SameOldSchmidt

The Cost of Cards

A neat trio of articles by Ben Bleiweiss from Star City Games:

The Cost of Cards: The Rise of Magic’s Popularity (Part 1 of 3)

The Cost of Cards: Mr. Bleiweiss goes to Washington (Part 2 of 3)

The Cost of Cards: On Foils, and One Last Reserved List Thought (Part 3 of 3)

Very interesting to read these pieces on the economics of Magic. I'm completely hypnotized by the game right now but I'm also not exactly swimming in disposable income at the moment. Have to find the right balance and resist the temptation to just buy a ton of cards like a crackhead scrabbling for rocks.

The concept of the "Reserved List" looms large across the pieces. The third article looks at foil cards and concludes that they're not all that enticing as a premium in most cases. I would tend to agree. I like foils fine. If I'm flipping through the singles binder at HobbyTown and a foil version is the same price as non-foil, I'll often take the foil. I did this with a Turntimber Ranger recently, which is a cheap card in any case but the point is that I opted for the foil when the price was equal. Now, if the foil card was more, even by 50 cents, I probably wouldn't have bought it.

Then there are other cards that just look horrible as foils (read: nearly any black card). For example, I have a budget-ized vampire deck with two foil copies of Malakir Bloodwitch. I would much prefer to have that card in plain old non-foil but my copies came out of the Zendikar Intro Pack product, where they give you a foil rare in the package. The art on the card is really cool, but in foil it just looks like a dark film, like looking at the card through sunglasses.

Other stuff looks cool in foil, so I go both ways on it. I like foil lands, I have a foil Burst Lightning in a deck and a foil Everflowing Chalice in a deck.

I think I remember my friend Aaron (hi, Aaron!) opening a foil Mindless Null a while back, which is like the biggest laugh to be had opening a pack of Zendikar. That might become an "anti-collectible" in some way, where people collect them just because it's so absurd.

Worldwake Prerelease Report

As planned, I hit Worldwake prerelease events this past Saturday and Sunday here in Lincoln. Saturday was at HobbyTown and Sunday was at Comic World. How'd I do? Read on...

Saturday - HobbyTown
I went 4-3, which isn't so bad. I played a white-blue + splash red deck with a bunch of allies. I had 2 Hada Freeblade, 1 Talus Paladin, 1 Makindi Shieldmate, 1 Umara Raptor, 1 Halimar Excavator, 1 Highland Berserker and 1 Akoum Battlesinger for a total of 8 allies. That's pretty crazy for a sealed pool. Obviously, I didn't destroy all my opponents but those ally triggers can get really nutty. I also had 2 Sejiri Merfolk, which were just awesome in blue-white. Between them and Talus Paladin, lifegain was very relevent for me. I even managed to mill a dude to death one game, thanks to Halimar Excavator. Never milled anyone before!

The three matches that I lost, I don't think I stood much of a chance. Two losses were against black-red, which are just great colors to play in this format. One loss was against black-blue, and I could have played better that time. He had a Kalitas that was very hard for me to get around. Ah well, losing keeps me humble. We have a strong playerbase around here and I'm nowhere near even the top half.

My last match of the day, my opponent had a crazy pool, I just have to mention it: Day of Judgment, Novablast Wurm, Basilisk Collar, Oracle of Mul Daya, Vampire Nighthawk and I don't even know what else. I managed to win, but, just wow. My last play of the day was bouncing that Novablast Wurm back to her hand and then attacking for lethal. Felt pretty good!

Sunday - Comic World
I went 3-1 and made top 4. Unfortunately, due to time and everybody sort of shifting into "I really need to get home" mode, we just skipped doing a final 4 and divvied up the prizes. This was disappointing, because it's very exciting to play in the championship rounds but I understand that people needed to get back home at that point. Indeed, I myself needed to get home; my wife was incredibly gracious to let me play Magic literally all weekend long. Overall it was a blast and I was happy with the turnout. I hope Comic World continues to attract more players as I like having some additional options for playing in town.

My deck for Comic World was white-black, a bit heavier on white. I had to play black because I had good removal: Hideous End, Disfigure, 2 Tomb Hex and Brink of Disaster (though Brink wasn't too relevent, now that I think about it). In white I had a bunch of dudes, a couple fliers, yadda yadda, but my bombs were Conqueror's Pledge and Eldrazi Monument. The combo there is obvious, but I only got it off a couple times. In my final match, in game 1, I was on the ropes at 2 life and then went Pledge, Monument and won. He was red, so any little burn spell would have wrecked me. Then in game 2 I got the Pledge and Monument again. It feels funny (I almost feel guilty!) to just smash a dude with a bomb like that, but hey, I was on the wrong side of that Kalitas on Saturday. That's limited for you!

So, on the whole, I think the new set is pretty fun. It adds a lot to Zendikar. For example, I'm gonna get together a mono-white ally deck as soon as I can, and I'm going to tweak my black vampire deck with some new goodies.

Creature Creep

Check out Monday Night Magic #189 for some good discussion on the dominant role of creatures in current Magic.

Singing the Blues

Interesting article from an MTG developer about the current state of blue in the game.

We've done a lot of research, both in focus testing and in the field, and we have learned that people really hate it when their spells get countered. They take it as a personal affront: my opponent kept me from doing what I want to do. That's a terrible feeling. Mysteriously, those people do not feel nearly as bad when they cast a creature that immediately dies to a Lightning Bolt or a Doom Blade. They feel like their card actually did something, even though it really did just as little as the creature that got hit with an Essence Scatter. This may not make logical sense, but it is consistent with all of our observations.

This was an important realization, but there was a second realization as well. Magic developers, who by nature are top-level players who have played hundreds of matches at high-level events, are just as susceptible to this illogical, emotional response as our players. We hate it when our spells get countered too, and we are also much happier when our Craw Wurms get Doom Bladed than we are when they get Essence Scattered. This was an uncomfortable realization, because it makes no sense and we recognize it, but we are human too.

It's totally true. I almost feel bad when I counter stuff, but it also feels like a challenging strategy to play, so I enjoy that aspect of blue.

Be nice

I like the Cytospawn Shambler story near the bottom of this article. I haven't really run into anything like that yet but I think it's always good to remind yourself, "Just be nice." There is absolutely no reason to go around being mean to people, especially in the context of playing a game.

Manners, dudes!

2009 Standard Roundup

From the WotC site: 2009 Standard Roundup

Jund is the 900lb gorilla. If you haven't been following it, "Jund" refers to a 3-color deck (black, red, green) archetype that is full of card advantage - meaning you get "extra cards" from the single cards you play and/or you take out more than one of your opponent's cards with single cards of your own. For example, one of the big plays is Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Blightning. For 4 mana you hit your opponent with 3 damage, make him discard 2 cards and put a 3/2 haste creature on the board.

I want to build a version of Jund, but mine will be watered-down because some of the power cards and parts of the manabase are just way too expensive for a casual player like me. It may be something I can put together next fall after the Shards of Alara block rotates out of standard, and the card prices fall a bit. The main things I need to get are a set of Bloodbraid Elves and probably a couple Broodmate Dragons. Serious players use stuff like Maelstrom Pulse but that's just too rich for my blood.

Jund talk aside, my personal favorite is still mono-black vampires. I'm excited to see what new goodies the vampires will get when the new set, Worldwake, comes out early next year.

Rubin on creatures

Good piece by top-tier designer Ben Rubin. For me, this creature climate is all I know, since I've only come back (and casually, at that) since around Shards.

I would love to have Counterspell back, though.