MTG Catalyst

Last week I promised to show you a Pauper deck that I built for 0.93 tickets. I really got excited when I realized how cheap this deck is because there are so many new players getting started online and they don’t really want to spend a ton of money without knowing the client. This deck lets them get started and get a feel for MTGO before investing any extra money.

I’m not 100% sure who actually developed this deck, but you can watch dimecollectorsc do a short decktech on the Gruul Deck which was developed specifically to handle UR Cloudpost.

This is the decklist:

I took the newly built Gruul deck to the tournament practice room to get a feel for it.

Match One – Pauper Jund

I open up against nebuloushelix playing Pauper Jund. He plays out a bunch of GB wither and persist creatures from Shadowmoor and counter producers like Shambling Shell to keep the -1/-1 counters off. I’ve never seen a deck like this, and while it looks like it would be rather effective in Modern PDC*, I question the effectiveness in Classic Pauper.

I survived G1 by throwing bodies in front of his creatures until he was unable to persist them and then started the Blastoderm beatdown. 1-0

I sideboarded out my River Boas which would not be very effective against his wither creatures and replaced them with Stone Rain and 1 Branching Bolt. He opens up game two with a pile of border posts. Stone Rain came down on a Forest but if I see this deck again, I’ll bring in Ancient Grudge.

G2 he managed to get down a Putrid Leech with Gift of the Deity, but his low life prevented him from attacking. I drew into Vulshok Morningstar and he conceded. 1-0 2-0

Match Two – Mono U Post Control

The second match I played with this deck was against Mono U Post Control. I figured this might be a pretty easy matchup with the main deck river boa.

Game 1 he had early counters to keep my Civic Wayfinders from finding moutains. A pair of Jolrael’s Centaurs began an early beatdown process followed by a river boa. Dispite a lot of lifegain, I felt pretty confident about this game until he dropped a Serrated Arrows. The main deck arrows bought him time to build up to Capsize mana and the game was over. 0-1

-4 Safehold Elite
-2 Arbor Elf
+3 Ancient Grudge
+3 Stone Rain

Game 2 began with an early Jolrael’s Centaur followed by a Vulshok Morningstar equiped Arbor Elf. The pair put him very low until he answered the Elf with Echoing Truth. My burn to the face was answered by Hydroblast, but Blastoderm went unanswered and he conceded.

Game 3 began with an equiped River Boa. He finally managed to bounce it on 7 life dropping a pile of Spire Golem and a Serrated Arrows. Baiting counterspells with Jolrael’s Centaur, Ancient Grudge ate the Arrows and the Boa came back to the table and picked up his mace. Unable to stop the snake, he conceded. 2-0 4-1

Match Three – Infect

Game 1 I opened a great hand dropping a Llanowar Elves and then a Civic Wayfinder. My opponent opened with a Glistener Elf + Rancor which I blocked with the Wayfinder. Ichorclaw Myr was soon down to carry the overpowered enchantment and a Kicked Vines of Vastwood carried him to victory. 0-1

-2 Arbor Elf
-4 River Boa
-1 Vulshok Morningstar
+3 Ancient Grudge
+4 Seismic Shudder

Game two began with Evolving Wilds for a Mountain to bolt the Turn 1 Glistner Elf. No creatures from the green deck resulted in a quick ramp to Blastoderm. Cystbearer received Rancor and then a Kicked Vines of Vastwood to blow out the second Blastoderm set up as a blocker. Holding the Cystbearer back for the first Blastoderm to fade away he was able to finish me with a series of pump spells. I see this being a poor match for the GR deck.2-1 4-3

Match Four – Burn.

This is the first time I’ve seen this matchup online and it mostly involves them throwing spells at your face rather than your creatures. I think they could really slow this deck down with some targeted burn at the mana elves (Lava Spike) but my opponent continued to throw burn at my face.

Game one I only blocked Keldon Marauders with a persist creature while proceding to beat face with a River Boa and Two Jorael’s Centaur. He ran out of cards before being able to deal lethal damage. I was at 3 life. 1-0

Game two he got stuck on two lands and quickly conceded. 3-1 6-3

Match Five – Green Beats

I mulled a one land hand on the play into a less than ideal hand of Two Geistflame a split pair of lands a Llanowar Elves and a Jolrael’s Centaur. I burned his early 1 drops. He managed to get a pumped Qurion Ranger through for 9 but conceded the match when I manged to stick a River Boa. I assume he had nothing to give his creatures trample. I didn’t count this match in my results.

Match Six – Burn

Game 1 was quick with a series of Lightning Bolts, Flame Rift and finally Fireblast. 0-1

Game 2 he sent his smaller removal at my mana elves briefly slowing production but not preventing me from landing two River Boa and a Jolrael’s Centaur. One of the River Boa died while the other picked up a Vulshuk Morningstar. In the face of Blastoderm he conceded 1-1

Game 3 we both opened with Evolving Wilds. He burned my Safehold Elite with Searing Blaze and began a series of cantrips looking for burn. Faithless Looting found its mark allowing him to burn me out the turn before a lethal Blastoderm was scheduled to connect. 3-2 7-5

All in all I wasn’t disapointed by the deck, but I wasn’t impressed by it. I only got to play a couple of tier 1 matches, and I think it certainly will give blue decks fits, but will struggle against some of the faster decks in the format and decks where creatures don’t matter as much such as Mono-Black Control. I may play the deck more, but unless results improve I need to stick with something more reliable.

Continuing with Goblins

I continued to play Goblins this week in ranked matches, but I think the changes I made were not for the best. I played in 4 more two man queues bringing my total record to 5-3. While that seems great, with M12 packs going for an all time low, I’m barely breaking even.

