Rakshasa Deathdealer[/card], and [card]Herald of Torment[/card] in order to establish a faster clock while casting [card]Siege Rhino[/card] as the upper end of the curve.

Both types of Abzan lists shared three copies of [card]Sorin, Solemn Visitor[/card] across both the main decks and sideboards, which means that he seems to be the real deal for Abzan players. Based on these results, I’m not sure how far he is going to drop, but I can’t imagine he will be below $20 again if he continues to be included in the Abzan decks.

Finally, another Rabble Red deck and Mardu Midrange deck rounded out the Top 8. Brad Nelson’s version of Mardu Midrange included four [card]Butcher of the Horde[/card], which means that Butcher is certainly powerful. However, Mardu is unfortunately in an archetype that seems to be trailing Abzan, Jeskai, and Temur in terms of popularity. I’ve heard that Sidisi showed up the at the GP, though like Mardu, the Sultai don’t seem to be putting up an impressive showing—at least not yet. The format is in the process of being solved and Butcher could still shine as more cards are added to the Standard card pool.

Star City Games: Worcester, MA (USA) – Standard

Format – Standard

Decklists

If you check out the #SCGWOR Twitter feed you will see that the finals of this tournament are quite controversial. The winner, Trevor Humphries, allegedly cheated on camera by shuffling nonland cards to the top of his opponent’s library. Players believe he never changed the top ten cards of the deck and forced his opponent to mulligan to five cards on game one to play one land off the top in the second game. See this reddit post for more details. I’m not here to comment either way, I just wanted to point out that ultimately the result of this situation could be a change in the tournament results.

Anyways, back to the cards—the “winning” deck was Jeskai aggro, which also placed fourth in the tournament getting two of them to the Top 8. What’s the difference between Jeskai Aggro and Jeskai Tempo? I’m not sure, but besides [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] and [card]Narset, Enlightened Master[/card] appearing, [card]Brimaz, King of Oreskos[/card] appeared as a 3-of in the “winning” deck, which will further stabilize his price for now (with future increases down the line if he continues to show up in top Standard lists).

Again, we have three Abzan midrange decks that don’t really offer any insights besides that [card]Ajani, Mentor of Heroes[/card] is still looking pretty good to me right now.

Some different additions to the Top 8 include G/B devotion and Temur Midrange. G/B devotion plays a strategy that revolves around [card]Doomwake Giant[/card], [card]Eidolon of Blossoms[/card], and [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card] in order to constantly kill [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] tokens and other annoying creatures turn after turn. The deck also featured a playset of [card]See the Unwritten[/card], which was a card that spiked during PT Khans due to the camera time it saw when Finkel was playing with it. [card]See the Unwritten[/card] could still do some work going into the Standard season, so watch out for it.

Temur Midrange featured all kinds of interesting cards, including a playset of both [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card] and [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card]. Two copies of Kiora is also something to note, as she hasn’t budged from $20 (even without a lick of Standard play!). I don’t think this one Temur deck getting eighth place at an SCG Open is going to change that price, but if you’re thinking of playing Temur Midrange and including her, you may want to trade for your copies. Xenagos also appeared here, meaning his $15 price isn’t going down.

Star City Games: Worcester, MA (USA) – Legacy

Format – Legacy

Decklists

Ben Glancy took down the Legacy portion of the SCG Open piloting Esper Deathblade, a spin on the popular Stoneblade variants. His version opted to play three copies of [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] in the main deck, which got me thinking—how many Treasure Cruises are there in this Top 8? My count was fourteen copies, which is plenty. However, this also means that not every blue deck opted to play [card]Treasure Cruise[/card]. What I’m trying to figure out is if the $20 foil price tag of the card is worth it right now. It appears that many decks don’t bother running it and seem to do okay, but the results of the last few major Legacy tournaments have indicated that decks that run Treasure Cruise seem to take down the event. We haven’t had many results to confirm this yet, as Khans has just come out, but right now it looks like Treasure Cruise has added power to Legacy that hasn’t been seen before. Still though, Delver foils were $5 for the longest time and are still less than Treasure Cruise foils at $15—and this is with a deck named after the card. Common sense tells me to stay away from Treasure Cruise foils for a while until the release hype dies down.

Counting up [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card], there were eight copies in the Top 8—certainly a card that is powerful, though not format-defining. For now, it is restricted to U/R Delver solely. The other Delver variants opted to play [card]True-Name Nemesis[/card], [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], and other more established cards over it. She is certainly making waves, but not totally dominating yet.

Elves is still putting up results, with two people getting into the Top 8 of this tournament with the deck. Nothing new was offered from either version, so if anything goes up due to these results, it will be long-standing staples like [card]Gaea’s Cradle[/card], [card]Glimpse of Nature[/card], and [card]Natural Order[/card]. I don’t expect any to spike overnight, though as I’ve mentioned in previous articles, Elves seems to be really popular right now, and with GP New Jersey coming up in a month, it will be a great time to liquidate any Legacy staples you have.

Along with Delver variants and Elves, Miracles rounds out our Top 8—because hey, it wouldn’t be a Legacy tournament without the most popular control deck placing well in addition to the aggro and combo decks. No [card]Treasure Cruise[/card]s to be seen here, just a solid build based on the existing archetype.

Something to note is that Reanimator is still popular, as it got second place at SCG Edison and placed 10th, 12th, and 15th at Worcester. [card]Entomb[/card] could be something to look out for since it is one of the backbones of the deck and is around $25 now. With a win at GP New Jersey, that could easily spike.

Summary

For Standard, cards that are stabilizing in price include [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] and [card]Brimaz, King of Oreskos[/card]. These are mythic rares that are starting to see play now that Theros block is the majority of the card pool in Standard and should become better as the format stabilizes. Speculations right now include [card]Butcher of the Horde[/card], [card]Doomwake Giant[/card], and [card]Rakshasha Deathdealer[/card] (if Abzan Aggro becomes more played than Abzan Midrange).

In terms of Legacy, I will give you the advice I’ve peddled in the past: go for Elves pieces. Many have stabilized in price without budging for basically the entire past year. Eventually, if the deck becomes popular enough, I believe one of them is bound to spike as we approach GP New Jersey.

Thanks for reading!

Pitt Imps Podcast #90 Sealed Talk

Pitt Imps 1:33:55

Let me start by saying sorry for the late appearance of this on Brainstorm Brewery.

This week, Ryan returns from making dat money and helps us go over the two GPs this past weekend. We try to dissect the Sealed format as much as we can. After a long discussion about that, I call on the community to ask for Worth’s job. At some point, the buck must stop somewhere and V4 is not up to expectations of anyone—something must be done. Then we take a look at the packaging for Duel Decks Anthology. That and a good bit more in this episode. Welcome to the Pitt Imps.

Host Angelo Twitter @ganksuou

Co-Host Ryan Twitter @brotheryan

Co-Host Will he’s on Facebook

Show Email [email protected]

Privileged Perspective 1: Genesis

Ross Lennon

Hi! My name is Ross. I typically prefer to keep these initial introductions pretty short, since you will hopefully learn more about me through my writing than a ham-fisted miniature biography. Perhaps you are familiar with some of my many award-winning tweets? Haha, you’re right, that WAS a good one! Take that, status quo!

The purpose of this article series is simple: page-views. exploring Magic through various perspectives. I have an academic background in history, and every historian knows that the moon landing was faked. one side doesn’t tell the entire story. As someone who has been around all aspects of Magic for more than a decade, I certainly feel that I have the advantage of perspective to share. These articles will typically be more train-of-thought in structure, or like a podcast in the sense that I may totally lose track of what I’m talking about or lie to my publisher to avoid deadlines (Hi, Jason!). I hope at the very least that my writing inspires you on a deeply resonant spiritual level and makes me a ton of money.

This week it’s specialization, conspiracies (not the draft set, the “holy crap, he’s insane” ones), and some Standard finance talk. Let’s get started!

On Specialization

If you have watched any sort of streaming Modern tournament in the last year, you have heard some iteration of the following: “This format rewards players who focus on learning to play one style of deck”. While the statement may seem obvious and unnecessary to repeat ad nauseum (because it is), this is also very likely the saving grace of the Modern format. Modern replaced Nu Extended, which replaced Extended, which was my favorite format. If you weren’t around for the halcyon days of Extended, then you’ve likely heard that it was “just a PTQ format” (PTQs were tournaments you could pla—eh, forget it). Because Extended rotated annually (like Standard), the ability to “specialize” was very difficult—archetypes dependent on a single card or interaction all had an expiration date (think [card]Birthing Pod[/card]), and there were fewer events to hone the particular set of skills required to elevate your play. Legacy and Vintage have always had these specialists, because the dead are not bound by the shackles of time.

The ability to specialize affords Modern a lot of hidden benefits at every level of play. While I am mostly okay with the original idea of Standard-only pro tours, it is definitely exciting to see skilled players master an archetype over several seasons, and builds a unique anticipation for the events. On the opposite end of that spectrum, it is easy to grow new Modern players locally if they are able to make the transition off of a particularly robust Standard season (of which we have had a few recently).

BRIEF ASIDE- I’ve helped push a few players at my store out into the breach of Modern, and having easy access to recently reprinted staples like [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and shock lands has definitely helped. I don’t envy someone who tries to buy in three years from now, and sees the prices on things like [card]Abrupt Decay[/card], [card]Thoughtseize[/card], and [card]Overgrown Tomb[/card].

Part of the reason why [card]Bitterblossom[/card] received such a hearty welcome on its unbanning was because people who had committed to playing it for so long had the chance to truly specialize in the deck. I’ve played against Modern faeries a few times, and the players who didn’t play the deck when it was in Standard have yet to take a game from me.

An Inconvenient Truth

At this point, I have no doubt that Khans of Tarkir will be the best-selling Magic set of all time. Then again, that is a distinction that is losing credibility every time it gets handed out (like a Grammy!).

When Zendikar became the best-selling set of all time, it was at the beginning of the player boom that we are now several years into. When Return to Ravnica became the best-selling set ever, it wasn’t a surprise—WotC even back-loaded the announcement because they knew people would go crazy-town banana-pants for it.

Zendikar and Return to Ravnica were sets that weren’t just “fun to draft” or “had exciting rares.” There was a magnetism in the air that you could feel. People weren’t just excited, they were enthralled. With Zendikar, I remember driving around with some friends to every store we could think of in central Florida, just trying to get our hands on as much of it as we could. The fear that product would actually dry up as stores waited for the second print run was something unimaginable in that era, and yet it did! Return to Ravnica, possibly the most genuinely hyped set ever, had such demand on release that stores were afraid that the distributors wouldn’t even have enough!

Then, apparently, Theros outsold them both.

It’s like when Titanic was the highest-grossing movie ever, and you said “That movie was incredible! They were in love, even though society would never allow it! “She changed her last name to Dawson to remember him forever!” And then the Lord of the Rings trilogy broke that record and you said, “SHIT YEAH! FRODO AND GIMLI AND LEGOLAS AND THE GUY FROM A BRIEF HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND THE GUY FROM LOST AND BOROMIR AND ORCS AND THE GUY WHO PLAYED COUNT DOOKU AND MORE ORCS AND…” Well, let’s just say you were pretty excited about those movies too.

And then Theros, like some sort of comic book movie sequel blows them both out of the water, because people bought Super Deluxe HD 3D tickets that cost $45 dollars each, and a part of you just sinks. Theros wasn’t a bad set, and Khans certainly isn’t either, but they don’t have that same spark in the air that was inescapable with the first two. I’ll never let go, Jack!

history.com

…This, of course, brings us to a much darker point.

The reason why these sets keep blowing each other out is the astronomical population growth I ever so briefly mentioned before. This is also the reason why, if that population ever stops growing or regresses, Magic finance will be absolutely turned upside down. It may sound crazy, and we may never actually get the hard numbers, but here are some things that I have been pondering over for the past year or so:

Zendikar was the beginning of the player boom, fall of ’09 (five years ago).
Mark Rosewater says that the average player sticks around for roughly eight years.
Because of the double-digit population growth in Magic, half of all Magic players have been playing for two years or less.
We are currently more than halfway through the life of a player who started at the beginning of the boom.
Jet fuel burns at 800-1500 degrees, but steel melts at 2750 degrees.

These problems are still several years away, but WOTC is in the business of working in the future (some in the “future future”), and print runs are very difficult to change last minute. If the eight-year mark sees a drop in player growth that matches the gains we saw five years ago, then the trend may continue (bursting a player bubble, if there is one), and meaning sets, at least in the short term, get overprinted, thus meaning a supply spike, a demand drop, and very likely, the return of Elo ratings and block PTQs.

