I’m back home, so it’s back to our regular scheduled programming, and perhaps a little of “being somewhat colder than I would like.” Yes, even at the end of winter, Hawaii is generally warmer than southern New Zealand at the end of summer. Boo-urns I say, boo-urns!
So anyway, what we’re interested in this week is just what impact the recent Pro Tour has had on the Magic Online metagame, and the prices of the obvious rares and whatnot. As far as the Premier Events Top 8’s are concerned, we’ll just have a quick scan of the results, to see what archetypes are winning the packs and which aren’t. If you were one of the winners this last weekend, I’m terribly sorry about how this quick hash-up of the results doesn’t exactly put your name in lights and give you that moment in the sun you so obviously crave. Maybe if you continue to win, I’ll eventually take the time to type out your user name for all to see, but not this week! No… not this week.
5-8
Ruel Black/White
Heartbeat Combo
Ghost Dad
Greater Gifts
3-4
Greater Gifts
Zoo
1-2
White/Black/Green Control
Ghost Dad
5-8
Zoo
White/Black/Green Control
Gruul Beats
Blue/White/Red Control
3-4
Zoo
White/Black/Green Control
1-2
Zoo
Ruel Black/White
5-8
Ghost Dad
Ruel Black/White
Ghost Dad
Zoo
3-4
Gruul Beats
Ruel Black/White
1-2
Ruel Black/White
Ghost Dad
5-8
Gruul Beats
Heartbeat Combo
White/Black/Green Control
Ruel Black/White
3-4
Black/White Control
Ruel Black/White
1-2
Blue/Red Control
Zoo
5-8
Gruul Beats
White/Black/Green Control
Heartbeat Combo
GhaziGlare
3-4
Zoo
Blue/Black Reanimator
1-2
Black/White Control
Zoo
I guess the coolest part is how quickly the decks that did reasonably well at the Pro Tour, yet didn’t quite make the Top 8, are now making a good showing on Magic Online. This time last week, it was really just the decks from the Top 8, but I guess now that people have had time to scour the entirety of the non-Top 8 decklists for the other white meat, we’re seeing some of the unbeaten track decks making dent of their own. I think it’s a shame that the Red/Green/Blue Ninja deck that some of the Japanese were playing hasn’t really shown up yet, but all in good time, eh?
From these results, we see not only what is there but also what is noticeably missing. The Owling Mine deck is exceptional at taking apart unprepared control decks, but to say that it’s abysmal in the face of anyone who attacks for two is putting it lightly. There were plenty of reported Owl sightings earlier in the week, but these results above speak volumes about those early Aggro birds snatching the Owl’s worms. In other words, there may have been some Owling Mine in these Premier Events, but they sure didn’t make it through the sea of aggro to the Top 8.
Knock, knock. Who’s there? Not Osyp’s top 8 Izzetron deck, that’s for sure. I can’t explain this one away with obvious 5% match-up odds, but I suspect it’s the same knife cutting the Tron decks out of the playoffs as the Owling Mine numbers. I’m gonna go ahead and make the assumption that sideboarded Blood Moons are taking away any mana advantage Izzetron ever hoped to hold over the aggro opponents. It’s probably a good time to point out that Blood Moon is also considerably effective at holding down a Zoo deck’s mana base as well. But if the curve goes Monster, Monster, Monster, Blood Moon, Char to the face, and Flames of the Blood Hand to the face, then Zoo probably doesn’t care that it’s just thrown away the ability to play more than two thirds of their cards.
So, anything cute tried at the Pro Tour (thanks to the largely undefined metagame) – such as Owling Mine gambling on there not being a great number of aggro decks – won’t really have a long term life expectancy on Magic Online, or in the big wide world for that matter. I can see Owling Mine ambushing tournaments from time to time, but it will have to make it a hit-and-run because that kind of deck standing still for longer than ten seconds will promptly get ripped apart. That doesn’t really explain the absence of Izzetron though (did you know I came up with that name? You can hate me all you want). I guess it stayed on in Hawaii for an extra week in the sun, and it will show up online soon.
So what has happened to the card values? Let’s have a look! Of course, a wee reminder: the x-y price is how much you would get if you were selling and how much you would pay if you were buying. The price in parenthesis is last week’s price, or in this case, two weeks ago. Also note that some cards will be getting dropped from the list, and naturally some Guildpact cards will be added.
Howling Mine 2-4 (2-3)
Pithing Needle 20*-22 (25-27)
Umezawa’s Jitte 9-11 (10-11)
The interesting thing here is the virtual plummet in the price of Pithing Needle. I mean, it’s still very expensive, but the fact that it didn’t populate the Top 8 with itself in any great force seems to have hurt its reputation. The buy price is actually an estimate, because last time I checked, nobody was offering to buy any Needles.
