I've submitted a request to join the high end MTG and a crimped/rare/misprint valuation group on FB.
Also sent an eBay message to the guy who sold the regular 4th and alternate 4th starter to see how much he sold it for (looks like he settled on an offer).
I'll report back here with a number in case anyone else in the future comes across the same thing.
I'm not the seller, or the buyer, but I can tell you that the seller accepted $260.01 for that lot. There are legitimate ways of seeing the actual best offer price.
I've submitted a request to join the high end MTG and a crimped/rare/misprint valuation group on FB.
Also sent an eBay message to the guy who sold the regular 4th and alternate 4th starter to see how much he sold it for (looks like he settled on an offer).
I'll report back here with a number in case anyone else in the future comes across the same thing.
Keep in mind, Wizards hid some old high value cards (Power 9, etc) in very small quantities in sealed packs. That may contribute a little to the value here.
I doubt Khans will get to the $600 level, and if enemy fetchlands are reprinted I see that figure coming down a bit.
I hope this is the correct subforum to be posting in. I have dug up some old stuff since coming back to MTG and found 3 factory-sealed starter boxes of Alternate 4th edition. From what I've read, these were printed by the US Playing Card Corporation instead of Carta Mundi; these are glossier, thicker, and do not shine the same under a blacklight.
I've verified that the boxes carry the correct ISBN number (1-880992-25-6) instead of the regular 4th edition ISBN (1-880992-26-4).
What are these boxes worth? I've noticed that regular 4th edition is going for about $40 on eBay. I've done some searching over at Librarities but could only find folks looking to finish out their with singles.
I have 3 supposedly Alternate 4th Edition sealed starter boxes which I purchased in a large collection buyout. I was wondering how to tell these apart from regular 4th Edition starters?
I have reason to believe that Salvation has been hit by a malware exploitation bug.
On two of my computers that I routinely use to browse the site, I have noticed at random times it will try to open Adobe Acrobat Reader. I left the computer on today while working and saw Adobe trying to update. I canceled the update and now my computer has been infected with a malware program that is pretending to be some sort of Anti-Virus software.
Think Twice is good because it is cheap and it allows you flexibility when trying to hit your land drops. I would hate to sit there on T3 with no lands in play and a Jace's Ingenuity in my hand.
I'm not a big fan of the Shroud Sphinx, and will never be. It dies to Baneslayer Angel or a moderately sized Goyf.
Anyway, I don't think Stags or Fallouts are necessary against Faeries. Their best line of play postboard is T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Blossom, T3 Vendilion Clique, into a Mistbind Clique on your upkeep somewhere down the road. Punishing Fire/Groves beats this strategy in that you can nuke all their Blossom tokens and Clique. This keeps them extremely off-tempo and unable to generate any offense. They can enjoy the life they're gaining back from the Grove, as you are keeping the board clear. You can literally just sit there and Fire out their dudes until you have a Goyf or Clique in hand with sufficient counter backup to resolve it, then start bashing them in.
Same idea with Combo Elves.
You will probably want 4x Finks for the Bloodbraid Elf decks. Having 1 or 2 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood" target="blank">Oran-Rief, the Vastwood seems pretty synergistic with your Goyfs and Finks too (it'll let you win Goyf wars and give you infinite recursions of Finks). Hell, if you're in a bind against a red deck, you can shoot your own Finks with Punishing Fire and then activate Oran-Rief again. LOL...Again, if you're running Finks, you will probably want to cut the Edges and put in Flooded Groves, as you have no way of making double Green.
You will probably want some number of Pithing Needles in there as well, to shut down opposing manlands (I can see Celestial Colonnade being a big problem for you) or Planeswalkers (not as big a problem as you have the Fire combo).
Combust from M11 seems like a good card as well, as it gives you an out against Baneslayer or Mistbind Clique, and doesn't put you in a situation where you have to try and race Baneslayer with Goyf, which is always a losing proposition.
