Magic: The Gathering C/D

i noticed that the GB and RU temples went thru the roof recently too, i sold my playsets online for about 15 and 12 per card respectively

that's crazy

the painlands being worth something also seems crazy to me considering how many times they've been printed / how basically bad they are

THS block EV must be pretty high right now

not really, it's just the handful of cards in the top standard decks are in high demand right now as people buy into the format

xxp enemy painlands haven't actually been printed much, just apocalypse and 10th edition i think, neither of which were heavily printed sets compared to today

9th too

oh and 9th. but people basically didn't buy core set before m10

yeah the huge difference between printings makes me really suspicious about peoples' predictions on the future of cards being printed right now. like there are *so many* shocks out there and the only serious demand for them comes from the growth of modern. until there are as many modern players as there were std players a year ago, how could shock prices be justifiable at above $10? yet these things often seem to break this kinda of logic. cards sit in peoples collections / people don't want to trade things that they think will grow in value / people don't want to trade things that are hard to re-trade for.

yeah i've definitely been re-evaluating the contents of my hoarding-not-trading binder lately, along the same lines. like, my serra's sanctums feel a lot more valuable than my snapcasters right now even though they're about the same price at the moment and the snapcasters are played way more in actual formats

yeah I feel like there had to have been more overall demand for snaps during innistrad standard yet they're more expensive now. part of that is just beyond some simply supply/demand thing - there really are a lot of snapcasters out there - and more to do w/ snapcaster now being part of the category 'hard-to-trade-for eternal card'

actually snap is played in 33% of modern decks right now so maybe it's close
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern

i do think secondary mtg prices come more from perception and less from actual demand than people think

yeah i think the market is deeply distorted but its hard to exactly pinpoint why or speculate on where prices are going - i sold about 3K worth of cards two months ago and felt p good about it but i can see prices still climbing ::shrug::

i have no idea how standard prices are being justified though

standard is more demand-based than older formats

i think selling cards that aren't on the reserved list is always a fine move regardless of their trajectories, i've long wanted to unload a lot of my stuff but i'm waiting until i have decks built that i'm happy with in each format

I think in the case of Snaps everyone saw what happened with Dark Confidant and doesn't want to unload them at $15-20 when they're pretty clearly as pushed as that effect is likely to ever get

yeah and snap is actually a 'better' card than bob at least insofar as it's playable in wayyy more decks. how many people really need bobs right now?

deathrite is a better card than both and never commanded $20+ price even when it was modern-legal, whereas snapcaster was $20 on day 1. hype cycles and price memory are a big part of it.

Frank Karsten's KTK draft article is out:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-a-pick-order-list-for-khans-of-tarkir-draft/

Some interesting observations here. He thinks that blue is the best color (and U/G the best combo) and that black is the worst; IMO it's hardly a core-set level imbalance, and the fact that most decks are 3-color minimizes if one color isn't pulling its weight. Best common, all things considered: Mystic of the Hidden Way. I would still argue it's Debilitating Injury but I don't think black is as bad as he thinks it is.

Overall KTK has an awful lot to think about. It's not very much like RTR or Gatecrash or Alara where you try to hit your faction as hard as possible. I could write a whole article on a card like Force Away or Sultai Flayer since there is just such a depth to what the different clans do. I recently 3-0'd a draft with Sultai (though it only splashed blue for 3 cards) and it had only one card with Delve - it was sort of a Green/Black big toughness deck that won with Pine Walkers and Savage Punches. There's nothing like Populate or Battalion where a bunch of good cards chain together to produce something even better.

a lot of karsten's observations were somewhat at odds with my own and that will definitely give me a different angle when i am drafting from now on, although i am not quite ready to throw out my own experience/instincts wholesale, by which i have managed to get up to a respectable win rate now. i did agree with him about u/g more or less. definitely if i do not have a strong early pull elsewhere i am looking for u/g because i have found it gives me the highest chance of not ending up with a garbage deck. so the upside is consistency rather than power, but you can do a lot of powerful things off of that consistent base, which can be sultai or temur obv, both are super solid, but the mana is there is do anything.

and although i don't rate mystic of the hidden way as highly as he does, i would guess if i ranked the cards that have done the last points of damage to finish me of then mystic and direct damage spells would be way out on their own at the top of the list.

mystic is so good, in some other format it might be pretty eh, but being able to get in for 3 a turn in a format filled w/ clogged up morphy boards

I rate singing bell strike as a top common tho

dig through time as a 'decent single color card' seems kinda lol, whenever that card is resolved against me I basically know, deep down, that I am not going to win

ride down is also a lot better than decent

i don't think bell strike is a top common in the abstract but it's very good in the aggressive UGx and URx decks i prefer to draft so i still take it highly to make sure i get it. i feel like my archetype preference is the same as his but my pick orders are pretty different & im not too interested in changing them unless i start getting crappy decks on the regular

yep basically the same here

idk if its variance or the difference btw 8-4s/lgs drafts and pt drafts but i am nearly undefeated with b/g decks and have not had a lot of success with other decks. i could also just not be drafting the mystic decks correctly

Kin-Tree Invocation is such a monster. I think it could be first-pick worthy. There is a playable 0/4 for B and a 0/5 for 1G and outside of a Force Away not many tools for dealing it that early.

iatee is OTM about Mystic - KTK is just the right draft format for it, and outside of Debilitating Injury there aren't a whole lot of tools for easily removing it

http://i.imgur.com/en7jwpj.gif

would you guys include mardu charm here?

definitely. take out one of the Summit Prowlers -a deck with 3 Valley Dashers shouldn't have so many 4-drops

Helmsmasher is totally sick - just straight up "kill me on your turn or it's over". Shanker is easier to deal with but much the same. Good luck!!

