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Grinder Finance: Khans of Tarkir #2

September 12, 2014 Jim Casale

We’ve got more spoilers and I’ve got more opinions based on recent market movement. This will be a quick update based on spoilers from earlier this week.

Cards I’m Preordering

It appears that that Wizards of the Coast is pulling out all the stops in this set. The reward for playing three-color decks is very high and if these creatures are any indication, we are likely to get a five-card cycle of efficient, powerful, three-color creatures. They are all powerful enough to see play, but if any one of them becomes especially dominant, it is likely to spike in price. I would advocate preordering any of them that start under $3. The flexibility you gain by doing this early will surely be rewarded in the first few months of post-rotation Standard.

The number of power uncommons in this set continues to grow. I’m not particularly surprised that these three charms are as powerful as [card]Sultai Charm[/card], and I continue to advocate preordering them. They are likely to become staple cards in the color combinations that see the most play. For $1 or less each, it’s a no-brainer.

This is a lot of card text and power and toughness for a four-mana creature. It’s a little awkward to cast sometimes, but I don’t see a lot of better plays to cast off of a [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card] to brick wall midrange and aggro decks alike. This card is not without it’s downsides. It’s extremely susceptible to the most powerful color-hosers in Theros (e.g., [card]Glare of Hersey[/card] and [card]Dark Betrayal[/card] ) and with more three-color decks becoming popular, those hate cards will not just be for mirror matches. I’d be especially careful of any Mardu and Abzan creatures because of this. That being said, for $3 or less, this will likely be a good pickup.

These three uncommons are cards I think that also deserve some praise. [card]Adamant Negation[/card] could skyrocket to obscene prices (see [card]Gut Shot[/card] and [card]Dismember[/card] at the height of their popularity) due to eternal play. This is often a hard counter with a [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] in play, and may eventually remove [card]Spell Pierce[/card] as the cheap counter of choice. If you play eternal formats, I can’t imagine a reason why you wouldn’t want these (unless I guess you don’t play Islands).

[card]Murderous Cut[/card] is another card I can see being eternal-playable. It’s especially powerful in a format with fetch lands and only costing B to kill a creature in older formats is pretty insane. It’s not as splashable as [card]Dismember[/card], but I can see it finding a good home in especially graveyard-centric decks like Dredge.

[card]War-Name Aspirant[/card] is probably not as good as the other two cards, but it will likely be slotting into the two-drop slot of any red-based aggro deck that pops up. Its ability to run past [card]Elvish Mystic[/card]s and [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]s early and Elspeth tokens late makes it pretty powerful for an uncommon.

Things I’m Watching

This guy has a lot of really good text for its mana cost. Yeah, it’s big and bulky, but it’s hard to kill, has flash, and can’t be dealt with easily in the mirror match. Its durability is much lower than [card]Aetherling[/card] and it plays worse defense, but its ability to push past counter spells while representing your own is pretty important. It does get brick walled by Elspeth tokens, which is a small tick against it, but at less than $2, I can’t imagine it goes down from here. I think this card will be a real player (considering it was played a bunch in WOTC’s FFL based on the article on Daily MTG).

I’m grouping these cards all together because they seem powerful, but they require the right circumstances to be played. [card]Clever Impersonator[/card] is a unique card and has a lot of upside, but at a $15 preorder on most websites, it seems too much for a card that may not be played outside of casual or EDH.

[card]Empty the Pits[/card] also has a huge upside (it is an instant, which most people miss), but [card]Bile Blight[/card] still exists in standard. I don’t know how good the best-case scenario is on this card, but if you do successfully cast it, then you will likely not cast any more delve cards, which is a price to consider.

[card]Rakshasa Deathdealer[/card] is a small, efficient creature but I can’t see its pump ability allowing it to rumble past many bigger threats. Right now it doesn’t sound too appetizing to trade my third turn and this guy to trade with a [card]Savage Knuckleblade[/card].

Older Cards I’m Liking More

Unless there is a significant change in the rest of the cards revealed, this card slots in perfectly into the Temur mindset. Its best creatures are 4/4 and bigger, meaning sweeping up all the stray tokens becomes a lot less painful. [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] is also becoming a lot more prevalent and this card is one of the few ways to clean up the tokens without losing card advantage. Most retail websites have this card for less than $3 and that seems criminally low for a card that sees a lot of Modern play too.

Do you know what self-mill leads to? Graveyard decks. Do you know what graveyard decks lead to? Reanimating fatties. These are two of the biggest and best creatures to reanimate these days, and their price tags could definitely see a jump if a graveyard strategy becomes good. That being said, they’re also not totally unreasonable to cast in the slow Abzan grindy deck. They’re fairly powerful flying finishers and I can see them having a lot of room to grow.

I might be going a little deep, but wouldn’t this card being $8 be your worst fear? I can see a world where the format slows significantly and this becomes a trump card out of the sideboard. It saw limited play in sideboards at the last pro tour and I don’t see Khans of Tarkir speeding up the format from there.

Is there anything I didn’t mention that you think is worth a preorder?

Brainstorm Brewery #114 – Globetrotting

September 12, 2014 Brainstorm Brewery 01:16:10

Joined by Spike Feed‘s Dustin Gore, the gang delves into some unfamiliar territory: trading for and selling foreign cards. The cast goes off the rails with talk of pay-by-the-hour bars in Japan, the impact of Hardened Scales on Standard, and the ethics of cross-continent trading, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. What is the reason for Korean and Russian cards being worth so much? What’s the best town in Japan to visit and value-trade in? How much is it to drink for an entire hour in a karaoke bar? Find out the answer to all these questions and more on an episode of your favorite podcast so jammed with value that you’ll try to trade it for a Russian foil Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Join us for Brainstorm Brewery.

Spike Feed‘s Dustin Gore is our guest.
Finance 101 is all about the foreign market.
What’s the best time to go to Japan to trade?
Why are Russian cards so expensive?
How do you profit from the difference between markets?
Mailbag time!
The spoiler talk goes so deep you’ll need a card with delve to find your way out.
Questions? Comments? E-mail brainstormbrew at gmail dot com.

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

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

Marcel White – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Conjured Currency #30: Power 10 (Not the 10 You’re Thinking Of)

September 11, 2014 Douglas Johnson

Good afternoon and/or Evening! (See what I did there? Go put last week’s article in your face if you didn’t read it, and you’ll understand the clever use of introduction that I managed to pull off). Last week we talked about the reprinting of fetch lands, and some of the financial side effects that they’ll have. If you’re wondering when to grab your set of Khanslaught (that phrase is patented by Jason Alt) fetches, or what to do with your original allied fetches, I recommend smashing that link and giving the article a quick scan, because we’re jumping into a completely different topic today.

As a college student, my primary weekly Magic fix is provided every Tuesday night, when a bunch of players get together to trade, play, and have a jolly good time. We don’t really have an organized play structure, but I’m graced with being the go-to guy for singles and selling cards. As usual, my goal is to constantly buy, trade, and sell cards, and use Magic as a primary source of income, while making sure the other party is happy with the cards (or cash) that they receive at the price I give them. At our last meeting, I completed a transaction that I believe warrants an entire article (or at least most of one. We’ll see where this goes).

It’s the start of a new school year, so we got a lot of new faces at our first meeting. As one individual flipped through my binders, he made a comment about how I had a bunch of stuff he was interested in, but he doubted that I would feel the same about his collection. After learning that he had a Modern UWR Delver deck completely up for trade, I told him that I’d be happy to trade for pretty much anything in the deck across the board at TCG mid. We made several trades involving fetch lands, [card]Vendilion Clique[/card]s, and other Modern staples, and then he got to my land binder, where he found my collection of dual lands.

He looked longingly at the [card]Tundra[/card]s and [card]Tropical Island[/card]s, and said that he wished he could afford them (don’t ask me why he thought that, his collection was better than he believed). Even then, I’d probably never trade them. Nobody ever wants to trade their dual lands unless they’re for other Legacy staples, right? At one point, he made a half-joking comment about trading two pretty large boxes of rares for just one dual land; Tto his surprise, I didn’t immediately shoot him down. I told him that it’s entirely possible, I just had to count how many rares he had, and do a quick estimate to see if it was worth it to me.

After doing a quick scan through the boxes and realizing that I could make more money buylisting these random rares than I would selling my [card]Tundra[/card] for full TCG mid value, I informed the gentleman that we had a deal. I offered to let him take one last search through the boxes to make sure I wasn’t making off with anything absurdly valuable, and we both walked away much happier. He got a piece of Magic history that I don’t think he expected to come across that night, and I turned my Tundra into a ton of bulk rares, EDH staples, and other goodies that I will have a much easier time selling for more than what I would make off of the dual land itself.

This trade got me wondering how many other people out there were willing to trade their random Standard cards, EDH staples, and bulk rares into dual lands at buylist prices. After doing a bit of asking around, it turns out that there’s a decent group (at least in my local area) of people who want dual lands, but don’t want to spend real dollars on them. With this in mind, I hopped on eBay with the hopes of snagging Revised mana fixing at a reasonable price.

So far, I’ve managed to pick up an [card]Underground Sea[/card] and a [card]Volcanic Island[/card] for approximately $100 below their TCGplayer mid prices. The plan now is to find people who are interested in getting into Legacy and are willing to get rid of Standard, EDH, and pretty much anything else at buylist values to do so. While the demographics might not match up for everyone reading this article, it’s certainly worth a shot asking around to find potential Legacy enthusiasts if you have the cash to drop on dual lands.

Why?

If you’ve been following my articles for the past several months, you probably know that I’m not the kind of person who likes to drop cash on long-term speculation that may or may not pan out. I don’t like to preorder multiple playsets of the new toys from Khans and cross my fingers that it’s the next big thing in Standard. I prefer the more slow and steady route of waiting for my deals to come to me, and always buying stuff at buylist. There are a couple of different reasons for me making an exception for dual lands;

1) I don’t expect them to ever plummet in price. I understand that there’s an argument of “Legacy cards are only hanging on in value because of the SCG Open Series,” but I’d like to point out that foil [card]Ingot Chewer[/card]s are sold out at $15 on SCG while normal ones are barely a dollar. Why? Because Vintage is still a format, and people play it even when there’s no weekly organized play structure for it. Even if SCG decides to stop running Legacy events in the next couple of years (which they won’t, because they control a good percentage of the Legacy staples in the market), there will always be players who want to play the format.

2) I believe that I have the ability and connections to get rid of these for a higher value than what I paid, relatively quickly. As long as I keep my highest buy price slightly higher than the buylists of the major retailers (Cardkingdom/ABU), I have a safety net available, and can get out while losing next to nothing if I desperately need the cash (not to say that I’m extending my budget that far into dual lands).

This is Where the Title Came From

I haven’t tried doing this with other Legacy staples (see [card]Force of Will[/card]/[card]Lion’s Eye Diamond[/card]/[card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]) yet, but I have a feeling that dual lands are going to be the easiest ten cards to make this kind of trade with. Coming from my own past experience as a newer and more casual player, dual lands felt like power. They felt like a piece of Magic’s original design, something that was out of my reach, and I would’ve been perfectly happy with giving up value in trades back in the day to be able to brag to my friends about a beat up [card]Badlands[/card].

That’s All, Folks!

Kind of a short and sweet article this week, but next Thursday you get to read about how horribly wrong I was about M15 in my set review… review. Spoiler alert: cards didn’t drop nearly as much as I thought they would. Whoops.

What’s your opinion on trading for dual lands? Are you someone who is willing to give up things at buylist in order to slowly assemble a Legacy deck that you’ll play forever and ever until the sun explodes? Leave a comment in the section below, or on Reddit to start up a new discussion. Thanks again for reading!

Learning Legacy – You Probably Shouldn’t Stifle That

September 10, 2014 Ryan Archer

Welcome back to Learning Legacy, brewers. I received a positive response to the “You Can Stifle That?” section I’ve included in some of these articles. Several people have commented and even suggested interactions to talk about. The suggestions, as well as a specific interaction of my own at a high-level tournament, sparked an idea.

Welcome to…

You Probably Shouldn’t [card]Stifle[/card] That

This article is all about interactions that come up that you might be tempted to respond with a [card]Stifle[/card] but really shouldn’t. Just don’t do it. Just because a trigger happens in Magic, it does not mean you need to tap your blue mana and counter it. You may be asking, “I love to counter things, so why shouldn’t I counter this trigger? After all, triggered abilities don’t always occur.”

Today, we will look at situations that can happen in Legacy where your [card]Stifle[/card] does not really do what you want it to do (at least from a RUG Delver perspective). There are times when your stifle will do nothing even when you think it is doing something. We will start out easy and progressively and move too less obvious examples. Keep in mind that all of these examples may seem fairly obvious now, but trust me: when you’re grinding Legacy all day and your brain is tired and you’re close to making a top eight and you just need this one more win, casting [card]Stifle[/card] in these situations may seem like a good idea.

vexing devil

[card]Vexing Devil[/card]

You’re playing against a mono-red opponent. You have had Stifle stuck in your hand for a few turns and you quickly realize that their deck doesn’t have that many targets. You get frustrated with the dead card in hand until your opponent plays [card]Vexing Devil[/card]. You smile as your opponent puts the triggered ability on the stack. Do you [card]Stifle[/card] it?

NO. Stifling this ability actual does nothing. It’s the same as not paying four life, which keeps the creature in play. You’re better off saving that [card]Stifle[/card] to put back with a [card]Brainstorm[/card].

[card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] / [card]Pyrostatic Pillar[/card]

We’re still playing against our mono-red opponent. It’s game two and our opening hand again has a [card]Stifle[/card]. Ugh. Anyway, a few turns progress and our opponent resolves an [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card]. We want to resolve our [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] but not take too much damage. Luckily, we have [card]Stifle[/card].

WAIT. Don’t [card]Stifle[/card] the Eidolon trigger when you play the [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]. The [card]Stifle[/card] will counter the original trigger, sure, but by playing the [card]Stifle[/card], the Eidolon will trigger again. The net exchange from this play is a resolved [card]Tarmogoyf[/card], a discarded [card]Stifle[/card], and you still taking the damage. As a RUG player, it is much better to not let these cards resolve at all. Our whole deck is basically ones and twos.

[card]Standstill[/card]

All right, we won against our Burn opponent. Onto the next round. This time, we are facing a blue deck, and unfortunately, they have played and resolved a [card]Standstill[/card]. We know we need to break it and let our opponent draw three cards sooner or later. We untap and draw [card]Stifle[/card]. The plan is to play our Goyf and then we can counter the [card]Standstill[/card] trigger with our [card]Stifle[/card].

DON’T. This example is similar to the one above. When we play the Goyf, the [card]Standstill[/card] will trigger. If we cast [card]Stifle[/card] to counter the trigger, we will again be triggering the [card]Standstill[/card], which will let our opponent draw the cards anyway. Again, this seems intuitive now, but it’s easy to forget in an actual game.

[card]Counterbalance[/card]

Our [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] went the distance and we were able to win the last round too. We’re 2-0 and playing against a more established popular deck, UW Miracles. We got our opponent down to two life, but things are not looking good. There is a [card]Counterbalance[/card] on the board. We have [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] and Stifle in hand. We think to ourselves that we can [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] the opponent’s face while he’s tapped out and then [card]Stifle[/card] the [card]Counterbalance[/card] trigger.

STOP. While there may be a small percentage of the time that Stifling the [card]Counterbalance[/card] trigger is correct, this situation is not one of them. When we cast Bolt, the enchantment will trigger. If a one-drop is revealed, it will counter the Bolt. If we try to [card]Stifle[/card] the trigger, it will trigger again, and that same one-drop will counter the [card]Stifle[/card] and then the other trigger will resolve countering the Bolt.

[card]Thespian’s Stage[/card]-[card]Dark Depths[/card] Combo

So we lost the last game but went on to win the match. Way to go, us. We now are playing against a new opponent who is playing Lands. She has assembled the combo of [card]Dark Depths[/card] and [card]Thespian’s Stage[/card] and is threatening to make a 20/20 indestructible Gerry Thompson unless we stop her with our [card]Stifle[/card]. When she goes to copy the Dark Depths, which will make her sacrifice the original, we will [card]Stifle[/card] the triggered ability that makes her sacrifice the new [card]Dark Depths[/card] ([card]Thespian’s Stage[/card]) and she will end up with nothing. This plan will totally work, right?

YES.

Just kidding. No. This interaction is quite tricky, and in fact, I lost a game at an SCG Open because I did just what was described above and found out from the judge that it doesn’t work that way. The trigger will go on the stack, but if you [card]Stifle[/card] it, it won’t be sacrificed. It will then continue to have zero counters and trigger again. The best thing you can do is go back to when she activates the [card]Thespian’s Stage[/card] targeting the [card]Dark Depths[/card] and counter that. It won’t permanently solve the problem, but it will buy you another turn.

Well, there you go. You managed to go 3-1 successfully piloting your [card]Stifle[/card] deck. I hope you enjoyed the different approach this time. If you have any suggestions for a topic you want covered, feel free to leave it in the comments.

You Can Stifle That?

