{From Right Field is a column for Magic players on a budget or players who don’t want to play netdecks. The decks are designed to let the budget-conscious player be competitive in local, Saturday tournaments. They are not decks that will qualify a player for The Pro Tour. As such, the decks written about in this column are, almost by necessity, rogue decks. They contain, at most, eight to twelve rares. When they do contain rares, those cards will either be cheap rares or staples of which new players should be trying to collect a set of four, such as Wildfire, Llanowar Wastes, or Birds of Paradise. The decks are also tested by the author, who isn’t very good at playing Magic. His playtest partners, however, are excellent. He will never claim that a deck has an 85% winning percentage against the entire field. He will also let you know when the decks are just plain lousy. Readers should never consider these decks “set in stone” or “done.” If you think you can change some cards to make them better, well, you probably can, and the author encourages you to do so.}
A lot of you don’t want to hear this, and, frankly, I don’t know why. I have once again convinced myself that there are ultra-rares and ultra-uncommons.
Now, I can already hear the nay-sayers. “You’re just unlucky. Why, I got four Umezawa’s Jittes in one box. And that happens to me all the time.” To be honest, I can’t understand this attitude. Do you really think that there’s any statistical difference between you getting four Overgrown Tombs in one box of Ravnica and me getting none in four boxes? Truly, there isn’t. Both are anomalies. Moreover, people who spout the there-can’t-be-ultra-rares-because-I-get-plenty-of-the-chase-rares line miss the point.
I don’t care how well things are going for you. I really don’t.
Um, my agent says that I should state that differently. You know, just in case I ever want to get an endorsement deal.
What I mean to say is that I’m happy for you. Really, I am. You got four black-bordered Birds of Paradise, one of them foil, in your half-box of Ravnica? Bully for you, dude! Now, instead of saying that there aren’t ultra-rares, how about saying, “Wow, I’m glad I’m not Romeo. His boxes stink.” I know that this sort of statistical anomaly happens. This summer, I watched a playtest buddy of mine, a great guy named Landon, open his whopping two packs for finishing in the Top 4 of a tourney. His rares were Umezawa’s Jitte and foil Umezawa’s Jitte. It does happen.
However, I opened two boxes of Ravnica and had the equivalent of Joe Torre’s day at bat for the Mets on July 21st, 1975. (He tied a major league record that day by hitting into four double plays, and the same man, Felix Milan, was on first base each time.)
“Wait a second,” the faithful ask. “You bought two boxes of cards? Isn’t that kinda not budget-minded?” Actually, that’s the whole point of a budget. You should be able to work it like I do. There are three sets a year. That’s about seventeen weeks between sets. If you set aside ten bucks a week for future Magic cards, you’ll have $170 when it’s time to pay for the new cards. That’s enough to get Pete and Ben to send you two boxes and pay for the good shipping (i.e. insured and tracked).
Anyway, I grounded into four double plays. Here are the cards that never showed. I got:
Zero Overgrown Tombs
Zero Temple Gardens
Zero Sacred Foundries
Zero Birds of Paradise
Zero Grave-Shell Scarab
Zero Hunted Dragon
Zero Life from the Loam
Zero Plague Boiler
Zero Sunforger
Zero Vinelasher Kudzu
Zero Vulturous Zombie
There are a few others of which I got none, but I think we’d all agree that these are chase rares for the set (except maybe the Vulturous Zombie which is just one that I wanted more than Ben Affleck wanted to make babies with any hottie named Jennifer). There are a couple that I did get one copy of including Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, Char, and Watery Grave. Wow. I’m so happy that I could crap my pants.
Want to feel even better about yourself? Let’s take a look at some of the uncommons that the Wizards folks thought were so hot that they deserved to be featured in preview articles. In my first two boxes, I got:
Zero Watchwolf
One Lightning Helix
Zero Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
One Nightmare Void
Two Carven Caryatid
One Putrefy (I know it wasn’t previewed, but we all know how hot this uncommon is; if it was a rare, it’d be a twenty-dollar rare)
I did get four copies of Telling Time and Twisted Justice. I’ll trade you the Twisted Justices for three Lightning Helixes. Yeah. I didn’t think so.
Just for comparison, let’s look at some of the rares that I happened to get three or four copies of. Yes, I got four copies of two of the rares out of the seventy-two in the two boxes:
Four Blood Funnel (currently going for one dollar each on StarCityGames.com)
Four Warp World (also one dollar each)
Three Ursapine (a dollar-fifty)
Three Pariah Shield (also one dollar each).
Yes, I hear at least one of you now. “But Blood Funnel’s a great card.” I’m sure it is. In fact, I feel compelled to build a deck around it. After all, I have four of them. Let’s disregard the fact that prices are typically directly related to how good the cards are. The fact is that I wanted all of those cards – at least one of each, anyway – on that first list. What I got was three and four of some cards that I’d gladly order from this here site for a buck each. I can’t afford to order four Sacred Foundries and four Overgrown Tombs.
“Yeah, because you bought two boxes, instead, you idiot.”
