Hello everyone! Ben’s corner is the place where you can find out the latest goings-on at StarCityGames.com. I have a lot of site news to go over, so let’s skip the appetizers and get right to the main course, shall we?
As of today, the buylist is once again active! As many of you know, our esteemed webmaster The Ferrett will be programming a fully automated buylist for use on the site. However, the automated buylist has been delayed and so we’ve put back up our regular buylist. If you’re looking to turn your cards into cash or looking to do some trading, check out the buylist today! Please note that at this time, I’m still repricing a lot of sets from when the buylist went offline (in July), so as of today only about half of the sets are accounted for on the buylist. All sets will be put back up by next Friday so keep checking back if you have cards to sell from sets that aren’t on the list. As of now, all base sets from Revised through 9th, all type 2 legal sets, and all sets alphabetically from Alliances through Homelands are back on the list.
StarCityGames.com is hiring! We are currently looking to fill the positions of Buyer and Sales Associate. If you are interested in one of these positions, please click here for more information.
Card of the week: Super Secret Tech from Unhinged!
We’ve added quite a few Unhinged cards to our inventory over the course of this week. These cards include thousands of Unhinged Basic Lands, hundreds of Unhinged Foil lands, and a ridiculous number of Unhinged foils. Look for a complete restocking of all Unhinged non-foil cards to happen around noon today.
Ravnica: City of Guilds sealed product and complete sets are available for pre-order. The set continues to look incredible, as evidenced by the latest cards spoiled on MTGSalvation.com over the past week. I had some preliminary information about Ravnica in last week’s column. From all indications Ravnica deals heavily in multi-colored cards, and here are a couple of gold cards courtesy of MTGSalvation.com.
Dimir Cutpurse – UB1
Creature – Human Wizard(?)
Whenever Dimir Cutpurse deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card and you draw a card.
2/2
Dimir Cutpurse reminds me of Shadow Infiltrator – it has the same aggregate power and toughness, but it loses fear in exchange for the ability to cause your opponent to discard. If MTGSalvation.com is accurate on this card, it will surely be a powerhouse in multiple formats.
Loxodon ? – WG2
Creature – Elephant Cleric
When -this- comes into play, you gain 4 life.
GW, Sacrifice -this-: Regenerate all creatures you control.
4/4
A 4/4 creature for four mana with no drawbacks is nothing to sneeze at. Mix in a touch of Staunch Defenders and the creature rises to the top of the playable curve. The regeneration ability is just gravy on the train at that point.
What’s Hot:
The 2005 Legacy Championship tournament will be held at Gen Con in just a week, but already sales of Legacy oriented cards have started to skyrocket. The sudden upswell in interest in Legacy came when Wizards of the Coast announced that two Grand Prix later this year (one in Philadelphia in November and one in Lille, France in December) will be using the Legacy format to qualify people for Pro Tour: Honolulu. Many Legacy cards have been showing unrestrained growth in value, especially the original set of ten dual lands. These form the basis of the mana in the format, and are highly sought after as they can be used in multiple decks. Other cards that have had increased interest can be broken down by deck type.
1) Dual Lands (Badlands, Bayou, Plateau, Savannah, Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author], Taiga, Tropical Island, Tundra, Underground Sea, Volcanic Island): These have been steadily increasing in value over the past year due to interest in Vintage, but the sudden surge in popularity of Legacy has driven the value of these ten cards up to the highest point they’ve ever been at in Magic’s history. This trend does not look to continue to stop – essentially, Dual Lands are the power ten of Legacy. While you might not need all forty to compete, the basis of deck building in the format is firmly rooted around these tremendous mana fixers. In particular, the four Dual Lands that can produce Blue mana (Tropical Island, Tundra, Underground Sea, Volcanic Island) have had the highest interest. The second tier consists of Bayou and Taiga, then Badlands, Savannah and Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author], and finally Plateau as the least popular of the ten. Pick these up now if you intend on playing Legacy – they’ve nearly doubled in price in the past year, and will almost certainly be more expensive come November.
2 & 3) High Tide and Reset: Remember the old High Tide deck in Extended? It’s back, except it’s even faster than ever before thanks to Reset, a formerly neglected card out of the Legends set. Many regard the Reset build of High Tide to be the best deck in the format – and it is certainly the deck to watch going into next week’s championship.
4 & 5) Survival of the Fittest and Squee, Goblin Nabob: Survival of the Fittest is one of the most powerful cards in the format, and players have been using it since the inception of Legacy. Squee and Survival go hand in hand, and both are climbing back up to their values in the days when they were hot Standard and Extended cards.
6 & 7) Lion’s Eye Diamond and Lotus Petal: Zero drop acceleration in any format is something to be watched. Both of these cards have been restricted in Vintage, and many say the pair are too powerful to stay unbanned in Legacy. Until then, there are a lot of players intent on abusing the power of using Lion’s Eye Diamond to fuel out both storm-intensive combo decks and fast madness-accelerated decks.
8 & 9 & 10) Goblin Lackey, Goblin Ringleader, and Goblin Warchief: These three Goblin uncommons (from Urza’s Saga, Apocalypse and Scourge, respectively) are the basis of the very much alive-and-kicking Legacy legal Goblin deck. This is essentially the same version of the Goblin deck that was dominating Extended before the banning of Lackey and loses virtually none of its punch in the transition to Legacy. This deck is one that many players will be using to transition from Extended to Legacy, as 90% of the cards in the deck are the same from one format to the other.
That’s all the time I’ve got this week. I hope you all enjoyed Ben’s Corner, and I’ll see you all next week. Until then, don’t forget to visit the buylist!
Ben Bleiweiss
General Manager, StarCityGames.com