Did you know that you can [card]Stifle[/card] ninjitsu? Ninjitsu is an activated ability, so if you choose to [card]Stifle[/card] it, the creature is returned, the ninja is revealed, but the card will not go into play. That’s a pretty awesome tempo advantage against any [card]Ninja of the Deep Hours[/card] decks you may play against.

Thanks for reading.

Pitt Imps Podcast

September 9, 2014 Pitt Imps 1:25:53

So PAX happened. All kinds of things were spoiled and Khans looks insane. Fetches are back and Sarkhan Vol is getting his dragon on. We had Judge Frank come on and help us go over morph and all the other mechanics that this set brings. Ugin looks to finally make his arrival in the second set. Oh, by the way, there was an SCG Invitational as well.

Host Angelo Twitter @ganksuou

Co Host Ryan Twitter @brotheryan

Guest Judge Frank Tavern

Show email [email protected]

Investing In MTG Oddities

September 8, 2014 Markus Leben

Hey there, all. I’m Markus, a long-time submitter on the /r/mtgfinance subreddit under the username drakeblood4. I’ve decided to go from submitting my articles for imaginary internet points to submitting them for slightly less imaginary exchange of goods and services points. Outside of the time I spend doing a mediocre job using high-school level math to compare the scarcity of cards in sets and actively salivating over the prospect of Onslaught fetchlands in Modern, I do a moderate amount of trading in misprints and oddities. I believe that any player with regular FNM attendance, occasional PTQ and GP attendance, and at least some online presence can maintain at least a page or two of worthwhile oddities to trade in, and more if you include foils and promos in the count.

Almost every Magic financier has the vast majority of his collection’s value tied up in a very specific type of card: nonfoil, nonpromo, correctly cut, English, black- or white-bordered rares, and value nonrares. I’m not denying the value of speculating in vanilla cardstock, or saying that sinking half of your collection value into a dubiously miscut [card]Time Walk[/card] is a good idea, but I personally think that a more diverse collection is inherently safer in the long-term, and that a more diverse trade binder is much more useful for getting cards you want or need. Oddities and rarities trading, depending on the market in your region, your own budget, and the time available to you, can be very useful for creating that sort of diverse collection.

Why Invest in these Cards?

Misprints, assorted promos, alters, and other oddities aren’t the sort of cards that the average end-user of Magic purchases very heavily. Sure, EDH players, Legacy lifers, and cubists may be interested in blinging out a deck with a crimped German foil [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], but those players are already a small subset of the playerbase, and the number of them willing to shell out for these sorts of obscure cards are a fraction of that already tiny group. In order to grasp how to get value out of these cards, you need to understand that the smaller subset of the playerbase that spends money on them means that it is a relatively illiquid market. If you go to a weekly FNM, the occasional Constructed event, and maybe a biannual GP or PTQ, you have more trading opportunities than you can feasibly count. Even if you only consider foils, the most common sort of card excluding regularly printed cards, given the same amount of event attendance, you could have half or fewer as many opportunities to trade in foil in any sort of volume. The chances you have to trade in oddities at all, let alone in large volumes, are few and far between. This isn’t a bad thing, though, it’s just a trait of the market. Having fewer opportunities to trade a card prevents you from being able to panic buylist it in response to a reprint or banning, but it also gives you a sort of defender’s advantage when it comes to trading into and out of these cards. Illiquidity makes cards much, much more difficult to move quickly, but this means that if you encounter someone trying to move one of these sorts of cards quickly then you can get it for a steep, steep discount. Illiquidity means these sorts of cards are traded in very small volume, so the lack of a strongly centralized pricing system like TCGplayer, eBay*, or Star City Games means that any collector looking to trade into your cards very much has to play by your rules. Even with infrastructure like the Misprints and Oddities and High End Facebook pages, it’s very difficult to point to precedent on a specific card and say, “It’s worth X.” There’s a saying in the art community that a painting is worth as much as a collector will pay for it, and that truism holds here as well.

*Note: some traders use eBay to price obscure cards, but I recommend against this. Using dummy buyers to close on an auction to create a fake history of a card’s value is relatively easy in the low-volume world of oddities trading. \

Here’s an example: at some point in the past year, I traded out of a crimped MPR [card]Lightning Bolt[/card] that I’d had in my binder for a while. I’d gotten into it at $30, and traded out of it at $85. The most recent sale I’d seen of a similar card had it at around $50, but that was months ago. That sounds pretty reasonable, right? The MPR promo spiked up to around a $35 or $40 card NM and suffers from consistent TCGplayer pricing issues where the (nonexistent) nonfoil only has one listing at $55. A $30 margin on a very obscure card sounds pretty reasonable. This was before the spike. What’s weirder is that the guy who bought it was, to the best of my knowledge, immediately able to turn around and flip it for about $10 more on the misprints Facebook page. I’m pretty sure he ate shipping, and that he was trying to flip it for much more than that, but it’s a strange world where you can turn a $30 card into an $85 card and have the person who bought it from you still make money.

Axioms

I feel it would be remiss of me to leave you on that positive anecdote without at least touching on one of the biggest drawbacks of oddity trading: there are a lot more assumptions that go into inferring that a card has value. Axioms are fundamental ideas that you start from in math or philosophy that boil down to “things that are obvious enough to be taken as true at face value, at least in most cases.” We already have axioms in regular Magic card valuation, things like:

Wizards will continue to support Magic: The Gathering with new products, constructed tournaments, judge support, and the like.
At least some cards will be worthwhile and relevant post rotation.
It’s cheaper and easier to buy a card than it is to get it through sealed product.

Even with those simple assumptions, there are already cases where these fall apart. Many powerful Vintage cards are less valuable because the tournament environment is unsupported and inaccessible, [card]True-Name Nemesis[/card] and [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card] were and are worth a significant chunk of the sealed product they were in, rares in sets like Dragon’s Maze are often blank sheets of paper, and the list goes on. When you get into oddities trading, it carries with it a lot more assumptions. Here are at least a few:

The thing that makes this card unique is worth something to someone.
Misprints, miscuts, crimps, alters, and/or foils will continue to be at least sometimes tournament playable in some form or another.
This card is played or playable in some eternal format, or else has some other relevancy to collectors.
I know enough about card supply to at least reasonably guess the scarcity of this card.
Competing valuable versions of this card do not undercut its worth.

This is far from an exhaustive list. Misvaluing a card here or ignoring the large set of assumptions that any given oddity can carry with it are huge misplays, potentially costing large amounts of money and larger amounts of precious trade time and opportunity cost. Hopefully I’ve cleared up at least some misconceptions that you all have had about oddities and rarities trading. It’s cliche to say that some version of something is more of an art than a science, so let me leave you with this: where trading in regular cards is primarily about correctly assessing a card’s playability now and in the foreseeable future, oddities trading is much more about knowing your local market, building good negotiation skills, understanding what your trade partners want, and building an inventory that is consistently in demand. Next time, we’ll be looking more specifically into the various subtypes of oddities and getting a firmer grasp on what exactly you should be looking to trade into and buy.

Grinder Finance: Khans of Tarkir #1

September 5, 2014 Jim Casale

Now is the time to consider your options and look into preordering cards from the newest fall expansion, Khans of Tarkir. There are many things to consider when preordering cards, but generally I pick out ones that seem underpriced for their effect, or cards from older sets that are likely to become more playable.

Note, these are not necessarily cards I believe you should speculate on or dump tons of money into copies of. Instead, I’m saying these are cards that you should buy your playset of if you ever think you will play them.

Cards I’m Preordering

[card]Crackling Doom[/card] – This is preordering for $1 on most retail websites, and although it’s expensive and hard to cast, it may become the premier removal spell in the format and could easily jump from $1 to $5 or $6 without too much trouble. I’d rather get in my set at $4 and lose that $4 in value than have to pick up a set for $20. When considering another card on this list, I think this spell could become favorable in short order.

[card]Sagu Mauler[/card] – This card could be very hit or miss. It’s a big body with a slightly cheaper CMC if you morph it, and it’s extremely difficult to kill and can be powered out on turn three with cards we have already seen spoiled. I think it’s safe to get these at $1 because if they become popular even with the casual crowd, they could easily reach $3 or $4. The flexibility that morph grants you allows this to be a real beating if other very powerful morph creatures are printed because it “counters” removal spells. It also seems like it might be the perfect card to ensure ferocious triggers on other Temur cards.

Tri-color lands – These are “power” uncommons and will likely be in high demand on release day. They’re slow and cumbersome but will likely be needed for a while before people have developed more cohesive mana bases.

Charms – If Sultai Charm is the worst of the bunch, we are in for a pretty huge cycle of cards. If it’s the best, you probably aren’t hurting yourself too much by preordering your playsets. Some charms end up being “sleepers” that get better as time goes on and some of their modes become more relevant (see [card]Golgari Charm[/card]). I think for under $1, it’s a mistake not to get these now.

Cards I’m Ordering from Older Sets

[card]Mana Confluence[/card] – If you don’t have your set now, then you probably missed the boat on the cheapest copies. With the introduction of fetch lands, it’s going to be hard to play multiple colors of spells sequentially without Mana Confluence. That being said, I don’t think these get cheaper going forward.

[card]Jace, the Living Guildpact[/card] – His price has probably also bottomed out, and there could be really good delve spells. It’s too early to tell if this is a good investment, but it’s unlikely you will find him cheaper if you want to play him.

Cards I’m Cautiously Optimistic About

[card]Anafenza, the Foremost[/card] – This card has some serious power, but it’s well hidden. This card will be especially popular in Pod mirror matches because it can be poded into off of [card]Voice of Resurgence[/card] and stops your opponent’s Voices and [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] while resetting your own Finks on the attack. It’s a legendary [card]Loxodon Smiter[/card] with a lot of upside. I think the sweet spot for powerful legendary creatures that attack is three mana (as we see with [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]). The fact that this card is likely eternal playable is a big plus to its long-term price.

[card]Narset, Englightened Master[/card] – This card also has some serious power. Depending on the quality of spells that you may end up casting, this may become the defacto [card]Aetherling[/card] replacement. It rumbles well with Elspeth and if we get a super value spell (a la [card]Prophetic Bolt[/card]) to play for free, this card gets very good, very fast.

[card]Utter End[/card] – This is a powerful card with a powerful effect, but I think at $5 it might be too expensive. If preorder prices drop to around $3, I would pick this up. That being said, we are probably not getting another card that kills planeswalkers in this set.

Cards I’m Not Buying

Fetch lands – No seriously, don’t buy them now. The fact that [card]Flooded Strand[/card] and [card]Polluted Delta[/card] are the most expensive when the serious Standard demand will be on green ones (for [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card]) is absurd. These cards will likely fall to $15 or less a few weeks after release. I suggest not preordering any until you know more of the set and which deck you want to play. Then only order the set you need and wait for the rest until they drop.

Brainstorm Brewery #113 – Stop Trying to Make Fetchtastic

September 5, 2014 Brainstorm Brewery 01:22:01

We’re seeing more spoilers than a Honda dealership in a bad neighborhood—including one of atomic-bomb caliber: Onslaught fetches are back! With Khanslaught fetches coming to a booster pack near you, everything is going to change. How do we navigate the murky waters of Modern receiving better fixing, Standard moving to three-color wedges, and Legacy losing its monopoly on allied-color land grabs? The gang weighs in, drops some Finance 101 knowledge, goes over spoilers, and still has time for Pick of the Week. It’s more value than you can handle, so make sure you keep both hands on the wheel during your morning commute. You’re going to look like that dude who exploded in the Monty Python sketch after you are force-fed more value than you can handle on an episode of your favorite podcast that doesn’t skimp on the pâté. Who called Onslaught fetches a while back? Who is encouraged by the word Ugin appearing on a card? Who wants everyone to stop using the phrase graveyard theme? Find out the answer to all of these questions and more on an episode that will have you saying, “Why did Nicolas Cage dress up like the guy from Nickelback in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice?” This is Brainstorm Brewery.

Khanslaugh fetches! Taste it!
Finance 101 is all about the effect of reprints, a topic that begged to be discussed.
A few reader e-mails deal with a few heady concepts.
The gang spends maybe a little too much time on spoilers, but you know you love it.
Picks of the Week are jimmy-jammed with discussion this time around.
Question? Comment? Want to write for BrainstormBrewery.com? Contact 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 #29: Oops.

September 4, 2014 Douglas Johnson

Good morning! It very well may not be morning at the time that you’re reading this, but I get tired of the generic “Welcome back!” every week, and I figure I have a 50/50 shot of being right if I assume that it’s the a.m. wherever you may be while reading this article. This time, we’ll skip through my shameless advertisement/recap/update on my previous week’s article, and cut straight into the juicy article material that WOTC has generously provided so that I don’t have to stare at a blank piece of digital paper for a number of hours attempting to conjure up a subject matter.

Surprise! We’re Back

Pax Prime 2014 happened over this past weekend. I’m sure you’ve already figured out what I’m going to be talking about based on that statement. For those who live in the [card]Wooded Foothills[/card] and haven’t heard the annoucement yet, the original five Onslaught fetch lands will return to Standard and be introduced into Modern via Khans of Tarkir. Ninety-dollar [card]Polluted Delta[/card]s are no more, and people are free to preorder playsets for less than a single copy used to cost. Needless to say, people were slightly pleased.

If you remember nearly 15 articles ago, I wrote about how I was adamant that Onslaught fetchlands would not ever make it to Standard or Modern. Oops. I made that statement because I felt that Wizards wouldn’t want to put fetches in Standard again (adding five minutes of shuffling to every game isn’t the most fun thing in the world), and that adding Onslaught fetches wouldn’t make much difference in Modern when we already have rainbow mana in any number of different methods. Oops. Feel free to say, “I told you so,” in the comments section, even if you didn’t in fact “tell me so” and you want to pretend you did. I was wrong. It happens.

Belief Perseverance

I wrote that article back in May. M15 spoilers were in full effect, the enemy cycle of pain lands was revealed, which heavily alluded to the probability of an allied cycle of lands in Khans of Tarkir. That, along with a decent number of logically sound comments on my 15th article, probably should have been enough to change my mind. Even something like [card]Ob Nixilis, Unshackled[/card] is a throwback from Zendikar, and he interacts with fetch lands.

Still, I didn’t change my mind. I felt that a reprint in a supplemental product such as Commander, Archenemy, or Planechase was more likely, and that Khans would have an all-new land cycle in the fall. I’m beating the fact that I was wrong into the ground, because changing your mind when presented with new information is hard. Has anyone ever come up to you with a deck and asked your opinion on what to change? You might be a much more experienced player than that person, provide logical and rational reasoning for all of your theorized changes, only to have that player say something along the lines of, “Well, I think I’m just going to keep it the way it is.” Being able to change your opinion in the face of new evidence is difficult, but it’s something that we should all practice, recognizing in the moment of when it happens.

I Don’t Care, Just Tell Me What to Do with my Fetches

Fine, fine. Are you still holding onto Onslaught copies? If so, I feel like you have a couple of options ahead of you. One of the best historical examples to look at for guidance would be [card]Thoughtseize[/card], a Modern and Legacy staple that hung out at around $70 and got chopped in half by its reprint. Expect the original [card]Polluted Delta[/card] to fall to around $40 soon after the reprint hits the shelves, sustained by a bit of price memory, and respect for the old border and art. As of September 2, ABUGames is still buying original Deltas for almost $35. If you don’t care about the art or border and just want to play your fetches, you might as well ship them off to a reliable buylist and then buy into the newer, cheaper copies once they start flooding the market.

Speaking of new copies [card]Flooded Strand[/card]ing the market, what will the settled price of the new fetch lands be? Well, SCG is setting the bar high with preorders at $29.99, and they’re sold out. However, you can certainly find better deals than that with a little bit of Google-fu, if you absolutely need the cards in your hands the week of release. No matter how high the demand for fetches is, a booster box can only hold so much value before supply is raised by people cracking boxes for said value. After a few weeks of product being opened and drafted, I think the dust will settle around $15 (lower for the non-blue ones). Again, I think we can look at [card]Thoughtseize[/card] for an excellent example.

A Misty Future

And Zendikar fetches? If little Bobby can use $13 [card]Wooded Foothills[/card] and [card]Bloodstained Mire[/card]s, he certainly doesn’t need to drop $70 on a copy of [card]Scalding Tarn[/card] for his Burn deck. We survived on five fetch lands for several years in Modern, and players without the cash for Modern’s “original” fetches will be diving headfirst for the Khans counterparts. This relieves a little bit of pressure on the Zendikar fetches and prevents WOTC from having rocks thrown through their windows. Does this mean we won’t be getting more Mesas? I doubt it. As I stated a couple of weeks ago, I think Modern Masters 2 is on its way to blow us away, and I’m still confident that it contains Zendikar fetches at rare, with a much larger print run to prevent $57 [card]Cryptic Command[/card]s. Yes, I did just finish a section of this article talking about the negative aspects of belief perseverance and being willing to change your mind, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find enough evidence to rule out MM2 with fetches.

With these factors in mind, I’ve been looking at unloading any extra Zendikar fetches I had. If you’re not using them to play with, trade them off into safer commodities, or sell them to friends who need them right now. There is very little to be gained by holding onto them for financial gains.

