MTG Salvation

Quote from KnickM »

Voice of Resurgence = $35
Voice of reason = free all day long

More like 20 cents for NM

There are 72 uncommons, plus foils, in every box of Eternal Masters. Eternal Masters has 80 uncommons, so it sounds like your numbers are right in line with the math.

It's also a little bit off for any set that uses the standard "53 rares & 15 mythics" pattern that most large sets use. The actual ratios are 15:121 and 106:121, but everyone rounds them to 1:8 and 7:8 for simplicity's sake.

Quote from Sepulcra »

Many people claim that they pile shuffle to make sure they will present the actual main deck they registered. I always wonder, why not check the sideboard instead? If you're bringing a deck to an event, I'm pretty sure you didn't just put it together the night before, so you should at LEAST know how many of which cards are in your sideboard. It takes literally 20 seconds, you count 25% of the cards and you make sure you didn't accidentally leave any SB cards in your MD.

You're assuming that if the count is wrong, then the missing card must be in your sideboard. It could have fallen on the floor, or absentmindedly taken by your previous opponent, or maybe you got one of his cards? There's more than one way for a maindeck to be incorrect.

Quote from Wraith223 »

Red decks need gas and lots of it. Anytime your opponent can pick a card for you is bad.

Your opponent isn't picking a card for you. This is a bonus card on your upkeep; you still get your regular draw step after this, whether he gives you the card or not. The card is just a 3/2 menace for 3 that sometimes gives you free damage on top of it, which is still plenty good.

Quote from StoneRyno »

I'm not sure I see how Gorilla Pack and Manta Ray are useful when a typical 3/3 creature with no restrictions is 3 converted cost if it has no special abilities.

3 mana certainly does not get you a 3/3 in blue. According to Gatherer, there are six mono-blue 3/3's for three. Three of them (including Manta Ray) can only attack if the opponent has an Island, one enters the battlefield with two -1/-1 counters (making it really a 1/1), one has the drawback of returning to your hand whenever any other creature enters the battlefield, and the sixth wasn't printed until Dragons of Tarkir (Shorecrasher Elemental).

Nemesis? I can't remember that far back, but that was the only pre-release I remember playing back in my high school days and I don't think there were a lot in the way of Internet spoilers back then.

Before then, I always read the Duelist spoiler lists before I bought packs, so it would have to be in the year or so before I discovered Duelist...so Visions?

Dang, I'm old.

Quote from DrWorm »

I also don't see how it can be inflationary. I am no economist so I am willing to listen to a cogent argument, but since the algorithm produces puca point values that are very close to TCG mid so a pp is pretty much worth $.01. Admittedly they seem less agile, but they are also not susceptible to the same kind of low availability aberrations that other price aggregators are.

The short version is that PucaPoints are constantly being created but there is no mechanism for removing them from the economy. Whenever a new user signs up, they get free PucaPoints. Admins create PucaPoints out of thin air to make both parties whole if something goes wrong in shipping. Users can straight-up buy PucaPoints with cash, and get some amount of PucaPoints for free when they buy a membership. Since PucaPoints only leave the economy super-rarely (such as in the event that a user gets banned from the site while carrying a balance), the total size of the PucaPoint pool has nowhere to go but up.

Quote from remathilis »

From the Vault is MIA and presumed dead.

From the Vault is very much alive, per Blogatog yesterday. Given that FTV is, essentially, a pack of 15 cards that Wizards sells for $40, it'll take a lot for them to disappear forever.

Quote from scasseden »

It's really not. Abzan Blue has all the tools for that. Lots of high-impact early creatures, and the presence of Anafenza in the deck also heavily disrupts them, even with Reflector Mage and Sidisi's Faithful as an answer. Holding up 1-2 mana for Negate or Stubborn Denial is easy, and it doesn't take many hits from Anafenza/Warden/Advocate to put them in "make-em-have-it" mode.

Of course, people need to innovate within Abzan Blue. Too many people keep playing Gideon and Wingmate Roc even though neither card is well-positioned in the current metagame.

So your example for "it's not narrow" is one specific four-color deck, but only if it's using as-yet-undiscovered tech because the version currently played isn't good enough? We'll get right on that.

Quote from AlwaysDrawing »

Quote from Galspanic »

(I don't own an Oubliette and can't really see how it's that good. But oh well)

Oubliette is just an O-Ring for mono black. Nothing more, but it's a very unique effect from the smallest expansion in magic.

Black has a bajillion removal spells it can use. The reason this one wins out over the others is that none of the others provide two black mana symbols for Gray Merchant.

Quote from hippohugger »

Ew, battle for zendikar eldrazi creatures are really hit or miss. For 7 mana, bane of bala ged costs the same and has super annihilator on it.

Hey, they can't all be Standard all-stars.

Goblin Grenade isn't banned intentionally - it's only not legal because its only common printing (Fallen Empires) isn't on MTGO, and Pauper uses MTGO instead of paper Magic for its card list.

Swiftfoot Boots, because that card inexplicably wasn't already in my Vorel deck.

Quote from Casual Deck »

Quote from asmallcat »

Yeah, hold on to ALL wastes you get, and pick up any you see laying around abandoned. EDH and casual demand (these won't be constructed playable) alone will make the prices pretty high in a year or two's time, IMO.

Sure, Wastes are practically useless. Why will someone use Wastes when cards, eg. Radiant Fountain are available? Maybe to use Exploring Wilds to search for Wastes to activate Landfall? Maybe to use ... such niche purposes.

Plenty of reasons to run at least a few in colorless decks, from Solemn Simulacrum to opposing Path to Exile to protection from Ruination-type effects.