(This week is brought to you in advance, because for once, I am well prepared.)
I’m not often well prepared, but Dave, Tama, and I are going to see Tenacious D on the night I usually hunker down to write this, so I kinda have to get my arse into gear and get this done early.
This week I have decided to take a deep breath and dive back into the Message Board, and come back with hawt price info clenched between my teeth. Many of you no doubt remember a time, no too long ago, where I would dredge up this kind of info on a weekly basis, but nothing drives a man more insane than scouring those message boards every week and finding that 90% of the prices remain unchanged from the week before. No seriously, nothing.
However, forum dweller (but seldom poster, only four posts dude!) kharlis kindly directed my attention towards the infamous “infobot”, an autonomous tool for Magic Online Price information that had slipped through the ever-widening cracks in my brain. Now infobot isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty bloody good. You send it a private chat “pc <card name>” and it tells you how much that card is selling for. Unfortunately, these prices are only set by the people who submit their prices to infobot, but that’s not that bad an indication. Hopefully in time, more and more online stores will contribute to infobot and allow it to be a much more accurate price-checking tool. For more information on infobot, type /addbuddy infobot in game and check it out for yourself.
Now the drawback to using infobot to gather price data as far as we here in this column are concerned, is the fact that it only returns information on what people are selling the cards at. This seems like it would be problematic because when I have presented price data here, it has been in the form of a “sell” price as well as a “buy” price. However, the times they must change, and therefore the price people are selling them at will have to do. Actually, there’s another reason why this doesn’t matter, but I’ll go into that next week when I revise the idea of “going infinite.”
Anyway, before we look at the prices, let’s look at the Standard Top 8 Premier Events results. It turns out that there is a Standard Grand Prix coming up in March, so these results are going to be keenly scrutinized for a while yet for any hints or signs of tech. Of course, Planar Chaos might change things a bit, but there’s no harm in getting in some homework before it’s released.
12 (11) Simic Aggro Control (Blue/Green)
12 (2) Mono-Blue Morph Control (Fed by Fathom Seer and Vesuvan Shapeshifter)
10 (14) Dimir Control (Blue/Black Control, made to tick by Desert apparently!)
10 (4) Mono-Black Aggro (Small Black men and Bad Moon!)
6 (10) Dragonstorm Combo (Blue/Red/Black Combo)
5 (1) MGA (Mono-Green Aggro)
5 (3) Orzhov Control (Black/White Control)
4 (11) Boros Deck Wins (Red/White Aggro)
4 (4) Izzetron (Blue/Red Urzatron Control)
3 (12) Trisketron (White/Blue Urzatron Control)
3 (5) Gruul Aggro (Red/Green Aggro)
3 (2) Azorius Control (Blue/White Control)
3 (2) Selesnya Aggro Control (Green/White Aggro Control. Yes, sometimes with Glare)
2 (6) Panda Connection (Black/White Aggro with hand disruption)
2 (3) Solar Flare (Blue/Black/White Control)
2 (1) Izzet Snow Control (Blue/Red Snow Control)
2 (0) Unknown
1 (1) Angel Control (Blue/Red/White Control)
1 (1) Goblin Combo (Seething Song and Rite of Flame and Empty the Warrens)
1 (1) Golgari Aggro Control (Green/Black Aggro Control)
1 (0) Proclamation Control (White/Blue Martyr of Sands, Proclamation of Rebirth Combo)
1 (0) White/Red/Black Angel Control (Trading the Compulsive Researches for Phyrexian Arena and Castigate)
1 (0) Reanimator (Blue/Red/Black cheat fatties into play)
1 (0) Selesnya Blink Aggro Control (Green/White with a touch of Blue Aggro Control)
1 (0) Zoo (Green/White/Red Aggro)
0 (2) Simictron (Blue/Green Urzatron)
I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting Simic Aggro decks to climb back as solidly as they have, and I’m still baffled every time I see a Mono-Black Aggro deck. I mean, it’s The Rack for goodness sake. That wasn’t really ever good, was it? I mean, was it? Anyway, the secret omg way out in front winners are actually the Dimir Control and Mono-Blue Morph decks, which seem to get closer and closer to each other in form each week. Together they managed a combined 22 Top 8 placings, which is frankly somewhat ridiculous. Basically, the Dimir control deck doesn’t run a great many Black spells, and the Mono-Blue deck shows sign of splashing Black via the wonders of Dreadship Reef, even if it is only to flashback Mystical Teachings.
Anyway, back to the prices of Cards oh so Magical. With the addition of infobot to my buddies list* there comes a change of format. Where I once would have say, 2-3, where 2 was what people would offer to pay and 3 would be what they were selling it for, we are now left with a number, often a fractional number at that. The previous format served to represent a price range within which you could hope to find the card, whereas now you get more of an average price, despite it being a very precise figure.
(*not really an addition to my buddies list. It’s been on there for a long time, it’s just that my buddies list is an extensive and crowded place so I had kinda forgotten about it.)
The way these sellers get away with charging for instance, 2.4 tickets for a card is that they happen to track credit with their customers. Say I purchased a couple of rares at 3.2 each and a few commons at 0.15, I would be left paying something like 6.85 tickets for it all. Now we know Wizards can’t make 0.85 tickets, so I’m left forking over 7.00 tickets for my cards. Thankfully, the lovely automated system will take my 7.00 tickets and helpfully inform me that I have 0.85 tickets credit with that particular store and it’s affiliates, of which there are no doubt many. I swear, sometimes I think there are all of two or three Magic Online dealer moguls who each run around ten to fifteen bots each.