The flipside to this, of course, is that player population doesn’t start dropping off, and that we stay on this “everyone just plays Magic now” train for years to come. If the drop off at the eight-year mark is slight, or is so small the amount of new players coming in makes up for it, then I expect blocks even as popular as RTR and Theros to have some huge financial upside. Print run orders got ramped up after the Zendikar shortage, and like baseball players in the ’90s, I expect they get juiced more and more every year. The reason early Modern cards (or just Future Sight in general) hold some of these weird premiums is that print runs for analogous sets (fall block to fall block, etc.) are in some cases way off in terms of scale.

A couple common-sense Modern rules of thumb: if it’s a frequent three- or four-of in multiple decks ([card]Abrupt Decay[/card], [card]Thoughtseize[/card]), it’s safe no matter what set it’s in. If it’s in a third set, especially if it has a set-specific mechanic ([card]Birthing Pod[/card], [card]Spellskite[/card]), it’s safe. I expect the next Modern Masters to be printed in higher volumes, but I don’t know if the set cutoff (last time it was Alara Reborn) will make it up to New Phyrexia or Innistrad. It likely depends on if it’s coming this summer or not. If they don’t make it to New Phyrexia, expect another surge on the two cards I mentioned in this paragraph.

PT Watch

~~You’re most likely~~ You are reading this after PT Hawaii ended. Who won? Never mind, that’s not important right now. How many [card]Wingmate Roc[/card]s were in the top eight? This is a card that is getting talked up a lot prior to the PT, and is likely one of the better mythics in Khans. If you didn’t buy in before the price hit $10, however, it may be best to wait it out.

Every [card]Wingmate Roc[/card] deck had Elspeth in it, right? They synergize really well together, and can do a good job of playing offense or defense. Elspeth is, like most of the jocks from my high school, going to go out on top, before failing to ever make something of herself in the real world. I don’t see her coming down for any reason until rotation, though, so if you need a set, you may as well bite the bullet.

Two cards that I expect to be big gainers? [card]Hornet Queen[/card] and [card]Doomwake Giant[/card]. Each one is good in part because of the other, and both are in ranges where they could easily see a significant price increase. If [card]Doomwake Giant[/card] hits, expect him to bring [card]Eidolon of Blossoms[/card] with him, since they don’t appear in decks without the other.

I don’t expect to see much new in terms of red deck technology, especially from a financial perspective. Black aggro is probably just a shade worse, but the disruption buys them time, and [card]Master of the Feast[/card] is slowly gaining traction. Look for him to break out at an SCG Open later in the year.

I’ll end with this: the big gainers are going to be out of Born, Journey, or M15. Theros and Khans don’t have the right ingredients to see something shoot up, although the rich (Elspeth, Stormbreath, Temples, other planeswalkers) will likely get richer. The time to buy in on Khans is coming up—if you don’t need it tomorrow, wait until around Christmas. We are already seeing stuff like fetch lands drop. After all, Khans is going to be the most popular set ever.

Best,

Ross

Post-Pro Tour Finance: Khans of Tarkir

Jim Casale

As I’m sure all of you are aware, the pro tour was last weekend and with it came an bunch of unsustainable spikes. What does that mean exactly? I’m glad you asked!

The Hype

Many cards spiked over the PT weekend based on the amount of play and success they saw. Among them are [card]Pearl Lake Ancient[/card], [card]Siege Rhino[/card], [card]Wingmate Roc[/card], [card]Anafenza, the Foremost[/card], [card]Dig Through Time[/card], [card]Rakshasa Deathdealer[/card],and [card]Perilous Vault[/card].

If you had your copies before Friday, you’re in luck! These cards have increased to almost double the value of what they were last week in retail. What do we do with them now? Well, if you’re not playing them, now is the best time to sell them. Most of these cards (save [card]Dig Through Time[/card]) are likely not eternal-playable and this may be their peak price for the foreseeable future. The price of Khans of Tarkir singles is unsustainably high and it’s better to count the dollars you make now than the cents you could make by holding out longer. These cards could continue to grow, but it’s much more likely they see a significant dip as people continue to open Khans of Tarkir sealed product. It’s a safe bet to get rid of your excess product now, because if any of these cards become a bust in the coming weeks, they can come crashing down like some other Khans cards.

The Busts

Some of the tri-color creatures in Khans haven’t lived up to their hype. [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card] and [card]Butcher of the Horde[/card] in particular are seeing some rough times price-wise. I would keep an eye on these for further dips and buy in when they’re around $2. The power level is definitely there for the cards, but they just don’t currently have the deck to be successful.

All other Khans cards over $3 that aren’t seeing tons of play are likely to come down in the next month. These cards may still have some price memory from pre-order period, but lack of play will cause their prices to flop.

Sell, Sell, Sell!

Some older cards have not proven their worth and price tag in new Standard. Among these are [card]Jace, the Living Guildpact[/card], [card]Xenagos, the Reveler[/card], [card]Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver[/card], [card]Erebos, God of the Dead[/card], [card]Keranos, God of Storms[/card], [card]Kiora, the Crashing Wave[/card], [card]Purphorous, God of the Forge[/card], [card]Thassa, God of the Sea[/card], and [card]Master of Waves[/card].

See the pattern? These are all Standard-playable mythic rares that for the most part don’t have a ton of casual appeal buoying their prices. I would look to get rid of these as soon as possible as all except Keranos see no play in competitive Magic. I would like to say especially that it’s time to get rid of Xenagos—he is prime for a Duel Deck reprint with Elspeth.

Keep a Holding Pattern

If you read my grinder finance articles from the Khans of Tarkir pre-order period, I advocated buying a few cards and I think it’s still a good idea to hold them. [card]Anger of the Gods[/card] has almost doubled in price since I recommended buying it, but I don’t think it’s done growing. It’s one of two cards that efficiently deal with [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] in the sense of both cards and mana. (The other being a black uncommon, [card]Drown in Sorrow[/card]). I think this can become an $8 or $10 card if people continue to play Rabblemaster and [card]Mantis Rider[/card].

[card]Hornet Queen[/card] is probably at its peak, but I don’t think they’re quite worth selling yet. There is a possibility that the new Abzan midrange deck from the pro tour decides to play them as an answer to the mirror match. [card]Hornet Queen[/card] is really the trump in green mirror matches.

The Fetch Question

Please don’t buy them. They’re still too expensive and make up far too much of this set’s price. They will be down to $8 to $14 by Christmas time.

Invest!

[card]Ashen Rider[/card] is still far too cheap. A $2 mythic means it’s basically bulk (this is like Tibalt levels of bulk) but this guy is an EDH all-star and plays phenomenally well with [card]Whip of Erebos[/card].

That’s it for this time! Let me know what you think in the comments.

Casually Infinite – Learning to Better Assess the Power of Our Decks

Marc DeArmond

With the exception of drafts that occasionally go truly awry, we frequently find ourselves playing with an unimpressive pool of cards, only to do very well in a tournament. On the other side of this coin, I frequently come out of a draft very happy with my cards only to pull off a mediocre finish. I found this to be the case in the KTK Prerelease and recent M15 drafts, and it was constantly mentioned in coverage at GP Orlando. I think that, overall, our visions of our pools are shrouded by a few things: rares, money cards, synergies, curve, and good creatures.

Issue #1: I Opened a Bomb Rare

Especially in Draft, but no less true in Sealed, opening a big bomb makes us feel really good about our deck. Having something like a Nissa or Sarkhan in the forty makes us feel like we’re always drawing to a win. Make no mistake, having big and tough-to-deal-with cards can really make a deck shine. Unfortunately, planeswalkers and even most other bombs generally require significant support to make a major impact on the game. Most decks these days are packing some kind of removal. If your game plan is to play a bunch of two-drops or bad morphs until you can throw down a [card]Siege Rhino[/card] and take over the game, your Siege Rhino is likely in for a very unfortunate surprise. While bombs are important, a deck is made up of having a series of threats that can’t go unanswered. In this way cards like [card]Abzan Guide[/card] or even the lowly [card]Aniok Bond-Kin[/card] can’t go unanswered for a long time without becoming a serious thorn in your opponent’s side. While I’d love to play a [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card], two or three [card]Abzan Battle Priest[/card]s are likely to have a larger overall effect on your pool than one sexy rare.

One important question I like to ask is: if I took away my rares, how would I feel about my deck? If your deck still feels pretty good, then you’ve probably got a pretty good deck. If you feel like you just cut the core of the deck, you’re in for an uphill battle in this set of games. While I might be thrilled if my pool contained [card]Utter End[/card], [card]Zurgo Helmsmasher[/card], and [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card], none of these cards are really going to push me over the top if my deck isn’t already there.

Issue #2: I Already Made My Entry Fee

When I enter a draft, pulling a couple of $5 cards can quickly change my mentality of the draft. After I’ve opened $12 worth of cards, any other wins are simply gravy. This creates a situation where I’m happy with my deck (even if it isn’t very powerful) simply because it has already made me a winner. It may be that the cards I’ve pulled don’t have any real synergy, but either way, I’m drafting on someone else’s dollar at this point. If anyone asks, I’d say my pool is great because of the value, even if my deck is terrible. If we need to truly assess our deck, we need to look at the power level of the cards we’re playing with, now how much they’re affecting our ticket count.

Issue #3: I’ve Got This Cool Synergy

This is perhaps one of the biggest ways we betray our decks. I recall in M14 having a deck with a [card]Rumbling Baloth[/card], [card]Marauding Maulhorn[/card], and [card]Advocate of the Beast[/card]. The combo potential of dropping an Advocate on turn three into a Baloth on turn four and swinging with a 5/5 on turn five (in a very slow format) was awesome. Or maybe I’d get to drop the [card]Marauding Maulhorn[/card] and swing in with a 6/4 on turn five. It’s a nice synnergy and it made my deck a little more powerful.

The problem was that M14 was a format full of removal, and every time that the Advocate of the Beast didn’t get killed, the Rumbling Baloth would. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly fine synergy that made my deck better. But the fact that I had the combo didn’t really push my deck over the edge, but it sure felt like it did. Even in a best-case scenario, I’d only see the Advocate about once a match and there was no guarantee it would be at the same time as my other Beasts.

Finding synergy makes Limited exciting, but we really can’t depend on a combo to consider our deck powerful. There’s very few situations in which pulling it off will make a substantial difference in a game. In GP Orlando, there was a guy playing five [card]Jeskai Windscout[/card]s. This wasn’t about synergy, it was about hitting people in the face for two or three while your other cards gummed up the ground. Cards like [card]Rush of Battle[/card] aren’t awesome because you have a bunch of warriors in your deck. They’re awesome because they make all your durdly creatures into a game-ending threat.

Issue #4: She’s Got These Awesome Curves

Having a solid mana curve in your deck is really important. But more important than that is having important spells to cast. Being able to drop a 2/1 or 2/2 on turn two is a decent deal in Khans of Tarkir due to Morphs and all the other early ground threats. Filling that slot instead with [card]Debilitating Injury[/card], [card]Feat of Resistance[/card], or [card]Savage Punch[/card] is great once things get moving. But if you’re two-drop slot are full of cards like [card]Taigem’s Scheming[/card], [card]Valley Dasher[/card], or [card]Trail of Mystery[/card], you’re going to need some very specific plans to make your deck good. Sticking them in your deck so you have something in the two-drop slot isn’t necessarily going to make your deck better.

While doing nothing on turn two is kind of a bummer, it’s worse to do nothing and lose a card in the process. None of these cards do nothing, but if you aren’t going to take advantage of a raid trigger on turn three from Valley Dasher, all you’ve done is dropped a very easy-to-kill creature on the battlefield for your opponent to play a 2/3 into. A slightly worse curve of better cards is better than a good curve of bad cards.

The other side of things is that you may have a deck without any curve considerations. KTK has a number of fantastic four-drops. They’re very powerful and playable and you want lots of them in your deck. The only problem is that you can’t afford to put lots of them into your deck. While you’ll realistically be able to play two two-drop creatures in one turn, or even a two- and a three-drop creature, you’ll almost never play two four-drop creatures in a turn. If the good cards in your hand are all four-drops, you’re going to play one on turn four, one on turn five, one on turn six, and one on turn seven. Assuming your opponent’s deck got off to any kind of decent start, you’re going to be in real trouble when you start plopping them down and they have a couple of answers.

Issue #5: I’ve Got All These Good Creatures

Unfortunately, good cards do not always make a good deck. I can’t think of the number of times I was very happy with the power level of my deck only to find that I didn’t have any solid win conditions.

Surprisingly, one card that keeps coming up as a win condition in Abzan decks is [card]Alabaster Kirin[/card]. With cards like [card]Ainok Bond-Kin[/card] holding down the ground, sometimes all you really need is a reliable way to get in two damage per turn. Alabaster Kirin serves that purpose. While it isn’t an impressive card, I frequently find that my decks without it are lacking a certain finisher quality.