Teferi essentially lets you resolve anything you want and keeps everything they want off the board. He also shuts down their Ancestral Visions and Bloodbraid Elves (anything they play can only be played at sorcery speed, so Visions doesn't pop on Upkeep and their Cascades can't be played). He's also a fairly sized beatstick that lets you be more aggressive on the attack (no more combat tricks from them).
If you're going to go with the Teferi route, Acidic Slime is a solid SB card as flashing the Slime in is extremely disruptive, will probably catch players off guard, and it helps you deal with resolved artifacts or enchantments as well as opposing Groves, Tectonic Edges, Reflecting Pools, Hideaway Lands, or Mutavaults.
Finally, I'm not sure how big a player Burrenton Forge-Tender will be in the new format, so you may want to find some way to deal with that badass gal.
"Getting away" with playing something is not good when you need access to UUU on turn 4.
Cut the two Sphinxes and add another Vision. That should put you at 60 cards even. You won't have a finisher, you'll be more of a tempo based deck. Clique will probably do the majority of your heavy hauling.
8 Fetches is a fine start. Cut the Halimar Depths and one Raging Ravine for two more basic Islands. Tectonic Edge will be a big player in the new format as long as Grove is in it as well. You'll want to fit some number of Flooded Groves in there as well.
Cut the Fallouts for 1 more Punishing Fire. The two slots can go towards utility spells or more critters depending on what you need. Teferi is pretty good against control. Think Twice is a great draw spell. If you had red sorceries, Nucklavee would be a pretty sweet card to run as well. If you're dead set on sweepers, Firespout is a better option as it knocks out Kithkin.
Have you actually played the Punishing Fire combo against another control deck?
Obvious things:
Control/Control matchups go long. This is a given.
Punishing Fire is essentially a "free" ping for 1 every turn. This how it is used, in effect.
When supplemented with creature damage (Vendilion Clique and Tarmogoyf in your deck), this free 1 damage adds up. A Clique swing and a Punishing Fire with buyback that turn puts them on a 5 turn clock.
Why is Magus bad?
He turns off your Manlands. Manlands are good vs. Control right? They get around Wrath effects. Why would you want to turn off one of your win conditions? Are you honestly going to run it out there turn 3 and hope they don't have a counter? Or they can float some mana in response and kill it. You are running creatures worthy of Instant speed spot removal, you know. Or you can run it out turn 8 with counter backup. Get into a counter war over it, and win. Great! Now what? You're sitting with a 2/2 that you can't attack with, as it'll just get blocked by whatever the hell they have on their side of the board. Nice. Take 5 from the Goyf that you can't block. On the other hand, Fire/Grove is basically uncounterable. If they are countering it, they are either idiots or at 2 life, in which case you buy it back and kill them in two turns.
He turns off your Fetchlands. Good luck trying to shuffle that chaff away after a Jace brainstorm.
Now, how do you plan on "protecting" your Magus with a bunch of mountains in play? You run 4 basic Islands, with no way to fetch another when Magus hits play. Your only hard counter in the lategame is Cryptic. I don't know how you're making triple blue with the manabase you have now.
I don't know if I'm wasting my time typing this as it seems you have your heart set on these cards. Here goes anyway.
Fallout is unnecessary in a deck with Punishing Fire. If you want a real sweeper just run Wrath or Damnation. There is no real, defined 'meta' at this point in 1.X, so the argument that it is 'good against the meta' is just bunk. So URG Junk is winning all these online tourneys, right?
So Fallout kills Bloodbraid Elf. But it cascaded into Tarmogoyf. There's at least a land in the bin, running your Fallout on board makes it an X/3. Oh yeah, take 2. How is this card good again? With Fires, you can shoot the Elf first then next turn shoot the Goyf on attack step and buy it back (Goyf becomes a 1/2 with 2 damage on it). Now you're ready for their next Elf cascade with the same net investment (1RR) as 1 Volcanic Fallout that would have had you still eating damage from Goyf with one notable exception: you are also 1 card up from the Fallout scenario. In the mean time, you're blowing up Kitchen Finks for free, essentially mitigating the card advantage they gain with persist with your own buyback of Fire.