I hear this a lot, too. I think the comment’s not very well-thought out. Yes, I could have spent my money on Sacred Foundries and Overgrown Tombs instead of those two boxes, but I wouldn’t have gotten *any* other Ravnica cards. None. No Skyknight Legionnaires. No Shambling Shells. No Stinkweed Imps.
By the way, thanks to Bennie Smith for letting the world know that I wasn’t crazy. In fact, I think that he said that Stinkweed Imp was the cornerstone of his Top 8 States deck. I may stink at this game, but I’m not stupid. Ironic, isn’t it that I stink but that Stinkweed Imp doesn’t? (Yes, it is ironic. You know what isn’t ironic, though? Rain on your wedding day, Ms. Morissette. Sad, but not ironic.) (I guess, if you’re a meteorologist and you said it would be clear skies on your wedding day, and then it rained, it would be ironic. Clearly, though, not the exact scenario she was singing about.)
In other words, I still can’t afford to just plunk down cash for the chase rares. I don’t begrudge Star City charging what they do for the cards for two reasons. First, I’m not stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds me. Second, and more to the point, they aren’t overcharging for cards. They only charge what people are actually willing to pay for the cards.
I had a guy come up to me at a tourney a few weeks ago saying that the prices that Star City charged were too high. (I guess he figured that, since I write for Star City, I can somehow change the prices for him or have some influence over what they’re set at.) “I mean, Pithing Needle’s at twenty-three dollars. That’s ridiculous!”
I learned a thing or two about the Socratic method in law school. “How do you know that they’re at twenty-three bucks?” I asked.
“I tried to order some,” he said sheepishly.
“Did you get any?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“They were sold out.”
I suggested the young man enroll in a class on economics. You see, if Pete and Ben are charging twenty-three dollars for a card and that card’s sold out, then, by definition, they aren’t charging too much. They are either charging just enough for the card, or they are charging *gasp* too little. As I write this, for example, Pithing Needle is up to twenty-five dollars, and Star City has a whopping four in stock. Whoops, now, it’s down to three in stock. Compare this to Adamaro, First to Desire. It’s at three bucks, and there are forty in stock. Supply and demand:
High supply + Low Demand = Low Price (see, e.g., rats in the kitchen)
Low Supply + High Demand = High Price (see, e.g., gasoline or Halle Berry in your new movie)
“Why does any of this matter?” you ask. “I thought you said you were giving up paper Magic for MTGO.” I am. I had already pre-ordered my Ravnica boxes, though. I was hoping to continue the streak that started with Champions boxes that Ben sent me. (See the December 20th, 2004, edition of From Right Field.) However, as I feared, Champions was the aberration as far as it concerned me getting good cards. I’m back to my old ways again. Sadly. Much like a dying city that you just can’t seem too move out of, I may not like it, but at least I’m comfortable here.
As for MTGO, the first thing I’m doing today – after my dial-up connection finishes downloading the Ravnica update – is buying two of the G/B preconstructed deck, Golgari Deathcreep. Then, I’m going to work on modifying the deck for some tournament play.
Why did I pick that deck? First of all, I’ve always liked the color combination of Green and Black. It may have been in one of my SCG Daily pieces where I mentioned how I first broke out of the friendly-colors mindset. You know the one. Many new players get taught that you build either mono-colored decks or two-color decks using only friendly colors. You never use enemy colors because, well, they’re enemies. After a few months playing this game, it struck me that, while Black and Green might be enemies on the color wheel, they complemented each other quite well. Black destroys creatures; Green makes big creatures. Black lets Green break on through to the other side, yeah. Made perfect sense to me.
Second, look at the decklist for Golgari Deathcreep:
24 Lands
11 Swamp
11 Forest
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
24 Creatures
1 Thoughtpicker Witch
2 Infectious Host
2 Stinkweed Imp
2 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Elvish Skysweeper
2 Golgari Brownscale
3 Greater Mossdog
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Savra, Queen of the Golgari
2 Shambling Shell
2 Woodwraith Strangler
2 Golgari Rotwurm
2 Drooling Groodion
1 Golgari Guildmage
12 Other Spells
2 Darkblast
2 Last Gasp
1 Necromantic Thirst
1 Vigor Mortis
1 Moldervine Cloak
2 Recollect
1 Rolling Spoil
2 Putrefy
With two of those in my tool belt, I’ll have two Svogthoses, two Savras, two Golgari Grave-Trolls, two Vigor Mortises, four Darkblast, four Recollect, four Shambling Shell, four Stinkweed Imps, and, most importantly, four Putrefies. I’ll have a start on one heck of a deck. It’ll be better than I can do in real life since I only have one Putrefy IRL, as the kids say.
In fact, I’ve already been testing it online a bit.
“How could you possibly do that? Ravnica’s not on MTGO yet, and we know that you won’t/can’t do Workstation or Apprentice.”