Even big creatures like [card]Siege Rhino[/card] don’t necessarily pack the punch necessary to break through a stalemate. If the game comes to parity, I want something like a [card]Krenko’s Enforcer[/card], [card]Accursed Spirit[/card], or [card]Mystic of the Hidden Way[/card]. Even if these options aren’t available, big dumb fliers like [card]Venerable Lammasu[/card], [card]Riverwheel Aerialist[/card], and [card]Abomination of Gudul[/card] will frequently get the job done. Though evasion isn’t the only way, having a way to close out games is vital.

There’s lots of other options for close-out cards. Big swing cards like [card]Rush of Battle[/card] or [card]Incremental Growth[/card] can all push you over the edge when the game stalls out. While these cards aren’t going to do anything for you when you’re behind, they’ll clearly make a huge impact when the game slows down.

Cards like [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] can help as well, but you need to be drawing towards something that can make profitable attacks. The issue here with just having good cards is that they don’t guarantee profitable attacks. If all you’ve got is good value cards, you need to be out valuing your opponent by hitting their big cards with removal while protecting your own big cards. A plan like [card]Forge Devil[/card], [card]Forge Devil[/card], [card]Lighting Strike[/card], [card]Lighting Strike[/card], [card]Stoke the Flames[/card], [card]Covenant of Blood[/card], [card]Covenant of Blood[/card] is a win condition. But if you’re just going to play good creatures, you likely don’t have any way to punch through. You don’t win the game by playing good creatures—you win by turning them sideways and damaging your opponent.

Summary

I think that it is important to be able to accurately assess the power of our decks. In Draft, this can be particularly challenging because you just don’t know if you happen to be at a table that played nice, opened good cards, or were acting as the hate-draft mafia.

In Draft, it’s possible that you’re mediocre deck is the best mess of cards at the table. But in Sealed, we should be able to compare our deck with a normal standard to see what we’ve put together. Let’s focus on how successful our deck can be with all the cards in our pool rather than focusing on the big cards, money cards, funky synergies, perfect curves, and suite of solid creatures. In order to win, we want win conditions, bombs, a smooth curve, good creatures, and some synnergy, not lots of any one of those.

Money cards don’t hurt, either.

Brainstorm Brewery #118 – Corbin’s True Value

Brainstorm Brewery 01:20:53

The Pro Tour is over, but you wouldn’t know it because Brainstorm Brewery is a man down after sever jet lag, and some procrastination-related complications sideline everyone’s fourth-favorite cast member. With one fewer person to fill awkward silences, his true worth on the cast becomes apparent to everyone. Will the entire gang manage to get together and record regularly again or will communicable disease season claim the voices of a different member next week?

It’s Pro Tour recap time, and there is plenty to talk about. Who is too sick to make the cast? Who gets to bask in the glory of correct calls that other cast members maligned? Which sets’ cards are better than others as buys during the Pro Tour weekend? Find out the answers to all of these questions and more on a very special episode of your favorite podcast that will have you asking, “Why is Marcel doing shout outs again? Didn’t Jason threaten to murder him last time?” Join us for Brainstorm Brewery.

Jeskai Ascendancy Storm? In Standard? What in the actual world?
Ari Lax is the Pro Tour winner with Abzan Midrange.
Finance 101 is all about buying before and after the Pro Tour.
Pick of the Week is back, with more picks than there are cast members this week.
Questions? Concerns? E-mail brainstormbrew at gmail dot com.

Cabe Riseau produced the intro and outro music for Brainstorm Brewery.

Contact Us!

Brainstorm Brewery – Website – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Ryan Bushard – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Corbin Hosler – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – QuietSpeculation

Jason E Alt – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – QuietSpeculation

Marcel White – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Conjured Currency #35: My Story

Douglas Johnson

Welcome back! I’m going to preface this week’s rant by mentioning that there’s a low likelihood of Magic finance material ahead. If you’re here solely for your weekly dose of new tips on collection buying, buylisting, or value trading, you’ll probably have to wait until next week. To be completely honest, I’m not 100-percent sure of what lies ahead in this week’s article. I have a general idea or theme that I want to stick to, but for the most part I just plan on letting my mind and fingers wander onto the page. I hate wasting other people’s time, so I wanted to get that out of the way in advance. If you’re interested in reading about my life and thinking about your own for a bit, I welcome you along for the ride. If not, I hold no resentment.

Last Week, Corbin “B Dubs” Hosler managed to way to sneak into my residence hall room from halfway across the continent, and steal my article idea for this week that had been sitting on a Post-It note on my desk. I too had been pondering that specific Gavin Verhey article from three years ago, thinking a lot about how my life had been lead up to this point, and where I would be going into the future. I wasn’t en route to Hawaii for the Pro Tour, but I’ve been having unusual success with the whole “Magic Finance as a primary source of income as a college student” throughout this semester, and it got me thinking about my current life circumstances.

Delusions of Grandeur

Throughout the majority of my high school life, I was more focused on Magic: The Gathering than actual schoolwork. Friday classes were something to be tuned out while I scribbled updates to decklists in my notebook, or goldfished opening hands on my iPod. Study halls were a time to get on the computer and lose myself in spoilers for the next set. My goals and aspirations of reaching the Pro Tour one day were more concrete than the decision of what college I would be attending. I was 200-percent confident that since I could beat people who were twice my age at FNM, I would make my mark on the competitive scene without much trouble at all. I knew I wanted to make it on the Pro Tour, and be a psychology major while in college. I had the perfect battle plan, no need to remind me.

Believe it or not, that didn’t happen. Without a car, driver’s licence, or monetary capability to have whatever deck I wanted at a moment’s notice, I was relegated to grinding FNMs for my high school life. I took the chance to hop in the empty seat to a PTQ once every few months if it was within an hour drive, but never made it past the sixth round. I wasn’t surprised—I didn’t practice enough. Magic wasn’t like high school homework where I could show up the day of the test and BS my way to a B+ without any studying or effort. Actual testing, practice, and training was involved. Eww.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school, and the “FNM-grinder, reader of every TCG/free SCG article ever, Pro Tour aspirant” version of DJ came across the previously linked article by Verhey. I asked myself the same question that Gavin, Corbin, and others have done, and I came up with an answer. I wanted to live the stereotypical dream of getting married, having kids, and a career that I loved, but I wanted to make an impact on the Magic world. I wanted to have my name known in the community, and be someone to look up to. I wanted to be the source of inspiration for others to follow their dreams down the line. It’s weird, because I can remember back when I read that article for the first time, but I don’t remember thinking of myself as a Pro Tour champion for the first time. I just knew that I wanted to make my mark.

Delusions of Mediocrity

I’m going to press the metaphorical fast forward button once again, to my freshman year of college. I signed up for an SCG Premium membership, and had a roommate who owned a car. I had taught him how to play in the previous year, so in my mind that meant being able to travel to more tournaments. The college campus Magic community was much broader than the group in my hometown, and now I actually lived within walking distance of any number of people to play against. I even had less actual class time than when I was in high school! PTQs, Grands Prix, here we come.

It turns out that I actually just can’t stand studying. Whether it’s in the form of taking a couple of hours to read a textbook for a test I have this coming Thursday, or playtesting a matchup between two decks for 10 games in a row, I get bored easily and want to focus on something fun. The whole Pro Tour dream was just too stressful, and I didn’t want to put in the required time and effort to make it happen. It felt like work, not playing the game like I had been doing at FNM a couple years prior. Even FNM started to feel like a chore or an obligation on some days, not a weekly oasis of relaxation and fun.

Although I had been value trading, picking commons and uncommons, and speculating on certain cards for a large portion of my Magic life, I had always assumed it was just a thing I knew how to do, and didn’t recognize that “Magic finance” was actually a thing that people did as their only source of income. I started to focus on building my collection more than playing, and learning about the various terminologies used in finance. I moved away from Brad Nelson articles and towards Chas Andres. I started listening to Brainstorm Brewery on a weekly basis, and signed up for a Quiet Speculation membership. I could feel the link to the competitive edge slipping away, but I fell into an entirely new world. I had been doing this for just as long as I had been playing at FNM, and I felt like I was better at it.

It wasn’t too long before I was buying binders and collections on a regular basis, and I shifted roles in the community. Instead of a player to test against on our regular Tuesday night gaming, I grew to commandeer my own table and set up shop with numerous binders and boxes. I grew to be “that guy” who almost always had the cards you were looking for, and always had cash if you were looking to sell. I felt like I was contributing much more to the group than I ever was before, and I feel that my friends think the same, especially when they support me in what I do.

I realized what my answer was to that three-word question had been all along. I saw myself in the future having made an impact on Magic, but it wasn’t by shaking hands with Jon Finkel after a feature match, or testing with team TCGplayer for a week before the Pro Tour. I wanted to be the guy buying [card]Master of Waves[/card] for $5 each mere hours before they hit $15, and warning people on Twitter about impending spikes or price changes. I want to go to Grands Prix to relax, sell cards to vendors, buy stuff that’s under-priced, and hang out with friends, instead of going 3-3 drop and suffering a six-hour return drive of self-loathing for not testing more for that one matchup.

When Corbin posted his article on Empeopled, I gave Gavin’s original piece another read. There are a lot of things in my life that are uncertain at my age (I’m still in undergraduate school, I can’t even legally drink yet, and I have no idea where I want to live or settle down), but I know that one piece of my endgame has started to fall into place. I want to continue in my endeavors of Magic finance, and make my presence known in this community. This time, I’m willing to put in the studying, the work ethic, and the hours—because I enjoy it. I love helping out people with their questions, and hearing that people actually read what I write. I’m thankful every time I get to sit down and produce an article, and I mean it from my heart every time I say a generic “Welcome back!” or “Thanks for reading!” The community has given me so much by just listening what I have to say, and I hope that I can continue to provide relevant information for years to come.

Well? What’s your endgame?

Unified Theory of Commander: Threats

Jason Rice

What kind of deck do you really want to build?

This question is at the starting point of every Commander deck, isn’t it? There’s no sense in building a deck that won’t be fun to pilot. So EDH players need to start with this question and then continually revisit it to make sure that the deck they actually build ends up being the deck they set out to play in the first place. Your own personal definition of “fun” is at the heart of deck building.

The answer to that critically important question is what defines the Threats portion of our Unified Theory of Commander. Threats are the cards that advance the game, execute your plan, and eventually defeat your opponents. They are the cards that define your “critical mana points,” are the primary targets for your tutors, and should be producing card advantage in one form or another if they stick around long enough to do their job. Threats are the cards that great EDH stories spring from.

Revisiting “My Deck Tickled A Sliver”

So if threats are the starting point of every EDH deck, why aren’t they the first element in the Unified Theory of Commander? Remember that order of operations is different than order of importance. You might pick your favorite cards to build around, but they aren’t ever really “threats” if you can’t get them into your hand or afford to cast them. So while the order of operations for deck building might dictate that you pick your threats first and fix your mana last, it’s important to remember that in order of importance, acquiring the resources that power your threats is most critical to building a deck that actually does its intended job.

With our discussion on resource acquisition behind us, threats now become the hinge point for the rest of the theory. Understanding our threats helps us determine which mana sources to run and what kinds of card draw we need as the underlying framework for our deck. It also informs our decisions about what kind of answers to run and how we’ll edit our decks for synergy.

Threats vs Synergy

We discussed in our introductory article how focusing on synergy first tends to lead new deck-builders astray. The issue of synergy is probably the most contested point in the entire theory so far, so it’s important that we revisit it now that we’ve come to threats in order to bring a little more clarity to the discussion. Threats can absolutely synergize with each other, but synergy by itself does not constitute a threat. So understanding how to differentiate between the two can tremendously improve your deck-building skills.

Go to war with real threats.

Let’s use [card]Aurelia, the Warleader[/card] as a tool for illustrating the difference between threats and synergy. Our fiery angel of the Boros Legion has an ability that creates extra attack steps, so a player thinking about synergy first will immediately consider creatures with abilities triggered by attacking. Getting two activations of battle cry or battalion will absolutely seem exciting, powerful, and synergistic, but does that synergy necessarily “get you there” when the game is on the line? Does it create meaningful card advantage? Does it put enough pressure on the table to threaten to end the game if it goes unanswered? If not, it’s not really a great example of a true “threat.”

Consider the card [card]Warmind Infantry[/card] and how it synergizes with Aurelia. It gets +2/+0 when its battalion ability triggers, so with two combat steps, it has the potential to deal 10 damage on a single turn. Seems pretty great strictly within the context of synergy. That’s a quarter of an opponent’s life total by itself, potentially ballooning to more than half their health when you consider Aurelia and at least one other creature are attacking as well. It sounds pretty appealing to deal half of someone’s health on a single turn, doesn’t it?

So is [card]Warmind Infantry[/card] a good inclusion in your Aurelia deck? Probably not, unless you are building on a strict budget. Three toughness means it’s not likely to survive the first combat step in the first place, so getting a second combat step isn’t guaranteed. The synergy is often wasted right there. More important though, is that Warmind Infantry isn’t very good on its own. It doesn’t threaten to end the game by itself, so without Aurelia to power it up and an empty battlefield so it can avoid blockers, the card just isn’t going to provide enough value to really qualify as a meaningful threat in EDH.