In Related News

If you blinked at any point between this past Sunday and Monday, you might have noticed that [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card] went up to $17 once again. If you bought in a while ago expecting this, then congratulations, I recommend selling out now. Even if it does slowly creep up to $20 and hang out there for a while, I’m always a fan of taking profits and running onto the next thing.

In Unrelated News

If you’re looking for the next big thing, I’m going to be the eleventy billlionth person on the internet to endorse [card]Mana Confluence[/card] and [card]Soldier of the Pantheon[/card]. As of today, Mana Confluence has crept up to $15 average, so I’m not sure how much more time you have before it reaches $20. If you can still find a place to buy in for $11 or $12 and need them to play with, I recommend it. The ceiling on Soldier is probably only $5, but he seems like an excellent target as a cheap throw-in when it looks like there will be so many multi-color decks running around. These decks will play [card]Mana Confluence[/card] and fetch lands, which start to hurt after repeated uses. Soldier gets to ignore their golden threats, and also holds the ground well.

Wrapping Up

I’m sure that almost every other Magic financier in the world has written approximately the same article (or better) about fetch land reprints this week, but I genuinely appreciate the time you took to read my thoughts. If you’re interested in continuing the discussion, I’m glad to help! Just leave a comment in the section below, on Reddit, or hit me up on Twitter with any questions/constructive criticism. Until next week!

Casually Infinite – The Perils of Single Elimination

September 3, 2014 Marc DeArmond

When picking which queue to enter when playing Magic Online, you have a couple of notable options. Really, the most significant option is if you’re entering a single-elimination queue or a Swiss queue. In single-elimination events, if you lose, you’re out. Prizes are determined based on the number of matches you survived before losing. In Swiss queues, you play a predetermined number of games. You generally play against people with the same record as you, though odd numbers of players can cause some mismatched pairings. Your prizes are determined by your record, not your ranking. Some bigger Swiss tournaments care about your place by cutting to a top eight, which proceeds as a single-elimination event from there.

As a good but not fantastic player, I have some very serious issues with single-elimination queues. I’m going to be breaking down the way single elimination effects outcomes. In doing this, I’m going to assume that decks and players are ranked together according to skill, where the number one player will beat the other seven and the number two player will lose against number one but beat the rest. In reality, there is more variance than this and the likelihood of a more “rock, paper, scissors” type scenario among decks, but this actually increases the issues in single elimination rather than decreases them.

Breaking Down Single Elimination

Personally, I like to think of myself as the number two player when I hop into an eight-man queue. I assume that there is someone better than me in the queue, but I know that I’m pretty good and usually produce solid results. You might think that being the second best player should consistently produce pretty solid results. If I can beat the majority of the players in the queue, I should do pretty well. However, in single-elimination 8-4s, number two is a pretty bad place to be.

It’s important to understand the basic chart of how single elimination works. With eight players, we have seats A through H. The chart below shows which seat will be playing which seat in each game. What is randomly determined is who will will be in each slot. If player one (the best player) lands in seat A, I can only get to the finals if I end up in seats E through H. Meaning the number two player (second best player), has a 4/7 chance of making it to the finals by ending up in a different half of the bracket from the number one player. Even as the second best player, I have just above a 50-percent chance that I’ll make it to the finals, even guaranteeing that I’ll win against everyone worse than me. The chances for the number three player making it to the finals is only 3/14, as both the number one and number two players have to be in the same half of the bracket and the third player needs to be in the other half.

As the best player, single-elimination is clearly the best choice, because I’m likely to come out on top. But as anything but the best player, your likelihood of realizing the potential of your skill is not great.

Example Time

To give a few examples of this concept, I’d like to walk through a couple of on-demand events I played at GP Portland.

The first was a Sealed queue in which I had a really strong pool. I had double [card]Raise the Alarm[/card], [card]Triplicate Spirits[/card], [card]Seraph of the Masses[/card], [card]Spectra Ward[/card], two [card]Sanctified Charge[/card]s, [card]Hushwing Gryff[/card], and [card]Spirit Bonds[/card]. Pretty much no matter what color I paired white with, my deck was going to be solid. I offhandedly destroyed my first round opponent. My second round opponent was much different. He had double [card]Festergloom[/card], and tons of removal. In this match, I didn’t have a chance. I got a pretty good look at his deck and saw he was clearly the best deck at the table. Even hearing about his opponent’s deck in the finals, it was pretty clear that my deck was second best. Unfortunately, prizes only went to the top two places, so regardless of the quality of my deck, I was out.

The next example is a draft in which I ended up with an amazing deck with double [card]Lightning Strike[/card], double [card]Forge Devil[/card], double [card]Covenant of Blood[/card], double [card]Krenko’s Enforcer[/card], [card]Accursed Spirit[/card], [card]Scuttling Doom Engine[/card], and [card]Heat Ray[/card]. My first round opponent was the main white drafter at the table and ended up with double [card]Raise the Alarm[/card], triple [card]Triplicate Spirits[/card], [card]Resolute Archangel[/card], [card]Spirit Bonds[/card], and a host of other solid white cards. Somehow, I managed to eke out a victory 2-1 by topdecking the [card]Covenant of Blood[/card] I needed to win. However, my other two opponents I thoroughly stomped 2-0. Clearly, my round one opponent had the second best deck at the table (possibly even the best). He would have walked through my round two and round three opponents as quickly as I did. But because he was eliminated in round one, he never had a chance to really show his stuff. He had a good draft, but didn’t have the chance to prove it.

The Dark Side of Swiss

On the flip side of queues, Swiss events have a couple of notable disadvantages. First off, if your draft goes sideways or you open a bad pool, you’re stuck playing it for multiple rounds to try to salvage something. This can occasionally be disheartening, as your pool makes you fight to a 1-2 record for meager prizes. It can also have a significant swing in your win percentage if you track it. In single elimination, your worst possible record is 0-1. In Swiss, you can fall to all the way to 0-3.

The advantages of Swiss are also significant. In two games that average around 10 turns each, you’re only seeing just above half of the cards in your deck. You haven’t really seen what your deck is capable of. If you lost, you probably never pulled off a nut draw, saw how well you can top deck, or drew at least ten of the cards in your deck, much less saw them in play. I feel that three matches is really what is required to get a good feel for your deck and get you to start sideboarding well. For those of us being casually infinite, we need to learn as much as we can each time we sit down to play.

FNMs are run as Swiss for a reason. Most players came to play and winning is a potential part of that. Perhaps once I’m truly a master and can assure myself I can win 70-percent of my games, I’ll prefer single-elimination. But as a member of the casually infinite crowd, I prefer to actually sit down and play Magic. I want to get my three or more games out of my deck and I want to really suffer through the bad choices I made in deck construction. If I chose to run three [card]Invasive Species[/card] with no solid one- or two-drops, I probably won’t figure it out during match one, but by match three, I’ll be determined to never run them again without thinking really hard.

Where do you fall? Do you prefer single-elimination or Swiss events? Let me know in the comments.

Weekend Magic: 8/29-8/31

September 2, 2014 Jared Yost

Welcome back! No time for formalities—let’s get to the events:

SCG Invitational Somerset, NJ (US)

Decklists

For those of you who don’t know how the SCG Invitational works (and who might be confused as to why a Standard and Legacy deck could both win the tournament), please refer to this link for the specific details about the tournament.

The Invitational can be summed up as follows. According to Star City, the invitational happens four times per year and includes those players who are able to qualify for the event. You can qualify by getting in the Top 8 of an Open Series event or by getting in the Top 16 of the previous Invitational. You could also get first or second at an invitational qualifier (IQ), or become the SCG state champion of your state. Finally, you could also grind your way to a seat at this tournament by earning 15 Open Series points between Invitationals.

Once you receive an illustrious seat at an Invitational, you needed to prepare yourself for four rounds each of Standard and Legacy on Friday, four rounds each of Standard and Legacy on Saturday, and finally, if you made the Top 8, on Sunday you are invited to compete for the Invitational championship title by playing another four rounds of Legacy. Sounds like a mini pro tour to me, since it takes place across three days. There are $50,000 in prizes on the line and a large chunk of that goes to the top finishers. Pretty cool for an event that happens four times a year.

Tom “The Boss” Ross took down the Invitational again! My hat’s off to Tom, it was a win well deserved. He decided to play U/G Infect again for Legacy (his choice that got him first at the previous Invitational back in June) and went with Rabble Red as his Standard option. I talked about Rabble Red a bit in last week’s article, so I’m going to focus on his Legacy deck choice of U/G Infect.

U/G Infect is an up-and-coming Legacy deck that I believe will become more popular over time, especially since Tom has taken down two Invitationals back to back using the deck over the past three months. I have been hearing a lot of good things about U/G Infect and it seems that it can go toe to toe with the likes of U/W/R Miracles, BUG Delver, and Sneak and Show, among other decks in the field. I think more people will start to realize the power this deck offers players in Legacy and I bet we will see much more it once we come to GP New Jersey.

[card]Berserk[/card] is the card, if any, that might experience a price bump based on these results. The rest of the cards have either spiked due to demand from other formats ([card]Noble Hierarch[/card]), are already Legacy staples ([card]Force of Will[/card], [card]Tropical Island[/card], etc.), or are commons and uncommons that aren’t going to explode in price any time soon. The deck plays only two [card]Berserk[/card]s, but the problem is that the only printing the card has seen since Unlimited is the FTV foiled version, which not many players favor. Regardless, I feel that if you want to play this deck, you will need Berserk in one way or another, so pick up your copies before they start climbing up. You can get HP-MP Unlimited Berserks for around $35 to $40 now, which I think is pretty good, especially since U/G Infect seems to be in the limelight every time we get to one of these SCG Invitationals. FTV copies aren’t too bad at $50 either.

Keep in mind that Tom is an expert with this deck. He plays it in both Legacy and Modern, so in both formats he knows how to play the Infect game and play it as perfectly as he can. I imagine that this deck would be very hard for someone that is new to Infect to pilot to so many wins in tournaments. Clearly, the deck has power and will put up results for those who know how to pilot it. In the past I would consider the deck a pet deck, but Tom’s results could easily push it into an established Legacy archetype.

SCG Standard Open Somerset, NJ (US)

Decklists

Moving on to the Standard Open at Somerset, we’re looking at more of the same from the previous week’s DC Open. Chris VanMeter won the Standard Open on the back of Jund Monsters. This deck differs slightly from Jund Walkers in that he opted to play [card]Domri Rade[/card] (backed with a bunch of creatures) and [card]Xenagos, the Reveler[/card] in favor of [card]Chandra, Pyromaster[/card] and [card]Nissa, Worldwaker[/card] that Michael Sammut used to secure a Top 8 finish in the same tournament. This version of Jund Monsters, however, did contain [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card], so it appears that the rabble rouser is able to help bolster the midrange decks in addition to Rabble Red and other aggro builds. Last week I commented on on how this card may not be able to reach $8 or more after rotation, but these results bolster the argument that Rabblemaster could do well for itself going into the future. Definitely something to keep an eye on as we go into September. [card]Mistcutter Hydra[/card] coming out of VanMeter’s board is something to take note of moving forward as well especially in lieu of Wedge colors.

Another cool deck was Mono-Black Aggro that placed seventh, piloted by Richard Nguyen. This list contained playsets of [card]Herald of Torment[/card], [card]Gnarled Scarhide[/card], [card]Spiteful Returned[/card], [card]Tormented Hero[/card], [card]Pain Seer[/card], and [card]Mogis’s Marauder[/card]. Pay close attention to this list, folks—this is probably what we’re going to see from mono-black moving into September after rotation. Apparently, [card]Boon of Erebos[/card] is a thing, too. Who knew? I expect we’ll see something very similar to this list once rotation hits. It looks like [card]Herald of Torment[/card] has the most to gain from being included in the deck.

Other notables from across the Top 8 lists include [card]Sunblade Elf[/card], [card]Ajani Steadfast[/card], [card]Banishing Light[/card], and [card]Stoke the Flames[/card].

Speaking to Standard in general, the Onslaught fetch lands being spoiled for Khans means that [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card] is only going to get even better since it interacts so well with fetches. It already spiked Sunday night to $18 retail from the previous $12 due to the announcement, and I only see it continuing to maintain this price due to fetch land snyergy.

SCG Legacy Open Somerset, NJ (US)

Decklists

Next we have the Legacy Open at Somerset. Reid Duke couldn’t take down the Invitational with Miracles, but Dan Musser was able to fill Reid’s shoes and take down the Legacy Open piloting the deck. Second place went to Elves, piloted by Ross Merriam. I’ve been a fan of several pieces of the Elves deck for quite some time (it is the third most popular combo deck in Legacy behind Storm and Sneak and Show), and several pieces of the deck feel undervalued to me. [card]Glimpse of Nature[/card] and [card]Natural Order[/card] stand to gain the most from Elves doing well, and both are around $30 retail now. If you want to play Elves, I suggest you pick up these pieces before diving into anything else in the deck. [card]Gaea’s Cradle[/card] is pretty expensive and could spike from casual demand, yet I feel like it has stabilized for the time being. Not to say that it won’t spike again, especially if Elves continue to put up great results, however, I think that Glimpse and Order will experience the biggest percentage increases, since both cards have slowly gone up over time without seeing a huge overnight spike. [card]Heritage Druid[/card] is another good target since it was only printed once as an uncommon in Morningtide. $6 feels low for this girl to me.

The remaining decks were mostly unique barring the Delver variants. Not much innovation in the lists except the random Koth in the Painter sideboard. Legacy seems to be as diverse as ever.

PAX Party

Plenty of cards were spoiled from Khans during the past weekend, and they will make their marks on Standard, with Sarkhan and the fetch lands being the most exciting.

[card]Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker[/card] is the red planeswalker that players have wanted for years. It offers you either a 4/4 red flying, indestructible, hasty dragon or a [card]Flametongue Kavu[/card] the first turn you play it. His ultimate also offers red something that Wizards has been trying to push: pseudo card advantage. Sure, you have to discard your hand every turn, but you are drawing two additional cards, which is insane for red. The downside even has interaction with delve, which is fantastic. But even better is that mono-red usually plays tons of cheap cards, so playing all of them in a turn is a real possibility. Suffice to say, I am excited for Sarkhan to make his impact on Standard.

Completing the cycle of tri-lands will also be good for mana bases. Pick up as many copies of these tri-lands as you can and hold onto them. They will always be worth at least $1 in trade due to casual demand. Going forward into the future, they only stand to gain value until Wizards decides to reprint them again.

[card]Sultai Charm is juicy and I expect its charm brethren to be just as awesome. Pick up tons of these along the way as well. Just like the tri-lands, they will always maintain value due to casual demand and at least a few of them should see Standard play.

Sorin could be cool, though I don’t think he quite hit the mark this time. He seems so similar to another planeswalker I’ve seen in the past. Gideon? Elspeth? Hmm, I just don’t know. There will always be casual demand at least.

At first I thought Sidisi would be awesome for Legacy Dredge, but then I realized that you need to actually cast her before your self-milling can produce creatures for you. Maybe there is a fast way to reanimate her and then start dredging? Only the future will tell. In the meantime, she will make a fantastic commander alongside Narset. These two are the commanders that we’ve been anticipating since Wizards announced Khans would focus on wedges, and so far I am quite happy. They are exceptionally powerful Commander generals and I expect players to start brewing with them very soon.

Final Thoughts

Yet another exciting weekend in Magic! Star City Games threw a great series of tournaments in NJ and we got a ton of sneak previews of what Khans is going to offer. Spoiler season is under way and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the new block.

Pitt Imps Podcast #84 Big Changes

September 2, 2014 Pitt Imps 02:09:41

This week on the cast, we go over the Modern GP as well as the Limited one. Then we turn our attention to SCG DC. Maro announced huge changes to the tournament and set structures, so we do our best to explain exactly what this means. Jason Alt from Brainstorm Brewery joins us to help us maybe figure out what exactly these Standard changes will mean to the MTG secondary marketplace, if anything. Then blah, blah, blah. Look, it’s the Pitt Imps—you know how the rest of this goes.

Host Angelo Twitter @ganksuou

Co-Host Ryan Twitter @brotheryan

Guest Jason Twitter @JasonEAlt

Show Email [email protected]

The Spike Feed Episode 51 – The Crying Game

September 2, 2014 The Spike Feed

Dustin decided his overseas adventures wouldn’t include recording the podcast, so this week we’re joined by the Modern Man, Nathan Quintanilla. Curtis and Cameron discuss their epic 0-2 and 1-3 records, respectively, from the latest PTQ. We also discuss the future of removal in Standard, go deep into all things Modern, and analyze the card Shadow of Doubt. Thank you for your honor.

Nathan Quintanilla – @GreatNate on Twitter and GreatNateMTG on YouTube

Cameron McCoy – @Cameron_McCoy

Curtis Nower – @CurtisNow

Our show – @SpikeFeedMTG

Music by Micah Jones

Brainstorm Brewery #112 – Altered Reality

August 29, 2014 Brainstorm Brewery 1:14:06

What happens when you mix a guy named Alt with Magic‘s best card alterist? It’s probably nothing significant; that’s a pretty tenuous connection. Still, when you bring Magic‘s most beloved alteration artist onto Magic‘s most beloved podcast, they’re bound to get into some shenanigans. Who has his Pick of the Week swiped? Who gets a hard time for his cuisine choices (it’s not who you think (yes it is))? Who’s bullish on the upcoming changes to the structure of Standard? Find out the answer to all of these questions and more on an episode of your favorite podcast that will leave you asking, “When are they going to read my e-mail?”