I did get a chance to read a great article on Pauper Goblins by David Kahn. It’s a bit dated as the format has changed quite a bit, but the advice on Death Spark alone makes it worth a read. I have been reviewing sources across the net to make sure that I’m playing the deck as best I can.

I entered Goblins in my first daily event this week.

Round 1 – Kasparadi playing Goblins

Game 1 I thought I opened a stelar draw, but he had double bushwhacker and put it away. Game 2 was a slugfest that ultimately ended with him drawing both of his Sylvok Lifestaff. I’m starting to think I knew at that point that I should have brought in artifact destruction. I could never draw enough burn, so I conceded with 3 min left in the match.
0-1

Round 2 – Trollshow playing Elves

After three min of him scouting my extra long second game we got underway. I kept a risky 1 land hand with a pair of 1 drops and 3 burn spells. One thing I don’t like about this deck is how many 1 land openers it has. I hate to mull and certainly don’t have it just right for this deck. I get down Jackal Familiar and a Mogg Flunkies. I trade a bunch of burn for a bunch of his pump spells but eventually a second Mogg Flunkies goes the distance.

Game 2 I tap out turn 2 and he drops a Rancor on a Skarrgan Pit-Skulk. My attempts to burn it fail and I loose that game easily.

Game 3 I play a bit more cautious. He attempts to put Rancor on a Rogue Elephant and I attempt to burn it in response. Normally I wouldn’t try to use burn during his turn but the chance to get rid of that pesky enchantment is worth it. He thinks a while and then responds with Mutagenic Growth. He opts not to swing and loose his Elephant which I don’t understand considering it would have wiped my board which consisted of 2 Goblin Tokens. I drew Chain Lightning and managed to kill the Elephant next turn. A Mogg War Marshal and Two Goblin Bushwhacker later he concedes.
1-1

Round 3 – Qentba playing Elves

Game 1 I kept an excellent opener with 3 mountains a pair of Goblin Cohert, a war marshal and a Fireblast. He responded with a pair of Skarrgan Pit-Skulk which I couldn’t block. My army of creatures quickly overwhelmed him however and Fireblast finished the game.

I changed my sideboard plan this time.

-2 Goblin Arsonist
-1 Mudbrawler Cohort
+2 Flame Slash
+1 Sylvok Lifestaff

I opened one of those Flame Slash which saved me from a Rancored Nettle Sentinal. I then found out that he kept a 1 land hand also. I drew mountains and goblins started to flow. With 6 goblins on the board even killing one a turn would quickly draw him in range of my burn. He conceded.
2-1

Round 4 – Zturchan playing MBC

This used to be a great match for me, but MBC has evolved and is no longer the weak creature, no removal deck it used to be when it was facing only storm and other control decks for the top spot. I lost my first two creatures in game 1 to Funeral Charm followed by Dead Weight and Victim of Night. Chittering Rats forced the little burn I had back to the top of my deck putting me in topdeck mode. His creatures whittled away at me. At one point I had him down to 4 life, but his discard earlier had forced me to use my Fireblast.

Game two I threw away my opening hand which was 3 Mountain a Flame Slash, a Fireblast and a Mogg Raider. I really didn’t think this hand was agressive enough. I kept a similar 6 however but I did manage to get down a Goblin Cohort plus a Goblin Bushwhacker. His discard stripped my hand forcing me to use Death Spark and then attempt to get a creature to die on top of it. That proved to be no problem as my last creature died to Victim of Night. Of the next eight cards I drew 6 of them were Mountains. Even my opponent considered the aweful string of luck. Ah such is Magic: The Gathering.
2-2

A couple of observations about this tournament: Many players opted to continue to play even after being eliminated. I’ve done that before, but in the past, about fifty percent of the time I was the only player left and got a bye, thus didn’t get to play which was the whole point of staying in the tournament.

My first round opponent Kasparadi went 4-0 with a 8-0 record. I did stay up and watch some of his replays including the matchup against MBC he played in Round 2. His Sparksmith which can be a liability in the mirror helped keep the board clear in the MBC matchup. I’m still not sure that matchup is favored against goblins anymore.

The results to that tournament are recorded here.

I’m out 6 tix on that experience. I’ll have to make them up somewhere, but I am certainly going back to a more traditional build with Sparksmith.

My collection unfortunatly fell back to earth from last week’s speculation prior to the Pro Tour. Inkmoth Nexus took a huge hit which I can’t really explain other than their absense from this week’s Grand Prix. It’s likely time to sell those. I can get out now with a break even point on Garruk which I will do Tuesday night as people are buying cards for redemption. I may try to unload them to a human in the Classifieds to get a couple more tickets.

Here is my collection value as of 2/27/2012

Trade Stock	Value	Total
16 Event Tickets	1	16
5 M12 Booster	3	15
3 Inkmoth Nexus	6.2	18
4 Promo Wurmcoil Engine	5.2	21
3 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon	5.4	16
4 Garruk, Primal Hunter	12.5	50
4 Ratchet Bomb	3.1	12
4 Hinterland Harbor	1.0	4
Misc Non-Staples (Mythics/Rares)		2
Total		154

Non-Trade Staples	Value
1 Pauper Goblin Deck	18
1 Momir Vig Avatar	10
1 Playset of M11 Lands	7
1 Playset of Fetch Lands	72
Total	107

For those of you following along my original starting value was 251 Tix. Last week’s value was 295 Tix.

Today’s Total was 261 Tix or a net loss of 34 from last week.

*While I don’t play PDC any more, I just found out that Kor Skyfisher is banned in Modern PDC. I hated that card with a passion when I was playing Extended PDC last year. Empty the Warrens is also banned which sounds great to me.

Good to my word, I expanded my trade bait.