Not a threat. Sorry.

Now compare Warmind Infantry to [card]Tajic, Blade of the Legion[/card]. Battalion givesTajic +5/+5, so Aurelia’s bonus attack step means Tajic can deal 19 damage on a single turn by himself, which is already almost double the synergistic value for just one white mana more. More important is that Tajic is indestructible, so not only does he hit harder, he survives every combat to hit his opponents again. He doesn’t need an empty battlefield to produce value, nor does he need Aurelia to begin being scary. Tajic demands answers all by himself and synergizes with far more cards to put pressure on the table.

Maybe it’s cheating to compare a common card to a legendary rare, but the hidden rule we’re trying to uncover with this illustration is sound. Synergy does not produce a threat all by itself. It can increase value and potentially produce card advantage, but it doesn’t actually define what your deck is trying to do. Synergy is the salt and pepper, but threats are the meat of the deck.

Defining Threats

So how can we properly define Threats? How can a deck builder identify cards that are ideal to build around? There are a few key characteristics to keep in mind when selecting the right cards to lead your deck.

First, a true threat should threaten to end the game or eliminate at least one opponent if it goes unanswered. If we think back to the BREAD acronym for drafting, Threats are Commander’s equivalent to Bombs. They are powerful cards that apply pressure on your opponents and advance your own game plan. Flowing from this idea, we should also note that true threats should demand answers from your opponents. The table should not be able to safely ignore your key cards in most reasonable board states.

No synergy needed.

The second big idea to keep in mind is that your threats should either be very powerful by themselves or synergize in multiple ways with the rest of your deck to end the game if left unanswered. Playing an [card]Avacyn, Angel of Hope[/card] can be a threat all by itself. It’s an indestructible, vigilant, flying 8/8 that can put enormous pressure on the table alone. [card]Helix Pinnacle[/card] can also function as a threat in a defensive deck like [card]Angus Mackenzie[/card], although it may require a lot of synergy and protection to succeed. Finding a card that is both potent by itself and synergizes well with the rest of the deck is really the ultimate goal. [card]Avenger of Zendikar[/card] is good in just about any deck that runs green, but it’s astounding in a deck like [card]Hazezon Tamar[/card] that is built to abuse all those tokens in multiple ways.

Selecting Threats

Now that we know what really defines a threat, how do we go about picking the right ones for our decks? To answer this question, we really do need to go back and ask the question that started this article again: what kind of deck do you really want to build? Your threats should be selected in service of that goal.

Do you want to play Voltron? Then threats are the cards that either suit up your commander or are other creatures that can get powered up when your commander is unavailable. Potent equipment and resilient creatures become the threats that drive the deck towards its goal: turning a creature into an unstoppable combat machine.

What about combo decks? Their threats are the combo pieces that demand answers before they trigger a win condition that no other player can stop. So no matter how interesting or cute, cards that do not either set up the combo or protect it are good choices to get cut during the deck-building process. [card]Colossal Whale[/card] might be a big creature with a strong ability, but its probably not the best thing to draw when the game is on the line and your deck really just needs to hit its combo pieces. It’s not a threat. It’s dead weight.

Don’t end up like this. Run real threats!

We can repeat this pattern with every deck archetype and commander in the format to narrow our choices for threats. During our discussion on card advantage, I suggested you ask yourself, “What value do I get for playing this?” Perhaps another question to ask yourself when evaluating threats is, “Does this card align with the goals of my deck?” Just because a card is good, it doesn’t mean it helps advance your primary game plan and win the game. Those cards need to get cut, however painfully, if you want your deck to succeed.

Conclusion

If there is nothing else we take away from the discussion on threats, it should be this: set goals for your deck before you start building. Once you know the deck you want to play, then aggressively build toward that idea and cut anything that doesn’t service its goals. This is more than synergy. It’s directionality.

You don’t build a house by picking a bunch of wood that looks nice when hammered together and seeing what comes out once you throw some nails at it. Maybe that’s art. Maybe it makes you happy sometimes, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as a house that meets the requirements of shelter and safety. Instead, you get a blueprint and build using that as the guide. Building against that blueprint results in a solid structure that can successfully house a family.

Likewise, an EDH deck shouldn’t be made by taking a bunch of cards that synergize and throwing them into a 100-card pile. That might feel good sometimes, but it certainly doesn’t result in a consistent deck that always feels fun to pilot. Instead, set some goals for your deck before you begin. Pick your threats based on those goals and your deck building skills will improve tremendously.

Weekend Magic: 10/10-10/12 (Pro Tour KTK Edition)

Jared Yost

Welcome back, guys! I have some very exciting things to share with you today thanks to Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir happening last weekend. Many Magic players believe that the Pro Tour solidifies the decks that we will be seeing until the end of January, so based on the results, cards that were previously undervalued spike during and shortly after the weekend. I will analyze the top eight decks, what cards have already spiked from the results, and what cards I think are still undervalued even after the weekend. Let’s go!

Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir – Top 8 Decklists Data

Decklists

Results:

1st – Ari Lax (Abzan Midrange)

2nd – Shaun McLaren (Jeskai Wins)

3rd – Thiago Saporito (Abzan Midrange)

4th – Mike Sigrist (Abzan Aggro)

5th – Ivan Floch (Blue-Black Control)

6th – Ondrej Strasky (Jeskai Wins)

7th – Yuuya Watanabe (Jeskai Wins)

8th – Lee Shi Tian (Jeskai Ascendancy Combo)

[deck title=Main Deck Cards by the Numbers]
[Mythic Rare]
7x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
6x Wingmate Roc
5x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
4x Anafenza, the Foremost
3x Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
3x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3x Ashcloud Phoenix
2x Stormbreath Dragon
2x Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
1x Nissa, Worldwaker
[/mythic rare]
[Rare]
15x Hero’s Downfall
14x Flooded Strand
12x Windswept Heath
12x Sylvan Caryatid
12x Siege Rhino
12x Mantis Rider
11x Thoughtseize
11x Temple of Triumph
11x Dig Through Time
10x Temple of Malady
8x Shivan Reef
8x Llanowar Wastes
8x Goblin Rabblemaster
8x Fleecemane Lion
8x Courser of Kruphix
7x Battlefield Forge
6x Temple of Silence
6x Temple of Epiphany
6x Mana Confluence
6x Caves of Koilos
5x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Temple of Deceit
4x Rattleclaw Mystic
4x Rakshasa Deathdealer
4x Prognostic Sphinx
4x Polluted Delta
4x Jeskai Ascendancy
4x Hushwing Gryff
4x Herald of Torment
3x Temple of Plenty
3x Temple of Mystery
2x Yavimaya Coast
2x Wooded Foothills
2x Utter End
2x Twinflame
2x Temple of Abandon
2x Silence the Believers
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Whip of Erebos
[/rare]
[Uncommon]
12x Stoke the Flames
12x Sandsteppe Citadel
12x Mystic Monastery
12x Magma Jet
12x Jeskai Charm
10x Abzan Charm
9x Seeker of the Way
5x Bile Blight
5x Banishing Light
4x Dissolve
4x Despise
4x Frontier Bivouac
3x Kiora’s Follower
3x Drown in Sorrow
2x Heir of the Wilds
2x Briber’s Purse
1x Ulcerate
[/uncommon]
[/deck]

[deck title=Sideboard Cards by the Numbers]

8x Drown in Sorrow
7x Suspension Field
7x End Hostilities
7x Disdainful Stroke
7x Bile Blight
6x Magma Spray
5x Prognostic Sphinx
5x Erase
4x Thoughtseize
4x Savage Knuckleblade
4x Negate
4x Anger of the Gods
3x Swan Song
3x Lightning Strike
3x Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
3x Dissolve
3x Clever Impersonator
3x Arc Lightning
2x Wingmate Roc
2x Silence the Believers
2x Returned Phalanx
2x Polukranos, World Eater
2x Nissa, Worldwaker
2x Murderous Cut
2x Keranos, God of Storms
2x Despise
1x Whip of Erebos
1x Utter End
1x Unravel the Æther
1x Stain the Mind
1x Set Adrift
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Pharika’s Cure
1x Pearl Lake Ancient
1x Mass Calcify
1x Liliana Vess
1x Gods Willing
1x Gainsay
1x Duneblast
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
1x Back to Nature
1x Anafenza, the Foremost
1x Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
1x Agent of Erebos
[/deck]

Cards that Have Spiked

Cards that have spiked from the weekend’s results include:

[card]Pearl Lake Ancient[/card]
[card]Dig Through Time[/card]
[card]Perilous Vault[/card]
[card]Rakshasa Deathdealer[/card]
[card]Siege Rhino[/card]
[card]See the Unwritten[/card]
[card]Jeskai Ascendancy[/card]

For all the above mentioned cards, if you have extra copies you will want to trade them or sell them over the next few weeks since many of these prices are driven by hype. The prices for many of these cards are going to be going down or stabilizing over the next few months, so by trading or selling extra copies you will be in a position of profit due to the PT results. As Corbin likes to say, “Leave the last ten percent for the next guy.” Many of the above cards are rares that are going to hit the market en masse, which will heavily stabilize their prices or even decrease them. The only exception I may make here is [card]Perilous Vault[/card], since it is from M15—yet no copies were in the top eight, so even this might go down.

Cards that have increased in price based on speculated play that also were not seen in the top eight include [card]Hornet Queen[/card] and [card]Genesis Hydra[/card]. Hornet Queen has see the most upward momentum since M15 was released, going from $1 or less to $5.50 or more retail. Genesis Hydra is also included in the Mono-Green Devotion deck. However, the price is still relatively stable at $3.50, only going up $1 from its low of $2.50.

I believe the [card]Hornet Queen[/card] window has passed for now, since the triple-green casting cost prohibits it from being in many different decks and the buy-in point is too high to make a profit (that is, I don’t think it is going to $11 or more in the near future). I think the window has also passed on Hydra as well. At $2.50 I was a buyer, but at $3.50 or more, I don’t think there is a ton of room for growth. If you plan on playing green devotion in the new Standard, you will want to pick up your copies of both cards now. I don’t think they are going below their respective new prices while still in Standard. However, I don’t think this is where you are going to want to speculate since I believe the risk outweighs the reward.

Current Stabilized Staples

Cards that appeared in top eight lists that have stabilized for now or will be slow gainers through the next few months include:

[card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[/card]
[card]Brimaz, King of Oreskos[/card]
[card]Hero’s Downfall[/card]
[card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]
[card]Thoughtseize[/card]
[card]Temples (all of ‘em)
[card]Painlands[/card]
[card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card]
[card]Courser of Kruphix[/card]
[card]Mana Confluence[/card]
[card]Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth[/card]

These are the cards that won’t be changing much in price, if at all, over the next few months. They only stand to increase with more visibility at SCG Opens or GPs, so if you don’t have your copies for Standard, you will want to pick them up soon.

In terms of speculation, all of these cards are from Theros or M15, so holding onto them for now and waiting for the beginning of next year will be important to maximize profits. Getting out too soon will prevent you from realizing some of the higher prices that a few of these cards might reach if they start dominating Standard over the next few months.

All are too expensive to speculate on, though any copies you might have should be kept in anticipation of future price increases.

Looking at the uncommons, the trilands—particularly [card]Mystic Monastery[/card], [card]Sandsteppe Citadel[/card], and [card]Frontier Bivouac[/card]—are now the frontrunners for maintaining a price of $1 or more for their time in Standard. Start packing away as many copies of these lands as possible for future gains over the next year.

Potentially Undervalued

The first card that pops up to me as potentially undervalued is [card]Ajani, Mentor of Heroes[/card]. Three copies across the main deck and sideboard were included in Ari Lax’s winning Abzan deck. Even though this was the only place Ajani appeared in the top eight, he was doing a ton of work on camera and enabled Lax to win against McLaren and Saporito in his final two matches. Not only does Ajani have the PT win going for him, he also has casual appeal as a planeswalker (especially being the first GW walker) and will maintain a large amount of value from that. Heck, Kiora has gone up to $21.50 retail without any results from these top eight decks!

The next card on my list is [card]Anafenza, the Foremost[/card] in foil. She appeared five times across main decks and ‘boards in the top eight, and has real Vintage and Commander playability. I especially like foils if you can get them for $14 or cheaper. I would avoid regular copies for a while since more Khans is soon to hit the market. However, at $2-$3 I would start picking her up for anticipated Standard play in the future.