The gang is joined by Eric Klug (@klug_alters).
Check out Eric on Facebook here.
Klug spills the details about his career in card alteration.
Who better to talk about cubing?
With big changes announced to Standard, how will prices be affected?
Mailbag time!
Someone has his Pick of the Week scooped. Guess who!
Remember to check out the articles on BrainstormBrewery.com.
Questions? Concerns? The address is brainstormbrew at gmail dot com.
Want your e-mail read on the cast? Use the same address.

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 J

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

Marcel White – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook

Conjured Currency #28: The End of Magic: The Gathering (As We Know It)

August 28, 2014 Douglas Johnson

It’s Thursday once again, and I welcome all of you back to reading more words that the Brew Crew pay me to vomit onto the internet. Thanks for that. Last week, I got an extremely positive reception to an article that involved me digging through my closet and taking a good look at my current sealed product investments. If you’re considering dropping some cash on the next new product and stashing it away, I highly recommend you skim through the article first. I’m not going to spend too much time on the past, though, because this article (and announcement) is all about the future, and there’s a lot to talk about.

The news is a few days old by the time you’re reading this, but early the morning of this writing, Mark Rosewater dropped quite the bomb on us with loads of information that can be found here. Without any further unrelated words, let’s delve into a “TL;DR” of the entire article, and then extrapolate a few possibilities for what these changes could mean for Magic, mainly from the financial perspective.

I Don’t Want to Read the Article

For the readers that the above statement rings true for, I’ll explain it as quickly and efficiently as I can. Magic has had a history of the third set in a block having an identity crisis, leaving the set to often have a bad Limited environment (see Avacyn Restored/Dragon’s Maze). It’s hard to keep people interested in the same block for almost an entire year and still maintain an identity for the third set.

Similarly, the core set has been split between appealing to a more advanced and experienced crowd, while trying to teach newcomers the basics of the game. There are also issues with the “storytelling” aspect of the game being too slow (did anyone honestly give a damn about what happened in the flavor of Dragon’s Maze or Journey into Nyx?), and not having enough time to revisit our favorite worlds while still creating new storylines. With this, we end up with two sets (the third set and the core set) being the redheaded stepchildren of the Magic year, and the need to increase the quality of the storyline and add more stories.

Do You See Where This is Going?

“Beginning in the fall of 2015, Magic will have two blocks per year.” Yep. Instead of having three sets in one block followed by a core set, we’ll be receiving two blocks per year. The first two sets will be parts of the first block, and the second two sets of the year will [b]usually[/b] be part of a second. The “usually” part seems important to me, giving Wizards the ability to backtrack and shake things up with something different, like a three- or four-set block instead. In order to make room for this, they’re chopping off the core set.

Rotation, Rotation, Rotation

The last big announcement of the article is that cards in the fall set will no longer be legal for a 24-month period, starting with the Khans of Tarkir block. Khans will only be legal for 18 months, rotating in the spring of 2016 instead of the fall. Instead of a once-per-year rotation, Standard will rotate twice a year (once in the fall as we’re used to, and once in the spring as well). Three blocks will be Standard-legal at once, and each rotation will push out the third block behind it. In order to make the transition as smooth as possible, the last set of Khans block will rotate after its brothers have already left, making 2016 an interesting year for rotations.

What Happens?

Well, there are a few possibilities that immediately come to mind when presented with this new information. One of the first is that there might be fewer packs of each set opened, reducing the number of cards in circulation and likely driving the Standard staples up higher to a degree. Instead of (for example) JOU/BNG/THS, we’re losing all of the Born of the Gods and Theros packs that would have been drafted during that time, and are instead on our way to a shiny new block. Mythics and chase rares would likely see higher price floors, but for a shorter time period due to the sooner rotation.

If Wizards keeps the draft format the same as it is now (Small/Big/Big), then there will be a 5-1 ratio of “Blood” and “Sweat” respectively entering the market. While there was already a 6-2-1 ratio of a block like Theros, we’re not used to this 5-1 gap happening multiple times a year, causing staples from the second set in each block to be more expensive than we’re used to.

On the other hand, these changes could turn out great for the number of packs opened. Instead of the “third set slump,” where players are less likely to buy boxes or want to draft the third set of the block, they’re met with a brand new world, new planeswalkers, new stories, and new mechanics every six months or so. This might be enough to make up for, and maybe even surpass, the number of lost packs from the three-set draft format.

A Healthy Standard?

Rosewater blatantly stated in the article that one of the reasons for a more frequent Standard rotation is to prevent the metagame from stagnating as it has been of late. Wizards doesn’t want [card]Thoughtseize[/card] into [card]Pack Rat[/card] to become a two-year long happening, because that gets old quickly. [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] has had its time in the sun, and I don’t think I’d be assuming too much if I guessed that a majority of the Standard player base was wishing it had left long ago.

Remember the Organized Play changes from about a month ago? The ones where players were upset about having four Standard pro tours, and eventually complained enough to get OP to reverse its decision and add back a Modern PT? Well, maybe Wizards had a reason for scheduling four Standard pro tours. It makes a lot more sense to have every PT be Standard when the format rotates much more quickly, and has three blocks’ worth of variety and different themes.

If you’re someone who tends to build a single Standard deck and tries to stick with it as long as possible in order to make playing Magic cheaper, this change might actually deter you from playing the format rather than spicing it up. If enough players decide to turn their backs on the format, we could see this change drive more people to Modern, Legacy, or even EDH. I’m personally excited to have a buylist ready for all of the Modern and Legacy staples that will be rotating out of Standard every six months, because the Standard-only players will need to dump them more often to get their hands on the fresh new block.

If you tend to speculate on fall Standard sleepers like [card]Desecration Demon[/card] and [card]Jace, Architect of Thought[/card], or just primarily deal in Standard cards via TCGplayer/eBay/buying at buylist, you have less time to dump the fall-set cards before they plummet. If you’re someone who doesn’t constantly move inventory around, it might be a good idea to start putting money and trade stock towards Legacy Reserved List cards until the storm settles.

More Reprints?

Here’s another factor to consider. I’ll just leave this here:

I guess reprinting [card]Thoughtseize[/card] and murdering Standard for a year was worth dropping its price tag by $50. I sound cynical when I say that, but maybe it looks like a way for them to balance the amount of people who play Standard with the people who play eternal formats. If we get reprints on the same power level as [card]Thoughtseize[/card], [card]Mutavault[/card], and [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] in the near future, I’m on board with making Modern cheaper and easier to access for everyone involved.

It’s also interesting to note that, unlike the other “big changes” in Magic, nobody’s complaining. As far as I can tell, nobody’s getting out their pitchforks, throwing their collection into the bonfire, or rioting at WOTC’s door. Everyone (myself included) seems to just think, “Huh. Yeah, that does solve all of those problems, and sounds very exciting. I look forward to these changes in the future.”

One way or another, this is such a huge change that it’s impossible to complete the puzzle just yet. We just had a nuclear bomb dropped on our precious little system that we thought we had figured out, and there’s a lot of traditions and systems we had in place as financiers that just go straight out the window. It becomes a lot harder to say, “X will happen on Y date, so sell Z card before A happens,” when we’re going into uncharted waters.

Is there anyone out there who hates these changes? If so, what’s your reasoning behind your opinion? I’m curious to see if everyone is as excited for these new developments as I am. It certainly stirs up the financial world of Magic like few things have, and I certainly can’t even begin to fathom the depths of all of the possible results of this announcement alone, especially in only 1500 words. Does anyone want to help me out and provide some comments on what else could happen as a result of switching to a two-block format while removing the core set from the equation?

As always, thanks for reading.

Cube Drafting Storm — by Rowan Sheehan

August 27, 2014 Guest Author

Welcome to my Cube article! On a weekly basis, some people and I get together to shuffle up and play our paper version of the MTGO Holiday Cube, one of the most fun draft formats that there is. It follows normal draft style, but plays with high-powered cards, including [card]Black Lotus[/card]! There’s only about four or five changes from the MTGO list, none of which are notable. Everybody arranges themselves, we count out packs, and start playing!

[Deck title=p1p1]
Regrowth
Gruul Turf
Knight of the Reliquary
Vedalken Shackles
Devil’s Play
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Pernicious Deed
Venser, the Sojourner
Garruk Relentless
Phyrexian Arena
Mana Drain
Mirror Entity
Abrupt Decay
Ancient Grudge
Necromancy
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Mana Drain[/card]

P1P1s are difficult to really focus around, as picks are nearly exclusively up to personal taste. In general, the only snap-picks in a P1P1 of Holiday Cube would be [card]Sol Ring[/card], [card]Black Lotus[/card], Moxen, [card]Time Walk[/card], or [card]Ancestral Recall[/card]. I picked Mana Drain because it’s a pillar of Vintage for a reason, but it took awhile to decide.

[Deck title=p2p2]
All is Dust
Dark Confidant
Animate Dead
Phyrexian Obliterator
Demonic Tutor
Lotus Bloom
Nantuko Vigilante
Corpse Dance
Magus of the Moon
Wrath of God
Timetwister
Bloodgift Demon
Looter il-Kor
Golgari Rot Farm
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Demonic Tutor[/card]

Oh man, black is looking pretty solid. I could force mono-black and take the Obliterator, or go tempo with [card]Dark Confidant[/card]. [card]Timetwister[/card] is also vital for ramp or storm. However, I strongly value tutors, as they are as good as the best card in your deck, and [card]Demonic Tutor[/card] is pretty undeniably the best tutor.

[deck title=p1p3]
Vengevine
Oracle of Mul Daya
Obstinate Baloth
Searing Blaze
Dungeon Geists
Volrath’s Stronghold
Black Knight
Sacred Foundry
Agony Warp
Into the Roil
Blade Splicer
Miscalculation
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Oracle of Mul Daya[/card]

I could snag Miscalculation and go hard into UB Control. Given that Holiday Cube is a bomb-oriented format, I think it’s important to stay open in pack one, so I went for [card]Oracle of Mul Daya[/card]. Currently I’m looking at a UG rampy deck, so I hope that [card]Timetwister[/card] last pack wheels. Ravnica bounce lands interact well with Oracle, because you often run out of lands to play, but with karoo lands, you can play the lands from your hand more often. I’ve already seen two of them that will likely come back around.

[deck title=p1p4]
Wheel of Fortune
Land Tax
Fyndhorn Elves
Oblivion Ring
Gideon’s Lawkeeper
Reanimate
Time Spiral
Lodestone Golem
Unburial Rights
Restock
Sower of Temptations
Null Rod
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Wheel of Fortune[/card]

Land Tax and Oracle of Mul Daya are a non-bo, so no sense going for that. I’m feeling one of the two wheels right now and in retrospect I probably should have picked Time Spiral. However, I go for the Wheel of Fortune because it requires a lower storm count. The fact that it’s single red means that it’s fairly splashable and Time Spiral would probably dedicate me to going blue.

[deck title=p1p5]
Nether Void
Baneslayer Angel
Reveillark
Graveborn Muse
Firemane Angel
Bloodghast
Mizzium MOrtars
Gatekeeper
Armageddon
Wake Thrasher
Vesuvan Shapeshifter
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Wake Thrasher[/card]

I have a Wheel and a Tutor in the first four picks, so there’s a good chance I’m going to be playing combo. As such, I pick Wake Thrasher, as it combos with [card]Basalt Monolith[/card] in the cube to give an infinitely powerful dude. [card]Armageddon[/card] is powerful in the early picks, but is a non-bo with a ramp/combo strategy that I seem to be setting up. [card]Nether Void[/card] isn’t bad, but I don’t enjoy playing a stax deck until I’ve snagged a [card]Crucible of Worlds[/card].

[deck title=p1p6]
Polukranos, World Eater
Go for the Throat
Life from the Loam
Fauna Shaman
Frantic Search
Scavenging Ooze
Shriekmaw
Cryptic Command
Hellrider
Ancient Tomb
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Frantic Search[/card]

Cryptic Command is far too color intense for an already four-color deck. I’m not on the red aggro train, otherwise Hellrider is a good pick. The Fauna Shaman is rather pretty, especially with the consistent reanimator support I see in the previous packs. I have the Tutor and Wheel to play reanimator, but the Frantic Search also works for U/B reanimator and works well with Oracle, bounce lands, and wheels. I pick up Frantic Search because it allows me to go for reanimator, storm, or ramp.

[deck title=p1p7]
Frost TItan
Awakening Zone
Mind Stone
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Greater Gargadon
Slaughter Pact
Hypnotic Specter
Primal Command
Plow Under
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Mind Stone[/card]

I started playing cube consistently with a good unpowered cube, which proved the power of Mind Stone. It’s not an exciting pick, but it allows for ramp, is recurrable, and is a card draw later.

[deck title=p1p8]
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Dismember
Boon Satyr
Nekrataal
Prophetic Bolt
Torch Fiend
Honor of the Pure
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Prophetic Bolt[/card]

I’m not sure what to make of this pack. The three notables are Grand Arbiter to make cheaper spells, Dismember for an easy kill spell regardless of my mana colors, and Prophetic Bolt for damage and card draw. None of the three are too bad, but I picked Prophetic Bolt because I wanted to get some more testing in with that card.

[deck title=p1p9]
Lifebane Zombie
Thelonite Hermit
Flickerwisp
Call of the Herd
Stormblood Berserker
Arc Trail
Shivan Reef
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Shivan Reef[/card]

There isn’t much calling in this pack, so I pick up Shivan Reef as land drafting is vital.

[deck title=p1p10]
Gruul Turf
Mirror Entity
Pernicious Deed
Venser, the Sojourner
Knight of the Reliquary
Ancient Grudge
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Gruul Turf[/card]

Sweet, got that bounce land action going on. This is also vital because this is the first pack that I can read signals on. Both Garruks are gone, as are most green cards. I make a mental note that I’ll probably be moving out of green-based ramp. Also the Necromancy is gone and if I don’t see the reanimator cards in the next pack then I’ll probably move out of reanimator.

[deck title=p1p11]
All is Dust
Nantuko Vigilante
Corpse Dance
Wrath of God
Golgari Rot Farm
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Golgari Rot Farm[/card]

Oh, the Animate Dead is gone. I’m going to stay away from reanimator and just do an easy pick on the bounce land and dedicate myself further to this Oracle / Frantic Search strategy, wherever it leads me.

[deck title=p1p12]
Qasali Pridemeage
Vengevine
Blade Splicer
Agony Warp
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Agony Warp[/card]

None of the creatures seem to represent anything I want, so I pick up an Agony Warp for sideboard tech against creature decks.

[deck title=p1p13]
Gideon’s Lawkeeper
Oblivion Ring
Land Tax
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Land Tax[/card]

White, white everywhere! I pick up Land Tax as a method of early deck thinning and the ability to support my already insane mana base. Land Tax also works very well with karoos, but doesn’t work too well with Oracle.

[deck title=p1p14]
Reveillark
Vesuvan Shapeshifter
[/deck]

Don’t want either, take the Reveillark because somebody else might want it.

p1p15: Life from the Loam

Life from the Loam isn’t too bad of a last pick! My karoos are going to be prime targets for land destruction, so I am going to need a reliable way to get them back to my hand. However, the dredge is problematic because I haven’t seen any recursion yet or way to replay my graveyard, so I’ll try to value that higher in later picks.

[deck title=p2p1]
Sun Titan
Birds of Paradise
Stunted Growth
Metalworker
Vindicate
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Living Death
Spikeshot Elder
Mind’s Desire
Jushi Apprentice
Aetherling
Dreg Mangler
WickerboughElder
Sphinx’s Revelation
Chandra, Pyromaster
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Mind’s Desire[/card]

Oh boy, this pack is fun. There’s a lot of valuable things here, notably Sun Titan, Metalworker, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Mind’s Desire. I’ve picked exactly one artifact so far, so I don’t pick up the Metalworker. I have the Mana Drain which complements Jace, the Mind Sculptor very well, but Minds Desire is one of the most bonkers storm cards ever in cube (and too bonkers for Legacy). I pick Mind’s Desire because I love playing storm and I think that it will contribute to an interesting article. Around now I decide that I will be forcing storm.

[deck title=p2p2]
Voice of Resurgence
Damnation
Golgari Signet
Path to Exile
Whipcorder
Nezumi Graverobber
Silverblade Paladin
Overgrown Tomb
Fireblast
Savannah Lions
Mystic Snake
Huntmaster of the Fells
Gaea’s Cradle
Consuming Vapors
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Overgrown Tomb[/card]

Lands are always a wonderful pick. I think in hindsight, I should have grabbed the Damnation because it’s difficult for me to deal with problematic creatures. Also, the Signet is good for fixing and basically costs one mana to create one storm count (after playing and tapping it).