2/9/2012 -34 Tickets -4 Seachrome Coast +4 Garruk, Primal Hunter +4 Gavony Township +4 Hinterland Harbor 2/10/2012 -8 Tickets +4 Urabrask the Hidden +4 Intangible Virtue (Not Totaled) +1 Island (Not Totaled) 2/12/2012 +5 Tickets (And .6 Bot Credit) -2 Urabrask the Hidden 2/13/2012 +5 Tickets +4 Avacyn’s Pilgrim (Not Totaled) -2 Urabrask the Hidden

This may seem a touch speculative, but its time to talk about collection management for a second. Calculated risk is an important part of staying relevant. There is a Pro Tour this weekend and the “deck to beat” is GW Tokens. Garruk has plenty of time, and plenty of room to move upward. His downside is very small. More likely than anything I would loose the spread (difference between buy and sell) of 2 tix on the set. Township is at best -1 tix and could go up to nearly 1 tix each which would net me 3. Harbor could lose, but I paid 5 tix for the set and as long as it is relevant in Block the downside is no less than 0.75 each or 2 ticket loss. They could however go up like SoM lands did. SoM lands are rotating while ISD lands are still in Standard for an entire year and a half.

What is important here is that I traded cards that are not relevant to any format and have no way to go but down (Koth due to his up and coming duel deck) for cards that are somewhat hot and have potential to move up as well as cards that will be playable for a longer period of time. The only card that I might hang onto from SoM through rotation is Inkmoth Nexus since its from a smaller set and sees play in Legacy. More than likely it is simply being supported by standard pump effects like the rest of these cards. If it has a good price in April or I see it start to slide. I’m selling.

The 4 Urabrask the Hidden were a short term flip on the PT results from Hawaii. I happened to be watching the live coverage and noticed they were starting to disappear from the major bots and the ones that were still for sale were over 1 ticket higher than their online prices on MTGOtraders and Supernova. Within two hours I saw bots offering to buy them for .4 more than I paid, so I’m pretty confidant in this swing. This isn’t about speculation, but I’m not turning down free tickets and you shouldn’t either. I put the “throw in” cards on the list because I bought them from bots I don’t want keep credit on, and I wanted to 0 out my credit.

I played my first two man queues with goblins this week, and my first matchup was against Infect. I hadn’t previously won against infect. I lost game one after blowing all my burn to get rid of a Glistner Elf only to be beat down by a Rancored Ichorclaw Myr.

Game two I was able to win thanks to sideboarding in 5 extra burn spells which kept him the poison off of me long enough to follow through with double Chain Lightning and a Fireblast to the face. Game three I nearly lost after passing through the attack phase with a kicked Goblin Bushwhacker. In a twist of pure luck on 9 poison, I topdecked a 3rd Goblin Bushwhacker which put me in Fireblast range. Kids don’t try this at home.

My second 2 man was against MBC aka “Rats”. This is a pretty solid matchup for Goblins. In fact the first game I got land screwed on 1 land, had to discard several cards and still won. Their defense is to do damage to everything and unfortunately since goblins is the aggro deck usually their defensive burning puts them in range of your burn. Their lifegain is dependant on drain life effects such as Corrupt and Tendrils of Corruption. The first game I managed to have a Death Spark to burn my own creature, and the second game I had a constant stream of Goblin Sledder to sacrifice any creature on the board.

I’ve changed my deck up slightly using some bot credits I had left over. I’m finding a good portion of my sideboard to be unused, and I really wanted to fit in another Death Spark.

My third game was against a newer MBC deck playing a lot more creature removal and no Crypt Rats. Disfigure stops first turn creatures. Geth’s Verdict causes problems with combat tricks. I made a mistake G1 by hitting F6 too early and lost a Fireblast to Okiba-Gang Shinobi. I opened my second hand to this:

Not exactly a “snap keep” but since I had to mull to 6 in G1 I didn’t particularly want to risk it. In hindsight I likely should have thrown it back. I did draw a Mogg War-Marshal but with no heavy hitters I was quickly overcome by removal.

Current Record 2-1.

My fourth game was against White Weenie which is normally a pretty bad matchup for me. I made some pretty bad play mistakes in these two games, so I’m not going to recap them, but I did finally get to use Ghostflame in a ranked match which turned out pretty good. Game 2 he failed to find anything pro Red other than Benevolent Bodyguard so Ghostflame to the dome sealed the deal.

Current Record 3-1.

I made some attempts to get into a daily event with this deck, but I had a full schedule this week and couldn’t seem to block out the time. Fortunately the value of the cards in my collection continues to increase.

Here is my collection value as of 2/16/2012

Trade Stock	Value	Total
30 Event Tickets	1	30
3 M12 Booster	3.2	10
3 Inkmoth Nexus	8.6	26
4 Promo Wurmcoil Engine	5.6	22
3 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon	5.8	17
4 Garruk, Primal Hunter	15.5	62
4 Ratchet Bomb	3.7	15
4 Hinterland Harbor	1.1	4
Misc Non-Staples (Mythics/Rares)		2
Total		188

Non-Trade Staples	Value
1 Pauper Goblin Deck	18
1 Momir Vig Avatar	10
1 Playset of M11 Lands	7
1 Playset of Fetch Lands	72
Total	107

For those of you following along my original starting value was 251 Tix. Last week’s value was 271 Tix.

Today’s Total was 295 Tix or a net gain of 24 over last week.

I’m excited about next week, because if things work out the way I expect, I’m going to get to highlight a winning pauper deck that I just built for less than 1 ticket. (0.93 Bot credits to be exact).

 

Note that I wrote the first part of this three months ago. It’s still relevant so I wanted to publish it.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a father of two boys under the age of three. My wife works about three nights a week as a balloon artist, and I usually use the other four to build our growing health and wellness business selling suppliments, weight loss products, green cleaners, and healthy energy drinks. She actually got them to take a nap at the same time on Monday, so I managed to get a couple of matches in with my new Goblin deck.