Another card could be [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card]—even the pros still aren’t sure whether Stormbreath is necessarily better than [card]Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker[/card]. It has already started slowly going up from its lows of $13 to $19 and could continue to $20 and beyond once Theros becomes hard to find next spring, especially after Fate Reforged has been released. We’re not going to see [card]Thundermaw Hellkite[/card] prices of $40 or more, since Stormbreath is from heavily opened Theros, but $30 is a real possibility since he dodges all the white removal of the currently popular Jeskai and Abzan decks (and even future Mardu decks). I would not go deep here, but if you plan on playing red in the new Standard, you will want to pick up your Stombreaths soon.

Lastly, [card]Fleecemane Lion[/card] could start doing more work if the Abzan aggro deck starts catching on. At $4 or less, this could be a great pickup in anticipation of winter and spring play.

Final Thoughts

Even though Sorin, Sarkhan, and [card]Wingmate Roc[/card] were the most popular mythics in main decks by the numbers, there is still a good chance that all of them will drop over the next few months leading into January. More Khans product will be opened, which will increase the amount of copies out there. A good case study here is [card]Master of Waves[/card] and [card]Thassa, God of the Sea[/card]. Both were seen in huge numbers at Pro Tour Theros, spiked hugely after the PT, but then went down and even past their preorder prices once Theros saturated the market over the next year. When was the best time to get out at their highest price? The weeks following the PT. One caveat here is that planeswalkers can buck this trend due to overwhelming casual demand in addition to tournament playability. Again, though, you have to consider risk versus reward—do you want to wait and find out if they’re still good three months from now or do you want to capitalize on what you know was a recent spike in price?

In terms of rares, even though [card]Siege Rhino[/card], [card]Mantis Rider[/card], and [card]Dig Through Time[/card] will be staples throughout their entire lives in Standard, I also have a hard time seeing them maintain their current prices. Like the mythic rares mentioned above, their prices are really going to be hit hard by the continued printing of Khans over the next year. Since they are rares, there is a real possibility that they could be printed in an event deck or similar supplemental product, further dissuading me from wanting to target them at this point. The risks outweigh the benefits here for the top rares from Khans as well.

There is still opportunity in Theros and M15 cards, since print runs are starting to come to a close for these sets and many of the hot staples are stabilizing in price. Any card that you feel is underutilized could be a good pickup if it hasn’t already spiked from the PT results. Slow gainers should still go up slowly, at least until the end of January.

Finally, cards like the fetch lands should be dropped like hot potatoes. All are bound to go down in price over the next few months. Where they will finally end up I can’t tell, you but there is no way that expected value of Khans boxes will continue to be more than $180 over the next few months and next year. Higher priced rares are almost all going to drop and reduce this EV to less than the cost of a box, ultimately fulfilling the laws of supply and demand.

Have any questions or comments on this article or tech we saw at the PT? Let me know in the comments.

Brewing with Khans of Tarkir

Josh Milliken

Welcome back! Today we’re brewing with Khans of Tarkir. For those of you who don’t know, this article is a little later than usual—because I’m prepping for Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in Honolulu. As I’m finishing up this article, it’s Sunday October 5th, the day after States and the day before I leave for Hawaii. There is a benefit to this delay, though: I’ve had a lot more time to tune the decks and even provide full sideboards. I even made top eight of Ohio States with the Gruul Monsters list in this article on the 4th. Without any further delay, let’s get to some decklists…

Gruul Monsters

This is the leading choice for me for Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir. Not only is it brutally efficient, but I made top eight at States with it yesterday. This deck really only gained from rotation, leaving [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] killable by only a few spells. It also gained [card]Nissa, Worldwaker[/card], who simply takes over games by herself, and [card]Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker[/card], who not only kills things but doubles as your fifth and sixth [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card]s. The sideboard does feel slightly off, but I can’t quite place where.

[deck title= Gruul Monsters]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Genesis Hydra
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Strike
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
4 Nissa, Worldwaker
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Temple of Abandon
2 Mana Confluence
1 Darksteel Citadel
7 Forest
5 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Magma Spray
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Harness by Force
3 Fated Conflagration
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Hornet Queen
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Beast Wars

I tried to run this for old time’s sake last weekend and only went 3-2 with it due to some pretty terrible draws on my part. I didn’t run it this week so I could get in testing with other decks. I’m not really sure if the metagame is ready for this deck, as [card]Siege Rhino[/card] seems to be everywhere right now and it is a hell of a card. Adding white gave it a few nice tricks, but I’m not sure if it’s enough.

[deck title= Beast Wars]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sunblade Elf
4 Swordwise Centaur
4 Fleecemane Lion
4 Reverent Hunter
4 Boon Satyr
2 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Nylea, God of the Hunt
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Aspect of Hydra
2 Setessan Tactics
2 Bow of Nylea
[/Spells]
[Land]
13 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Mana Confluence
2 Plains
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Ajani’s Presence
1 Back to Nature
1 Setessan Tactics
2 Hall of Triumph
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Banishing Light
1 Ajani Steadfast
4 Nylea’s Disciple
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Mono-Black Aggro

This is another deck that had lots to gain from rotation. Unfortunately, everyone is running every sweeper spell they can find. This is still a great deck that can kill out of nowhere, so I won’t count it out.

[Deck title=Mono-Black Aggro]
[Creatures]
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Gnarled Scarhide
4 Tormented Hero
4 Mardu Skullhunter
4 Pain Seer
4 Herald of Torment
4 Mogis’s Marauder
[/creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Bile Blight
2 Hero’s Downfall
[/spells]
[Land]
14 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
1 Hero’s Downfall
2 Grim Horuspex
2 Despise
3 Pharika’s Cure
2 Murderous Cut
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Stain the Mind
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Golgari Rock

Remember, I always brew The Rock, and this time is no different. I’m not convinced this is better than the Abzan decks due to the powerful cards that get added into the mix, but it will be able to more easily cast the ones it has to make up for it.

[deck title= Golgari Rock]
[Creatures]
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Rakshasa Deathdealer
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Reaper of the Wilds
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bile Blight
4 Sign in Blood
4 Hero’s Downfall
2 Silence the Believers
4 Nissa, Worldwaker
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Temple of Malady
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Jungle Hollow
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Darksteel Citadel
3 Forest
5 Swamp
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Despise
1 Bile Blight
4 Drown in Sorrow
1 Empty the Pits
2 Whip of Erebos
3 Reclamation Sage
1 Garruk, Apex Predator
1 Silence the Believers
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Mono-Red Aggro

This was one of the first decks I brewed, and I was super excited about it until I saw the staggering amount of lifegain in the format. This deck can still get there, but it will take a lot more work to do it through all that lifegain.

[deck title= Mono-Red Aggro]
[Creatures]
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Frenzied Goblin
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Borderland Marauder
4 War-Name Aspirant
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Hammerhand
4 Titan’s Strength
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Land]
12 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Rouse the Mob
2 Blinding Flare
2 Scouring Sands
4 Searing Blood
2 Hall of Triumph
3 Harness by Force
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Jeskai Counter Burn

This was a fun idea I had when I saw [card]Mindswipe[/card]—you just incidentally kill your opponent while controlling the board. This will definitely be good against a lot of the decks in the format, but I haven’t gotten to find out which ones yet.

[deck title= Jeskai Counter Burn]
[Creatures]
2 Keranos, God of Storms
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Strike
4 Dissolve
4 Banishing Light
4 Jeskai Charm
3 Anger of the Gods
4 End Hostilities
4 Jace’s Ingenuity
1 Fated Retribution
4 Mindswipe
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Temple of Epiphany
4 Temple of Enlightenment
4 Shivan Reef
5 Island
2 Plains
3 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Fated Conflagration
2 Thassa’s Ire
1 Anger of the Gods
4 Nyx Fleece Ram
4 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
1 Pearl Lake Ancient
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Sultai Midrange

This was another deck I brewed early and was fairly excited for. I made quite a few changes to it after my initial testing, but have not yet gotten to try them out. I was easily taking down Mono-Green Devotion in testing though, so that’s something.

[deck title= Sultai Midrange]
[Creatures]
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Clever Impersonator
2 Prognostic Sphinx
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bile Blight
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Sultai Charm
4 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
1 Silence the Believers
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
2 Murderous Cut
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Temple of Mystery
2 Temple of Malady
3 Llanowar Wastes
2 Mana Confluence
4 Polluted Delta
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Despise
3 Drown in Sorrow
4 Dissolve
2 Dissipate
1 Silence the Believers
1 Aetherspouts
2 Sagu Mauler
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Naya Planeswalkers

Naya Planeswalkers is one of the decks that mostly comes from the Theros Block format, but doesn’t gain as much as most of the other decks do. It could be a big deck in the format, but with the Abzan decks being so big right now, it has a lot to contend with.

[deck title= Naya Planeswalkers]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Stormbreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Lightning Strike
3 Banishing Light
4 Xenagos the Reveler
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
2 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
4 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Mana Confluence
2 Plains
2 Mountain
3 Forest
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Magma Spray
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Banishing Light
3 Destructive Revelry
2 Fated Conflagration
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Izzet Artifact Aggro

This deck looks fun, but feels like it’s missing a couple of cards to be good. It could kick around a few of the midrange decks with its speed and shouldn’t be counted out.

[deck title= Izzet Artifact Aggro]
[Creatures]
4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Ghostfire Blade
4 Ensoul Artifact
4 Lightning Strike
4 Shrapnel Blast
2 Military Intelligence
2 Hour of Need
4 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Shivan Reef
4 Temple of Epiphany
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Mana Confluence
2 Island
4 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Magma Spray
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Searing Blood
3 Disdainful Strike
2 Icy Blast
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

White Weenie

This deck could be strong if there wasn’t so much lifegain in the format, but suffers from [card]Siege Rhino[/card] being played so heavily. I would expect to see it quite a bit despite that.

[deck title= White Weenie]
[Creatures]
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Favored Hoplite
4 Master of Pearls
4 Cavalry Pegasus
4 Phalanx Leader
4 Cavalry Pegasus
4 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Launch the Fleet
2 Gods Willing
2 Dauntless Onslaught
1 Spear of Heliod
1 Hall of Triumph
[/Spells]
[Land]
22 Plains
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
3 Ajani’s Presence
1 Spear of Heliod
3 Banishing Light
1 Ajani Steadfast
3 Deicide
2 God’s Willing
2 Suspension Field
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Sultai Control

This deck is more Dimir Control splashing green for some very powerful spells than it is Sultai, but that allows it to hit double black and double blue consistently for its best cards. I will be surprised if a variation of this deck is not a contender in the format.

[deck title= Sultai Control]
[Creatures]
1 Clever Impersonator
2 Sagu Mauler
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bile Blight
2 Drown in Sorrow
4 Hero’s Downfall
4 Dissolve
3 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
4 Sultai Charm
1 Silence the Believers
1 Aetherspouts
2 Murderous Cut
3 Jace’s Ingenuity
1 Garruk, Apex Predator
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Polluted Delta
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Yavimaya Coast
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Mystery
2 Temple of Malady
2 Mana Confluence
3 Swamp
4 Island
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Despise
2 Pharika’s Cure
3 Negate
1 Bile Blight
2 Drown in Sorrow
1 Silence the Believers
1 Jace, the Living Guildpact
1 Aetherspouts
1 Pearl Lake Ancient
1 Empty the Pits
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Gruul Devotion

This deck is already seeing a lot of play, and I expect that to continue for quite a while. There will be lots of variations on it that are competitive as we’ve already seen with Mono-Green, Golgari, and Gruul versions.

[deck title= Gruul Devotion]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Voyaging Satyr
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Nylea, God of the Hunt
4 Arbor Colossus
4 Genesis Hydra
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Crater’s Claws
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills
9 Forest
3 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Nylea’s Disciple
3 Setessan Tactics
3 Reclamation Sage
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
2 Nissa, Worldwaker
1 Crater’s Claws
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Big Boros

While this deck lost a lot of the enablers for devotion it still has some very powerful cards to ramp into. Whether this strategy is good enough yet remains to be seem, but I’m not super optimistic about it at the moment.

[deck title= Big Boros]
[Creatures]
4 Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Iroas, God of Victory
4 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Soul of Shandalar
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Magma Jet
4 Tormenting Voice
3 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
2 Crater’s Claws
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
2 Wind-Scarred Crag
10 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Banishing Light
2 Fated Conflagration
2 Harness by Force
3 Magma Spray
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Boros Aggro

This deck has two things going for it: being fast and having a lot of built-in card advantage. I will be surprised if I don’t see Boros aggro running around, and smashing face.

[deck title= Boros Aggro]
[Creatures]
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Master of Pearls
4 War-Name Aspirant
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Launch the Fleet
4 Magma Jet
2 Desperate Stand
4 Stoke the Flames
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Mana Confluence
4 Plains
6 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Ride Down
2 Banishing Light
3 Chained to the Rocks
3 Magma Spray
3 Ajani’s Presence
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Orzhov Warriors

This is a pretty aggressive deck with a lot of built in resistance to a majority of the sweepers in the format. While it does resist the sweepers, it may or may not be enough to be a contender in the metagame.

