My favorite card, at the moment is Greater Gargadon. It may seem like an odd choice, but I seem to be the only Sedris, the Traitor King EDH to be running him. allow me to give a little backstory. I was playing tons of m14 draft on MODO. The best strategy is a little boring on there, its usually just Blue+(black, red, or green).
I got bored of this and explored other strategies. Mono green howl of the nightpack was funny but negate ruins it. W(x) Angelic Accord was pretty unstoppable but you needed some key cards to do it. Then I came across a tactic called B/R Sacrifice. This plan revolves around a common Act of Treason. The best thing about taking someones best creature isnt just beating them in the face with it though. Its sacrificing it afterward. I translated this strategy to EDH, where there are things that are tough to deal with. Like Avacyn, Angel of Hope... steal her for a turn, sacrifice. Voila!!
In EDH, Gargadon sits in exile as a sac outlet. He cant be removed or disabled or detained, after he resolves you can swing, sac, return him to hand or topdeck and resuspend.
Coming in a close tie for second place are the following:
Cyclonic Rift (deserves a ban, along with Consecrated Sphinx)
Sedris, the Traitor King. (my beloved commander)
Whip of Erebos. (Sedris no.2)
Sneak Attack. best flavor text "Nothin beats surprise. 'cept rock." gotta love that goblin logic.
Thanks MTGS, I love the new layout
FTFY
I dont have any probelem with individual people buying a few copies or even 20 of a card they think is good or will see play. I DO have a problem with speculation websites with private membership organizing a coup and executing a complete market buyout. What i was saying might have seemed a little farfetched yesterday but no single investor/collector/ has the capital to take a big fat dump on the secondary market like that. Can it be stopped? Wizards can definitely speak out against the 2 big websites that only exist to spike card prices exactly like this.
As players we can also speak out against this. I personally will take your collection if you are part of this kind of conspiracy. that is a promise.
I agree with this, standard is very stable, something that hasn't always been true, and for this we can be thankful. Can we see a new modern (maybe extended format) sometime in the near future? something with cards only using the new new frame art going forward? Perhaps that's too off topic for this forum, but the prices on modern cards are very spiky and erratic and while i wont lose sleep over one person trying their hand at buying up some cards to gain a little value, i do take issue with collusion between many people for the purpose of driving up the price of a card via artificial scarcity. Dear #####speculation, DIACF
guyyyys... we've got a live one.
except players dont buy out every copy of every version of a card from every store. I just want an accurate and fair price so i can trade my copies. I'll say it again: Speculators are the the scum of the earth.
If i see someone with a hundred copies of a card, i will confiscate said binder. speculate that.
tl;dr version
If people all want to play the same deck, thats fine and its in the spirit of the game. This greed-driven manipulation of the mtg singles market has got to stop.
First of all its not technically the secondary market, but the tertiary market.
Perhaps someone notifies the IRS that collusive organizations band together to use their combined spending power to buy out the entire market for the purpose of profit. Do you think the heavy investors who buy thousands of copies off the market for profit declare their earnings on these transactions? Even more so, an argument could be made to treat these membership based speculating organizations as a single entity as they conspire to drive up prices together. When will it stop?
says the zur player... who even records his win loss with zur
tbh i am considered the best player/deck builder in my play group.
i have played for 20 years and have duals, shocks, fetches, survival of the fittest, sneak attack. etc.
my answer to a player like this is to challenge them. (i assure you they will love a challenge)
tell them that you enjoy their card choices and are excited to see what they will build next.
its a total coolstorybro approach, because if they play something unfun they will get the picture when you ask them who they want to build next.
this has worked for me to keep (most of) my playgroup interested. I constantly rip apart my decks and rebuild several from the remnants. I try new things. this keeps my deck from getting past an alpha or beta stage after which they would become too fine tuned and competative.