The first match I played was against Mono Black Rats. I won those 2-0 and I’m not really sure if my sideboard actually had cards for Rats.

Between the burn, and the ability to shift counters around to protect key goblins, it seemed rather hard for the Rat deck to set you back, even after playing 2 Crypt Rats.  Burn forces him to wipe the board on the turn its played, and the ability to sac to Goblin Sledder and Mogg Raider keeps key goblins long enough to win.

The second deck I played told me why I saw Ghostfire in some of the sideboards. My second opponent was playing a White/Black Pestilence deck that abused lifegain and cards like Guardian of the Guildpact. I have zero answers to that main-deck so ended up loosing that match 1-2 after board.

White decks in general may be tough. Guardian of the Guildpact, Crimson Acolyte are impossible to deal with since they can’t be targeted, and other white cards such as Razor Golem are tough beaters without the right answers. Ghostfire is an answer, but time and more testing will tell if it’s enough. I changed the sideboard -2 Flaring Pain, -1 Flame Slash +3 Ghostfire and jumped back in.

I didn’t see a whole ton of white decks, but I’m still figuring out the sideboard. One of the challenges of playing in the tournament practice room is that the most tuned decks are the ones you generally won’t see. Green Infect makes up a big portion of the metagame and I have yet to see someone in tournament practice playing infect. My goal was to have about 20 games under my belt on various nights before putting tickets on the line. I knew I might need to play in the 2 ticket queues to actually get some practice against infect, but 20 practice games should be the minimum to tell me what kind of sideboard I need.

I left on Thursday night for Louisville to hear some awesome speakers talk about personal success. I got to thinking about this blog and MTG listening to John Maxwell, who is one of the most prolific writers on success in the world.  He was outlining his new book The 5 Levels of Leadership and I started wondering why exactly I’m writing this thing. After all, going infinite is really just being good enough at the game to win 55%. I outlined that in the first post. Then I got to wondering, am I that good? Are the people reading this good enough to win 55%?

That’s when I realized this is more about relationships. Sure, it’s my blog, my platform, but nobody has to read it. If you spend $200 on a Standard deck and loose 20 times because you need to get better at MTG, that just gets you frustrated. If you are like me, you might be the best person in your playgroup, but when you first started playing online or at larger events you got 0-3′d. What made me a better player was playing against better people, talking with them about how to play better. I’m no LSV or Gavin Verhey. These guys established thier relationships and then accepted their platform. If I show a simple example that lets a new player go infinite with a $20 deck and practice, then this series will be a success.

Perhaps if I show some matches I don’t play well, I might get some tips. I downloaded a screen recorder, so hopefully in the near future, I’ll be able to post some matchups that both you and I can learn from. One area I’ve always struggled in is the mirror match. In my local playgroup, I’m 70-80% in the mirror. Obviously since we have the same deck, I know I’m better than those players.  I need to find new players, and online is a great place to do that.  Keep in mind that if your goal is to learn, you have to watch and play differently than if your goal is simply entertainment. I watch live PT coverage for entertainment. I watch replays to learn.

I didn’t give a running tally last time, so here are the current values. Koth declined more than I expected. I was comfortable with his mythic status holding on to value, but redemptions didn’t keep him up. I would have liked to have gotten more for him but I sold them out at 10 each. That’s a 12 ticket loss. Ouch. On the plus side Ratchet Bomb increased in value by 3 each. I’m mad that I missed the huge jump in Sword of War and Peace. At one point I could have easily swapped my Koth’s for them even.

I do want to point out that my normal “quote” bot Supernova actually discounted my Koths I was going to sell. It offered me 10 for the first one, 9.6 for the second one, 9.2 for the 3rd one and 9.0 for the 4th one. I was pretty upset about that. I would advise anyone trading with any bots to make sure they are honoring thier quoted prices and make sure when you complete the trade that the math adds up. Don’t trust the bot to have good math. I found a random buyer online to pick them up at 10 each. I’ll be certainly spending more time at MTGOtraders, CardNexus and Marlon now for sure. I sold some of my random stuff, and my packs to CardNexus. First time using them and I’m pretty happy with the experience.

Here is my collection value as of 2/8/2012

Trade Stock	Value
70 Event Tickets	1
3 Inkmoth Nexus	8
4 Promo Wurmcoil Engine	4.2
3 Skitiryx, the Blight Dragon	5.6
4 Seachrome Coast	5.4
4 Ratchet Bomb	3.6
Misc Non-Staples (Mythics/Rares)	1
Total	164

Non-Trade Staples	Value
1 Pauper Goblin Deck	18
1 Momir Vig Avatar	10
1 Playset of M11 Lands	7
1 Playset of Fetch Lands	72
Total	107

For those of you following along my original starting value was 251 Tix. Today’s values are 271 Tix.

Two cards I’m thinking about putting in my collection as “trade bait” are Garruk Primal Hunter and/or Birthing Pod.
I’m also considering picking up either a W/R Humans or U/G Mill Block Constructed deck if either of them is still competitive post DKA release.

Last week we looked at werewolves, one of the obvious design tropes included in Innistrad Block. My intention was to talk about the other tribal deck that seems to have enough synergy to play by itself, the Humans, but I was detoured by a rather friendly ghost. The Geist of Saint Traft. There has been a lot of debate about whether or not a 2/2 with Hexproof was strong enough for constructed. Sure his early play and alpha-striking angel is quick beats, but 1WU “target player takes 4 damage next turn” isn’t really as good as it could be.

Then along came The SCG Open in Indianapolis and Court Schuett applying beats with Angelic Destiny showing us the true potential of Saint Traft (That’s 10 damage in the air on Turn 4 by the way).