[deck title=p2p3]
Erebos, God of the Dead
Wolfir SIlverheart
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Gilded Lotus
Bonfire of the Damned
Underground River
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Vendilion Clique
Selesnya Sanctuary
Dust Bowl
Frenzied Goblin
Hallowed Fountain
Daze
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Lion’s Eye Diamond[/card]

LED is one of the classic storm cards, I have to go for it. I’ll be happy on the wheel to get any dual lands or Erebos, though.

[deck title=p2p4]
Mox Ruby
Tendrils of Agony
Hymn to Tourach
Maelstorm Pulse
Rakdos Cackler
Jackal Pup
Chandra’s Phoenix
Counterspell
Basalt Monolith
Leonin Relic-Warder
Spectral Possession
Impulse
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Mox Ruby[/card]

Oh boy! This pack is absolutely beautiful. Mox Ruby, Tendrils, and Basalt Monolith stand out. The first is a piece of power, and the second and third are win conditions (remember that I mentioned the infinite combo with Wake Thrasher and Basalt Monolith?). I’m okay with letting the Basalt Monolith go—the people I’m playing with are experienced enough to know the combo so I won’t get as many free wins. Tendrils is my least favorite storm win-con because it’s the only one that requires you to hit the full count to win. [card]Brain Freeze[/card] can be fired off early and cheaply and they will naturally continue to draw and after a Wheel or two they will meet their death. A small army of goblins is never not scary. However, a player can sit at two life comfortably for the rest of the game. Therefore, I pick the piece of power (which is still a fantastic pick!)

[deck title=p2p5]
Noble Hierarch
Stomping Grounds
Ravages of War
Koth of the Hammer
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
Zealous Conscripts
Old Man of the Sea
Llanowar Elves
Electrolyze
Mogg War Marshal
Faith’s Fetters
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Electrolyze[/card]

Electrolyze is important for taking down the early aggro decks and providing card draw. Ravages of War is also in this pack: the mono-white aggro or stax player will be very pleased by the second mass-LD card.

[deck title=p2p6]
Ultimate Price
Terastadon
Putrid Imp
Everflowing Chalice
Nezumi Shortfang
Rout
Masticore
Hellspark Elemental
Ohran Viper
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Everflowing Chalice[/card]

Yesss, I love Everflowing Chalice in a storm deck. It can be used as ramp early and mid-game, while being able to be played for free to get one storm count when you’re going off.

[deck title=p2p7]
Smokestack
Lightning Helix
Paladin en-Vec
Firedrinker Satyr
Necropotence
Price of Progress
Flametongue Kavu
Archangel of Thune
Temple Garden
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Necropotence[/card]

Necropotence is another iconic storm card beside LED. However, my mana base currently obviously doesn’t support it. I pick it up in hopes that I’ll get a Dark Ritual later.

[deck title=p2p8]
Yavimaya Coast
Bonesplitter
Diregraf Ghoul
Teetering Peaks
Breeding Pool
Elite Vanguard
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Wall of Omens
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Breeding Pool[/card]

I think about snagging the Wall of Omens because at the least it cantrips, but fixing is over cantrips, even in storm.

[deck title=p2p9]
Kird Ape
Chandra, the Firebrand
Tangle Wire
Boggart Ram-Gang
Mishra’s Factory
Pristine Talisman
Tin-Street hooligan
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Chandra, the Firebrand[/card]

If I got a Crucible in pack one, I would be going for that stax action so much. However, Chandra can copy instants and sorceries and is an alternate win-con, so she goes in!

[deck title=p2p10]
Jushi Apprentice
Spikeshot Elder
Sphinx’s Revelation
Wickerbough Elder
Vindicate
Stunted Growth
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card]

Sphinx’s Revelation is good for card draw and works well with a land-based storm strategy. I really love this card in storm when you start getting the land-doubles, notably Mirari’s Wake and Heartbeat of Spring.

[deck title=p2p11]
Voice of Resurgence
Path to Exile
Huntmasterof the Fells
Whipcorder
Nezumi Graverobber
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Path to Exile[/card]

I pick up Path to Exile because it’s a cheap spell that interacts with my opponents’ problematic creatures and gives storm count. I can also path my own creatures after they’ve outlived their usefulness to get a much-needed land.

[deck title=p2p12]
Hallowed Fountain
Frenzied Goblin
Daze
Underground River
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Hallowed Fountain[/card]

Laaaands! I pick Hallowed Fountain because it’s fetchable and pain lands aren’t as good in Cube Storm, because you so often tap and untap your lands.

[deck title=p2p13]
Impulse
Leonin Relic-Warder
Jackal Pup
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Impulse[/card]

An almost last-picked cantrip? Yes, please!

[deck title=p2p14]
Ravages of War
Isamaru, Hound of Konda
[/deck]

Hate draft the Ravages.

p2p15: Savannah Lions

White weenies is clearly reading open, as I’ve now seen good low-drop white creatures at the end of both packs one and two.

[deck title=p3p1]
Char
Baleful Strix
Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Channel
Gifts Ungiven
Brimstone Volley
Karplusan Forest
Genesis Wave
Orzhov Signet
Taurean Mauler
Glen Elendra Archmage
Xenagos, the Reveler
Taiga
Angel of Serenity
Firebolt
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Channel[/card]

Oh, my! I have to pick the Channel—I already have a Sphinx’s Revelation. The double green is a bit restrictive, but I should be able to get there. I hope to get some of those lands on the wheel or the Signet. I thought about Gifts Ungiven, but I don’t have any recursion so it loses its effectiveness.

[deck title=p3p2]
Upheaval
Snapcaster Mage
Venser, Shaper Servant
Thornscape Battlemage
Braids, Cabal Minion
Sensei’s DIvining Top
Bitterblossom
Beast Within
Chrome Mox
Palinchron
Razormane Masticore
Toxic Deluge
Goblin Guide
Misty Rainforest
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Upheaval[/card]

P3P1 Channel into a P3P2 Upheaval makes me so happy. Although it’s not a hard-combo such as Wake Thrasher / Basalt Monolith, these two cards work very well together. I’ll be happy with a lot of these things wheeling, such as Snappy or Misty or SDT.

[deck title=p3p3]
Windswept Heath
Balance
Indrik Stomper
Dreadbore
Garruk Wildspeaker
Rude Awakening
Sword of Fire and Ice
Underground Sea
Epochrasite
Pentad Prism
Spear of Heliod
Riftwing Cloudskate
Cloudgoat Ranger
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Windswept Heath[/card]

The Windswept Heath is very appealing because it fetches three dual lands I currently have. Rude Awakening is obviously indispensable, but I can easily expect that to wheel. It’s not commonly highly picked, especially in my meta.

[deck title=p3p4]
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Exalted Angel
Ranger of Eos
Izzet Charm
Heartbeat of Spring
Gideon Jura
Molten-Tail Masticore
Recurring Nightmare
Emeria Angel
Rakdos Carnarium
Pyroclasm
Thoughtseize
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Heartbeat of Spring[/card]

I went for the Thoughtseize and did a double-take—there’s Heartbeat of Spring in this pack. There was a Palinchron two packs ago. I could get infinite mana and storm count that way. Also Heartbeat of Spring works wonderfully with Sphinx’s Revelation. I pick it. I have a few comments on the card in Cube: don’t forget it’s two-sided. There have been so many situations where I drop it on turn three and my opponent untaps then quickly wins on turn four through an insane play. Due to that, I strongly advise that you only drop Heartbeat of Spring on the same turn that you are planning to go off, while they are tapped out (if they are playing permission).

[deck title=p3p5]
Dimir Aqueduct
Empty the Warrens
Orcish Lumberjack
Serendib Efreet
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Polluted Delta
Mana Leak
Ajani, Caller of the Pride
Bribery
Hero’s Downfall
Goblin Welder
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Empty the Warrens[/card]

I let out a sigh and snap-pick Empty the Warrens. It’s my second card with “storm” printed on it, and the first one that will kill an opponent. This is the exact card I wanted and needed.

[deck title=p3p6]
Orzhov Basilica
Trygon Predator
Thalia
Thragtusk
Treetop Village
Porcelain Legionnaire
Karakas
Wasteland
Windbrisk Heights
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Orzhov Basilica[/card]

I’m going full in on the bounce lands here. I could have hate-drafted the Thalia or the Wasteland, but either is an acceptable route.

[deck title=p3p7]
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Gruul Signet
Ember Hauler
Sarcomancy
Wrath of God
Guul-Draz Assassin
Smash to Smithereens
Soldier of Warfare
Mirari’s Wake
[/deck]

I go for Mirari’s Wake which will serve as another mana-doubler. It’s funny that I get both doublers that are in the cube and within four picks. I quickly think about picking the Gruul Signet, but I think mana doublers with an already picked Sphinx’s Revelation, Frantic Search, and bounce lands is too strong.

[deck title=p3p8]
Wall of Blossoms
Mana Tithe
Savannah
Precursor Golem
Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
Ancestral Vision
Goblin Ruinblaster
Master of the Wild Hunt
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Ancestral Vision[/card]

I think that I’m doing pretty good on the fixing so I don’t take the Savannah and instead focus on almost-free card draw. It’s also interesting to note that Ancestral is basically only good in your opening hand, moreso with storm. Suspending a card doesn’t contribute to storm count, but when it pops, you do get spell for your count. I often suspend this on turn one and plan to go off on turn five when I get a free storm count and three free cards.

[deck title=p3p9]
Soltari Champion
Avalanche Riders
Unexpectedly Absent
Simic Sky-Swallower
Oona’s Prowler
Skinrender
Stormbreath Dragon
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Unexpectedly Absent[/card]

I frequently play Legacy Storm, where the majority of hate that you will interact with will be through counterspells. In Cube, people don’t play Force of Will or Daze unless they’re a dedicated control/tempo deck, as opposed to 60-percent of top Legacy decks running Force of Will. Therefore, most of the hate on storm in Cube is going to be through permanents. Unexpectedly Absent does well against that. However, it’s bad with our five colors so it will probably go straight to the sideboard.

[deck title=p3p10]
Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Karplusan Forest
Orzhov Signet
Taurean Mauler
Brimstone Volley
Char
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Karplusan Forest[/card]

Lands are always good. I pick up the land, although the signet would have also been a good pick.

[deck title=p3p11]
Toxic Deluge
Goblin Guide
Thornscape Battlemage
Beast Within
Razormane Masticore
[/deck]

Toxic Deluge is important to allow me to interact with fast creature decks, which is even more important because the mana elves have been picked up very quickly from this pool. Palinchron does not wheel.

[deck title=p3p12]
Indrik Stomphowler
Balance
Rude Awakening
Cloudgoat Ranger
[/deck]

Wow, that’s a late Balance. However, I hoped that Rude Awakening would wheel and it did (and it’s now better for my deck than the first time around!)

[deck title=p3p13]
Exalted Angel
Ranger of Eos
Emmara Angel
[/deck]

Pick: [card]Exalted Angel[/card]

SB tech against burn.

I didn’t document p3p14 or p3p15, but in one of these packs I picked up a [card]Solemn Simulacrum[/card].

[Deck title=Cube Storm]
[Creatures]
Solemn Simulcrum
Oracle of Mul Daya
[/creatures]
[Disruption]
Path to Exile
Toxic Deluge
Electrolyze
Chandra, the Firebrand
[/Disruption]
[Filtering/Draw]
Ancestral Vision
Demonic Tutor
Impulse
Frantic Search
Wheel of Fortune
Sphinx’s Revelation
[/Filtering/Draw]
[Win Conditions]
Empty the Warrens
Mind’s Desire
Upheaval
Rude Awakening
[/win conditions]
[Fast/Extra Mana]
Mox Ruby
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Everflowing Chalice
Mind Stone
Channel
Heartbeat of Spring
Mirari’s Wake
[/fast/extra mana]
[Lands]
Overgrown Tomb
Golgari Rot Farm
Dimir Aqueduct
Orzhov Basilica
Karplusan Forest
Breeding Pool
Gruul Turf
Shivan Reef
Hallowed Fountain
Windswept Heath
2 Island
3 Forest
Swamp
Plains
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
Mana Drain
Wake Thrasher
Prophetic Bolt
Agony Warp
Land Tax
Reveillark
Life from the Loam
Necropotence
Ravages of War
Unexpectedly Absent
Exalted Angel
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

I hemmed and hawed a bit about the Mana Drain being in the main deck or sideboard, but decided to put in a Path to Exile over it. With five colors, it’s nearly impossible to hit the double blue on a regular basis, even if it allows me to storm off early.

Prophetic Bolt is another good card for a combo/storm deck, but my curve was already fairly high and I wanted to decrease it. I would side this in against midrange decks. It also becomes marginally better when you’re playing Tendrils of Agony because it can decrease the amount of copies needed.

Exalted Angel will come in versus burn and Ravages of War will come in against permanent hate.

Round One

Due to an odd number of players, I got a bye! How unfortunate. I do some goldfishing and watch some matches. I notice that there’s another storm player in our pod of nine, which was not expected. However, in hindsight, I should have realized the Tendrils and [card]Time Spiral[/card] didn’t wheel. He’s playing with more artifacts, notably the Signets that I passed, while I’m playing with land ramp, so we didn’t cut each other too hard on the fillers cards. However, he picked up some of the important cards I could have used, such as [card]Brain Freeze[/card].

Round Two

In game one, I play against a guy named Ian, who’s a nice fellow. He’s playing mono-black, which is a matchup that I’d prefer to not see. He sets up a commanding board state and hits me down to 10 life, keeping cards out of my hand with [card]Nezumi Shortfang[/card]. I topdeck an [card]Upheaval[/card] and float enough mana to play it and replay [card]Oracle of Mul Daya[/card]. We restart the game, but with me being able to play two lands per turn (including bounce lands, meaning I didn’t have to discard after the Upheaval due to my hand size) is too strong. I fire off a cantrip, an LED, Wheel (crack LED with Wheel on the stack), Chalice for 0, then make 10 goblins. Next turn I untap and entwine [card]Rude Awakening[/card] for lethal.

Sideboarding:
-1 Heartbeat of Spring
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
+1 Mana Drain
+1 Land Tax

I side out Heartbeat of Spring because I check his graveyard after the Wheel and notice that he has a [card]Griselbrand[/card]. Well, let’s try to make sure that he doesn’t get to that mana. Solemn is just too slow and most of his creatures have evasion. I put in the [card]Mana Drain[/card] because he played a lot of high curve-toppers (like Griselbrand!), so I’ll have time to hit the double blue and be able to counter. I put in [card]Land Tax[/card] because I know he has random discard, so I want to try to improve my ratios and thin my deck. Also, I’ll be on the draw, so I’ll probably always be one land behind. Land Tax does help make topdecks better, which is great against black!

In game two, he plays a turn-two [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] into a turn-three [card]Hypnotic Specter[/card]. Even though I’m improving my odds with Land Tax, all his hits take out important things. Over a few turns, he hits the [card]Upheaval[/card], [card]Empty the Warrens[/card], and [card]Rude Awakening[/card]. I realize that he’s hit all my win-cons, so I Revelation out my deck for value and we go to game three.

Game three is fantastic. He pressures hard with creatures and I have to [card]Toxic Deluge[/card] and [card]Path to Exile[/card] to stay alive. He untaps and drops a Griselbrand. Oh my. I do some quick math and realize that because he has 10 life, I can kill him in two turns and be fine. I’m at 12 life and he’s at 10, with a [card]Griselbrand[/card], [card]Guul Draz Assassin[/card], and [card]Hypnotic Specter[/card]. If I swing out with 15 tokens and keep one back as a blocker, then I’ll be fine. He blocks and goes to four life, then untaps and swings. I block his Guul Draz Assassin, confident that I did my math right. He ninjitsu’s in an [card]Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni[/card] on the Hypnotic Specter. Ouch. Exactly lethal. But it was a good, close game.

Round Three

In game one, I learn I am facing David, who is playing GB Rock. Nooooo, another black discard deck. That’s alright—David is a wonderful opponent and it’s always a pleasure to play him. In game one he plays a turn-three [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card] followed up with some solid creatures. I [card]Toxic Deluge[/card] away the creatures and play a [card]Chandra, the Firebrand[/card] to keep keeping Liliana one away from her ultimate. The repeated discard never allows me to stabilize. He gets down a [card]Thrun, the Lats Troll[/card], kills Chandra, and ultimates Liliana. I end up with three lands, one of which he continuously taps down with [card]Rishadan Port[/card]. I scoop.

Sideboarding:
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
+1 Land Tax

I bring in [card]Land Tax[/card] to combat that pesky Liliana and side out sad robot again. I feel like he’s often not making the cut in this deck.

Game two is a hideous beating. He lands a turn-three Liliana followed by a turn-four [card]Dust Bowl[/card], which destroys my double karoo land draw. If I had seen Dust Bowl, I would have sided in [card]Life from the Loam[/card]. I hang on, but never get anywhere and scoop to stop the abuse. Not a good start to this draft!

Round Four

Cameron, playing Counter-Burn, is another nice regular that I often play with. In game one, he keeps throwing burn at me, taking me down to eight life. I use an [card]Electrolyze[/card] to take out his early attackers and I cast a [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card] for a life buffer. I draw my cards and realize that I can win. I untap, cast [card]Heartbeat of Spring[/card], then [card]Channel[/card], [card]Upheaval[/card], replay the Mox and [card]Mind Stone[/card], and produce 12 goblins. I swing twice with my goblins and win easily, as he is now back to no lands in play.