[deck title= Orzhov Warriors]
[Creatures]
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Gnarled Scarhide
4 Tormented Hero
4 Pain Seer
4 Chief of the Edge
4 Chief of the Scale
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Bile Blight
4 Sign in Blood
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Temple of Silence
4 Mana Confluence
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
6 Swamp
3 Plains
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Banishing Light
3 Pharika’s Cure
2 Grim Haruspex
2 Raider’s Spoils
1 Hall of Triumph
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Abzan Midrange

This is so far the most heavily played deck in the format, and I’ve played against it a whopping seven times this weekend. This is the deck to beat.

[deck title= Abzan Midrange]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Fleecemane Lion
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Siege Rhino
4 Wingmate Roc
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Abzan Charm
4 Hero’s Downfall
2 Utter End
3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
2 Temple of Silence
2 Temple of Malady
4 Mana Confluence
4 Windswept Heath
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Forest
2 Plains
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Thoughtseize
2 Whip of Erebos
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Banishing Light
3 Reclamation Sage
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Temur Monsters

This has a little more utility than the Gruul Monsters list, but utility doesn’t always win. There’s very little reason to splash the blue, but the few cards that are worth it are very very good. We will see Temur Monsters around.

[deck title= Temur Monsters]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Savage Knuckleblade
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Stormbreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Strike
2 Temur Ascendancy
4 Temur Charm
4 Xenagos, the Reveler
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Temple of Abandon
2 Shivan Reef
2 Yavimaya Coast
2 Mana Confluence
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Forest
3 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
3 Magma Spray
2 Surrak Dragonclaw
2 Chandra. Pyromaster
3 Reclamation Sage
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Mardu Midrange

Another deck that’s quickly gaining popularity, but with little reason. This deck is just a mishmash of good stuff barely held together by its removal. I will be surprised if it continues to be a player.

[deck title= Mardu Midrange]
[Creatures]
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Butcher of the Horde
4 Strombreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bile Blight
4 Mardu Charm
4 Hero’s Downfall
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
3 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Nomad Outpost
4 Temple of Malice
3 Caves of Koilos
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Silence the Believers
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Utter End
3 Pharika’s Cure
2 Despise
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Villainous Sultai

This is just a nice fun little list for those of you who want to ramp into [card]Villainous Wealth[/card], since lots of friends have been talking about wanting to play it. I don’t think it really has a place in the format, which is unfortunate for people who like fun.

[deck title= Villainous Sultai]
[Creatures]
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Sultai Charm
3 Hero’s Downfall
4 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
4 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
2 In Garruk’s Wake
4 Villainous Wealth
[/Spells]
[Land]
4 Opulent Palace
4 Temple of Malady
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Yavimaya Coast
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Island
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
4 Drown in Sorrow
1 Hero’s Downfall
2 Garruk, Apex Predator
2 Prognostic Sphinx
3 Nissa, Worldwaker
3 Bile Blight
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

That’s all I have for now. I’ll be back in a few weeks talking about my Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir experience. If you have any questions of comments, pleases feel free to leave them below and I will do my best to answer them.

Thanks for reading,

Josh Milliken

@joshuamilliken on Twitter

What Wizards Wants: Reprints

Anthony Capece

Magic players can be selfish. When Wizards of the Coast makes a decision or a change to the game, most people talk about how it affects them. Standard players talk about how it affects Standard, Cube enthusiasts talk about possible inclusions from the new set, Modern and Legacy players look for playable eternal cards, and so on. It’s normal to form your opinion based mostly on how the change affects you.

What strikes me, though, is how oblivious some people can be to WOTC’s perspective. Wizards is in business to sell Magic: The Gathering product and just about every decision the company makes is a means to that end. When you start to look at it like that, the thought process behind business decisions becomes a lot easier to understand. And if you can understand WOTC’s decision making, you can better predict its future actions.

For example, there is a perpetual discussion on whether or not [card]Birthing Pod[/card] should be banned in Modern. People will typically cite power level, diversity, the need to shake up the format, etc., when making a case.

Wizards, at least at a high level, is not overly concerned about optimizing the Modern tournament experience at any given moment. Sure, it’s on R&D’s radar and they certainly want it to be good, but Modern Constructed is just one tool in their toolbox for creating demand for their product.

Wizards is not in business to balance Constructed formats, it is in business to sell product. WOTC doesn’t really care that much when six of eight decks in a grand prix top eight are Pod decks, even though that might be incredibly frustrating to a die-hard Modern grinder.

When it comes to [card]Birthing Pod[/card] and moving product, Wizards is probably considering a menu of options like this one:

Reprint it to sell packs.
Print must-have Pod hate cards to sell packs.
Ban it to shift that demand to something else they can sell.

We underestimate how important sales are to Wizards of the Coast and overestimate how important everything else is. R&D’s decision on Pod is just as likely to result in a fixed [card]Null Rod[/card] in the next block at mythic rare as it is in banning Pod itself. This way they can keep Pod in Modern Masters II and juice sales of both sets.

So today I’m going to write from the other side of the table. I’m going to approach a topic from WOTC’s perspective by taking the sales-first position, explaining what I believe drives the team’s decision making. I’m going to support my points with actual decisions made by Wizards, but be aware that this is really an opinion piece. I don’t have access to anyone at Wizards or to any non-public information.

Since we’ve already started in that direction, today’s topic is going to be reprints.

Printing Money

Reprints are a beautiful thing for Wizards because they allows the company to convert equity in the secondary market (which belongs to someone else) into sales dollars for themselves. Reprints also conserve R&D resources in the process.

Wizards does not have a direct stake in the secondary market. That means that when [card]Thoughtseize[/card] went from $30 to $60, Wizards didn’t see another penny because that card was out of print. The new equity belonged to the players and store owners who owned copies of the card. But Wizards is not out of this game by any stretch of the imagination.

While Wizards doesn’t have a direct stake in the secondary market, it certainly has ways to interact with it. One of the best ways is through reprints. It’s important to remember that WOTC’s production costs are the same whether they are printing a sheet of [card]Thoughtseize[/card]s or a sheet of basic lands. The first is a sheet of twenty-dollar bills, the second is worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

It does feel a little like printing money in that respect. They have been doing it for years with the judge program, using reprints as a currency to buy needed labor.

Now, the players and store owners who had all the Lorwyn [card]Thoughtseize[/card]s lost half of their equity when the reprint dropped them from $60 back to $30, but it undoubtedly moved a ton of Theros packs for Wizards in the process. Our loss is their gain, but cashing in on valuable assets is solid business strategy and I wouldn’t expect anything else.

Was the [card]Thoughtseize[/card] reprint a developmental mistake? Was it too powerful for Standard? These questions are secondary to, “How many Theros packs will a [card]Thoughtseize[/card] reprint move?” Wizards might tell us that [card]Thoughtseize[/card] was printed to give black some play against enchantment creatures, but that’s only relevant because it fits into the larger strategy of reprinting high-dollar cards to move product. A new, lower-power [card]Duress[/card]/[card]Despise[/card] hybrid would have done the trick, too.

Similarly, many were surprised when Mark Rosewater explained that the allied fetch lands were the first cards in Khans of Tarkir, despite lacking the design synergy that we saw with fetches in Zendikar. No one should have been surprised. Printing high-value cards is a lucrative business and these were prime candidates. Trust me, Wizards cares about the efficiency of mana bases in Modern way less than it cares about spiking Khans sales. Way, way less.

Deconstructing Constructed

One very significant thing to note here is that a lot of these reprints are being put into Standard-legal sets. Wizards can print pretty much anything in a supplemental product without worry, but that would be missing out on the huge demand that comes from a Standard printing. This is worth taking some risks in the format. Cards like [card]Mutavault[/card], [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card], and [card]Chord of Calling[/card] are great examples. These cards didn’t need to be in Standard—no one would have missed them if they weren’t.

What it means for us is that we can expect a steady stream of high-profile reprints popping up in large Standard sets. If it can go through Standard, it will go through Standard. Why give cards straight to Modern players in a set like Modern Masters when you can make Standard players buy them too?

Of course, not everything is fit for Standard. Cards that really would wreck the format, would subtract substantially from Limited playability, or feel badly out of place flavor-wise can go straight to the supplemental products. You risk hurting sales as much as helping if you get too ambitious.

If we extrapolate this line of thinking, we come to the conclusion that the enemy fetches will not be in Modern Masters II (but will instead be in Standard at some point). We also come to the general conclusion that things left out of reprint sets have a higher-than-usual chance of showing up in Standard at some point. [card]Damnation[/card] seems like a good possibility in this category.

Let’s take it to the extreme, just for fun. [card]Wasteland[/card] was left out of Vintage Masters for a reason, but you can be sure Wizards is going to cash in on this gem. Is it crazy to consider the Standard implications? If it is ever going to be viable, a Standard where the best mana-fixing involves fetching basic lands would be the place. [card]Wasteland[/card] would keep all the rest of the duals from Khans in check while allowing fetches to do their thing.

I’m sure the chances of [card]Wasteland[/card] in Standard are very small. The point here is that Wizards will surely consider it because that is the highest payout. They will probably conclude that it is too powerful and put it in a Commander product at some point (or something along those lines).

Reprint Sets

If Wizards can’t put a card through Standard, the next best option is a reprint set like Modern Masters, Vintage Masters, or Conspiracy (I realize that set had some new cards).

Reprint sets are great for Wizards for a few reasons. The first is that a draftable set appeals to some people on that basis alone, widening the audience. In other words, you don’t have to play Modern Constructed or care about the reprints at all to enjoy Modern Masters. Very enfranchised players that wouldn’t pay much attention to a product like Planechase dive right into these reprint sets. These sets (although not Conspiracy), also have a nice synergy with Magic Online.

The next reason is that reprint sets are a much less efficient way for players to get the reprints they need. If [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] was in a Commander deck, essentially anyone could buy a ‘Goyf at $30 retail. Instead, it was a mythic rare in Modern Masters, so it appeared in one out of every 120 packs (one mythic in every eight packs, with one-in-fifteen shot at that mythic being a [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]).

Did I mention reprint sets are great for Wizards because they can charge $7 per pack?

On average, Wizards booked $840 of sales of Modern Masters packs for each [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] put into circulation. That’s a bit more than the $30 for Commander decks. This means that players have to dump a lot more money into their reprints in a reprint set.

The “special” rarity in Vintage Masters was born out of this very favorable math. I do not think we have seen the last of it.

The final reason that reprint sets are great for Wizards is that they are inexpensive to produce. They need zero designers, zero creative, and just a few developers to make the set out of existing pieces. This almost seems like the type of thing developers do in their free time, to be honest. Instead of dedicating most of your R&D team to making a new set for a year, you can throw Adam Prosak and Ian Duke in a conference room with a laptop, have them put together what is essentially a cube with rarities, and then sell the packs for twice as much as your current Standard set.

Vintage Masters had to be even more profitable than Modern Masters (on margin, surely it didn’t outsell it) because Wizards didn’t even have to print physical cards!

I expect that we will see a draftable supplemental product virtually every year going forward. These sets will be all or mostly reprints. As long as a card has significant equity in the secondary market, I think Wizards will include it (unless they are printing it somewhere else). So I’m predicting [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] and [card]Dark Confidant[/card] in Modern Masters II. I also expect that Wizards will experiment with stretching rarities even further in paper products. I’m not sure if the company will decide that Modern Masters II is the right time to try it, but it is a great way to preserve equity for future reprint sets.

Finally, I want to point out that none of these strategies work unless you have product on the shelves. This may already be obvious, but I strongly feel that we have seen the last of the ultra-limited print run. Any demand that goes unsatisfied due to a limited print-run just creates equity in the secondary market. Wizards is trying to harvest that equity, not create more.

I expect Modern Masters II to be quite a bit easier to get than the first one. From the Vault sets and Commander decks are already much easier to get then they used to be, and I doubt we’ll see another attempt at a Commander’s Arsenal.

I wouldn’t rule out a straight reprint of the original Modern Masters in the new frame at some point, either. We see this thought process in action already with the Duel Deck Anthology. If there is still demand out there for the first set (and $400 booster boxes indicate there is) and the set was already all reprints, why the heck not? Of course, I would revise my prediction of ‘Goyf and Bob being in the second set if the first one is scheduled to hit the market again.

In Closing

That’s my take on the Wizards of the Coast reprint strategy. If the reception to this article is reasonably good, I will probably write a similar article for Magic Online. Let me know if you are interested in that.

Thanks for reading.

Conjured Currency #34: One More Card

Douglas Johnson

Hey there. How have you been? I hope you’re having an excellent Thursday, and that your Magic finance life has been at least slightly improved by reading my articles. I genuinely enjoy writing each week to try and teach at least one person something new, even if I have to stay up until 3 a.m. on the night of my deadline to think of an idea for a topic. However, that’s actually not the case tonight! I’m sitting here at 8:15 p.m. a night before my deadline, and I actually have an idea ready to go.