Block Constructed doesn’t have Angelic Destiny, but it does have a card that provides similar protection and power to the Geist of Saint Traft: Runechanter’s Pike.

At first glance Runechanter’s Pike seems like a big fail in a long line of “win-more” equipment. Originally I had planned to try “the chainsaw,” Trepination Blade as a power boosting equipment, because first strike was cheeper on Sharpened Pitchfork, but then I realized that a small power boost, even 2-3 would be enough to keep the Geist of Saint Traft, who I have now nicknamed “Gus,” from trading with a lot of ground pounders. Furthermore outside of graveyard attacking cards, which are painfully targeted in this set, the power boost was completely controllable. A touch of self mill, and card draw would be perfect for powering up our friendly ghost.

Creatures

There were a lot of good creatures besides Gus, and its very possible that a W/U/x Human/Geist midrange deck will emerge with more of a aggro-control feel.

Lantern Spirit is another great “blinky” card which have always had a great place in control decks. It gets in the way early and late game can double as a Pike Holder. Armored Scaab can also fill this roll, but I think Lantern Spirit does it better. Obviously its not as strong as when damage stayed on the stack, but its still a great card.

Sturmgeist may get replaced, but the idea was to provide a large body flyer for the end game.

Chapel Geist, Spectral Rider, Mindshrieker and Invisible Stalker were all considered as potential “Pike Carriers”, but they don’t provide the same versatility as the other cards.

Snapcaster Mage was considered, and in fact may end up replacing Sturmgeist, but we want to keep our instants in the graveyard, and many of the best ones flashback on their own. The ability to flash back Dissipate and Midnight Haunting could very well push this card over the edge, but I want to test the deck without it first.

Civilized Scholar is actually a great card for this deck, but he seemed like he would rather be holding a pitchfork. There were just better cards. Derranged Assistant provides some mana and mill, and was a card that I tried very hard to squeeze in. I may come back to him if I find the deck acting too slow.

Foe Hunter could find a sideboard slot, but right now he’s at the mercy of his double white mana cost and the fact that he would get wrathed away or easily destroyed by an opponent who wanted thier fatty back. I’d rather they spend all thier mana to re-cast a big card than to get thier creature back end of turn for the small price of a couple red.

Spells

Nearly every blue deck in Block is starting to run the 12 control cards Dissipate, Think Twice, and Forbidden Alchemy. Some of the other cards I chose might have normally played as creatures or enchantments, but I wanted to up the cards that would pump the pike.

Divine Reckoning helps keep the deck from getting over-run.

Frightful Delusion could have been Lost in Mist, either way the goal was to up the counter package. Obviously one is good early, the other late.

Midnight Haunting provides early blockers, extra bodies to protect against edicts, and of course pike holders.

Silent Departure provides a bit of tempo gain, and if necessary token removal.

Like most prototypical lists I haven’t put togeather a sideboard yet. I intend to start my testing against the werewolf deck I posted last week, a Liliana Control List provided by TheWhetherMan of MTGS. Happy Haunting.

Our adventure into the pauper format started with a quick view of the pauper metagame and what was actually winning online. I, personally, am not a great innovator, but I have been able to optimize a decklist or adapt it for a specific metagame.

Wizards of the Coast keeps a running archive of the decks from daily or higher tournaments that finished “In the Money” IE won packs.

The buy price of an M12 booster right now is 3.6. Normally I would draft them, but this close to Innistrad release, I plan to sell any winnings so that I can invest in ISD block cards. To stay above water I need to win 55.55% of 2 mans ques or 3-1 55.55% of the time in[card] Daily events.

With a budget of less than 50 tickets, my goal was to make two pauper decks so that I would have options. Classic pauper decks have gone up recently but most of them can be had for less than 20 tix. I first looked at the green infect lists which have a pretty high 4-0 percentage, because I already had most of the cards, but then I saw Invigorate.

This innocous little common hasn’t been officially printed online yet. The only way to get it is via Commander products or via Duel Decks. Most of the major bots are out of stock and even if they were the average rate is about 14 tickets each. Infect is out.

I found a couple of goblin lists that were regularly in the money including 4-0 records that could be built for about 5 tickets. Most of that was wrapped up in the Tempest Block goblins: Mogg Raider, Mogg Flunkies, and Mogg Conscripts.

The other rather inexpensive deck that appeared was Mystical Teachings Control. Having drafted a lot in the teachings era I had quite a few of the commons already, so only the Tempest block commons cost anything and those could be had for less than 2 tickets.

Storm is a very solid deck that puts up good numbers, and the price has come down due to the bannings in Modern, but the deck still costs over 20 tickets due to Lotus Petals Rite of Flame and Manamorphose.

I went shopping for the goblin list, figuring it was one of the cheaper decks on the market. Checking out the 4-0 lists I started plugging cards into a deck (Slide 1). This is by far the easiest way to shop for cards. See Slide 2 for how to use a checklist with a bot. It’s important to keep the deck editor open and refresh after each purchase (Slide 4).

Ironically this week I was introduced to Momir Basic and decided to actually give it a go. I paid cash for the decklist ($-10) since it was only .5 tix or so cheeper for just the avatar, and I’m a sucker for foil promo lands. I played a few matches in the tournament practice room, and got introduced to the ins and outs of the format. I’ll put links to the primers I read in the comments, but most of them are out of date since they are at least a year old so don’t have Eldrazi or any of the new Commander cards included in their discussion. (I had a player create a bunch of Eldrazi Spawn tokens off of an Eldrazi Spawnsire and then Vig for 15 to cast Emrakul, the Eons Torn. There are still a few choices that allude me, such as whether to pay the upkeep on Elder Dragon Legends such as Nicol Bolas, but I’m sure it will come to me.