I'm counting 3 Ancestral Vision in a deck that has 16 ways to not make blue mana on turn 1. So, you don't want to play it on turn 1 is what I'm guessing. Is turn 4 OK with you?
::Mindblown: Thanks!
I've submitted a request to join the high end MTG and a crimped/rare/misprint valuation group on FB.
Also sent an eBay message to the guy who sold the regular 4th and alternate 4th starter to see how much he sold it for (looks like he settled on an offer).
I'll report back here with a number in case anyone else in the future comes across the same thing.
I doubt Khans will get to the $600 level, and if enemy fetchlands are reprinted I see that figure coming down a bit.
I hope this is the correct subforum to be posting in. I have dug up some old stuff since coming back to MTG and found 3 factory-sealed starter boxes of Alternate 4th edition. From what I've read, these were printed by the US Playing Card Corporation instead of Carta Mundi; these are glossier, thicker, and do not shine the same under a blacklight.
I've verified that the boxes carry the correct ISBN number (1-880992-25-6) instead of the regular 4th edition ISBN (1-880992-26-4).
What are these boxes worth? I've noticed that regular 4th edition is going for about $40 on eBay. I've done some searching over at Librarities but could only find folks looking to finish out their with singles.
Thanks for your time and knowledge.
I have 3 supposedly Alternate 4th Edition sealed starter boxes which I purchased in a large collection buyout. I was wondering how to tell these apart from regular 4th Edition starters?
Also, where is a good place to sell such a thing?
Thanks!!
It was posted on Starcity's Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=4953679&fbid=419876322917&id=174376972917
I think I bought 2 playsets of Stoneforge Mystics before the weekend they shot up and they sent me the cars with no problems.
I have reason to believe that Salvation has been hit by a malware exploitation bug.
On two of my computers that I routinely use to browse the site, I have noticed at random times it will try to open Adobe Acrobat Reader. I left the computer on today while working and saw Adobe trying to update. I canceled the update and now my computer has been infected with a malware program that is pretending to be some sort of Anti-Virus software.
Be careful!
I'm not a big fan of the Shroud Sphinx, and will never be. It dies to Baneslayer Angel or a moderately sized Goyf.
Anyway, I don't think Stags or Fallouts are necessary against Faeries. Their best line of play postboard is T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Blossom, T3 Vendilion Clique, into a Mistbind Clique on your upkeep somewhere down the road. Punishing Fire/Groves beats this strategy in that you can nuke all their Blossom tokens and Clique. This keeps them extremely off-tempo and unable to generate any offense. They can enjoy the life they're gaining back from the Grove, as you are keeping the board clear. You can literally just sit there and Fire out their dudes until you have a Goyf or Clique in hand with sufficient counter backup to resolve it, then start bashing them in.
Same idea with Combo Elves.
You will probably want 4x Finks for the Bloodbraid Elf decks. Having 1 or 2 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood" target="blank">Oran-Rief, the Vastwood seems pretty synergistic with your Goyfs and Finks too (it'll let you win Goyf wars and give you infinite recursions of Finks). Hell, if you're in a bind against a red deck, you can shoot your own Finks with Punishing Fire and then activate Oran-Rief again. LOL...Again, if you're running Finks, you will probably want to cut the Edges and put in Flooded Groves, as you have no way of making double Green.
You will probably want some number of Pithing Needles in there as well, to shut down opposing manlands (I can see Celestial Colonnade being a big problem for you) or Planeswalkers (not as big a problem as you have the Fire combo).
Combust from M11 seems like a good card as well, as it gives you an out against Baneslayer or Mistbind Clique, and doesn't put you in a situation where you have to try and race Baneslayer with Goyf, which is always a losing proposition.
Teferi essentially lets you resolve anything you want and keeps everything they want off the board. He also shuts down their Ancestral Visions and Bloodbraid Elves (anything they play can only be played at sorcery speed, so Visions doesn't pop on Upkeep and their Cascades can't be played). He's also a fairly sized beatstick that lets you be more aggressive on the attack (no more combat tricks from them).