Sideboarding:
-1 Toxic Deluge
-1 Solemn Simulacrum
+1 Exalted Angel
+1 Mana Drain

He doesn’t have enough creatures to justify keeping in [card]Toxic Deluge[/card] or [card]Solemn Simulacrum[/card]. [card]Mana Drain[/card] is important against his X-damage burn spells and [card]Exalted Angel[/card] is important to stabilize against burn. A single hit is influential, and oftentimes hitting twice with Angel is game-changing.

On turn five, I’m put in an odd predicament with my mana, so I unfortunately have to play a [card]Heartbeat of Spring[/card] and pass the turn. I’ve seen two fireball effects from him in game one, so I could easily just lose the game right here. Cameron takes this opportunity to [card]Devil’s Play[/card] me from 19 down to nine. On my turn I cast [card]Channel[/card], [card]Rude Awakening[/card], [card]Wheel of Fortune[/card], and a few cantrips to produce 16 tokens. I pass the turn, fearful for my life total. He plays a creature and casts firestorm, hitting me and four of my tokens for five damage. I untap, play [card]Mirari’s Wake[/card], and hit for exactly lethal. GG.

Total Record: 2-2

Thoughts on Cube Storm and this Draft

I only saw Mind’s Desire in my hand once and I only got to cast it for four, but it was still a fantastic card. It allowed me to cast free spells that contributed to storm count, easily allowing for a large amount of goblins.

In terms of Cube, I think storm cards should be picked in this order (from best to worst): [card]Mind’s Desire[/card], [card]Brain Freeze[/card], [card]Empty the Warrens[/card], [card]Tendrils of Agony[/card]. [card]Brain Freeze[/card] is the only one that can be played at instant speed, and you should always pay attention to the storm count of your opponent: I have lost by playing an Upheaval deck versus a storm player, and after replaying all my permanents, getting Brain Frozen for lethal with floating mana.

I am a huge fan of bouncelands in storm. However, land destruction wrecked me in one game. ThEse are definitely high-risk, high reward-cards. When they start being untapped through [card]Frantic Search[/card], [card]Time Spiral[/card], etc., they can net some good profit. However, there are quite a few specific land destruction effects and those are easy targets to functionally set you back on two land drops with a single target.

There was another storm player at the table, which is exceptionally rare in a draft pod of nine people. He cut me hard on the [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card], [card]Yawgmoth’s Will[/card], [card]Brain Freeze[/card], [card]Dream Halls[/card], and some other important normal storm cards. Therefore, I had to get a bit janky with this odd five-color storm deck without any recursion. However, it was a fun and skill-intensive deck to pilot and most of my games were enjoyable, so I left very pleased.

I hope you enjoyed my write-up! I’d like to hear comments on criticism on picks and MD/SB choices! Should I have done something differently?

The Spike Feed Episode 50 – Cutting the Umbilical Cord

August 26, 2014 The Spike Feed

We celebrate 50 episodes in the most lack-luster way possible, but hey, at least we’ve got Khans spoilers to talk about. Dustin also shares his time at Gen Con, and we go over From the Vault: Annihilation. Thank you for your honor.

Your hosts:

Dustin Gore – myspace.dustingore.com

Cameron McCoy – @Cameron_McCoy

Curtis Nower – @CurtisNow

Our show – @SpikeFeedMTG

Music by Micah Jones

Weekend Magic: 8/22-8/24

August 26, 2014 Jared Yost

Hello, all! If you don’t recognize me, my name is Jared Yost and I am an active member of the Magic finance community. I graciously received my first weekly column over at MTGPrice.com and have been writing for those folks over the past year. Now I have been added on to the great team here at Brainstorm Brewery and have been given another weekly column. I look forward to bringing you my new weekly article series which will cover the decks played over the previous weekend and what effects, if any, they will have in the market moving forward. If any of you are familiar with Jason’s Alticle, the now-discontinued series of free articles from Quiet Speculation, this article format will follow in the same vein. Lastly, my Twitter handle is @gildedgoblin, so if you like what I write, follow me.

Okay, with introductions out of the way, let’s dive in and check out the events from last weekend.

GP Kobe

Format: Modern

Decklists

Analysis:

Haters gonna hate. We all have to acknowledge that, yes, [card]Vexing Devil[/card] is indeed a card. I can’t believe I actually wrote that, but there you have it. I’m sure it is a hard pill for many to swallow to see that it was featured as a playset in the winning deck of the GP. I can’t tell you how many Reddit threads I’ve seen defending and bashing this card since it’s release. Teruya Kakumae finally gave the ultimate fuel to the defender camp fire by taking down the GP with a Burn deck featuring it. He also proved by doing this that Burn is probably a tier-one strategy in Modern, especially since another Burn deck made Top 8 in Kobe. We’ll have to review the results over the next few months to be sure, but after putting two people into the Top 8 of a GP, I think we’ll be seeing a lot more Burn in the future.

The winning deck was unexpected. However, I also think it was expected in a way—if you follow the Japanese Magic scene. My own thoughts on the matter are that Japanese Magic players are what I like to call “avant-garde.” What I mean by this is that the Japanese prefer to be as unique as possible with their Magic playing rather than just copy what the current best decks are in a format. The definition of avant-garde specifically mentions the utilization of unorthodox methodologies and experimentation. I think we can all agree that exhibit one for evidence here is [card]Vexing Devil[/card] in the winning deck. It worked in Kobe, but Devil may not catch on now that people know to expect it and thus can fight better against it. You can do well without it, as evidenced by the inclusion of another Burn deck in the Top 8 that did not run Devil. It was an experiment that worked for the winning Burn player in Kobe, but might have much less success in other tournaments.

Looking at Devil specifically: in the past we’ve seen that [card]Vexing Devil[/card] has maintained its price based on casual demand. There will continue to be demand for the card in the future from casuals. The tournament results only continue to boost desirability. I won’t say to stay away, yet I don’t think Devil is going to $15 or more any time soon. The cost of entry is too high to make a profit at this point, especially since I could easily see it being included in a Duel Deck or other product as a reprint. If you want to play Burn in Modern, pick them up, but don’t expect to make a killing profit-wise on these any time soon.

Other notables from the deck include [card]Goblin Guide[/card] (which just experienced a huge spike), [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card], and the tech of [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] coming out of the board to deal with the Burn mirror match. Leyline is already pretty pricey at $20 per copy—could it go higher from here? Without a reprint, I’m afraid it might. But again, like Devil, the ceiling on Leyline of Sanctity is very close to being reached. I don’t see how it could ever go to $40 or beyond.

Exhibit two for avant-garde deckbuilding evidence would be trying to throw [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] into an Affinity build in the second place deck and taking out…[card]Arcbound Ravager[/card]!? Sacrilege, I tell you! What’s next, are we going to see Goyf-Pod? Wait a sec, that actually sounds pretty kickass…

It was clearly a good call for Affinity because the deck did very well for itself by getting second place. It seems [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card] is also making waves across the ocean because a full playset was included in the second-place build. It looks like [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card] is the real deal. Trading for foils around $15 seems fine. Also note that [card]Mana Confluence[/card] was used to help smooth out mana in the deck. With the potential Modern and Legacy demand for Confluence, I can only say to get your copies sooner rather than later.

SCG Open Washington, DC

Format: Standard

Decklists

Analysis:

The winner here was Steve Rubin with BU Devotion. Not a huge surprise, since this is the deck to beat in Standard and has been for quite some time. With the introduction of M15, however, many new brews have appeared on the scene—the most notable being GW Aggro, Jund Walkers (which put two people in the Top 8 here), and a close ninth and tenth place finish for Mono-Red Aggro and Rabble Red, respectively. After reviewing the numbers of the decks in the Top 8, the following cards that will not be rotating once Khans of Tarkir releases appeared in the numbers noted . I noted cards with more than four copies, since this means that a card was definitely played in more than one deck in the Top 8.

13 [card]Thoughtseize[/card]
12 [card]Gray Merchant of Asphodel[/card]
12 [card]Hero’s Downfall[/card]
11 [card]Temple of Deceit[/card]
8 [card]Courser of Kruphix[/card]
8 [card]Elvish Mystic[/card]
8 [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card]
8 [card]Temple of Abandon[/card]
8 [card]Temple of Malice[/card]
7 [card]Llanowar Wastes[/card]
6 [card]Bile Blight[/card]
6 [card]Nissa, Worldwaker[/card]
6 [card]Xenagos, the Reveler[/card]

Including ninth- and tenth-place mono-red strategies:

8 [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card]
8 [card]Stoke the Flames[/card]

Unfortunately, for the currently existing mono-red strategies, most of the deck will rotate come September. To me, this doesn’t bode well for the current price of Rabblemaster at $4. Unless we have goblin strategies thrown in with the wedge set dynamics, I don’t see a strong case for mono-red unless people start main decking [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card]. Red will most likely be paired with at least one other color for the upcoming rotation’s aggro decks.

Things are looking good for Nissa and Xenagos based on these results. The SGC commentators couldn’t stop talking about how good Nissa is whenever she had screentime. They said that the untap ability is irrelevant most of the time, but permanently turning your land into a 4/4 with trample is the key ability since she can target any land. A similar planeswalker is Koth, and he was great in Standard. I think Nissa’s price has a good chance of sticking if she continues to see play. She has already gone up to $36 on TCGplayer and I don’t see that changing much unless we have a super large paradigm shift in September.

Xenagos is also a solid walker and has already seen a double up in price from players picking up copies for the new Standard. I don’t see him moving much from the current price for some time. Trade for copies, but do not buy in. Xenagos has room to grow a bit more, but it is not worth buying in cash at this point.

SCG Open Washington, DC

Format: Legacy

Decklists

Analysis:

Shardless BUG took home the win here with a range of tempo decks based on similar strategies (tempo/control) taking up the rest of the Top 4. [card]Council’s Judgment[/card] made an appearance in Todd Anderson’s deck (along with [card]Zealous Persecution[/card] tech in the sideboard, which I think this is a good pickup at $0.50 or lower) but other than this, there wasn’t much innovation in the lists.

Dredge made a decent showing, putting two copies in the Top 8. Surprisingly, only one version played the full playset of [card]Mana Confluence[/card]. Eric Copenhaver opted to play a full playset of [card]Cephalid Coliseum[/card] and an extra [card]Gemstone Mine[/card] instead of a playset of Confluence. Regardless, this confirms what many of us predicted—Confluence made waves in Legacy in addition to Standard and Modern, because it provides Dredge extra copies of [card]City of Brass[/card] for better color fixing. Outside of Confluence, the lists were pretty similar—no Griselbrand or anything like that, just a straight Dredge build of classic components that opts to win with with [card]Ichorid[/card] and [card]Bridge from Below[/card] and to speed up that win with [card]Lion’s Eye Diamond[/card] and [card]Faithless Looting[/card].

[card]Metalworker[/card] was able to come in a decent fifth place here. White’s is a classic [card]Metalworker[/card] list that is pretty similar to ones we’ve seen in the past. I noticed that there were a combination of two [card]Mox Opal[/card]s and two [card]Mox Diamond[/card]s in the list, which combo well with [card]Goblin Welder[/card] later in the game if your artifacts are countered or destroyed. I’ve been an advocate of [card]Goblin Welder[/card] for quite some time and I really like the card at the current $7.50 price it is sitting at on TCGPlayer. The only issue is that Metalworker is what I consider a pet deck, i.e. it is a deck that doesn’t usually do very well at tournaments but it sometimes makes a Top 8 due to the huge amount of variance in Legacy. It can be hated out pretty easily, which dissuades a lot of people from playing it. However, similar to Modern, Legacy is a format that rewards someone for knowing their deck really well. If you pick a deck, play with it a lot, and know the various outs your deck has to other decks in the format, you can usually do pretty well with it regardless of of the hate. I think you have to really know the Metalworker deck well in order to pilot it to the Top 8.

Final Thoughts

It sure was an action-packed weekend, with Standard, Modern, Legacy, and even Sealed Deck being played at GP Sydney. It seems the popularity of Magic knows no bounds. The biggest shakeups included some Modern innovations from the Japanese, which I appreciate since they seem to be the only group of Magic players that likes to shake things up on a consistent basis, even in a format like Modern, which everybody assumed was solved. Hopefully next weekend will be just as exciting.

Pitt Imps Podcast #83 AMA

August 26, 2014 Pitt Imps 01:12:43

Being a show that primarily focuses on tournaments, this past week left us with very little. We did talk about the WMCQ #1 American Tournament. We debated what exactly Sam Stoddard was saying during his latest article as it pertains to Wrath effects. Then we answered questions from the posse to fill time. These topics include MTG performance enhancers, favorite cars, and we-build-the-set.

Host Angelo Twitter @ganksuou

Co-Host Ryan Twitter @brotheryan

Show Email [email protected]

Gen Con Drafting

August 25, 2014 Houston Whitehead

Gen Con, where every game that doesn’t require electricity is located. I can now agree with the motto: Gen Con is “the best four days in gaming.” With all the choices available, it was hard to choose which games were worth giving a shot. Since I’m terrible at decisions, I just played Magic: The Gathering all weekend.

I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Well, sorta. I bought a couple new Krosmasters arena figures and some starter decks for another TCG attempting to revive its fanbase, The Spoils. I’ll talk more about the new games, experiences, and non-related MTG gaming on my site.

Surprisingly enough, I played my first M15 Limited event at Gen Con. Since I worked all prerelease weekend and I was trying to save money to attend Gen Con, I never had a chance to eliminate the bad taste of M14 out of my mouth.

I entered a 6-4-1-1 draft, (8-4 queues didn’t exist at Gen Con), and cracked my first pack. Every card seemed lackluster, with [card]Aggressive Mining[/card] for the rare and a set of last-pick uncommons. [card]Frost Lynx[/card] was the only blue playable, so I decided to take it over a [card]Foundry Street Denizen[/card] (yes, the pack was that bad). The next pack was just as rough, with another set of last-pick uncommons and the rare missing. There were no blue playables, so I grabbed an underwhelming [card]Borderland Marauder[/card], hoping to table the [card]Goblin Roughrider[/card] if the Foundry Street Denizen tabled from pack one. With a fifth-pick [card]Inferno Fist[/card] and sixth-pick [card]Generator Servant[/card], I felt comfortable with staying in red. Both [card]Foundry Street Denizen[/card] and Goblin Roughrider tabled followed by a second-to-last pick [card]Peel from Reality[/card], just in cast blue was open in pack two.

I opened [card]Ajani Steadfast[/card] in pack two, taking it over a [card]Lightning Strike[/card] (which is of course the correct pick). I only had two blue playables, so white was a possible splash, but regardless, the Strike is still the correct pick to stay on color. In the third pack, I opened [card]Soul of Shandalar[/card], and again took the money over a correct-pick [card]Lightning Strike[/card]. My curve didn’t exceed three CMC yet, so I knew I wasn’t playing it if didn’t have to. Criticize me all you want, but I wanted my draft paid for. Man’s gotta eat, am I right!?!

My Final Build

[deck title=The Real Peel (U/R)]
[Creatures]
*3 Foundry Street Denizen
*1 Forge Devil
*1 Borderland Marauder
*1 Generator Servant
*1 Altac Bloodseeker
*1 Quickling
*1 Bronze Stable
*1 Welkin Tern
*1 Goblin Rabblemaster
*3 Goblin Roughriders
*1 Frost Lynx
*1 Aeronaut Tinkerer
*2 Amphin Pathmage
*1 Brood Keeper
[/creatures]
[Spells]
*1 Hammerhand
*2 Peel from Reality
*2 Inferno Fist
*1 Lava Axe
[/spells]
[Lands]
*1 Darksteel Citadel
*9 Mountain
*6 Island
[Sideboard]
*1 Ajani Steadfast
*1 Soul of Shandalar
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

Though I haven’t played enough M15 to know, I would guess this is not a popular archetype. I would assume whoever is playing white tokens would have laughed at this deck, but I say if enough pressure is applied, they either have to block to preserve their life total or keep their convoke high in hopes that I don’t have a [card]Cone of Flame[/card] when they tap down lands and creatures for a [card]Triplicate Spirits[/card]. These are all corner cases though.

I would probably go on record labeling this a tier-two M15 archetype, but boy was it fun! [card]Peel from Reality[/card] made for some amazing plays and synergistic blowouts. It combos with [card]Forge Devil[/card] to kill 2/2s, [card]Frost Lynx[/card] for extra [card]Frost Titan[/card] triggers, and also provides extra triggers for [card]Foundry Street Denizen[/card]. Both Peel and [card]Quickling[/card] were used offensively with Denizen triggers, removing large threats with little cost to my cheap creatures, and targeting the token from Goblin Rabblemaster before blocks. It was used defensively to save Rabblemaster or Brood Keeper.

I didn’t drop a game and split with a friend in the finals since the payout difference was only one pack. Plus, we wanted to get in another draft.

If I could change anything (besides the two [card]Lightning Strike[/card]s I passed up on), I would exchange [card]Altac Bloodseeker[/card] for another [card]Borderland Marauder[/card] and exchange the [card]Lava Axe[/card] for a [card]Cone of Flame[/card]. If you find yourself drafting this archetype, those would be picks upgrade to keep in mind.

