ahhhhhh! nope. I typically just let these threads play themselves out, but i need to speak up and just say 'no' on this one. Rebecca is a sweetheart and i have nothing but positive things to say about her, personally and professionally. Legions was before my time, but i can tell you that Rebecca contributes more heavily to Magic than most of you think. Not only does her Illustration Master Class provide upcoming and talented illustrators, but she was one of my instructors at Pratt Institute. She helped make me the monster I am.
Good enough for me. As I said, these kinds of rumors tend to float around about anyone who is famous in some capacity.
However, the stuff about her not drawing what they want on the card is, as far as I know, complete nonsense.
I can only go by what people, in this case store owners and collectors with massive amounts of product whove been at it for awhile, have told me. I will admit that Ive no factual basis for it, but I see no reason why friends of mine would lie to me about it. I will say though that if you chose not to believe a faceless man over the internet, then I would understand and have no problem.
Additionally, I would like to point out that the issue involving Guays art came from the following
"After the release of Onslaught (2002), it was reported on Magic the Gathering news sites that Guay had been informed that the seven works she created for the set would be her last. In what the sites reported to be her own words: "the new art director, Jeremy Cranford, thinks my work is too feminine for the vision he has for the game.[3]"
THEN there was fan outrage which is one of the reasons that said question was posed to WotC.
Why the hate on Rebecca Guays art? Because opinions. But among older players and people who are savvy with what goes on behind the scenes at WotC, there has been a long standing dislike of her arrogant and complete lack of wanting to provide Wizards with the art they request for cards.
For example, Wizards wants art for a green card, and on this card they want depictions of flowers, birds, and trees. Rebecca Guay wants to draw an elf in a waterfall. Wizards submits their design request and are given back an elf in a waterfall instead of what they wanted.
In fact, the controversy surrounding what is depicted on the aforementioned Persecute Artist came during Legions. Wizards wanted to create masculine, super powerful looking spells to show what was going on in Otaria at the time. Rebecca wanted to draw feminine watercolor stuff as she always does. Thats what she gave them again, and they gave her the finger. Fans got buttdevestated and they rectified the issue by saying they just werent going to include her art in Legions but would use it in the future.
Lastly, and this is anecdotal, I have heard that she is extremely arrogant and can be rude or standoffish in person. Im sure these rumors float around about pretty much everybody whos name means anything, but this case doesnt seem like too much of a stretch to me.
If youre not trading for value, reloading your collection can be quite difficult to do without spending any/much money. Drafting and winning constructed tournaments are your most affordable bets, and if you have the existing stock to do so, sell your bulk/casual-appeal cards that are unmovable and use that money towards buying mass amounts of sealed product.
But again, if youre not value trading, your options are difficult and expensive.
ok i think people are seriously looking at this thread wrong. idgaf if you think snapcaster is the best thing since sliced bread, nor do i care if you think he's garbage and doesnt do anything. all i'm asking is, and i'll repeat myself once more...would you accept a ban of snapcaster mage to better the standard environment. you have to realize, everything you guys want back in standard wont see the light of day for a while since this dude is around.
red mages want lightning bolt..guess what, not getting it
white mages want path to exile...nope, not a chance
blue mages want counterspell...keep dreaming (as i will continue to do so)
i firmly believe that if this card never saw print, we would get a lot of good utility back and people wouldnt have to worry as much.
No one will accept a ban on a card that isn't a problem to "better the standard environment" because banning said card does not make standard a better environment. Your argument seems to be that you feel that Snapcaster Mage is the reason that no "good" or "flavorful" instants exist in standard (although Vapor Snag, Gitaxian Probe, Galvanic Blast, and about 25 other good and flavorful instants with a CMC of 1 or 2 would beg to differ), and that somehow the key to making standard better is to take the same action that was taken on broken cards in the past. By calling for a ban, you are effectively saying that Snapcaster Mage is on the same level of broken-ness and format-warping dominance as Memory Jar, Arcbound Ravager, artifact lands, Skullclamp, Jace the Mindsculptor, and Stoneforge Mystic. I regret to inform you that not only is Snapcaster Mage nowhere close to this level of power, but that the majority of posters in this thread disagree with your sentiment.
