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[WanderingWind]

I'm sure it actually helped with a lot of cards in the long run, but damn looking at prices of tarmogoyf and all that jazz it doesn't feel like MM helped at all lol. I'll be buying a case of MMA2 more than likely if I can.

I bought two boxes, got one Bob and zero Goyfs. All those side rares like Path I ended up with playsets. So, I didn't hit the lottery, but I feel pretty good about those purchases. Also, weirdly, I got like 3-4 Kikis.

And of course a ton of those stupid, ugly, buttface dragons that nobody was ever happy to see.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

What're your guys' experiences with the card prices in Commander sets? For example, I just realized they're reprinting all the Medallions and I'd like to jump on them when I can... Sapphire Medallion is sitting at ~$5 on TCGPlayer: When the decks come out, do you think it's likely to stay where it is or just undoubtedly rise? I have been watching Rolling Earthquake (love that thing) closely since the FTV: A and only seen it drop over time... but that's a much more narrow card, of course. Also, some cards will hit a floor and then rise, I suppose?

I'm not in any rush, of course, but I'd rather pay less now / soon than more later, naturally

Assuming a person could get them at MSRP, I was thinking it might be worth it to pick up a couple of the Commander decks (for fun and for value)... I suppose one could just plug the cards into a tappedout.net deck and see if it's worth it, but I doubt that all of the current 'prices' will hold, so who knows. Ugh, I'm so pseudo-frugal and a natural min-maxer that I paralyze myself sometimes, lol.

 

[CeruleanSilver]

You'll get the creature back. When a player dies one of the things that happens is that any effects that give that player control of something end. So since you originally controlled the creature it goes back to you. The Assault Suit is actually always under your control, just the creature is changing hands.

Cool, thank you for the explanation. I just play super-casual MTG with a few buddies (plus the occasional pre-release) and we don't get into any crazy EDH or multi-player game shenanigans.

 

[CeruleanSilver]

It's the little stuff like those tokens that make this game special.

I totally agree. The art, setting, and feeling keep me more interested in Magic than the actual gameplay, though I love that part too.

And speaking of neat tokens, that is one classy goat:

Some other interesting new token art:

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

Totally, I took a gander through a bunch (all?) of the tokens of the C14 tokens and I loved 'em. They've oddly become one of my favourite aspects of the game- not the generation (which is fine, obvs), but the cards themselves and especially the obscure one-offs etc.

I have rocked a Wall of Kelp a few times and 'lament' the fact that there's no official token outside of MTGO, lol. I have considered proxy'ing one up, though... But, the one deck I run ol' Kelpy in doesn't quite justify it...

Another weird token is the Survivor from Varchild's War-Riders, haha... the MTGO one is dece. Did they even print tokens with Alliances etc.?

 

[WanderingWind]

Tokens are one of those things I'm usually secretly happy to open. I even got one of the rare Elemental tokens - it's the only one I ran and got the sleeve for.

And of course, I have at least 1 of every zombie token. I think.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

Yeah, I already bitched about non-token ad cards a few pages earlier so I won't reiterate, but I openly love seeing them in the pack The KTK Goblins look super strange, though, haha.

I haven't been playing for long enough to have amassed any sizable token collection, but I hold on to each one. I only have Enchantment Zombies from the last block No straight-up Zombs...

I do have 16 packs of KTK yet to open, so we'll see. Need some kronies to draft with. I used to just rip packs from boxes, but I've learned my lesson- a Winston Draft will do, I just wanna play with the cards.

 

[ElyrionX]

I guess I am just a big fan of the scry effect. It really reduces the variance that is inherent in the game and reducing variance definitely emphasizes player skill more. I wish it was used more liberally.

I also think the current mulligan system can be improved in many ways to make variance less punishing.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

I also think the current mulligan system can be improved in many ways to make variance less punishing.