If you're going to go with the Teferi route, Acidic Slime is a solid SB card as flashing the Slime in is extremely disruptive, will probably catch players off guard, and it helps you deal with resolved artifacts or enchantments as well as opposing Groves, Tectonic Edges, Reflecting Pools, Hideaway Lands, or Mutavaults.
Finally, I'm not sure how big a player Burrenton Forge-Tender will be in the new format, so you may want to find some way to deal with that badass gal.
"Getting away" with playing something is not good when you need access to UUU on turn 4.
Cut the two Sphinxes and add another Vision. That should put you at 60 cards even. You won't have a finisher, you'll be more of a tempo based deck. Clique will probably do the majority of your heavy hauling.
8 Fetches is a fine start. Cut the Halimar Depths and one Raging Ravine for two more basic Islands. Tectonic Edge will be a big player in the new format as long as Grove is in it as well. You'll want to fit some number of Flooded Groves in there as well.
Cut the Fallouts for 1 more Punishing Fire. The two slots can go towards utility spells or more critters depending on what you need. Teferi is pretty good against control. Think Twice is a great draw spell. If you had red sorceries, Nucklavee would be a pretty sweet card to run as well. If you're dead set on sweepers, Firespout is a better option as it knocks out Kithkin.
Have you actually played the Punishing Fire combo against another control deck?
Obvious things:
Control/Control matchups go long. This is a given.
Punishing Fire is essentially a "free" ping for 1 every turn. This how it is used, in effect.
When supplemented with creature damage (Vendilion Clique and Tarmogoyf in your deck), this free 1 damage adds up. A Clique swing and a Punishing Fire with buyback that turn puts them on a 5 turn clock.
Why is Magus bad?
He turns off your Manlands. Manlands are good vs. Control right? They get around Wrath effects. Why would you want to turn off one of your win conditions? Are you honestly going to run it out there turn 3 and hope they don't have a counter? Or they can float some mana in response and kill it. You are running creatures worthy of Instant speed spot removal, you know. Or you can run it out turn 8 with counter backup. Get into a counter war over it, and win. Great! Now what? You're sitting with a 2/2 that you can't attack with, as it'll just get blocked by whatever the hell they have on their side of the board. Nice. Take 5 from the Goyf that you can't block. On the other hand, Fire/Grove is basically uncounterable. If they are countering it, they are either idiots or at 2 life, in which case you buy it back and kill them in two turns.
He turns off your Fetchlands. Good luck trying to shuffle that chaff away after a Jace brainstorm.
Now, how do you plan on "protecting" your Magus with a bunch of mountains in play? You run 4 basic Islands, with no way to fetch another when Magus hits play. Your only hard counter in the lategame is Cryptic. I don't know how you're making triple blue with the manabase you have now.
I don't know if I'm wasting my time typing this as it seems you have your heart set on these cards. Here goes anyway.
Fallout is unnecessary in a deck with Punishing Fire. If you want a real sweeper just run Wrath or Damnation. There is no real, defined 'meta' at this point in 1.X, so the argument that it is 'good against the meta' is just bunk. So URG Junk is winning all these online tourneys, right?
So Fallout kills Bloodbraid Elf. But it cascaded into Tarmogoyf. There's at least a land in the bin, running your Fallout on board makes it an X/3. Oh yeah, take 2. How is this card good again? With Fires, you can shoot the Elf first then next turn shoot the Goyf on attack step and buy it back (Goyf becomes a 1/2 with 2 damage on it). Now you're ready for their next Elf cascade with the same net investment (1RR) as 1 Volcanic Fallout that would have had you still eating damage from Goyf with one notable exception: you are also 1 card up from the Fallout scenario. In the mean time, you're blowing up Kitchen Finks for free, essentially mitigating the card advantage they gain with persist with your own buyback of Fire.
I'm counting 3 Ancestral Vision in a deck that has 16 ways to not make blue mana on turn 1. So, you don't want to play it on turn 1 is what I'm guessing. Is turn 4 OK with you?