I played 5 games in the 2 man ques going 2-3 (games: 6-7) and while building the goblin deck I actually hopped in the Momir daily on Sunday night. My simic mojo was at an all time low. I went 1-2 in the daily (games: 3-5) getting blown out in round 2 by one of the best 5 drops in the format (see slide 4), and in round 3 by Terestodon. While I think Momir is fun, and I certainly will play it in the future, I don’t think it’s really a viable path to reliably increasing your net worth, and if it is, I don’t have enough tix to invest in learning the format. Needless to say, we’re back to our original plan of Pauper.

I also found out that the best goblin lists seem to run Gorilla Shaman in the board over cheeper options, so I liquidated my M12 packs and my SoM packs and bought them at just over 4 tix each.

My total goblin list is below and ran be just a shave over 24 tix. I apparently had some credit with Marlonbot from the last time I played PDC so my out of pocket in this adventure was 22 tix to marlon and 1 tix to superbot (my 100 commons for 1 chain of choice) which I have about .4 tix left over in credit.

Here’s the list I ended up with:

Join us next time as we test the deck, make necessary changes and get in some tournament play.
My in/out for the week looks like this:

Momir Deck (-$10)
Goblin List -23 tix
Momir Entry Fees -16 tix
Pack/Oracle of Mul Daya Sale: +16 tix

How do I go Infinite?” In my opinion is the most commonly asked question about Magic Online. Other questions are related. “How much does it cost to draft?”, “How much do online cards cost compared to paper?” “Can I make money playing magic?” Many people ask these questions, but they don’t really think about the benefits of going infinite beyond playing for free. The most important thing, that infinite does, for anyone who wants to be a better player, is to remove the majority of the financial burden of play testing. Going infinite can be a means to an end, or it can be a means to something bigger.

In this series, I’m going to take a first hand approach to going infinite. I’ll discuss topics specific to going infinite, such as what decks to build, when not to net-deck, and what tournaments to enter. I’ll cover broader collection management issues as well, such as when to sell cards and when to expand your collection.

In this article I’ll discuss some of the ground rules. I’m not going to hold myself to crazy artificial standards such as starting a new $10 account, but I will try to keep things somewhat limited so that aspiring infinite players can follow along.

Ground Rules
1) Starting Capital – The current value of my collection is about $250. I will be using Supernova Bots online Buy Prices for rare card values, and MTGO Traders buy prices for commons/uncommons over 1 ticket. I won’t be keeping track of any uncommons that bots won’t buy for less than 1 ticket.
2) I will post the value of my collection in each post including any value I have to add to my account along the way.
3) I will consider myself to be infinite any time I can play regularly for a three month stretch without loosing more than 20% of my account value.
4) I will only engage in speculation to avoid speculative price impacts. What that means is that this isn’t a blog where I’m going to tell you to buy 50 copies of Snapcaster Mage.

If you think I should restrain myself further, let me know. For now, here’s the starting value of my collection:

Trade Stock	Value
41 Event Tickets	1
2 Packs of Mirrodin Besieged	4.1
2 Packs of Scars of Mirrodin	4.0
4 Koth of the Hammer	13.5
3 Inkmoth Nexus	7.2
4 Promo Wurmcoil Engine	4.2
3 Skitiryx, the Blight Dragon	2.9
4 Seachrome Coast	2.9
4 Ratchet Bomb	1
Misc Non-Staples (Mythics/Rares)	4.2
Total	178

Non-Trade Staples	Value
Playset of Fetchlands	70
Playset of M11 Lands	3
Total	73

Before I go, I want to talk a bit about planned strategy. The best format to grind packs is by far Standard. The tournaments are the biggest and they constantly fire. While I could likely cash out completely and build Tempered Steel, but that might not be the best deck, and I would rather take a chance at improving my collection over the long haul.

I’ve always been a big fan of Block Constructed, both because the current drafted sets add to your pool, and because Block cards tend to hold their value for the longest outside of eternal staples.

I’m a big fan of the Modern format, and find most of the decks inexpensive compared to Standard. Modern formats fire quickly and are currently the third most popular format online with Standard being the first. The second most popular format was a surprise to me, but its actually Pauper. The format has come a long way since Empty the Warrens and Crypt Rats ruled the roost alone. Pauper decks generally cost about 15 tickets as long as you stay away from unprinted cards such as Daze, and they are now fully supported which gives an amazing value.

My current plan for going infinite over the next six months is as follows.
1) Take my current event tickets and build 1-2 Pauper decks based on winning lists from PDC Magic and Daily lists.
2) Generate tickets to play in Innistrad Release Events which have a very strong EV.
3) Fill out plausible Block Constructed decklists and grind daily events.
4) Generate enough value in my collection to completely cover Dark Ascension Release Events + Drafts.
5) Continue to expand into either Standard or Modern.

Following along? Comment below.

While I played quite a bit of Scars of Mirrodin single set block, I will admit that like a lot of other players, I lost a lot of interest in Block Constructed as the metagame became more defined. Here we stand on the precipice of a new set Innistrad and all its Gothic Horror. The deck-builder senses are tingling and players are looking to define a gauntlet. Looking over the quick list of cards in the Innistrad Card Image Gallery I see a few themes that players should be looking at, and some things that will make your deck go bump in the night.

This set has been compared to Lorwyn’s tribal theme with each allied pair sharing a troop. Humans are in White and Green, Spirits in White and Blue, Zombies in Blue and Black, Vampires in Black and Red, and finally Werewolves in Red and Green. One of the first things I noticed about this block is that it will be a lot slower than the last two blocks. There isn’t enough removal to clear the board easily outside of sweepers so many games with poorly thought out decks will feel like limited stalemates. Quite a bit of removal is narrow targeting either humans or non humans, or specific tribes. This makes it rather hard to make a balanced deck with the absolute best removal a factor that will come back later when we start to look at how to break stalemates.