Draft #2

Since the first draft went so well, I think I was on a red kick. Here’s how my second M15 draft ended up.

[deck title=R/g Forrest Fire]
[Creatures]
*1 Foundry Street Denizen
*1 Forge Devil
*2 Borderland Marauder
*1 Generator Servant
*1 Goblin Roughrider
*1 Rummaging Goblin
*1 Belligerent Sliver
*1 Netcaster Spider
*2 Brood Keeper
*1 Kird Chieftain
*1 Undergrowth Scavenger
*1 Siege Wurm
[/creatures]
[Spells]
*1 Titanic Growth
*2 Lightning Strike
*2 Inferno Fist
*1 Cone of Flame
*1 Nissa’s Expedition
*1 Liliana Vess
[/spells]
[lands]
*6 Forrest
*8 Mountain
*2 Swamp
*1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
*1 Naturalize
*1 Rummaging Goblin
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

With a first-pick [card]Liliana Vess[/card] (cha-ching), I drafted toward RB, but the black never came. The abundance of removal made a late-pick [card]Undergrowth Scavenger[/card] easy. Assuming red is usually weak to fliers, I thought [card]Netcaster Spider[/card] was a great end-of-pack present to enable more burn to my opponents’ noggins.

The big question was whether should I play Liliana Vess or not. Most of the time I would say no, unless you have an abundance of bombs you would like to tutor up. My creatures didn’t really work well with each other. [card]Foundry Street Denizen[/card] and [card]Forge Devil[/card] usually don’t play well with a [card]Siege Wurm[/card]. What did work well with my creatures were my spells. It sounds like a general statement, but let me explain:

Heavy removal draw = tutor [card]Undergrowth Scavenger[/card]
Heavy creature draw = tutor [card]Lightning Strike[/card], [card]Cone of Flame[/card], or [card]Inferno Fist[/card]
[card]Brood Keeper[/card] draw = tutor [card]Inferno Fist[/card]
[card]Belligerent Sliver[/card] doing work = tutor [card]Inferno Fist[/card] to shorten the clock
Board stall = tutor [card]Titanic Growth[/card]

Does that make Liliana worth splashing? I think so. It’s not every day you draft a tool-box deck. I went with the YOLO reasoning and splashed two swamps and the [card]Urborg, Tomb of Yawgomoth[/card]. I either had to play two Swamps and an Urborg or zero swamps and the Urborg, but going the first route also allowed me to [card]Nissa’s Expedition[/card] for both swamps. This strategy was better than the extra [card]Rummaging Goblin[/card] or the [card]Naturalize[/card] in the side.

I played UW fliers in round one. A game-one mulligan to five and never drawing the second land led to a loss. In game two, I mulliganed to six with a good mix of card types but no removal. My opponent mulliganed to six and kept a one-lander on the draw—then ripped land, land, land, land to curve out a one, two, three, and four-drop flying creatures on time. Variance just wasn’t on my side this draft, but I thought the deck was worth sharing. I played some games later with some friends and fans to see how it held up to other draft decks and it performed well, as I expected.

Gen Con is Fun

Though my trip was on a tight financial budget, I thank all my friends and family who helped make this event a possibility. As I say all the time on Tap N Sac, MTG is only as good as the friends you roll with. That said, shoutout to Ricky for winning the 12.5-hour Grand Melee tournament to take home a foil sheet of uncut Modern Masters, and to Ed for hooking me up with a sweet place to stay.

As always, thanks for reading.

Brainstorm Brewery #111 – Runs On The Market

August 22, 2014 Brainstorm Brewery 1:08:04

Grand Prix Portland is in the books, and Corbin and Marcel are back to regale you with tales of the Grand Prix Portland house. Ryan’s back from Gen Con to give you the inside track on the biggest weekend in gaming. Jason went to neither and has plenty of stories about what it’s like to not do anything fun. So what made Portland so great? What should people do at rotation? Why didn’t they record last week? Find out the answer to some of these questions and more on an episode of your favorite podcast that will leave you asking, “Is Corbin actually surprised that he was blamed for B-Dubs?” This is Brainstorm Brewery.

Grand Prix Portland is wrapped up.
How was Gen Con?
Finance 101 deals with pickups at rotation.
Mailbag time!
Why even listen to the podcast when someone puts the Pick of the Week on Twitter?
Remember to check out the articles on BrainstormBrewery.com.
Questions? Concerns? The address is 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 #27: Checking in the Closet

August 21, 2014 Douglas Johnson

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the discussion on the potential for Modern Masters 2 last week, as well as my quick thoughts on the Organized Play changes.

Wizards of the Coast announced the original Modern Masters on October 18, 2012, so if they follow a similar trend for the set’s sequel, we can expect to hear an announcement in about two months. I personally loved drafting Modern Masters when it was more readily available, so I hope that the stars are aligning as WOTC appears to be granting us a second shot. Due to the fact that MM was an experiment (and therefore an extremely limited print run), it’s more likely that MM2 will be more easily available, allowing cheaper boosters and more individuals accessing the Draft format. I don’t care if the set spans from Eighth Edition to Theros, Zendikar to Khans, or whatever. I just want to jam a Limited format like that again.

Speaking of Modern Masters, I sold my sealed box a couple weeks ago. For clarity, it wasn’t because of any of my speculation in last week’s article, and it wasn’t because of anything that I’m going to say this week. I was bored at a friend’s house with several other Magic players, and he was scrolling through eBay on his phone looking up prices for a box because he was itching to do a draft. I half-jokingly offered that I had a box at my house and would sell it for $375, which caused a great stir in his mind and wallet. $300 cash and $75 in buylist value from his binder later, we were on the way to my house to pick up the box and crack it open, enjoying a good night and draft with friends. I lost.

Sealed Product Investments

I’ll spare you the details of the draft (unless you really want to know in the comments), and explain why I sold the box. The simplified version is that I was just following my own personal golden rule of, “If you can sell your Magic cards for full retail, and don’t need them in the immediate future, it’s almost always a good idea.” I can invest that $300 cash towards other collections and singles at buylist value, and sell those singles out of my case. If I put even a small amount of effort in, I’ll make a lot more than the slow and steady creep of the box that was just sitting under my bed for the past year.

After selling the box, I decided to do some checking up on some of the other sealed product I own to see where my investments were heading. You know how the general advice to people when buying sealed product is, “Throw it in a closet and forget about it for X years”? Well, let’s remember what we tried to forget, and see if our investment could have been put in a better place.

From the Vault: Twenty

I currently own five of these. I noticed them while digging past to grab the Modern Masters box in my tote of “sealed stuff to forget about.” I bought them around September of last year soon after they came out, from an extremely good friend and aspiring store owner who sold them to me for a pretty good $100 each. Like all FTV products, there was an extremely limited print run of these, and they include multiple old-school foils like [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] and [card]Dark Ritual[/card], and last but not least, [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]. There was no way this box wouldn’t be $200 in a year, and I believe I remember Ryan Bushard agreeing with me. I was confident. Easy money: just wait.

Fast forward about five months, to the winter of 2014. The cheapest Buy-It-Now eBay listing was around $140, still approximately the average price of when I bought them. I thought, “No big deal, I just need to wait longer. Forget about them.”

Fast forward several more months, to today. The current lowest Buy-It-Now listing on eBay for a sealed From the Vault: Twenty is $135, free shipping. These have moved zero dollars. At this point, I guess I’m just keeping them sealed to see if I can sell them for that to a friend, or sell a playset of Jaces for full retail if someone needs them.

What Could I Have Done Differently?

In the summer of 2013, a [card]Tundra[/card] from Revised could be found for slightly more then $100. Yeah. Remember that? [card]Underground Sea[card] was less than $200, and the world was full of lollipops and rainbows. I could have easily thrown that $500 toward a set of [card]Tundra[/card] plus a [card]Taiga[/card] and jumped the boat when Tundra hit $200. There’s the real easy money. Those dual lands would’ve also been much easier to sell than a sealed box, which will cost me at least $10 to ship with tracking, and can’t be listed on TCGplayer or buylisted.

Commander 2013

I currently have at least five Mind Seize decks under my bed in that tote, and three each of the other four. You can find the non-[card]True-Name Nemesis[/card] ones on eBay (or at your local LGS) for as low as $20, and the Mind Seize no longer towers above the rest at its $60 price tag. Thanks to the en masse second printing (with a special emphasis on making sure casual players could buy the Grixis deck, since it was printed more than the rest), these decks flooded the market until buying them for instant flips was no longer profitable.

At this point, I think I’m just in it for the long haul with all of the decks. I obviously should have dumped the Mind Seizes at $50 when I had the chance, but I decided to be greedy and am paying the price (metaphorically and literally). Plan A is now to wait and cross my fingers, hoping that the other four decks that initially went under the radar begin to be noticed as casual gold mines. The Jund one looks especially nice with [card]Ophiomancer[/card] and [card]Primal Vigor[/card]. Still, buying every single deck at release with the intention of waiting for an extremely long time was a pretty large blunder. Let’s rewind the clock and see where changes should have been made in my battle plan.

What Could I Have Done Differently?

With Wizards having announced the release of a new Commander set every single year, I should have realized that stuff like [card]Sol Ring[/card] would not just be a $10 card every single year. That alone negates a lot of the safety of the future value of these decks. Also, Mark Rosewater warned us at the start that they were 100-percent willing to reprint these until they had enough to bury a dead horse with. They did just that. After seeing the community turn into [card]wild nacatl[/card]s and [card]raze[/card] through the Wal-Marts and Targets, the hindsight play is to wait until that promised reprint, and start grabbing $15 Power Hungry decks for the long-term instead of paying that $30 on release day.

Cracking Mind Seizes and immediately dumping the TNN to get a free other 99 cards looks like it was the correct call (speaking of which, [card]Army of the Damned[/card] is a $1 card. Even though it was printed in Mind Seize, that does not seem right to be at all). Want to see a Legacy staple that was criminally underpriced during the winter of Mind Seize?

During the Commander release, this card was approximately $60. In hindsight, a Legacy staple with very few reprint possibilities seems like a safer place to put money than two pre-confirmed reprintable sealed Commander decks. I don’t like to put all of my eggs in one basket, and I don’t even like buying staple singles for the purposes of long-term speculation, but it would have worked out much better in this case for me. Ports sit at $115 now, where they’ve [card]plateau[/card]ed for several months. To be honest, I can see them hitting $150 in a few months, unless Wizards does something weird like put them in the mono-colored Commander decks this year.

A Bit About Booster Boxes

I currently have two booster boxes each of Dragon’s Maze and Avacyn Restored sitting on the top of the armoire in my dorm room. Weird choice? Yeah, kind of. I didn’t exactly buy them for speculation purposes: they’re remnants of a store’s collection that I bought out a little over a year ago, and I just haven’t put a whole ton of effort into selling them (by the way, if anyone’s interested in buying DGM boxes at $80 or AVR at $130…*cough cough*). Just like in the previous situations, they’ve both sat at this price for the entire time that I’ve owned them, and they could and should have been sold immediately for the profit, or transformed into a more safe and more liquid asset of singles.

The Time of Sealed Product has Come to an End

Well, probably not entirely. Things that are explained to be experimental, have a very low likelihood of being reprinted, and are enjoyable to draft are still probably safe investments, especially if you want something that you don’t have to micromanage. If Modern Masters 2 rears its head, picking up sealed boxes is probably safe if you have the change to spare. Just be aware that dual lands also exist, have zero likelihood of being printed again, and will always be in demand. The number of sealed products that can be shoved into the closet and aged for free money is becoming extremely small.

The Reserved List combined with playability in EDH and/or Legacy are powerful weapons for the financier, and I trust them more then the next new, shiny toy that Wizards drops into our playpen. I think most people got the hint not to hoard boxes of Conspiracy, because WOTC made it loud and clear that the set was designed to be drafted [card]ad nauseum[/card] and not to be taken advantage of. The next time you’re about to hoard something away in your closet and forget about it for a year or more, consider all of your options and the other places you could be putting your money.

It’s getting to that special time of the week when I should wrap up here before I start to bore you, so let’s take the conversation elsewhere, where you can provide your own input! Hit me up in the comments section below, the Reddit thread for the article, Twitter, or Facebook (feel free to add me, just message me beforehand explaining that you’re a reader). I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to read my thoughts and opinions on Magic finance once again. Until next week!

Learning Legacy: Lessons from Losing

August 20, 2014 Ryan Archer

Welcome back to Learning Legacy, brewers. Last time, we took a look at the RUG Delver deck that I decided to champion. I truly believe that to be successful in Legacy, you really need to pick a deck and stick to it. RUG Delver is what I will stick with. This series is dedicated to showcasing my journey out into the Legacy wild: what I learned, how I tried to get better, what worked, and what didn’t. For reference, here is the list that I have been playing.

[deck title= RUG Delver]
[Creatures]
*4 Delver of Secrets
*4 Nimble Mongoose
*4 Tarmogoyf
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Brainstorm
*4 Ponder
*4 Force of Will
*4 Daze
*2 Spell Pierce
*2 Spell Snare
*4 Lightning Bolt
*2 Forked Bolt
*4 Stifle
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Misty Rainforest
*4 Scalding Tarn
*4 Wasteland
*3 Tropical Island
*3 Volcanic Island
[/Land]
[/deck]

When you’re just starting out in a format, you’re going to lose. Trust me: I lost a lot. This is normal and you should not let it discourage you. You should, however, learn from it. With this article, I’ll be going over several games I lost while testing and what I learned from them.

Losing to Learn

“If you learn from a loss you have not lost.” –Austin O’Malley, Keystones of Thought

“I should not have done that.” –Ryan Archer, Said numerous times while testing

Belching Victories

Let’s set the scene. We are playing against Belcher. This is a combo deck that tries to get lots of mana and either kills you with [card]Goblin Charbelcher[/card] or storms for a lot and casts [card]Empty the Warrens[/card]. Either way, RUG Delver is very good against this kind of deck. We have early pressure and lots of counter magic. Its game two, our opening hand is double fetch land, [card]Volcanic Island[/card], [card]Delver of Secrets[/card], [card]Spell Pierce[/card], [card]Brainstorm[/card], and [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]. It’s not the best hand, but we have both early pressure and a counter. We are on the play because somehow we lost game one. My thinking is to play the Delver and then follow it up with counter magic and [card]Brainstorm[/card] on the next turn to refuel our hand. So we lead with [card]Volcanic Island[/card] (saving the fetch land for [card]Brainstorm[/card]) and cast Delver.

So what happened? Because I was tapped out, my opponent went for it and was able to cast an [card]Empty the Warrens[/card] for 12 goblins. I lost. The most important thing to do against this kind of combo deck is survive. I didn’t have a free piece of counter magic, so I should have left mana open and played a threat when I could back it up with counters.

Lesson learned: respect your combo opponents and their ability to go off. Even with a deck full of counter magic, you can still lose. Play slowly and make sure you stick a threat when you are able to.

Almost a Mirror

Next up, we are playing against Blue-Red Delver. Like ours, this is a tempo deck full of cheap creatures backed up with counter spells and burn. This is game one and we trade spells back and forth. I have a Tarmogoyf in play (a 4/5) and my opponent casts a [card]Young Pyromancer[/card]. I have [card]Force of Will[/card] in hand but would have to remove my only other card, a [card]Brainstorm[/card], to cast it. I choose not to.

So what happened? He was able to chain some spells together to make lots of 1/1s. These are enough for him to block the Goyf and eventually find enough burn to make me lose.

Round two, same opponent. I have him on the ropes. I have drawn a lot of my green creatures, which he has a tough time burning out. I play my fourth land (two Volcanics and two Tropicals in play now) to cast another [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] and a [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card]. I am at 16 life and my opponent has one card. I now have lethal on my next turn.

So what happened? He cast end-of-turn [card]Price of Progress[/card], putting me to eight. He untapped, played [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card], targeted [card]Price of Progress[/card], and killed me.

Lesson learned: always understand which cards are important in each match. This is especially important in Legacy because there are so many powerful cards. In the first match, I should have realized that the [card]Young Pyromancer[/card] was a fantastic way of blocking my ground creatures, so I should have countered it. In the second match, I should have realized that burn decks play [card]Price of Progress[/card]. I should have paid more attention to the lands I was playing to try to play around Price if I could (and in that match, I totally could have played around it).

Miracles Happen

Last example. We are playing against Miracles. Miracles is a UW control deck that plays [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] as a win condition and [card]Terminus[/card] as a one-mana miracle wrath effect. We get our opponent down to three life, mostly on the back of a thresholded [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card] that dodges [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] all day long. Our opponent is dead next turn if our Mongoose survives. He has been digging and looking for a [card]Terminus[/card]. He’s down to just one card in hand (a [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card]). He needs a miracle. Our hand is a [card]Stifle[/card], a [card]Volcanic Island[/card], and a [card]Spell Pierce[/card]. He has seven lands and goes to untap, upkeep, and draw…he then reveals the [card]Terminus[/card].

So what happened? Our opponent revealed the [card]Terminus[/card] and then went to cast it for one mana. We could’t counter it because he had too many lands in play. We cursed our opponent for his awesome luck and proceeded to lose as we drew nothing and he controlled the game from there.