I was one of the Beta testers. Jealous? I know I’d be. It was like the ad for that cruise line where the people walk around in a daze after they get home from their cruise. “I was a king. I was not to be awaken before nine. There were fresh roses in my room every day.” I felt like that this morning when I found that Beta testing was over.
On the Beta server, I had access to four copies of each card from several sets, including Seventh Edition, Champions, and Ravnica. On the Beta server, they gave me hundreds of packs from other sets so that we could draft and test as many fun-kay combinations of cards as we could think up in an effort to see what bugs we could find. I even found a bug in Mindleech Mass. (It wouldn’t let you play a card once you hit your opponent with it.) On Beta, I opened almost five hundred packs of Ninth Edition in an effort to find pain lands. I ended up with only one Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author], two Shivan Reef, two Yavimaya Coast, and three Caves of Koilos. I did get four copies of each of the other pain lands. Isn’t it interesting, though, that the toughest-to-get pain lands even online were the ones reprinted not for the umpteenth time but the ones being reprinted for the first time?
“Oh, come one, now. You think that the 9E reprints of the Apocalypse painlands are ultra-rares? Puh-lease.”
Here are the facts. I opened nearly five hundred packs of 9E. When all was said and done, there were six cards of which I didn’t have four copies: the four pain lands mentioned above; Flowstone Slide (I had two); and Form of the Dragon (three).
“See? The fact that Flowstone Slide and Form of the Dragon are in there shows that it’s just randomness that makes you get fewer than four of some stuff.”
No. If it was truly random, then two-freakin’-thirds of the under-fours wouldn’t have been reprints of Apocalypse pain lands. One maybe, but not eighty per cent of them. That’s ridiculous. All the Flowstone Slide and Form of the Dragon show is that, regarding the cards that *aren’t* ultra-rares, yes, sometimes randomness means you don’t get four of them.
Beta gave me a chance to play some wacky drafts life RAV/9E/MIRAGE. It also gave me a chance to open hundreds of Odyssey packs. I don’t know if you remember or if you even care, but I’ve never opened a Call of the Herd or Shadowmage Infiltrator in real life. Of course, that was only over the course of about four boxes, roughly 150 packs. I opened over three times that many online. In the end, I got only two Call of the Herd and two Shadowmage Infiltrators in early 500 packs of Odyssey. Care to guess how many Cantivores I got? I’ll hide the answer in here somewhere later.
The bottom line is this: regardless of what you “think” or “feel” about ultra-rares, I have compiled way, way too much actual data on the subject. It may be a small sample, but it’s more than, well, everyone else. I don’t “think” or “feel” that there are so-called ultra-rares. My data tell me that there most certainly are ultra-rares. At this point, I will only be convinced that there are *not* ultra-rares in one way. Wizards will have to allow me to watch the printing process as it happens and allow me to see uncut sheets of cards. Until then, I have no choice. I know what’s happened to me. In the first set of cards of a block, I get the so-called chase rares at a much, much lower rate per pack than I get the rest of the rares.
I’m pretty sure that you’re either with me (“Heck fire, yeah! That’s exactly what happens to me!”) or against me (“What a whiner. I got four Sacred Foundries in my box. They can’t be ultra-rares”). All I can say is that, if you don’t agree with me, the terrorists win.
Either way, you’re probably more interested in that G/B deck. Will it look anything like what I’m sure will be the successful States decks? Since I’m purposely not looking at States decks (so that I don’t get influenced by them), probably not. Also, I’m pretty sure that any successful G/B deck from States will have Grave-Shell Scarab and maybe even Kokusho. I don’t have any of those online, and I don’t plan on spending the money to get them. I want to keep the cost of this experiment under thirty-five dollars. With the purchase of two precons, I’m already at about twenty-three. I can only spend another twelve bucks on this. That translates into twelve tickets.
The first round of games will be played as a Ravnica-only deck by merging the two of them together. I’ll be playing in Standard games, but I’ll only be using the cards in these two decks. The first version looks like this:
You Stinker, V.1.0
23 Lands
9 Swamp
10 Forest
2 Golgari Rot Farm
2 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
23 Creatures
4 Elves of Deep Shadow
2 Golgari Guildmage
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Brownscale
4 Shambling Shell
2 Savra, Queen of the Golgari
2 Golgari Rotwurm
2 Golgari Grave-Troll
14 Other Spells
4 Darkblast
2 Vigor Mortis
4 Recollect
4 Putrefy
Already, I’m feeling that four Recollects may be too many. I know that, if it was cheaper and instant-timed like Reclaim, I’d most certainly want four. The cost and speed of Recollect mean that four may be too many. Also, I’d like some card drawing in here. That probably means Phyrexian Arena. How many can I get for twelve tix? One? Two? I don’t know. Will I need it? I don’t know.
This, then, is the deck that I’ll be using at the beginning of this week. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes and what changes I make in an effort to bring you, the faithful reader, a cheap G/B deck that won’t embarrass you.
As usual, you’ve been a great audience. By the way, Luanne always likes to know if I mention her in these pieces. If she asks, say “yes, thirteen times.”