I struggle with it in my casual play group... Part of me wants to do the proper mulls, but when everyone else 'never played like that' or finds even a single free mull too punishing, I can't justify being the only one doing it. I think the DOTP-style seems the most fair in a casual setting: One free mulligan, drop a card each time after that . Maybe even to a max of 4 cards? In the end, it's random but also up to the person whose deck it is. If you're only rocking 18-20 lands and you have lots of 5+ drops, I feel like you should know what you're up against. Worse is 70 cards and 23-24 lands, I think, but I don't have the numbers to back that up.

One group I played with in Commander does a partial mulligan where you pull cards out of your hands and shuffle them back into your library and then draw that many cards. Maybe that's common? I'm not sure.

As an aside that's tangentially related I find it somewhat funny how bad people feel (that I play with) at the thought of being even a single card down in a 5-player game... as if that one card is going to be the difference between total victory and first removed from the game. Or the notion of going 'last' in a 5-player. Like, dude.. you get to see what everyone else is doing... it's not LAST, it's just not first. Maybe I'm way off-base, but the valuation seems incorrect.

 

[Matriox]

I bought two boxes, got one Bob and zero Goyfs. All those side rares like Path I ended up with playsets. So, I didn't hit the lottery, but I feel pretty good about those purchases. Also, weirdly, I got like 3-4 Kikis.

And of course a ton of those stupid, ugly, buttface dragons that nobody was ever happy to see.

I mean I had only bought 2 boxes myself, I actually still have one factory sealed in storage. The one we opened didn't even have bob nor goyf and still made up for the cost to buy the box. Vendillion Cliques b crazy man.

 

[God Enel]

I mean I had only bought 2 boxes myself, I actually still have one factory sealed in storage. The one we opened didn't even have bob nor goyf and still made up for the cost to buy the box. Vendillion Cliques b crazy man.

I should've bought two. Bought one and am storing it now. Are the prices rising for it? They are out of print, right?

 

[divisionbyzorro]

If Modern Masters 2 is as good of a format to draft, and contains enough staples, and doesn't have as limited of a print run, the demand for MM1 will drop like a stone. Just keep that in mind.

 

[WanderingWind]

Yeah, all that has to happen for that MMA1 box to be substantially less valuable is they put Goyf into the next set. Sure, you MAY make your money back on it, but that's about it.

Unless you want to sit on it for 5-7 years and pray they don't think about doing something like printing Goyf in a Standard legal set. Then it becomes a very neat box of cardboard.

 

[ironmang]

I've recently been offloading most of my unused collection. The upside isn't worth the risk of reprintings or older formats just dying. Plus my interest in playing has been fading a lot over the past year and I can think of many things I'd rather have than extra expensive cards sitting in binders and boxes.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I should've bought two. Bought one and am storing it now. Are the prices rising for it? They are out of print, right?

Nothing in the set is immune from reprints and in fact, I think its likely almost everything in the set will get a reprint eventually.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Ob Nixilis origin story. I liked this one a lot.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I've recently been offloading most of my unused collection. The upside isn't worth the risk of reprintings or older formats just dying. Plus my interest in playing has been fading a lot over the past year and I can think of many things I'd rather have than extra expensive cards sitting in binders and boxes.

Sell me your cards :3

 

[OnPoint]

I've recently been offloading most of my unused collection. The upside isn't worth the risk of reprintings or older formats just dying. Plus my interest in playing has been fading a lot over the past year and I can think of many things I'd rather have than extra expensive cards sitting in binders and boxes.

Yeah, what you got?

 

[ironmang]

As far as (most) notable stuff:
1 Rev Trop
1 Rev Savannah
1 Rev Scrubland
4 FS Goyfs
4 FoW
3 Tarns
4 MPR Bolt
2 City of Traitors
1 LotV
1 Foil DRS
1 Foil Decay
2 Foil SFM
1 Foil Jitte (pack)

Might have an entire modern Affinity deck for sale next year unless the format is popular enough locally for me to get use out of 2 decks.

 

[Matriox]

I should've bought two. Bought one and am storing it now. Are the prices rising for it? They are out of print, right?

As most have said here you'll probably want to look at selling here within the next 6 months or so, probably going to see reprints in modern masters 2 (atleast I'd hope)

 

[Lucario]

I've heard this site mentioned before, how fast are the turn around times?