What utility do you think we'd "get back" if this card was banned anyway? I hope youre not implying that the reason we dont have Lightning Bolt (a card we don't even need in current standard by any stretch; everything we would want to burn kill dies to Shock/Galvanic Blast already), Path to Exile (a card that hasnt seen a reprint in a tournament legal set since Conflux. Are Dismember, Go for the Throat, Tragic Slip, and all the other removal not enough that you need Path back too?), and Counterspell (a card that hasnt been in standard since 7th Edition, a card that wont likely be put back into standard because its both "unfun" and unnecessary) is solely because of Snapcaster Mage. Thats just a silly argument to make.
and as for "R&D designs things ahead" well i think thats a bunch of bull****. if you play this game and have a halfway decent grip on how it works, you would realize a big mistake if you see it. simple. these guys MAKE THE GAME, they cant say "oh, well, we forgot" or "oh, well, we didnt realize"...cause if thats the case, then they arnt doing their job. people defend them all the time, and its ok, i understand, but you cant turn a blind eye to mistakes. you just cant.
How long do you think sets and mechanics take to design and balance? Are you saying it makes more sense for Wizards to design a set, release it, and then start desigining a new set? I suppose I could somewhat maybe almost potentially think about hoping of dreaming of understanding where youre coming from a little bit more if you were talking about new set implcations on eternal formats, but Standard? You have to be joking.
You know that when R&D designs a new set and playtests it in Future League, they dont just forget and lose access to all the information and cards from previous sets right? Its not like FL is currently playtesting Inn/RoR/M13 Standard and has no access to Inn block cards. It goes without saying that even though the development team is smart and adept at their job, its a given that they will underrate or fail to see something that the public will discover upon playing their product. Its a team of hundreds vs a playerbase of millions; its going to happen, get over it, and this time be glad it was something like Snapcaster Mage and not something like Skullclamp or Jace TMS.
What he said. Unless youre buying boxes at wholesale (youre probably not) and have the quantity of cards that people can buy their rares and their non rares from you (you dont), the likelyhood of you just breaking even is very unlikely, to say nothing for actually turning over a profit consistently. If youre going to put time and effort in to trading cards thats one thing, but if you could reliably buy sealed product, crack it, and make money, then everyone would be doing it.
I trade a lot and deal mostly with standard, so I have a Monster binder devoted to each set. Cards are sorted in a semi random fashion, and are allocated either 3 slots, 6 slots, 9 slots, or 18 slots depending on rarity, frequency traded, etc. The only rules are that the first page is usually the "flagship" card (so Avacyn for AR) for the set or the mythic cycle for the block (Swords for Scars block), the third pair of pages has the sets planeswalker(s), the back three 9-slot pages are devoted to foils (which forces people to look at your foils), and the two 9-slot pages before the foils are devoted to 3-card columns of whatever the popular/important uncommons in the set are.
Before you ask, yes I trade a lot, yes people know I trade a lot, and no nobody seems to mind looking through 4-7 binders (people dont usually care about the core set) when they have the opportunity to pick up however many they need of whatever many they need to play Standard that week.
you know what we should do? we should buy magic products and resell them at schools. yeah that's right, just like some shady drug-dealers we'll come along and search out the most downtrodden, easiest kids to prey upon and introduce them to the game. that way we ensure the longevity of our own hobby!
Interestingly enough, I know more than one person who was introduced to Magic by essentially picking up a 1k full of cards that was left next to a trash can. You wouldnt even have to sell the packs; donating your crappy bulk cards to some random kid would be more than enough to ensure your hobbies longevity. Who here doesnt know multiple people who were introduced to the game by an older sibling, cousin, or friend/friends older sibling/cousin?
Yeah but you guys have to remember that Ravnica goes for around $390 a box. Worldwake is somewhere in the upper $200s if Im not mistaken, and the OP stated that "money was an issue." How much of an issue no one knows, but I would wager that anyone who would cite it as a concern probably isnt looking to spend ~$200 on 18 booster packs. Not to mention how crappy he would likely feel if he cracked open a card like Grave Shell Scarab or Master Warcraft.
The duals in Ravnica are comparitvely cheaper anyway due to the amout of product that was open over its lifetime. The most expensive dual in Rav is what, Temple Garden? And that touches $20 on a good day, whereas not only are you more likely to pull duals out of Guildpact or Dissension, but you have Steam Vents (GP), Breeding Pool (DS) and Hallowed Fountain (DS) which are the only ones who break $30, to mention nothing of the fact that none of the other duals even come close. On top of that you only have what, Lightning Helix and Remand as far as real movable uncommons? And neither of those come close to Spell Snare in price or general ability to ship. Additionally, once again, Ravnica is a large set, so the chances of you pulling the money uncommons is less than a small set, and in this case the uncommon from Dissension youre more likely to pull that either of the ones from Ravnica is something along the lines of two to four times more expensive. Im not saying that Ravnica is at sll bad, but If youre looking at cracking money from Ravnica block, it boggles my mind why anyone would pay significantly more for a chance at cracking significantly less.