Humans at first glance look really strong with all their +1/+1 counters, but staying in White/Green will surely limit your choices of board control in a deck that isn’t really fast enough to be considered aggressive. The human decks may well be about clogging up the ground and waiting for powerful angels to come to their aid.

The other aggressive deck that people will turn to first is the werewolf deck. To see if this deck was viable, the first thing was to isolate a list of playable creatures.

Green
Ambush Viper I almost looked over this little snake as limited fodder, and while he may not fit in an aggressive deck, he might go all in with the defensive Humans.
Darkthicket Wolf is an aggressive Rootwalla. Playable in a pinch.
Daybreak Ranger gives us an anti-flyer ability in human form, and a powerful removal package in werewolf form. It’s a bit slow, but could help to break those stalemates or deal with pesky small creatures.
Gatstaf Shepherd is certainly playable.
Kessig Cagebreakers might be playable, but its not a 4 of.
Mayor of Avabruck helps keep our humans alive if they aren’t flipped, and pumps our werewolves. Auto-include.
Splinterfright looks like a potential finisher and helps pump himself.
Ulvenwald Mystics and Villagers of Estwald seem a bit vanilla, but both transform to be sizable werewolves. The mystics with thier regeneration and 5 power are stronger, but the villagers come down a turn earlier.

Red
Insigator Gang transforms into the mighty Wildblood Pack an 8/5 trample on attack.
Kruin Outlaw lets us know that marginal green werewolves will not be playable. Combined with Wildblood Pack the Terror of Kruin Pass swings for Lethal. Let that sink in. (6/3 Double Strike + 8/5 Trample).
Reckless Waif gets us off to a great start and unanswered swings for at least 3 on turn 2.
Village Ironsmith is a decent card that might make the cut if the 2 drop slot is thinly populated.

Next we’ll look at spells. Red has excellent single target spells, sweepers, and is one of the few colors able to hit the dome. Green offers us none other than Garruk Relentless.

Green
Bramblecrush gets rid of a host of pesky things, but only a few really affect the werewolves. Artifacts in particular are better dealt with more efficient spells.
Caravan Vigil is a great card both early game and late game. I expect to play this card heavily any time I’m in green.
Creeping Renaissance might fit as a one-of, but most likely it’s a “win more”.
Full Moon’s Rise Certainly deserves testing, but it may not really have a spot.
Garruk Relentless is a great card in himself, providing removal or free wolves. After transformation he provides more wolves and the ability to end the game. Auto include.
Moonmist may be playable. I see a lot of fear on the other side of the board due to the threat of this card during combat.
Prey Upon is green removal. That’s pretty good I hear as long as you have a creature.

Red
Ancient Grudge is back for all your artifact slaying needs. It will fit in the board if not main deck.
Brimstone Volly is straight up red removal, and is a great after combat spell with the ability to deal 5 for a lowly 3 mana.
Desperate Ravings If RUG ends up as a deck thanks to enemy lands, this card will be a staple. It likely isn’t strong enough for Werewolves to play it without the ability to flash it back.
Devil’s Play = Red Sun Zenith level finish the game ability. Play it early to clear a problem creature, flash it back for the win.
Traitorus Blood may find his home in sideboards for dealing with problem creatures on the other side that burn alone can’t handle.

Most of the good equipment in this set are actually Anti-Monster, but that doesn’t keep us from picking out the choice bits for ourselves.

Artifact/Lands
Traveler’s Amulet provides additional ramp, and fixing. I may not be necessary playing green, but expect to see some blue decks playing this.
Ghost Quarter is an old fan favorite. It may fit to deal with enemy trouble lands, but won’t penalize a player for not having enough of a color.
Kessig Wolf Run is yet another answer to “how do I win the game if it stalls”. This card may also end up in RUG targeting some evasive spirits.

I think the basic lands in this set look awesome, and I may find myself playing them over my full art Zendikar lands. That’s saying something. I’m especially fond of Forest 263 and Mountain 260.

Build the Deck

I started with a very high creature count including 4 Reckless Waif. I think if I played a lot more red, I would put her back in, but the shear amount of 1-2 drops that are green makes me want green early and caused me to cut mountains. I exchanged her for burn which will give me reach and help clear the way. Like the deck? Would you change something? Comment Below, and join us next time when we look at U/W and the Ghosts of Block Constructed Past. The night is young. Hawooooo!

I was watching the ggslive coverage of GP Pittsburgh today and the commentary from Ben Seck and Ray Punzalan drifted to a concept that I am dubbing Format Fatigue.

They were saying that with the SCG open series showing pro and semi-pro players playing standard each week that the metagame defines itself faster than when there were only several high level events per quarter.

I began to wonder if the dominance of Caw-Blade and the banning of Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mindsculptor would have been avoidable if there simply wasn’t as much high level standard being played.

No where is this more prevalent than in formats that are primarily played on Magic Online like Block Constructed. Generally unless a combination is discovered in the middle of a release that was previously hidden from players the format stabilizes in about 2-3 weeks.

The number of percieved viable decks shrinks to three as everyone copies the best decks and tournament play starts to feel like playtesting since you see the same matches over and over again. Players start to expect bannings as a way to “fix” a format that has fatigued. By shrinking the card pool slightly perhaps new archetypes are allowed to thrive.

The main reason we are seeing such a surge of interest in Modern right now is that the format is wide open. It could literally take months before we even have a viable metagame and the addition of new cards will stay ahead of that metagame for quite a while, especially if the cards continue to be strong. Surprisingly without a big event, players are already noting the ten-fold increase in the price of Vesuva and speculating that Twelve-Post may be on the way out the door. Of course Cloudpost would be the card to ban, but I see no evidence that Twelve-Post is anywhere near the dominant deck in a Fatiuged Format, esp when the best Twelve-Post deck is still up for grabs.