Anyway, this means that the “2-3” format has now been replaced with a 4.60 format, or sometimes a 2.30-3.10 format when infobot offers up a couple of answers. This week is going to look a little higglety-pigglety but it will shape up next time we check in on the prices, probably in around a fortnight or so. Also, the dual lands being the longest block of cards, are a little messier now. It was easy in the old system to rank them from most expensive to Brushlands and Sulfurous Springs, but now I think it’s probably better I go with alphabetical.
Lotus Bloom 4.50 (3-5)
Tormod’s Crypt 2.00 (1-3)
Triskelavus 0.60-0.75 (—)
Dark Confidant 5.00-5.95 (3-5)
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir 4.00 (3-4)
Draining Whelk 0.90-1.30 (1-2)
Psionic Blast 4.50-5.75 (4-5)
Vesuvan Shapeshifter 1.50-2.75 (—)
Giant Solifuge 6.00 (3-6)
Loxodon Hierarch 4.00-4.75 (3-5)
Ghost Council of the Orzhova 1.75 (1-2)
Lightning Angel 2.75 (2-3)
Ohran Viper 9.00 (8-10)
Birds of Paradise 6.25-7.00 (5-6)
Spectral Force 1.75 (1-2)
Stonewood Invocation 1.75-2.00 (1-2)
Call of the Herd 8.25 (—)
Demonfire 10.00 (5-9)
Char 5.95 (4-5)
Dragonstorm 2.50 (1-3)
Magus of the Scroll 1.15-2.50 (1-2)
Bogardan Hellkite 3.50-4.00 (3-5)
Wrath of God 16.00-16.50 (15-16)
Paladin En-Vec 7.25 (5-7)
Proclamation of Rebirth 2.00-3.00 (3-4)
Serra Avenger 2.00 (1-2)
Soltari Priest 4.00 (3-5)
Flagstones of Trokair 3.50 (3-4)
Gemstone Mine 4.00-5.00 (2-3)
Scrying Sheets 6.25-6.75 (5-6)
Blood Crypt 11.00-12.00 (10-11)
Breeding Pool 17.00 (12-14)
Godless Shrine 12.00-13.00 (11-12)
Hallowed Fountain 20.00 (19-22)
Overgrown Tomb 7.00 (5-7)
Sacred Foundry 9.50 (8-9)
Steam Vents 15.00-17.00 (14-15)
Stomping Ground 8.25 (8-9)
Temple Garden 8.00 (6-8)
Watery Grave 9.00 (7-8)
Adarkar Wastes 6.75-6.95 (5-7)
Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] 8.50-9.00 (6-8)
Brushland 4.00-5.00 (3-4)
Caves of Koilos 5.75-6.50 (5-6)
Karplusan Forest 4.00-4.50 (3-5)
Llanowar Wastes 3.75 (3-4)
Shivan Reef 10.75-12.00 (10-12)
Sulfurous Springs 3.75-4.00 (3-4)
Underground River 5.00-7.95 (3-5)
Yavimaya Coast 6.00-6.50 (5-7)
So yeah, we’ll see how infobot helps us in the long run soon enough, but feel free drop by and check it out for yourself.
Lastly we’ll take a gander at the Extended Premier Events Top 8 results. The Extended Qualifier season is on the go now, and the Online results will be having an impact on the Real Life ones and visa versa.
10 (11) Boros Deck Wins (Red/White Aggro, sometimes with splashes)
6 (4) Four to Five Color Gifts Rock (Green/Black/White Control with Blue and Red for goodies)
5 (8) Counterbalance Aggro Control (Nassif’s Blue/White/Red Trinket Mage deck)
5 (5) Tendrils Combo (Extended’s Seething Song, Rite of Flame Combo deck)
4 (10) Azorius Urzatron (Blue/White Urzatron)
4 (3) Destructive Flow Aggro (Green/Red/Black Aggro with Destructive Flow)
4 (1) CAL (Life from the Loam Control)
3 (9) Affinity (The dreaded Artifact deck)
3 (3) Goblin Combo (Rite of Flame Goblin Aggro)
3 (1) Friggorid (Blue/Black Aggro Dredge)
3 (0) Gruul Aggro (Green/Red Aggro)
2 (3) Loam Aggro Control (Green/Red/White Life from the Loam Aggro Control)
2 (0) Simictron (Blue/Green Urzatron)
2 (0) Unknown
1 (4) Scepter Chant (Blue/White/Red Control)
1 (1) Green/X Tooth and Nail (Insert additional color for large spells here)
1 (0) Psychatog (Blue/Black/X Control)
1 (0) Izzetron (Blue/Red Urzatron)
1 (0) Grow! (Blue/White/Green Quirion Dryad Aggro control)
1 (0) Boros Explosion (Red/White Aggro splashing Black for Insidious Dreams into Erratic Explosion Draco…)
1 (0) Simic Aggro Control (Blue/Green Aggro Control, not Madness, but just… Blue/Green with a splash of Red)
1 (0) Hierarch Aggro Control (Green/Black/White Aggro Control, just like the Standard version but with Wild Mongrel and stuff)
0 (1) Azorius Control (Blue/White Control, sometimes splashing Red for Fire/Ice)
This weeks shows a general flattening out of the figures, except for Boros Deck Wins, which is remains out in front, probably because it has little trouble living up to its name. I have to admit, I was a little worried once I started testing Extended post-Worlds, especially after I somehow managed to encourage Wizards to leave the format untouched. However it doesn’t seem too bad just yet, despite my jitters on the subject. That said, that Tendrils deck can be frighteningly fast if you’re not careful, and can happily combo off of a zero permanents in play at the start of the turn type thing.
Enough babbling from me, it’s time we went out in search of musical merriment at the hands of the D. Until next week, my internet chums!
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