Edit: Ive revised my previous thoughts and would put Shadowmoor over Dissension, mainly due to the fact that I forgot Spectral Procession, Cursecatcher, Drove of Elves, Inkfathom Infiltrator, Murderous Redcap, Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers, and Beseech the Queen were even more money uncommons from the set. Im not sure what a third pick would be. Darksteel maybe? Ravagers and Swords and things of that nature. Not sure what youre trying to spend, so I dont know what else to suggest. To be fair, it would probably just be Shadowmoor a second time. Regardless, considering Im the only one throwing out any real numbers here and not "XXX set is best because I think so so there," Im pretty sure Im right in my assessment. And if push comes to shove, ask yourself this, for $400 between you and your friend, would you rather have 2 boxes of cards in which you're likely to pull something worth money, or 1 box of cards in which you're likely to pull nothing worth money?
Its hard to give you the most correct answer without you telling us how much you want to spend or how far back you want to go. Do you want to just go older than standard, older than modern, older than rarity-by-color? In any case, if youre looking to get some amount of return in addition to fun, I wouldnt recommend buying in to Onslaught or Ravnica. Though fetchlands and shocklands sound like youd be opening money, you have to remember that youre only buying one box, not a case, and thus youre less likely to get a higher concentration of cards that are good cash by opening one box of a large set than one box of a small one. Thus, getting something more akin to New Phyrexia would be what you would be after.
I would recommend Dissension or Shadowmoor, in that order. Dissension is a smaller set that Ravnica, and though the number of duals from Dissension to Ravnica is 3 to 4, your chances of pulling one are higher. Additionally, two of the three duals are Hallowed Fountain and Breeding Pool (two of the most expensive), and Dissension has a surprising amount of good, powerful casual rares (Rakdos, Grand Arbiter, Momir Vig, etc) or cards that were powerful in comstructed once and may one day see a resurgance in popularity via Moderns growing popularity (Dovescape and Voidslime, for instance). Throw in access to Spell Snares, Trygon Predators, Indrik Stomphowlers, Azorious Guildmage, and very VERY popular signet/bounce land color combinations and you should have something thats worth a bit of money and funish to open.
Shadowmoor is similar. Though its a large set, you have access to many important rares (Reflecting Pool, Oona, Reaper King, Swans of Brynn Argol, the cycle of lieges, the cycle of reflections, the cycle of spirit avatars (Demigod of Revenge, etc), rare Scarecrows, filterlands, Woodfall Primus, Greater Auramancy, Painters Servant, Oracle of Nectars, Prismatic Omen, Puppeteer Clique, Rhys, etc). Shadowmoor boxes can be had for under $180 with shipping off eBay, and when you keep in mind that you will also have access to Kitchen Finks, Ram Gangs, Manamorphoses, Firespouts, Gutteral Responses, and a plethora of other good commons and uncommons in addition to all these rares, well, there you go.
If this was an issue that you were facing long term, I would consider simply driving to another store whenever it was appropriate for you. However, this sounds like no matter which way it turns out, it will be you and your friends last opportunity to play in a prerelease at your "regular store."
That being the case, I would just play here for old times sake, have your fun, and be done with it. Having a discussion over $5 a head is a borderline wasted discussion, and 60+ miles either way will only be slightly cheaper (it will be more than two gallons of gasoline as youre not travelling in a straight line, and will be significantly more depending on what type of car youre driving and your A/C use), if not more expensive, and more of a hassle to coordinate.
Also, theres nothing stopping you from dissuading others at the event to not support the store, doubly so if you never plan on playing there again.
The easiest way to do this is to just buy your deck from the store (or whatever you would need) and then sell it back to them at the end of the night or whatever. It's probably not the cheapest, but if their markup is even remotely decent (Offering to buy a hot 30 dollar card for 22 instead of the standard 100% markup rate off the buylist, which would in this case be 15 dollars) it's not horrible. People have been effectively renting playsets of cards from vendors at GPs and the like for years this way, buying multiple playsets of whatever the seasons hot card was at retail and then selling it back when they were done.