Cranial Extraction 7-8 (7-9)
Dark Confidant 3-4 (3-4)
Kokusho, the Evening Star 7-8 (7-8)
Kagemaro, First to Suffer 7-8 (7-8)
Phyrexian Arena 2-3 (—)
Phyrexian Arena hasn’t moved since I mentioned in the blog coverage at the Pro Tour, but then none of the decks that were abusing it the most made the Top 8. Those decks are starting to show up on Magic Online now, so I think it could be worth watching somewhat.
Gifts Ungiven 4-6 (5-6)
Kami of the Crescent Moon 3-5* (3-4)
Keiga, the Tide Star 3-5 (3-5)
Meloku, the Clouded Mirror 5-6 (5-6)
The Sell price of Kami of the Crescent Moon is marked due to the fact that while you can buy these things at five tickets, there are already a bunch of sellers asking for eight. No, I don’t understand it either.
Glare of Subdual removed (2-3)
Loxodon Hierarch 4-5 (4-6)
Ghost Council of the Orzhova 7-8 (—)
Rumbling Slum 5-6 (—)
Giant Solifuge 5-7 (—)
Burning-Tree Shaman 9-10 (—)
Glare has been removed now that its only major application seems to be in Billy Moreno transformational sideboard for Zoo. That’s cute, but cute doesn’t sell. Plus, we have a whole heap of new multicolor cards to track now!
Arashi, Sky Asunder 6-8 (7-8)
Birds of Paradise 4-6 (5-6)
Greater Good 2-4 (2-4)
Kodama of the North Tree removed (2-4)
Kodama of the North Tree has also been struck off, now that there are Hierarchs and Ghost Councils wandering about who are more than suited to be taking down the untargetable Kodama.
Char 3-4 (3-4)
Magnivore 2-3 (3-4)
Wildfire 2-4 (3-5)
Isamaru, Hound of Konda 2-4 (3-4)
Wrath of God 8-10 (8-10)
Yosei, the Morning Star 4-5 (4-5)
Forge[/author]“]Battlefield [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author] 7-8 (7-9)
Brushland 5-7 (5-7)
Llanowar Wastes 6-8 (7-9)
Shivan Reef 10-11 (11-13)
Underground River 5-7 (7-8)
Yavimaya Coast 7-9 (7-9)
Karplusan Forest 7-9 (7-8)
Caves of Koilos 9-10 (7-9)
Adarkar Wastes 5-7 (5-7)
Sulfurous Springs 5-6 (4-6)
Overgrown Tomb 7-9 (7-9)
Sacred Foundry 6-8 (6-8)
Temple Garden 7-9 (6-8)
Watery Grave 7-9 (7-9)
Stomping Ground 12-14 (—)
Steam Vents 10-13 (—)
Godless Shrine 12-15 (—)
The dual lands seem to be fluctuating somewhat, being confused by their demand (or lack of) in Standard verses the fact that many of them are still sought after for Extended. The three Guildpact dual lands are naturally still very high in value, but the four Ravnica ones did exactly the same thing when they came out. So I guess you have to ask yourself, “do I want to compete now, or later?” In all of this excitement, I’ve kinda forgotten myself. So you have to ask yourself the question, “am I feeling lucky?” Well punk, do you feel lucky?
Bonus section: unsolicited Draft advice!
To avoid any ghastly name-dropping, the following sentence may seem a little… strained. While recently at an undisclosed location I managed to Draft many times with various different unnamed people, some of who actually work for a completely random games company. Between those Drafts and one or two on Magic Online, I have discovered a fun new Draft strategy that builds nicely on those janky five-color Draft decks proposed by Rich Hoaen some time back. While I haven’t managed to draft this type of deck every time, and nor have I won every freaking game omg omg with it either, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I could win any games at all. My new favorite card to draft in pack one?
So yeah, I’m sure you can see that this is leading in the direction of the new limited Aura Slivers, the Guildpact Magemarks. Quite often I found that I would start out drafting Selesnya with an eye to splash anything tasty that would come along, usually something Black for the good stuff in the pack three (and because Black is slimming and can be worn with anything). Somehow I found I would end up with a Izzet Boilerworks or an Izzet Signet or two, and a few random last pick Fencer’s Magemark to compliment the Beastmaster’s and Guardian’s Magemarks I had picked a little earlier. The thing that usually happens for some reason, is I’d get a pack where I literally have no pick as early as second or third, and I’ll randomly take the nut high Infiltrator’s Magemark, simply because a 4/4 untargetable guy for six mana is actually a pretty fair deal. And for some reason, I’ll end up with 5-6 Magemarks in my deck, which gets startlingly fatal very quickly.
You have to be careful of trying to force this strategy however, because I’m pretty sure it only works when pretty much everyone else at the table considers them mostly unplayable. I suggest giving a four- or five-color Magemark Draft deck a go in the near future, before everyone starts taking them and they basically suck again.
See you next week!
{e}
(Remind me to tell you about that {e} sometime…)