You're required to ship out cards within 48 hours, although I've found that most people will wait 3 or 4 days. People are generally pretty fast about confirming shipments too.


The site definitely could run into issues in the future, though. In the first year or so of PucaTrade's existence, it was almost impossible to find someone with enough points to request any cards worth more than $10 (1000 points). Points were at a massive premium, and if you found someone requesting a card in your collection, you had to confirm the trade within minutes.

To make it possible for trades to happen, the admins started giving every new account 400 points after confirming their shipping information and phone number. There's also a very generous referral program, offering as many as 400 points per account referred, depending on your subscription level.

This is why it's currently so easy to send out three dollar EDH jank, but it could lead to points being worthless in the future once the community gets larger and people begin abusing multiple accounts.

I strongly recommend joining the site, sorting through your collection, and sending out every bulk rare you can. It's exceptionally easy to trade up your junk towards legacy staples, especially with an auto-refresher on the "send a card" screen. I do not, however, recommend keeping points in your account for too long, because there's a strong possibility that it will be impossible to exchange them for cards in the future.

 

["God's Beard!"]

As far as (most) notable stuff:
1 Rev Trop
1 Rev Savannah
1 Rev Scrubland
4 FS Goyfs
4 FoW
3 Tarns
4 MPR Bolt
2 City of Traitors
1 LotV
1 Foil DRS
1 Foil Decay
2 Foil SFM
1 Foil Jitte (pack)

Might have an entire modern Affinity deck for sale next year unless the format is popular enough locally for me to get use out of 2 decks.

Perfect, I need four forces and three tarns :3

 

[Angry Grimace]

This player feels there is no skill involved in my "topdecking" a second Bazaar of Baghdad after he filtered through a bunch of cards looking for a Ghost Quarter. (I had the Bazaar in my hand since the first hand. Also, see the third Bazaar unplayed in my hand :lol )

 

[divisionbyzorro]

It's remarkable that you can take a card that should be terrible in a vacuum (Bazaar of Baghdad), and put it in a shell so broken that the card has to be banned in all sanctioned formats but one.

Magic is a crazy game.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Pretty sure Bazaar of Baghdad is busted in any format.

 

[Crocodile]

Dan Emmons is having a stream where he goes over the design and development of the cards in the Commander 2014 set.

An interesting tidbit revealed: Dualcaster Mage was literally a colorshifted Snapcaster Mage but got killed by development.

 

[kirblar]

Dan Emmons is having a stream where he goes over the design and development of the cards in the Commander 2014 set.

An interesting tidbit revealed: Dualcaster Mage was literally a colorshifted Snapcaster Mage but got killed by development.

lol good - Snapcaster is OP.

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";137551723]Pretty sure Bazaar of Baghdad is busted in any format.[/QUOTE]

Every format other than Standard has Dredge so yeah.

 

[Crocodile]

More tidbits

• Titania was made for Aaron's Strip Mine (and pals) EDH deck
• Wave of Vitriol used to blow up all non-creature permanents
• Song of Dryads made mostly as a versatile Green Planeswalker bullet. From the way he talks, there didn't seem to be much color pie controversy with the design/development team though he recognizes that Maro wouldn't be a fan of it.
• In an unannounced set, Dan got into several color pie fights with Maro
• Around Halloween, Maro likes to bring in year-old Halloween candy to get rid of it before the next Halloween
• The basic shell of Daretti - an artifact based Red planeswalker - is pretty old. "Goblin Welder" ability was the only thing kept from first designs but it influenced decision to make him a Goblin planeswalker.
• Working in R&D is awesome. Working in the digital side = don't do it.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

More tidbits

• In an unannounced set, Dan got into several color pie fights with Maro

I really want to play this set now. Any set that gets Maro mad about the color pie is a set I want to play with.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Don't convince yourself "Dan" won

 

[OnPoint]

Red Snap + Blue Snap + Direct Damage = Legacyburn.deck

So glad that didn't happen

As far as (most) notable stuff:
1 Rev Trop
1 Rev Savannah
1 Rev Scrubland
4 FS Goyfs
4 FoW
3 Tarns
4 MPR Bolt
2 City of Traitors
1 LotV
1 Foil DRS
1 Foil Decay
2 Foil SFM
1 Foil Jitte (pack)

Might have an entire modern Affinity deck for sale next year unless the format is popular enough locally for me to get use out of 2 decks.