Do You Have a Ton of Bulk Rares Sitting Around?

If you all have been buying collections or trading away dual lands like I have, then you might have a ton of bulk rares sitting around. However, what if I told you that not all bulk rares are the same? Obviously a [card]Shipbreaker Kraken[/card] and [card]Fated Infatuation[/card] have different text written on them, but not all of my bulk rares go into the same boxes. Some get set aside for later, for when they might randomly become $20 cards one day.

Does this sound familiar? It should, considering two weeks ago [card]Glittering Wish[/card] went from being a $2 or $3 “cute” Future Sight rare with no home, to being a $20 chase rare in a brand new Modern deck that Sam Black hyped up on SCG (and with good reason, the deck looks to be very powerful). While trying to sound the least bit “humble brags” about this as possible, I’d like to mention that I traded for two non-foil and one foil copy of Wish almost two years ago, because it seemed like it could be broken in Modern if the right card were printed. Fast forward, and [card]Jeskai Ascendancy[/card] somehow makes it to print, allowing a fast and consistent combo deck in Modern.

Another example that happened somewhat recently is [card]Phyrexian Unlife[/card]. When the card was spoiled, it was immediately thrown aside as one of the worst cards in the set, because it effectively read “2W: gain 10 life”. However, it does have the convenient ability to allow a player to drop below 0 life and not die while losing life via [card]Ad Nauseum[/card], so that player can draw their entire deck and win the game on the spot with [card]Lightning Storm[/card]. In one weekend, it went from my $.25 box to selling on TCGplayer for $4.00.

The point I want to focus on this week is the whole “picking up bulk rares that seem to have powerful or unique effects, and could be broken if the right card(s) were printed” thing. Glittering Wish is one of the only cards in Modern that allows you to have access to your sideboard straight from your main deck, and being from Future Sight meant that there were only 54 copies in existence from the start. With that said, let’s look at some of the stuff I’m jamming in my 1,000-count box that’s affectionately labeled “bulk rare specs”!

Tinkering Around

[card]Kuldotha Forgemaster[/card]:

It’s [card]Tinker[/card], but you have to put a bit more effort in. [card]Blightsteel Colossus[/card] is legal in Modern and vulnerable to [card]Path to Exile[/card], but maybe we’re headed for yet another artifact block in the future, and we get some sort of giant metal monster with hexproof, or a way to consistently pop this guy on turn three. Either way, there’s an extremely low floor here at $.78 TCG mid, and I don’t feel comfortable letting people buy this guy out of my $.25 box. Even if nothing breaks him open to cause a spike, I feel like this guy is popular enough with the casual/EDH crowd to make a slow creep into the $3 range.

Cheap is Good

[card]Heartless Summoning[/card], [card]Semblance Anvil[/card]

In Magic’s history, the words “cost” and “less” have traditionally paved the way for stupid, broken effects when paired together. When cards reach that magic cost of zero, combos start happening and people start getting dealt billions of damage in one turn. I’m a fan my opponent being at negative 6 trillion life, so I pack these two cards away into my spec box when people sell me their bulk rares for $.10 a piece, or trade them to me en masse for dual lands. Maybe Wizards will print [card]Myr Retriever[/card] and [card]Grapeshot[/card], and there will be an absurdly powerful deck utilizing these cards that will allow our own Ryan Bushard to take down the next Modern Pro Tour. (In all seriousness, though, these seem exactly like the type of card that’s one card away from being broken as all hell). Semblance Anvil takes this to the next level and allows anything to cost less (at the cost of a sizable chunk of card advantage), but its sweet, sweet, bulk rare status prevents me from wanting to sell it for a quarter.

All of the Activated Abilities

[card]Skill Borrower[/card], [card]Necrotic Ooze[/card]

In a format where [card]Griselbrand[/card] and [card]Borborygmos Enraged[/card] are both legal, I really want both of these cards to be broken in some form or another. I actually copied a list off of GatheringMagic.com’s “5 Decks You Can’t Miss This Week” a while ago, and recently built it when I randomly bought a [card]Skill Borrower[/card] in a bulk lot. It’s not competitive enough for a Grand Prix whatsoever (Borrower/Ooze having thre toughness in a format with Bolt just plain sucks), but I had a blast testing Modern against my friends with this:

[deck title=Dead by Dawn]

[Creatures]

*4 Birds of Paradise
*2 Noble Hierarch
*1 Children of Korlis
*1 Mogg Fanatic
*1 Lotleth Troll
*4 Skill Borrower
*4 Necrotic Ooze
*2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
*1 Borborygmos Enraged
*3 Griselbrand

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

*4 Faithless Looting
*3 Inquisition of Kozilek
*2 Zombie Infestation
*2 Life from the Loam
*4 Congregation at Dawn

[/Spells]

[Lands]

*4 Mana Confluence
*3 Gemstone Mine

*1 Stomping Ground
*1 Godless Shrine
*2 Overgrown Tomb
*4 Misty Rainforest
*4 Verdant Catacombs
*1 Forest
*1 Breeding Pool
*1 Hallowed Fountain

[/Lands]

[Sideboard]

*1 Kitchen Finks
*1 Obstinate Baloth
*4 Goryo’s Vengeance
*4 Fist of Suns
*4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
*1 Zombie Infestation

[/Sideboard]

[/Deck]

It was so fun to play….

Bringing Stuff Back

[card]Retether[/card]/[card]Faith’s Reward[/card]

For those of you who have been playing Modern for at least a couple of years, you might remember dying from boredom to a silly combo deck that involved both [card]Second Sunrise[/card] and [card]Faith’s Reward[/card], allowing a player to loop near-infinitely and eventually kill you with [card]Grapeshot[/card] or [card]Pyrite Spellbomb[/card]. When Sunrise got the axe, Faith’s Reward fell from its $1 high to true bulk. The effect has been proven to be broken before, and I have faith that a single slip-up by WOTC’s R&D team could prove to allow prepared financiers to profit.

[card]Retether[/card] follows the same logic. Cards like [card]Eldrazi Conscription[/card] exist, and I think putting two copies of that card onto a [card]Noble Hierarch[/card] is cute, even if it is vulnerable to every single hate card ever (graveyard hate, removal spells, enchantment destruction, you name it). Maybe [card]Open the Vaults[/card] is a better pick, but that one’s not quite true bulk, so I enjoy buylisting them for $1 when I get the chance, which lets me buy 10 copies of most of the above cards.

That’s So Aggressive

[card]Aggressive Mining[/card]

Alright, I’m digging a bit deep here (hehe). Maybe it’s the Minecraft player in me from high school, but I think that somewhere, somehow, this card might not be bulk in the near future. The “once per turn” really stings, but a lot of us have probably called stuff like this trash before only to be proven dead wrong in the end. If you can design a card that would make this broken/playable, I’d be curious to see what that card looks like in the comments section.

Cost Less, Spells

[card]Battlefield Thaumaturge[/card]

Again we return to the “things costing less” mechanic that always warrants a second glance. Now that the hype train has ground to a halt and this is a true bulk rare, I feel a need to throw it in a separate pile and forget that I own copies until the glorious day that something silly pops up three years from now and causes Thaumaturge to spike to ridiculous levels. Maybe he goes in the same deck as [card]Retether[/card].

And Now We Play the Waiting Game…

This week, we’re not looking to make instant flips or hunt down collections, so it definitely involves being patient and willing to sit on these cards for who knows how long. The opportunity cost is as close to zero as we can get, so it’s not something that needs to be bought out of TCGplayer tonight. Pick the ones you like or agree with, or post your own ideas in the comments below. Sometimes all it takes is the printing of one more card to make previous cards stupid or broken. Sometimes the cards aren’t even broken, but we can at least sell into the hype. Thanks for reading, as always.

Let’s Play Standard – Jeskai Tempo Breakdown

Ryan Archer

Welcome back, brewers. Today we are going to be talking about Standard. Were you as sick of the last Standard format as I was? See ya later, [card]Lifebane Zombie[/card]. Thanks for making life miserable for us GW mages.

Anyway, I was an avid GW player in the old format. I loved the beef of my giant creatures and just crashing through. The deck always felt like it needed removal, though. So obviously when it came time to switch over to the new format I picked up Abza… Jeskai Tempo.

The Jeskai Tempo deck that Kevin Jones played to win an SCG Open feels great. All the spells feel really powerful and it feels like it rewards good plays. Jeskai seems like it has a really good place in the format. It can burn and block the aggro decks, while flying over the green decks. I also really didn’t have a problem against my control opponents, at least so far. The deck also feels like it can be modified to fit any metagame, which will give it a lot of staying power as long as people adapt to it. Name aside ( I think it should be called Jeskai Burn as there really isn’t much tempo to it), this is a really solid choice for any player moving forward.

So you want to play Jeskai Tempo, too? Great, that’s probably why you’re here, and you’re in for a treat because we are going to break down each card choice in the Kevin Jones special right here.

The Creatures

[cared]Mantis Rider[/card]

This, in my opinion, is the reason to play the deck. There are a lot of green decks that play a lot of big ground blockers. Mantis Rider is able to swoop overhead and bash the opponent for three. Worst case, he will make your opponent waste their turn with a removal spell. If not, you get to attack again and again. He is also especially good at dealing with planeswalkers. Bye bye, Xenagos.

[card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card]

Many people have already talked about why this guy is so good. In this deck he can win games on his own. You are able to clear the way with your burn or again force your opponent to spend their turn to deal with him. Having two in play is absurd.

[card]Seeker of the Way[/card]

Now here’s a card. This is a two drop that lets you start attacking early. The fact that he’s a 2/2 lets you swing past opposing Caryatids with the bluff of a burn spell to the face. The lifelink is huge against aggressive decks, but is also equally good against midrange decks. Often times the midrange player will stabilize at a low life and start attacking. You are drawing off the top of your deck looking for that last burn spell. The higher your life, the more turns you have to draw your out. I think this could be a four-of.

The Burn

[card]Magma Jet[/card]

Magma Jet is a very versatile card. It can help you set up your draws early so you get that third color of mana on turn three, or it can dig you into that last burn spell off the top when your opponent is low on life and stabilized. It can also kill an early mana creature. The only real downside is that it only deals two damage.

[card]Lightning Strike[/card]

I think this may be one of the weaker cards in the deck, but it is still necessary. This deck wants to be able to cast two cards in the late game and this will definitely help. Three early damage or being able to kill a Rabblemaster is not too shabby, either.

[card]Stoke the Flames[/card]

Four damage for four is great. Four damage for less than four is insane. Be sure to be aware that you can tap your Rabblemaster tokens to avoid the suicide attack. You can also tap the [card]Mantis Rider[/card] after it attacked for some more free mana.

The Utility

[card]Banishing Light[/card]

This card gets everything out of your way. It’s nice to have a way to remove a creature that has five or more toughness. Its also very good at removing the god weapons that gain life, [card]Bow of Nylea[/card] and [card]Whip of Erebos[/card]. These are continual sources of life gain that you may have a hard time beating.

[card]Jeskai Charm[/card]

This card does everything from four to the face to putting a big blocker back on top of their deck to gaining life and winning the creature war in an aggro matchup. You don’t need me to tell you why this one is good.

[card]Dig Through Time[/card]

This card is very good in the late game, obviously, and there is nothing you want to draw more in a long game against a removal deck. Being able to choose two of seven sets up your perfect next turn, from double [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] to eight damage to the face. Often you can tap five lands on turn five and cast it. This card gives the deck reach against slow decks. I’m not so fond of it in the aggressive matches.

[card]Steam Augury[/card]

At first, I hated this card and refused to play it. Then I started to warm up to it. Now I feel like it’s the first card out of the deck if you want to try other cards. This dives deep to provide some additional cards, but your opponent will not give you the one that will win the game. This also fuels delve, so it shouldn’t be overlooked in a non-aggressive meta.

The Planeswalkers

[card]Chandra, Pyromaster[/card]

Chandra’s plus-one really shines here. Not only can it remove a blocker, but sometimes it can kill that annoying elf or satyr or human that’s in the way. Clearing out a bigger blocker to get your Rabblemaster through is huge. I haven’t been too fond of the zero ability in this deck, as it feels like you always have things to do, unless the game goes very long. I’ve never ultimated her but that probably feels really good.

[card]Sarkhan, the Dragon Speaker[/card]

Sarkhan or Stormbreath? The debate rages on. I think Sarkhan is better in this deck because you really want the versatility. You sometimes want to clear the way and kill that [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card]. Indestructibility is cool, but it still will die to a [card]Hero’s Downfall[/card] before the activated ability resolves. I think the dragon could be better in a meta of lots of white removal.