Again, it's not the cheapest way, but it allows stores to do what you're talking about without any serious complications or hassle, such as worrying about what condition they'll get the cards back in or someone giving the store whatever the "rental fee" would be and walking out with hundreds (thousands?) of dollars in cards: you buy cards, they're your cards. You sell cards, they're the store's again. This is the best way for the store to protect their interest and probably the cheapest way for you to play with 75 card decks of which you own none of the cards (and the store dealer will likely work with you to pay you more than buy list prices if he knows what you're doing beforehand. Since this would be a local thing and not a large event full of dealers who have no reason to trust you, you may as well talk with him before hand and see if you can work something out).
That's my advice anyway, but then people have been "renting" from me for years and years and years and years and years this way.
Blightsteel is answerable. StP and AEther Spell Bomb both see play. Tragic Slip answers Blightsteel. If you have a bear in play you can chump and kill Blightsteel while it did completely nothing since you don't have any other way to deal poison counters. Blightsteel gives your opponent the least time to find an answer, however other tinker targets are less answerable. Blightsteel really didn't change Vintage much. It's like saying Galvanic Blast changed standard. It's played and it has some advantages over other possibilities, but it is not even deck defining, it alone format defining.
Blightsteel absolutely changed Vintage, despite the presence of StP, ASb, and TS (which don't see as much play as I think you think they do. StP in particular is ONLY good against Blightsteel; it's completely ineffectual against Dredge and costs like 4W to cast against MUD. What do you even want to remove against MUD or Dredge anyway?). For the purposes of your argument, TS is horrifyingly worse than Blightsteel; killing Blightsteel just shuffles it back in, and then next turn they're going to re-play it by flashbacking their Tinker with, you guessed it, Snapcaster Mage. You also have to activate the Morbid (which is hard in a format that has few creatures on the board unless you're about to die), and most of the cards you'd want to remove (Pridemage and Trygon in Fish variants, Dredge zombies, Lodestones/Slash Panthers/Wurmcoils in MUD, etc) all have 2 or more toughness; the rest have 1 toughness, which makes TS an inferior Darkblast. Hell, there was only even 1 copy of Aether Spellbomb that T8'd XTG back in November, and it was in the 6th place Salvager combo deck (and only 1 copy of StP T8'd that event for that matter. It was in the same deck as a sideboard card).
In fact Stephen Menendian wrote about Blightsteel in October last year in an article called "Is Vintage 'Too Fast' or in a Golden Era?" (which was itself a counter-argument article penned in response to Brian DeMers "Is Vintage too Fast?" article on SCG). I believe that it went something along the lines of (Tldr: Yeah Blightsteel is a negative on the format):
"The first leg of his argument is that Blightsteel Colossus has sped up the format. He’s absolutely right. Blightsteel Colossus is a blight on the format, and it is too bad that there is now a single, universal Tinker target where once there were many to choose from, each with its own merits and demerits based on an expected metagame. If there is one area of Vintage in which I’d say it is universally worse than it was in the past, it’s this one. For a format in which there is more choice than ever, this is one of the few areas in which there are truly fewer meaningful choices.
Just a year ago, players who used Tinker had to choose from several Tinker ‘robots’: Inkwell Leviathan, Darksteel Colossus, Myr Battlesphere, Sundering Titan, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind, among others. Players had to carefully weigh the benefits and disadvantages of each for their particular metagame and their particular deck. Blightsteel Colossus has obsolete these options, as it is the only one-turn clock Tinker target, and that fact gives it a leg up on every other alternative, regardless of the resilience they offer. Consequently, the printing of Blightsteel Colossus has necessarily sped up the format slightly, since, before its printing, the same Tinker play would have taken at least another turn to win in most scenarios."
And I think we can all agree that if there's one guy who knows more than pretty much everyone on this site about Vintage, its Stephen Menendian.
Staying on point with the issue of the thread, I don't have opinion on Snapcaster one way or the other, but I would like to remind everyone using the "They tested this set 3 years ago, how could they not know it was a mistake?!?!?!?1" that Snapcaster was a last minute addition to the set. I don't remember who the invitational winner was who is responsible for the cards creation, but this isn't even the card he designed. He submitted a card design that was a land that could be channeled for 2UU to counter a spell (think Last Word that could tap for mana), and when R&D tested it and found it to be too powerful everywhere (according to them anyway), they rushed a design for Snapcaster Mage and thus we have that today. So yes, it may very well have been a mistake from WotC's point of view.