As the player made format Overextended has lost support to Modern, I will be including Modern in the mix of formats I intend to blog about. There is even a chance that I may play Standard next season on the release of Innistrad since my Scars Block card pool is full of just about everything I consider a staple and some of the less interesting cards from Zen block will be gone.

What do you think? Do formats fatigue faster than they used to? If the formats weren’t seeing as much play, do you think Jace or SFM could have escaped the banhammer? What do you think about modern?

Twas the Night before Nagoya a Pro Tour to be had,
MTGO was churning, Block Constructed’s not bad
The Meta was strung out giving players their feel.
Was their really a deck that could beat Tempered Steel?

First Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas was unplayable, then he was a house, and by the end of MBS the deck was a mouse. As of this writing a full half of the metagame on MTGO is dominated by artifact aggro characterized by Tempered Steel. Players have been scrambling to find decks that can stem the tide, and Artifact/Enchantment hate has been showing up in droves easily main-deckable.

The trick for the Pro’s this weekend will be finding a deck that can not only hold its own against Steel, but one that has a better than average chance against the rest of the meta as well.

There may one more reason they call it April Fool’s Day. I feel almost dirty telling you this, like I’m giving away a trade secret, but as we approach peak Standard season, the next two months are the time to dump your Zendikar Block cards.

I shouldn’t have to tell you that Jace, the Mind Sculptor will lose $30 between April 1, and Sept 1, but he will. If he gets reprinted in M12 he will nearly halve in value instantly. If he rotates he will lose about 33% of his value, which would be higher if he wasn’t the most in demand card in Extended. Of course selling him right now might cost you $15 depending on where you dump him, but Jace’s can be traded for a whole host of things right now that are safer places to “park” money, and you might even be able to get a premium by trading down. I would trade a Jace for 12 Wurmcoil Engine’s or 8 Sword of Feast and Famine in a heartbeat. If you like to draft, perhaps trade Jace for a box of MBS. The only real question is, “am I willing and able to play in standard tournaments for the next 6 months without him”?  If you only play FNM then this should be an easy choice. If you are still grinding PTQ/Grand Prix circuits then $120 worth of Jace may be an opportunity cost you have to pay.

I’m not one that normally likes to “gamble” through rotations. I might keep cards I am constantly playing with and take my losses, but I don’t normally like to take proven money and put it into speculative ventures, and certainly not into the next hot unproven thing. I feel Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is in this category. I wouldn’t have an issue trading a Jace for two Tezzeret, especially if I could get a throw in, but I would be looking to move on from Tezzeret as soon as possible. Other speculative ventures include Elspeth Tirel, and Koth of the Hammer. Anything that “may see play if…” is speculative. A great speculation story is Grave Titan.

Grave Titan started out as the second best titan at $20. He was the best aggressive titan, but he didn’t have a deck. He held on for a long time finally getting down to $10. Now the theory was, he couldn’t lose more than another $2 simply on being mythic, but Inferno Titan is still tanking at $4.50 so that theory is really shot.  Of course the people who gambled on Grave Titan made out as he showed up in U/B control in the World Championships and rocked back up to $18. The theory was, “black has sucked for so long that it has to get better.” There are no grounds for that decision; it’s just rolling the dice. If it works out in your favor, you can brag on the forums about how you saw it coming. If it doesn’t you’re out $5 per titan. Feed your ego, or feed your family? I hear people make those statements about Elspeth Tirel on a near daily basis. She’ll be the white planeswalker when Gideon rotates. Maybe, or maybe Elspeth, Knight Errant gets reprinted in M12 and people prefer her. It’s better speculation, but it’s still speculation.

Of course if your theory is that Elspeth shouldn’t go down much more and that it might go up, this may be preferred to the 100% knowledge that Jace will go down, yet you are giving up that playability.  I generally prefer to park money during rotations in “staples” that don’t move a lot. Usually those staples were lands. For years pain lands were my bread and butter, yet the smaller set sizes don’t allow us to treat SoM duals or “fastlands” as if they were $5 bills. Most of these lands barely sell for over $1.50 each, and while they are a fine place to park value for $1-2 cards, there is no guarantee of demand for them that would allow you to trade back up.  

Last year’s rotation gave us a gift in Fetch Lands, and Fetch Lands are what I am really here to discuss.  Many players who have actively sought them have been able to acquire a minimum of the 40 card play set. That play set will lose about $3 per land on rotation or about $120 in value. They have been sitting in your binder for the last year as literal $10 bills. Selling them on eBay will run you $60-80, so it would only save you $40 if you had to buy them back. You’re a lot better off trading them where you can. I’ll offer you several scenarios depending on your situation and suggestions for managing your collection:

FNM/PTQ Grinder:

You only plan on playing extended if it shows up in next year’s PTQ season, so trade for hot SOM or MBS block staples. Stay away from M11 and anything in Zen Block.

Eternal Player:

If you know a lot of people who will trade for eternal staples, trade them for older things like Aether Vials, Duals, and other cards that have a proven track record. Aim at cards that are at least five years old.

Limited Player:

If you primarily play limited, trade them for packs. This is a good strategy for anyone who consumes large quantities of packs drafting. Just be careful not to trade them for $6 store credit towards your next draft. You should be able to get at least 3 packs each for them if not more. If you have the type of store where you can trade packs away, then it’s all the better. In my previous article, I told you they were worth more sealed anyway.

Commander/Casual Player:

Get what you need. Unless you are holding a bunch of extra fetches, keep the ones you need for your decks and trade the rest at a premium to those few people who still must have them. Keep in mind that you can get them back in a few months for a lot less.

If you don’t fit into one of those molds or if you have a specific question about your collection, leave a comment and let me know. I’ll be happy to respond.