The Lands

Not much to say here. The lands help you cast your spells. You need all three colors to function. Some tips:

If you have the option to fetch blue or white and it doesn’t seem to matter, fetch blue so that your [card]Dig Through Time[/card] can be cast and the cards you draw off of it can be cast. T
The fetch lands help with Dig Through Time also, so count that as two mana when you’re ready to cast it.
The temples really help you out early and late. I really like the eight this deck plays.

Join us next time when we discuss the Jeskai deck against the different decks in the meta. Thanks for reading and remember: burn them in the face!

Pitt Imps Podcast #89 New Standard Decks Finally

Pitt Imps 01:37:37

This week, we go over the SCG Standard events and Magic, Magic, Magic. You know the program and what to expect.

Host Angelo Twitter @ganksuou

Co-Host Will

Co-Host Ryan Twitter @brotheryan

Show Email [email protected]

Brainstorm Brewery #117 – Shout It Out

Brainstorm Brewery 0:56:31

Goblin Rabblemaster is approaching $20, Mantis Rider is approaching $10, and nothing seems right in the world. What’s going on? Someone has been bitten by the Cube bug and won’t shut up about his Cube. I won’t say which host it is, but it’s Marcel. Cube fever caused him to go on a shout-out rampage, scuttling discussions in the middle, disrupting the flow of the show, and causing general anarchy and disarray. You’ll probably love it. Who was most incorrect about Courser of Kruphix? Which color was overrepresented over the weekend but underrepresented in spiking prices? Which eight cards are likely to start out every decklist for the near future? Find out the answer to all of these questions and more on an episode of your favorite podcast that will have you asking, “Wait, Jeskai Ascendancy is bannable in Modern? What?” Join us for Brainstorm Brewery.

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Finance 101 is all about being blinded by emotion.
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Shout outs happen way too frequently this time.
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Questions? Concerns? E-mail brainstormbrew at gmail dot com.

Cabe Riseau produced the intro and outro music for Brainstorm Brewery.

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Conjured Currency #33: “Comms” of Tarkir

Douglas Johnson

First of all, I’d like to thank the people who commented on Organization Nation to share their organizational methods. It’s interesting to see how others sort and plan out their collections based on what their own needs and interests are.

So I was hoping that you guys would recognize that “Comms” is a terrible substitute for “Commons”, and… yeah, it was a bad pun. Let’s move on. I’ve talked in length about how I’m not a huge fan of set reviews, and I’m sure as hell not going to do a full set review for Khans of Tarkir. However, I realized that it’s been a little while since I’ve discussed the topic of picking bulk commons and uncommons for gems that you can trade off or buylist. I got my start in finance doing almost exclusively this for trade value, and I think it’s a nice Finance 101 topic to return to every now and then to help newer players or financiers establish a growing collection without a whole ton of additional effort on their parts.

Back in the day (well, about four years ago), I had basically zero disposable income to spend on expensive (read: more than $3) rares to put together a Standard deck for FNM. My trade binder was a pitiful husk of bulk rares and… actually, it was just bulk rares. I had a couple [card]Sunblast Angel[/card]s and [card]Dissipation Field[/card]s that nobody wanted, and I treasured my single [card]Elspeth Tirel[/card] like it was a gift from God, jumping up and down when I opened it during a draft. After several weeks of bored Spikes flipping through my binder, I became discouraged. I decided to start putting uncommons that I thought were good into my binder, to make it appear more “full,” and hopefully more desirable.

I ended up being pleasantly surprised when a fellow high-school student looking to build a Myr deck lit up upon seeing a few [card]Palladium Myr[/card] and [card]Myr Galvanizer[/card]. And he valued them at a whole $1 each? Golly me! I vaguely remember getting some number of elves off of him (probably [card]Elvish Archdruid[/card]s or [card]Ezuri, Renegade Leader[/card]s), and being shocked that uncommons could not only be desired by other players at events, but worth actual money. From that point on, I always tried to stay on the lookout for specific commons and uncommons in the new set. [card]Dismember[/card]s at $5 were a no-brainer to stick in your binder, but back then I was willing to throw practically any card I saw in a tournament deck into my crappy three-ring, rarity be damned.

I bring up this long-lost fairy tale because Khans of Tarkir looks to be absolutely loaded with good common and uncommon picks for the future, even if you don’t plan on shipping out thousands of cards en masse to a buylist. Even though times have changed since 2011, there are still tons of players who care only about the rare (and potentially foil) slot in the pack, leaving the remains to rot on the draft table. Embrace your inner [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] with me, and let’s look at some of these quarters and $1 bills that you can jam into your trade binder so that you can work your way towards that ridiculously priced $15 [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]!

Picking the Picks

[card]Jeskai Charm[/card] and friends: Throughout the entirety of the Return to Ravnica block, I pulled aside every single guild charm I found, organizing them all together. Over those two years, I sold or traded a ton of Azorius and Boros charms, some Selesnya, and even a few Orzhov and Dimir. I never got rid of any [card]Gruul Charm[/card]s, but I had them ready and waiting. These 5 will likely fluctuate based on which clan is favored in Standard, but I recommend making sure you treat these like $1 rares when you pull them out of packs or see them in binders, depending on the charm.

[card]War-Name Aspirant[/card]: I hope this Aspirant finds its war-name soon, because the current card name is just stupid. That aside, the power level is certainly there for this to see play in aggressive red/black/x strategies, so hoarding these doesn’t have much downside. Mardu players will raid your binders for them eventually.

[card]Murderous Cut[/card]: For as long as [card]Doom Blade[/card] and I were in Standard together, we had a mutually beneficial relationship where I would trade off playsets of it for $1 rares that I was speculating on. Delve Blade has zero restrictions of what it can [card]murder[/card] and has the potential to be cheaper to cast, even though the delve bit probably prevents this from being a four-of consistently. SCG sells them for $1, and there are players who use that for pricing.

[card]Savage Punch[/card]: There is one guy (at least) in your tri-state area who wants to collect every copy of this in the world, foil or not. Try to get a few bulk rares in return and have them on hand, even if they’re not taking up space in your binder.

[card]Stubborn Denial[/card]: There are rumors at my school of this being played in Modern or even Legacy decklists with [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]. If you bought a box of Khans or have a weekly FNM draft, pull these aside and wait for a bite. Some players don’t have the patience to proxy things, they just want the cards now. Even if it ends up doing literally nothing in either format, the hype has a few weeks left in it.

[card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card]: If you paid attention to the Legacy Open from last weekend at all, then you paid more attention than I did to the Legacy Open last weekend. Good job, you’re doing better than I am at this stuff. Apparently, this card led the charge of a UR Delver decklist, and it put in some serious work when you can cast multiple spells per turn early on in the game. Because this one is more well-known already, you’re less likely to get them for free off of draft tables. However, when you do pick them up, you can ask for the $1.50 they are on SCG and see if you get any bites.

[card]Chief of the Edge[/card]: Is Warrior Tribal going to be a competitive deck in Standard? Probably not. Is the guy who wants to build Warrior Tribal in Standard going to care whether it’s competitive? Probably not.

[card]Seeker of the Way[/card]: His brother Swiftspear managed to spearhead the Legacy Open, and this one sought the way to the top of the Standard Open in Jersey as a 3-of. ‘MURICANNNNNNNnn Tempo could very well be a consistent piece of the metagame moving forward (UWx generally is), and there are a lot of people who tend to copy the winning decks from the first weekend of the tournament (at least in my local experience).

[card]Treasure Cruise[/card]: Based on the fact that [card]Glittering Wish[/card] is now a $15 card (for now), people are jumping on a hype cruise that [card]Jeskai Ascendancy[/card] is broken as all hell in Modern. The Sam Black list on SCG Premium played this as a three-of. Foils are a trap at $15, but set aside the ones you open in booster packs as an attempt to use as throw-ins or equalizers in close trades.

[card]Mystic Monastery[/card] and friends: These will not only be EDH all-stars like their Shards of Alara counterparts, but they’ll be players throughout Standard as well. The best part about these is that you can pick them up at rotation as well, and they’ll still hold a good amount of value.

[card]Despise[/card]: I highly doubt this card will see any competitive play whatsoever while [card]Thoughtseize[/card] is legal. To put things in perspective for you young-ins, [card]Despise[/card] didn’t see Standard play when this thing was in Standard:

It won’t now. So why am I telling you to pull it out? Because people will want to try it. Have them on hand for when that happens.

[card]Raiders’ Spoils[/card]: People like building tribal decks, and this will probably be in them. Worst-case scenario is that you throw it back in with the rest of your bulk in three months if you don’t get any bites.

[card]Arc Lightning[/card]: Fringe-playable Standard-legal burn spell. Someone might need sideboard tech for the Open two months from now, and you can be that person’s hero by taking four seconds to pull this from your bulk that will be attracting dust in two months.

[card]Ride Down[/card]: I thought this was a rare when I first read it in the spoiler. Powerful effect that could very potentially see play in Standard aggro/tempo decks.

[card]Secret Plans[/card]: We all know that guy. Be the guy that helps that guy make his UG Morph deck as quickly as possible by having a playset of this thing in the back page of your binder, and grabbing a silly $2 rare that you can proceed to trade up from there.

As [card]Stoke the Flames[/card] has proven to us this past weekend, taking the time to pick out those “maybe it’s playable” non-rares out of the gutter can serve to be quite the boon to our collection values, even if you only had a couple copies. While I highly doubt that any cards from Khans of Tarkir will reach a $4 price point due to the high volume opened, it’s always nice being “that guy” who has any of the remotely playable commons and uncommons from the set. You don’t have to be the guy with playsets of foil fetches to get the attention of grinders who need cards.

A Common Ending

Apologies if you read through this entire thing thinking either, “Duh, of course those are decent picks,” or, “You’re an absolute fool and this was a waste of my time.” When I was an aspiring Standard grinder, I found that picking every possible ounce of value out of my birthday booster box of Mirrodin Besieged was one of the best ways to begin the slow climb towards having a reasonable trade binder and collection. The first steps are always the hardest to climb, especially if you don’t have a huge cash spending budget up front.

As usual, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings, and offer the chance to start a friendly discussion or debate on this week’s topic. Are there any other picks that I might have missed out on or skipped over? Anything you think isn’t worth your time to pick out out that’s in this list? We saved you some room in the comment thread on Reddit, and 140 characters worth of blank space that needs to be filled up with questions on Twitter. Hope your Khans release has been going smoothly—see you next week!

Episode Archives

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Ship Your Damn Orders

Don’t Burn Your [card]Trade Routes[/card]

Personal Grading

One Simple Adage

Grand Prix Stockholm – Stockholm, SE

Star City Games: Minneapolis, MN (USA) – Standard

TCGPlayer Maxpoint Series $50,000 Championship (Indianapolis, IN – USA)

Star City Games: Minneapolis, MN (USA) – Legacy

Eternal Weekend – Legacy Championship (Philadelphia, PA – USA)

Eternal Weekend – Vintage Championship (Philadelphia, PA – USA)

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FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

COMMANDER-ALT-DELETE

#MTGFINANCE INCARNATE

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[card]Travel Preparations[/card]

[card]Strategic Planning[/card]

[card]Seasoned Tactician[/card[

[card]Early Harvest[/card]

Have a Plan, and Stick to it

Round 1: William Grogan, UR Delver

Round 2: Tanner Hall, UR Delver

Round 3: Joseph Chagnon, R/u Cruise Burn

Round 4: Karl Delatorre, Melira Pod

Round 5: Joshua Hoppenbrouwer, Affinty

Round 6 Leandro Taveras, Scapeshift

Round 7: Zachery Erickson, Affinity

Quarterfinals: Frederic Boileau, Little Zoo

The Part of the Article You’ve All Been Waiting For

Ouch

Grand Prix Los Angeles, US (GP LA)

Star City Games: Worcester, MA (USA) – Standard

Star City Games: Worcester, MA (USA) – Legacy

Summary

On Specialization

PT Watch

The Hype

The Busts

Sell, Sell, Sell!

Keep a Holding Pattern

The Fetch Question

Invest!

Issue #1: I Opened a Bomb Rare

Issue #2: I Already Made My Entry Fee

Issue #3: I’ve Got This Cool Synergy

Issue #4: She’s Got These Awesome Curves

Issue #5: I’ve Got All These Good Creatures

Summary

Contact Us!

Delusions of Grandeur

Delusions of Mediocrity

Revisiting “My Deck Tickled A Sliver”

Threats vs Synergy

Defining Threats

Selecting Threats

Conclusion

Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir – Top 8 Decklists Data

Cards that Have Spiked

Current Stabilized Staples

Potentially Undervalued

Final Thoughts

Gruul Monsters

Beast Wars

Mono-Black Aggro

Golgari Rock

Mono-Red Aggro

Jeskai Counter Burn

Sultai Midrange

Naya Planeswalkers

Izzet Artifact Aggro

White Weenie

Sultai Control

Gruul Devotion

Big Boros

Boros Aggro

Orzhov Warriors

Abzan Midrange

Temur Monsters