If you take out both Prowlers you won't have any double red so you could probably swap out a Mountain for a Swamp

I like prowler, also triggers boulder

I kinda feel like mardu charm is actually not that good?

also I already had to mulligan a 2 swamp + 5 card hand (I won anyway)

I think if I had one more black dual land the charm would feel like an easy include

despite being secretly not that good

i think mardu charm is right at that spot where none of the modes is super exciting for the cost but the modality pushes it over the top. i would've thought about putting it in over the 2nd act of treason. the only charm i left out in an on-colour deck is temur, that is not a good card.

Well I see 3 Valley Dashers and I feel anything that can take out a potential blocker is good. Second mode on that Charm is also useful, it lets you burn it if you don't have a t3 drop and can blow someone out from time to time. None of the charms feels like real high picks to me but I think they're all useful, even Temur - sure it's often a worse Savage Punch but it's at instant speed and the counterspell option is always nice to have.

I lost r2 to another mardu deck who went 2/2->2/3+1/1 white dude->4/5 ogre both his games on the play :(

yeah I almost never take / play the charms, partly because I'm 2c like 75% of the time, partly because everyone else seems to value them way too high

the Jeskai one can be a total killer if you've got a ton of prowess dudes

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/limited/analysis/draft/ktk_ktk_ktk

what do we think of this? is armament corps really just that insane an a dedicated abzan deck?

interesting that two-color decks are way below a 50% win rate

the collection method is just too biased to be particularly worthwhile. i mean its interesting to note that in a slow format with lots of board stalls lure and overrun are probably better than usual (and i do think roar of the challenge is a little underrated) but those cards are def not as good as those win %s represent them to be. like i can think of a lot of cards i would take over flying crane technique. id also probably take cut, arc lightning and suppression field over corps. but i may value being two colors way to highly its not like my winrate is all that good in triple ktk

I would've guessed Dead Drop was top uncommon given how the data is collected.

yeah me too

armament corps' super high winrate is kinda interesting because it's *not* a 1 dimensional overrun effect, it's a 5 drop that generally comes down as soon as you can play it

btw I'm coming around to Tormenting Voice; I don't think anyone gives any priority to it but I think any instants or sorceries that are cheap and aren't card disadvantage are playable, given Prowess and Delve. plus a slow format affords you the opportunity to play cards like this. maybe it's just me but it seems so much better than Wild Guess - this along with Treasure Cruise can do wonders in Jeskai

but yeah Armament Corps is very good but I didnt think it was THAT much better than the other 2XYZ clan uncommons (Sultai Soothsayer, Warden of the Eye, Bear's Companion, Mardu Roughrider). I'd probably rank it as the best anyway but Roughrider is probably my #2, so I'm surprised to see it ranked last among them. all of them are real good though

I am big on Wooly Loxodon though. One extra mana to unmorph but it eats all the big turn 5 dudes.

i think roughrider is the second worst maybe worse than warden of the eye and i like mardu decks. i dont have any solid reasoning for that except i think it just slots into the better mardu decks really poorly esp at 5 mana. i also think those decks want tri-colored cards the least and its often just worse than the other mardu cards you might have

corps is a 6/6 for 5 with a high degree of synergy with many of the best uncommons in its colors - obv its really good! i guess i question whether its a better early pick than murderous cut or suppression field though, given those cards flexibility

Cut is my #1 uncommon and I pretty much always take it if in black. Supression Field I like but it doesn't take a Morph out, I'd go Corps over that because as mentioned it's nutso synergy. Given the ability of a +1/+1 counter to "turn on" lifelink, flying, first strike, deathtouch, etc. it can be a real bomb.

I never had an issue playing Roughrider - it's where you want to top out and I think tri-colors are ok when they're 5 mana but unless they remove it right away it pretty much wins over the next 2 turns. That's my experience though. I would vouch really hard for Sultai Soothsayer too though, I've always found that card really coming in handy

yeah roughrider is bad because 5 drops are bad in aggro decks, I would still probably play it in most builds but I'm not picking it in like the t5 picks of any pack even if I'm mardu

the methodology behind mtggoldfish's limited stats is really flawed and i would ignore them completely

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/16295

so the only 4-0 deck modern deck tuesday that didn't run 4 treasure cruises is the burn deck, which ran 3 treasure cruises

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pvs-playhouse-khans-of-tarkir-limited/

another article on KTK limited. interesting that even the members of CFB can't agree on what's good. I don't like the "play 41 cards so you don't get decked first" advice though. For one, I've never played a game of KTK limited that came down to decking. For two, there are a lot of playable cards that draw you cards or mill you, plus stuff like Embodiment of Spring, so if it did come to decking I think it wouldn't be up to whoever played 41 cards. For three, KTK is so skill intensive and has so many decisions to make that if you actually did get to Turn 34 then the match is more likely to come down to the clock than who wins that game. I've seen people chew up 18+ minutes on Game 1 over like 13-14 turns. I don't have a problem with playing 41 cards but this just seems like bad advice