currently i built a child of alara deck for multiplayer. it works by trying to gain value and also set off the bomb. CoA is also the only true win con. out value consistently and swing for the win once the jig is up. other than the mana base (which i already had) the deck, including child of alara cost me a grand total of $20.
meanwhile my sneak attack and survival of the fittest are in "errante del remolino" aka maelstrom wanderer. (also freshly built)
with the new conspiracy set out now, see if he is interested in throwing a bunch of his value cards into a cube that you all can play with him.
that brings me to my second suggestion. see if hes cool switching decks. i regularly let my friends play my decks and ill play theirs (and even win often times revealing new card synergy that will breathe new life into their decks)
magic can be a little underwhelming when it feels like 'pay to win' but there are plenty of ways to play without breaking the bank. an efficient mana base is expensive, but formats, especially edh do not have to be over run by high value cards. many of the big staples are in the single digits dollar wise.
the most important thing, though, if you or a friend of yours is the consistent victor: they must be a gracious winner and a gracious loser also
Keep heart,
IMO this whole 'duelcommander' nonsense takes the fun out of EDH anyways. in essence it tries to turn the casual laid back flavorful festival into a fine tuned tricked out min max game of toolboxing and enjoyment denial.
I personally love edric and will never stop running him, its interesting to see a list more geared towards a game with only 2 players. I would love to see a changelog, with reasons why you choose certain options over others.
Thanks!!
Hmmmm..... I suppose you're right. So Maybe I just say, run my Stoneblade with 1 less Tundra and put that up for trade (I believe they are $125-150 as mine is NM) and possibly be able to get 3-4 Noble Hierarchs. That really sucks, but hey, at least maybe I will be able to play in the PTQ. gonna go post in the market street, PM if interested
I agree, and TBH there are a lot of people who make these shill(not sure the proper etiquitte using this term, but its TRUE) posts righteously defending places like SCG. Yes they may be a business, but they and many places like them hurt Magic: the Gathering for the sake of Magic: the Speculation.
These are still pieces of cardboard with wizards intellectual property on them, right? not gold, although sometimes the lines are blurred, the way people act.
I do not think Noble Hierarch will hold its value at $60. It has been 20-30 for YEARS even before DRS was ever printed and only after the banning has it shot up to its current price. If i sank money into it NOW, i would only stand to lose my investment (at least 50% of it)
but i digress, i dont want to play Magic:theSpeculating i want to play Magic:theGathering.
Unfortunately I am the most competent player in my playgroup and nobody has these staples, or even really has cards that are trade worthy. They usually sell back to the store any card of worth 'to recoup some of the cost of drafting or whatever' and often times complain about me running cards like sneak attack or Survival of the Fittest.
I will not give up on finding myself a Noble Hierarch for its rightful price, and let it be known, if anyone has one and would be willing to value it at its honest value I can promise that it will be loved for years and will be going to a good home. Also I have tons of great cards, just send me a PM. (i will not be holding my breath)
I do remember many of your posts, and I think your reasoning is generally more sound than most. I know your stance of the forums and I wasn't attacking you (though i doubt you were referring to 'me' specifically)
I am just super bummed that I probably wont be able to participate in the PTQ that I had been preparing for for several months. nobody's problem except mine, though. I had a playset of Deathrite shaman, which were on my original list, until the bannings.... now the only option is noble hierarch.
I actually think its kinda funny, how people say to me, awww just run some random home brew, when I have been playing some variant of pod since its stint in standard (and i find it super FUN to play) and it is actually one of the most customizable decks in any format. (just take a look at several different decklists from tourneys and you'll see)
The one thing that isnt negotiable is running 8 mana dorks.
2 weeks ago this meant
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Deathrite Shaman
with heavy reliance on fetches so that you will always have 3 mana turn 2.
this now obviously is a direct 4x noble hierarch replacement, but in any case, the deck really NEEDS 3 mana turn 2 for the painful pod drop to skirt past the counterspells if you are on the play.
You might say, well just replace it with:
llanowar elf
arbor elf
avacyn's pilgrim
etc.