I'm definitely interested in hearing what you're looking for concerning the 'Goyfs and the City of Traitors...

 

[kirblar]

Working in R&D is awesome. Working in the digital side = don't do it.

Pretty much what it's sounded like from the outside and other interviews.

 

[Hero]

Dan Emmons is having a stream where he goes over the design and development of the cards in the Commander 2014 set.

An interesting tidbit revealed: Dualcaster Mage was literally a colorshifted Snapcaster Mage but got killed by development.

God forbid Red gets goodies.

 

[kirblar]

God forbid Red gets goodies.

Snapcaster Mage = Zac Hill fucked up. It never should have had flash.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Legalize Red Snap, ban Blue Snap

 

[kirblar]

Legalize Red Snap, ban Blue Snap

I'm actually more scared of Red Snap (Burn.)

 

[ThLunarian]

Red Snap could be RR and it would probably be okay. Maybe 1RR.

 

[charlequin]

I'm sure it actually helped with a lot of cards in the long run, but damn looking at prices of tarmogoyf and all that jazz it doesn't feel like MM helped at all lol.

The immediate result of MM was to increase supply (which noticeably, though not hugely, reduced prices across the board) but the secondary result was to dramatically increase demand by getting more people to play Modern. The end result was that there are noticeably more people with the cards needed to play Modern in total, the most vital cards still have very little liquid supply so their prices have gone up, but a lot of other stuff has become more broadly available.

I think they could print at a higher, but still limited, volume such that most cards saw a meaningful reduction in price but valuable cards didn't tank into the basement, basically.

Some other interesting new token art:

That Pentavite token is old, I think they sent those out in Player Rewards mailings back in the day.

I also think the current mulligan system can be improved in many ways to make variance less punishing.

You have to balance this stuff out. At a certain level, reducing variance improves gameplay and increases the role of skill (someone who can use scrylands correctly will play better and win more often than someone who cannot.) Once you cross a certain threshold, though, it starts to reduce skill. If you make the mana system less variant, you eliminate the skill of building a deck with proper manabase and curve, because you can just kind of throw stuff together and it'll work. If you make card quality less variant, you make it easier to have a "good enough" deck without taking the effort to tune it.

Song of Dryads made mostly as a versatile Green Planeswalker bullet. From the way he talks, there didn't seem to be much color pie controversy with the design/development team though he recognizes that Maro wouldn't be a fan of it.

Literally everyone in R&D is less of a hardliner about this than Maro is. I guess it's cool that someone has to be and he's probably the right person for it, but I'm glad there are people like Forsythe working on the game who take a different approach. The recent Core Sets really helped inject some old-school feeling that I think helped bring about the game's recent success, and I honestly don't think Rosewater's ultra-restrictive approach could have gotten there.

Working in R&D is awesome. Working in the digital side = don't do it.

Fucking loooool. Emmons is the second GDS2 vet who left and talked shit about WotC digital almost immediately.

 

[kirblar]

South Park's new episode is a reminder of why MTGO doesn't get investment: The whales will pay regardless.

 

[charlequin]

South Park's new episode is a reminder of why MTGO doesn't get investment: The whales will pay regardless.

There was a whole sad twitter conversation recently with an irritatingly large number of pros going "well MODO is awful, and if I didn't need to play twenty hours a week to test, I would...." C'mon son.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Its hilarious how I'm wrecking faces in KTK Block Constructed on a deck I just made up 5 minutes before entering the MTGO tournament. The theme of the deck is "I fucking love Zurgo Helmsmasher."