Lesson learned: always understand how your cards interact with their cards. In Legacy, there are a lot of different cards. Some of the interactions may not seem intuitive, but this is just another reason to stick with one deck. Miracling a card uses a trigger. With that trigger on the stack, we could have [card]Stifle[/card]d the [card]Terminus[/card]. Our opponent would have drawn it as normal and he would have had to cast it for six mana. We would have been ready with [card]Spell Pierce[/card] and attacked for the win on the next turn.

So Pay Attention

Thanks for joining me on this little Legacy life lesson. In the future, I will not make these same mistakes. You should also learn from your mistakes to make sure you don’t repeat them. In the above examples, I was just playing practice games, but you better believe this will help me in the next large tournament.

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” –Donald Trump

This Week On: You Can Stifle That?

Did you know that you can [card]Stifle[/card] the living weapon trigger on equipment? This comes up most of the time in Legacy with [card]Batterskull[/card]. When it enters play, the living weapon trigger will go on the stack. If you [card]Stifle[/card] it, they are left without a germ token. This is important for RUG because it gives us much-needed time to attack though without a blocker and without them gaining life. Just be careful, because they can always pay mana and return it to their hand.

Thanks for reading.

Burninating the Field: A PTQ Win

August 19, 2014 Josh Milliken

So yeah, I won a PTQ. I get to play on the Pro Tour again…in Hawaii! Sadly, I was a traitor, giving up Zoo for Burn after a couple dismal PTQ performances. The Zoo deck was performing amazingly at the TCGplayer and SCG IQ tournaments I had been playing in, but I was not able to translate that success to a PTQ.

The Deck

After PTQ Columbus last week, where I went 2-2-drop, I decided I needed to give Burn a try. Why would you want to give Burn a try you might say? Well, to be honest I felt like it had good matchups against most of the decks that are seeing a lot of play right now and could race the bad matchups well enough. All I had to do to stand a chance was avoid having [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card] in my opponents’ opening hands. Also, most people don’t test against Burn and don’t expect to see it, so you can typically get in a few extra points of damage because they don’t know what to do.

This list saw a few changes from my testing with it, most notably adding black for [card]Bump in the Night[/card] so I didn’t have to run [card]Shard Volley[/card] anymore. I ran into a lot of issues where I simply couldn’t afford to cast [card]Shard Volley[/card] because I couldn’t afford to lose the land for my next turn, which in turn cost me a lot of games. The final list I decided on has a few funky sideboard cards that I will explain.

[deck title= Burn]
[Creatures]
*1 Grim Lavamancer
*4 Goblin Guide
*4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
*4 Hellspark Elemental
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Lightning Bolt
*4 Lava Spike
*4 Bump in the Night
*4 Searing Blaze
*4 Skullcrack
*4 Rift Bolt
*4 Flames of the Blood Hand
[/Spells]
[Land]
*4 Blood Crypt
*4 Arid Mesa
*11 Mountain
[/Land]
[Sideboard]
*2 Relic of Progenitus
*4 Smash to Smithereens
*3 Satyr Firedancer
*2 Shrine of Burning Rage
*2 Dismember
*2 Hammer of Purphoros
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

I decided to not splash white or green in an attempt to combat [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card], but I also chose to not completely ignore it. I knew that if they landed it I would be in trouble regardless, and out of all the options that I could think of at the time, [card]Hammer of Purphoros[/card] seemed like my best option since it provided a stream of threats in a tough situation. If I could go back, I would likely replace it with [card]Koth of the Hammer[/card] since [card]Wear // Tear[/card] doesn’t kill him.

I also initially had [card]Molten Rain[/card] and [card]Searing Blood[/card] in my sideboard, but decided Tron didn’t actually need sideboard cards, and that [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card] and [card]Dismember[/card] would be enough for the aggro decks that weren’t Affinity. Cutting those cards allowed me to also add in [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card] to assist in matchups like Storm, Living End, and Junk.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted some number of [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card] in the sideboard to make my life easier against the aggro decks, and I felt like three was a good number since I only wanted to draw one per game.

The PTQ

Round 1 – U/R Twin 2-0

Game 1: I started off on the play with a [card]Goblin Guide[/card] that immediately revealed a [card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card], which told me he was some flavor of combo. His turn was [card]Island[/card] into [card]Sleight of Hand[/card], telling me that he was U/R/x Twin. Unfortunately for my opponent, the [card]Goblin Guide[/card] connected three times, and combined with the burn spells I was able to play, left him dead before he was really able to do anything.

Sideboarding
In
2 [card]Smash to Smithereens[/card]
2 [card]Dismember[/card]

Out
4 [card]Searing Blaze[/card]

Game 2: My opponent opted to be on the play, and while he mulliganed to five, I mulliganed to six. He did nothing for the first couple turns, while I cast a turn two [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] to put a ton of pressure on his slow hand. He eventually cast his [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] for no value just to have a creature on the board, and followed it up with a [card]Vendilion Clique[/card]. I jumped the gun and revealed my hand to only to have him target himself—whoops. It didn’t matter, though, as I had plenty of burn to finish him off two turns later after he blocked my [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card].

Round 2 – R/W/U Control 0-2

Game 1: My opponent started on the play, but I was first out of the gate with a [card]Goblin Guide[/card]. Unfortunately, he had a [card]Lightning Helix[/card] to kill it on his second turn. With no creatures left and my opponent not doing anything, I began throwing burn at his face. He was able to sequence his spells in a way to make my burn spells fail miserably, with three [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]s to get him a second [card]Lightning Helix[/card] and a total of three [card]Sphinx’s Revelation[/card]s, totaling ten cards and seven life (since I was finally able to sneak in a [card]Skullcrack[/card] through his [card]Spellsnare[/card]). In the end, I died to two [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]s and a [card]Celestial Colonnade[/card] beating me down.

Sideboarding
In
2 [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card]
2 [card]Hammer of Purphoros[/card]

Out
4 [card]Searing Blaze[/card]

Game 2: I finally got to be on the play, and my opponent didn’t hit a [card]Leyline of Sanctity[/card], so I felt like I was in a good spot. I opened on a [card]Goblin Guide[/card] and followed it up with a [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card]. He only had one mana available on my next turn, so I decided to try to put maximum pressure on with an [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card], but he had a [card]Spellsnare[/card]. On his turn, he cast [card]Wear // Tear[/card] on my [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card]. If I hadn’t tapped out it would have won me the game. He went on to [card]Lightning Helix[/card] me three times and beat me down with a pair of [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]s while I hit six lands to lose the game.

Round 3 – Melira Pod 2-0

Game 1: We both mulliganed to six with my opponent on the play. My hand wasn’t really good other than a turn one [card]Goblin Guide[/card], but his wasn’t very good against me. I was able to get in three attacks with [card]Goblin Guide[/card] before he put up his defenses, and I was fortunately able to burn him out the turn before he was able to kill me.

Sideboarding
In
3 [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card]
1 [card]Dismember[/card]

Out
4 [card]Hellspark Elemental[/card]

Game 2: He opted for the play again, and we both got to keep seven cards. My hand was really bad, though, and a turn-two [card]Sin Collector[/card] showed him two [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card] and a [card]Skullcrack[/card]. He made the wrong decision of taking the [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card], allowing me to keep casting my burn spells on curve. He landed a [card]Gavony Township[/card] the next turn and ran a [card]Kitchen Finks[/card] into my [card]Skullcrack[/card], leaving me to have to race. I drew yet another [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card] and he played his [card]Spellskite[/card], leaving me in a tough spot. Fortunately, I was able to take advantage of him tapping out trying to life combo me instead of going for the on-board kill that he didn’t see, allowing me to steal the win.

Round 4 – Scapeshift 2-0

Game 1: My opponent chose to be on the play, and promptly mulliganed to five while I kept a pretty good six. He played a [card]Misty Rainforest[/card] on his turn and passed, giving me very little information. My turn one was [card]Lava Spike[/card], which he likely should have conceded to so he could have a better post-sideboard game. His follow up was a [card]Search for Tomorrow[/card], which gave me far more information than should be given in this matchup—Scapeshift is at such a disadvantage against Burn. A couple burn spells later, I had the game.

Sideboarding
In
2 [card]Shrine of Burning Rage[/card]

Out
2 [card]Searing Blaze[/card]

Game 2: We both kept seven card with him on the play. I knew going into this game that all I needed to worry about were a few [card]Obstinate Baloth[/card]s, which prompted me to keep a hand full of [card]Skullcrack[/card]s and [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card]. He ended up stumbling on mana on one of his turns, which made me decide to just start firing them off at the end of his turns. He did not withstand my assault and the game was mine fairly quickly.

Round 5 – Affinity 2-1

Game 1: I got to start on the play while my opponent mulliganed to six. I quickly got to work on his life total with [card]Lava Spike[/card], and he revealed that he was Affinity with a relatively slow hand. I followed up with a [card]Goblin Guide[/card] and another burn spell. He dropped half his hand on the table suddenly. Fortunately, I was able to win the race since he didn’t hit a [card]Cranial Plating[/card] to finish me off.

Sideboarding
In
4 [card]Smash to Smithereens[/card]
3 [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card]

Out
4 [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card]
3 [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card]

Game 2: He had a pretty lackluster turn one, but followed it up with two [card]Ensoul Artifact[/card] on turn two. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t race it even though I was able to kill one of his 5/5s.

Game 3: I kept a pretty insane turn-four kill hand, consisting of two land and five burn spells. He kept a very slow hand that did absolutely nothing. I executed the turn-four win perfectly while he floundered around and did one damage to me with a [card]Memnite[/card]

Round 6 – Affinity 2-0

Game 1: I started on the play with neither of us mulliganing. I opened on [card]Goblin Guide[/card], which got in for eight damage this game, while he had a fairly slow draw. I was easily able to race his mechanical men from there with the burn spells that were waiting in my hand, leaving me needing to win only one more game to be able to draw into top eight.

Sideboarding
In
4 [card]Smash to Smithereens[/card]
3 [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card]

Out
4 [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card]
3 [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card]

Game 2: I mulliganed to five this game on the draw while my opponent mulliganed to six. I kept an opener of [card]Mountain[/card], [card]Arid Mesa[/card], [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card], [card]Lava Spike[/card], and [card]Skullcrack[/card], and knew that to win this game I was going to need to ride that [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card] as hard as I possibly could. Fortunately, my opponent was unable to kill it, and I was able to sit back and nuke every creature he played. With his threats neutralized, I was able to cruise to victory with just a few more burn spells.

Round 7 – Scapeshift Intentional Draw

After looking at the standings, it was obvious that my opponent and I were going to be able to intentionally draw into top eight, so we did just that.

The Top 8

Top 8 – Junk 2-1

Game 1: My opponent started off on the play because he was the higher seed, and I started off with a mulligan to six. We both knew what the other was playing card for card, which led him to opening on [card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/card]. I top decked a [card]Goblin Guide[/card] and got in once with it the entire game. He followed up with a [card]Dark Confidant[/card], which I decided not to kill. Instead, I followed up with an [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] to punish him for anything he might play. He played another [card]Dark Confidant[/card] after reveleaing land from the first one. I decided this would just be a waiting game with two [card]Dark Confidant[/card]s on his side of the field. Fortunately for him, he only took three damage total off of the multitude of triggers for his [card]Dark Confidants[/card], but he did take a ton off of my two copies of [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card], allowing me to quickly close the game with a couple burn spells.

Sideboarding
In
2 [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card]
2 [card]Dismember[/card]

Out
4 [card]Hellspark Elemental[/card]

Game 2: My opponent started off on the play against my fairly lackluster hand. He played nothing on his turn one, and I suspended a [card]Rift Bolt[/card] on mine. He also decided to not do anything on his turn two, so I cast a [card]Lava Spike[/card] and [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card], which he immediately destroyed with [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]. His turn three was a [card]Tarmogoyf[/card], which I was unable to deal with. He swung a couple times leaving me to draw a bunch of lands and no way to win.

Game 3: I started on the play while my opponent mulliganed to six. I started on a turn-two [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] which dealt about ten damage just from its triggers, leaving him dead to just a couple of burn spells.

Top 4 – R/G Tron 2-0

Game 1: We both mulliganed to six with my opponent on the play. This game wasn’t even a little close, as I had turn-one [card]Goblin Guide[/card], which met a [card]Pyroclasm[/card], into turn-two [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card]. He was unable to do anything in time and just died to a fist full of burn.

Sideboarding
In
4 [card]Smash to Smithereens[/card]

Out
4 [card]Searing Blaze[/card]

Game 2: He played a [card]Chromatic Sphere[/card] on his turn one, and I retaliated with a [card]Goblin Guide[/card]. The next turn I hit him with two burn spells, leaving him at 11 already. On turn three, I cast [card]Hellspark Elemental[/card] and took him to five. He hit tron and cast a [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card] and an [card]Expedition Map[/card]. I untapped, slammed a land, and got him with two more burn spells.

Finals – Affinity 2-0

Game 1: We both kept our opening hands with him on the play. He opened on a [card]Vault Skirge[/card] and I raced out with a [card]Goblin Guide[/card]. He followed with a [card]Steel Overseer[/card] that I had to dispose of with a [card]Searing Blaze[/card]. Next turn he played a second [card]Steel Overseer[/card]. I removed it and dealt him another three. After that, I was finally able to deal with the [card]Vault Skirge[/card], and he ran out of gas. I quickly finished the game from there.

Sideboarding
In
4 [card]Smash to Smithereens[/card]
3 [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card]

Out
4 [card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card]
3 [card]Flames of the Blood Hand[/card]

Game 2: I kept my opener, which included [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card], four lands, and two burn spells, while he mulliganed to five. He exploded out of the gates anyway, playing almost his whole hand on turn one/ I was unable to accomplish anything but a land drop. The next turn, I was able to resolve [card]Satyr Firedancer[/card], but he then cast an [card]Arcbound Ravager[/card] that I would have to deal with. He swung in with a handful of damage, and left mana up to turn an [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] into a creature. I had two burn spells up and had no choice but to fire off at the [card]Arcbound Ravager[/card] which he started sacrificing to. Once it got to three counters, I tried to kill it again in response to the fourth activation, which forced him to put three counters on his [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card]. My opponent then got in two turns in a row with [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card], leaving me at eight infect. This leads us to the best topdeck of the day:[card]Smash to Smithereens[/card] to kill the [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card], and thanks to the Firedancer, also the other [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] that he was attacking with. Next turn, I drew a [card]Hellspark Elemental[/card], unearthed another, and won the PTQ.

Victory

I couldn’t believe it, and everyone in the room was excited for me. Thanks for all the support from the guys working at the PTQ that I talked to most of the night—they were almost as excited as I was.

That’s all I’ve got at the moment, but I’ll see you all very soon with a Brewing with Khans of Tarkir article and hopefully some amazing stories from Hawaii. The brews article will be slightly delayed this time, because the decks will be what I’m working on for Pro Tour Hawii.

Thanks for reading,

Josh Milliken

Edit – Since people are asking, the event was in Morgantown, WV.

Pitt Imps Podcast #82 Mutavault Is A….

August 19, 2014 Pitt Imps 01:57:32

This week, Ryan had to step out due to some technical difficulties. So in his place, I got Mike Hardy and Jon Celso to fill his shoes. We went over the results to the two recent GPs and SCG Cuse. We then went ahead and touched on a couple news moments and then, well, let’s face it. We rambled for a while.

Host Angelo Twitter @ganksuou

Guest #1 Jon Celso Twitter @balduvianbears

Guest #2 Mike Hardy Twitter @Mhardy1987

Show Email [email protected]

Show RSS Feed : http://mtgcast.com/topics/mtgcast-podcast-shows/active-podcast-shows/pitt-imps/feed

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Why?

This is Where the Title Came From

That’s All, Folks!

You Probably Shouldn’t [card]Stifle[/card] That

[card]Vexing Devil[/card]

[card]Eidolon of the Great Revel[/card] / [card]Pyrostatic Pillar[/card]

[card]Standstill[/card]

[card]Counterbalance[/card]

[card]Thespian’s Stage[/card]-[card]Dark Depths[/card] Combo

You Can Stifle That?

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Belief Perseverance

I Don’t Care, Just Tell Me What to Do with my Fetches

A Misty Future

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Wrapping Up

Breaking Down Single Elimination

Example Time

The Dark Side of Swiss

SCG Invitational Somerset, NJ (US)

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I Don’t Want to Read the Article

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GP Kobe

SCG Open Washington, DC

SCG Open Washington, DC

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From the Vault: Twenty

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Commander 2013

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A Bit About Booster Boxes

The Time of Sealed Product has Come to an End

Losing to Learn

Belching Victories

Almost a Mirror

Miracles Happen

So Pay Attention

This Week On: You Can Stifle That?

The Deck

The PTQ

Round 1 – U/R Twin 2-0

Round 2 – R/W/U Control 0-2

Round 3 – Melira Pod 2-0

Round 4 – Scapeshift 2-0

Round 5 – Affinity 2-1

Round 6 – Affinity 2-0

Round 7 – Scapeshift Intentional Draw

The Top 8

Top 8 – Junk 2-1