NO. These cards fail because they are all bad late game, and are super limited on their mana in comparison.
There used to be two choices for this slot and one of them was banned. (I elected for the cheaper option, though it probably fits my playstyle anyway to run DRS)
super BS
edit-- actually let me rephrase my statement a little bit.
Do you really think anyone will trade their noble hierarch at $30 value (which is what the card has been for EVER and what its honestly worth and will drop back down to soon probably)
If i were to trade (and yes I have tons of trades) would anyone honestly give it that initial value? or do you think EVERYONE would say, nah dude its $60 now. I think so.
sad but true
as for the rise of underground sea NM Revised on SCG from $199 to $249. there is absolutely no reason, and I seriously doubt that SCG is actually truly out of NM UGS. they had over 50 a week before they decided to hike the price. please note that this post is not to demonize SCG, but if you think that what they have been doing with prices is wrong, i dont necessarily disagree.
end of the story, I am priced out of the tournament. I have a legacy stoneblade that I finished building, but I shouldnt have to tear that apart because NBHR jumped 2x in price!! I find it outrageous, and unecessary.
I agree, and most of my friends proxy like madmen, however, there is always the people who want to take it to that next level. I was waiting on a paycheck to buy noble hierarchs for the tournament as I said, (but at $30 a piece) or even trade for them, but they shot up to $60 because of the ban list frenzy and its insane.
In other news, my playgroup and I have decided to build a cube. A power cube to be specific, however this kind of thing is..... well its insanely expensive, and also insanely valuable and .... well insanely easy to steal. this is another reason I would like to look into places (Hopefully I am not violating any sort of MTGS code here) who would be willing to print out a nice cube set, that people wouldnt be tempted to steal and we could draft from and have a good time with. $3000 black lotus is simply not doable and to compare it to golf or vintage car collectors or eating caviar out of diamond encrusted whalebone spoons while relaxing in the presidential suite of the most luxurious hotel with the most luxurious.... escorts etc. is equally ludicrous.
If anyone has ideas though, as for attaining the cube, (my friends and i would be interested) or if there is some sort of thread you could link me from the cube forum that would work too, just pm me.(i should probably say, My friends and I are not trying to acquire passable counterfeits of any kind, but maybe laminated proxies that could be sleeved or something to give us the fun of a cube draft)
All that Aside (i hecka digressed) how would you expect me to get the 4 Noble hierarchs (i could shave the decklist down to only run 3 but id still be priced out) and still have the $40 entry fee. Other than not eating, starving the children, robbing some richfolk, or any other bogus idea, i got nothin.
this is funny. I actually live in silicon valley. A minimum wage job does not pay rent here. nor does it in most places, let alone down payments on cars and 'throw away on magic money'
this really makes me pose the question, is MtG a pay to win game?
Main point alert!!
What is wrong with opening eternal formats to more of the player base?
I have been playing for 20 years and I would like to think that its more about skill, fun and comeraderie.... just my opinion tho.
Firstly, Wizards is a little hesitant to print MORE cheap instant speed recursion because you can use them to respond to eldrazi reshuffle triggers. I.E. entomb-->Goryo's Vengeance
Also, someone said that the primordials are not banworthy on page one. I just rofled a lil, because as of the 3rd Sylvan Primordial is banned. (he is basically Primeval Titadon)
Also, I like some of the innovations on your sedris list. I have been playing him for a little while, you may see me pop into your commander edh list thread and post some comments about him.
(as a Side note-Sepulchral primordial is a beast, especially if there is some sort of clone in a graveyard to do it twice, and molten primordial is also awesome especially if you have a sac outlet, which I run Greater Gargadon in my Sedris, the Traitor King)
looking at the price history, there seems to have been a buyout between the 21st and the 22nd.
dont get me wrong, Bitterblossom is a great card, and now that its unbanned, such frenzy ensues. speculators ruin the game for players once again. Just take my wallet you *******s.