(All I'm doing is playing creatures from Khans I already know to be good; e.g. Swiftspear, Champion, Seeker of the Way, etc., plus Crackling Doom because that card is kickin' rad)

 

[SigmasonicX]

Going back to the conversation about blue having too many powerful effects to itself, I wonder if a variation on getting extra turns like "target player skips his or her next turn" could work in black. In two-player, it's basically the same, but it feels very different once you get more players. Plus, you could have effects like "Two target players each skip their next turn," which does nothing at all with two players, but can be interesting with more players.

Mind Stop - 4BB
Sorcery
Target player skips his or her next turn.

Shared Delusion - 3BB
Sorcery
Two target players each skip their next turn.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Going back to the conversation about blue having too many powerful effects to itself, I wonder if a variation on getting extra turns like "target player skips his or her next turn" could work in black. In two-player, it's basically the same, but it feels very different once you get more players. Plus, you could have effects like "Two target players each skip their next turn," which does nothing at all with two players, but can be interesting with more players.

Mind Stop - 4BB
Sorcery
Target player skips his or her next turn.

Shared Delusion - 3BB
Sorcery
Two target players each skip their next turn.

Black's version of that effect is controlling the turn, e.g. Worst Fears. Not sure how the first one makes any more sense than Time Stop.

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

PS: my name is cmart7 on MTGO- I just run scrub / goofy casual decks and lose frequently

 

[WanderingWind]

PS: my name is cmart7 on MTGO- I just run scrub / goofy casual decks and lose frequently

Last guy who said that whipped out a UR delver deck on my ass...lol. I'll add you when I log back on. We can fight silly tribal decks.

Also, and I know y'all are excited about this, but DotP 2015's expansion is out! Guys! Aren't we excited? They added an affinity deck with no artifact removal! Guys?

 

[shrapnelmagnet]

Last guy who said that whipped out a UR delver deck on my ass...lol. I'll add you when I log back on. We can fight silly tribal decks.

Also, and I know y'all are excited about this, but DotP 2015's expansion is out! Guys! Aren't we excited? They added an affinity deck with no artifact removal! Guys?

lol my 'best' deck is upkeep / land-related, so that seems premature That said, I don't mind battlin' in any capacity

 

[ElyrionX]

One group I played with in Commander does a partial mulligan where you pull cards out of your hands and shuffle them back into your library and then draw that many cards. Maybe that's common? I'm not sure.

My EDH group does this as well. It's great. Not that I think it would work in a competitive environment.

There was a whole sad twitter conversation recently with an irritatingly large number of pros going "well MODO is awful, and if I didn't need to play twenty hours a week to test, I would...." C'mon son.

I started MTGO literally two weeks ago (and MTG itself only in July this year) and have dumped in a couple hundred dollars and am currently planning to put in more money. It's not a great client but it works and it's just too convenient for playing and testing to skip on if you can afford it and you want to play seriously. There is a Modern GP in my country (Singapore) next year and I really want to do well so that's what I am grinding towards and with work on weekdays and other commitments during the weekend, traveling to the LGS is not much of an option. I'm a new player so I need the practice and I need lots of it. MTGO is really the only way about it. Plus, the level of play on MTGO is generally far higher than the many LGSes around here anyway.

So yeah, guess I am part of the problem too.

 

[Firemind]

You should definitely try to test a lot and get familiar with your deck and its intricacies, but I'm not sure testing in a metagame full of cruise and burn decks (or so I'm told) will accomplish much right now in terms of finetuning and sideboarding. When is the next banned/restricted announcement? January?

 

[ElyrionX]

You should definitely try to test a lot and get familiar with your deck and its intricacies, but I'm not sure testing in a metagame full of cruise and burn decks (or so I'm told) will accomplish much right now in terms of finetuning and sideboarding. When is the next banned/restricted announcement? January?

I've only been playing test games and in about 10 games, I have come across zero UR Delver and only 1 Burn. It's been pretty diverse. Pods, Scapeshift, Geist and a few others. Haven't seen a single Cruise being casted yet.

I haven't decided on a deck yet. All I know is that it will be UWR. I have all the cards I need in paper to build control, Twin or midrange. I am currently testing UWR Midrange and intend to move on to Twin and then control before settling on one of the archetypes.