For what it's worth, my EDH playgroup consists of players who all have at least one combo deck (myself included) which we play whenever we feel like, and we have never, ever played a game that did not involve at least one player being some sort of aggressive "instant kill" combo deck that everyone had to carefully monitor lest he demolish the table in some infinite destruction combo. Hell, one of our players has a deck that he plays which is about 4 combo "archtypes" (Blasting Station, Earthcraft, Saproling Cluster or Cloudstone Curio), an excessive number of cards to support each combo, and a stable draw/tutor engine to get out what he needs when he needs it, and no one griefs him about what he's playing or the fact that he's won games after being ganged up on by the table and then exploded to a win on what would have been his final turn. Our playgroup adopted the mentality that the more games we can play in a night, the better, and we would all rather play six 30-45 minute long games than two 2 hour long grindfests. That's just our style, and as a result we have a tight knit like minded group of people to spend time playing our favorite non-competitive form of Magic.
As far as the topic's title is concerned, I see no reason to defend playing combo any more than I see to defend playing a prison style deck. I'm going to play this game with infinite variety the way I want to play it. If that involves me cloning Tangle Wire until I ramp into a pair of Smokestacks and chip away at you with tiny creatures who got in under the lock, or if that involves me Donating an Illusions of Grandeur in a Necropotence fueled deck with enough countermagic to box you into an inescapable corner, then so be it. I have no problem with anyone playing the game the way they want to play it, nor do I have any problem with people not playing casual Magic with people who play archtypes they don't enjoy playing against, but I've found more often than not that people who complain about certain styles of play are akin to the child who throws his video game controller across the room when he encounters an opponent he can't figure out how to beat in a video game. "Oh he takes the game too seriously", "Oh _______ is a broken strategy, why can't he just play aggro/control/etc like me?" It usually just boils down to a "stop liking/playing what I dont like/play!!!", and in those conversations, nothing actually gets accomplished.
I don't particularly care one way or the other about WLG (I usually shop SZO), but I felt that I would investigate their claim to being the largest MTG retailer in Texas and whether or not it was true. According to FMC, they have almost 1,000 more "transactions" than SZO (7,682 to 6,718) and more than twice what 3CC has (3,196).
TCG Player, on the other hand, has WLG at almost 100 less feedback than SZO (3CC has 46 while WLG has 233 and SZO has 323, so no, WLG sounds much larger than 3CC by any comparison, or any local store that has no online presence, unless that store is some kind of Walmart-esque establishment). That puts my store of choice at the largest, but I feel that for the sake of argument, I would be remiss if I didn't establish that SZO also sells Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, D&D Minis, Heroclix, and I believe Redakai.
As I said before, I usually shop SZO (and I never sell cards to online retailers), and the practices that Im hearing in this thread sound very much like practices I could not condone from any business for any reason, but I found the claim that of being the biggest to be somewhat interesting and worthy of some verification (as it's something that is usually boasted by a business for whatever region), and potentially true looking at the numbers from FMC and TCG-P.
Though I guess its not the main issue here. Oh well
Good enough for me. As I said, these kinds of rumors tend to float around about anyone who is famous in some capacity.
I can only go by what people, in this case store owners and collectors with massive amounts of product whove been at it for awhile, have told me. I will admit that Ive no factual basis for it, but I see no reason why friends of mine would lie to me about it. I will say though that if you chose not to believe a faceless man over the internet, then I would understand and have no problem.
Additionally, I would like to point out that the issue involving Guays art came from the following
"After the release of Onslaught (2002), it was reported on Magic the Gathering news sites that Guay had been informed that the seven works she created for the set would be her last. In what the sites reported to be her own words: "the new art director, Jeremy Cranford, thinks my work is too feminine for the vision he has for the game.[3]"
THEN there was fan outrage which is one of the reasons that said question was posed to WotC.
For example, Wizards wants art for a green card, and on this card they want depictions of flowers, birds, and trees. Rebecca Guay wants to draw an elf in a waterfall. Wizards submits their design request and are given back an elf in a waterfall instead of what they wanted.
In fact, the controversy surrounding what is depicted on the aforementioned Persecute Artist came during Legions. Wizards wanted to create masculine, super powerful looking spells to show what was going on in Otaria at the time. Rebecca wanted to draw feminine watercolor stuff as she always does. Thats what she gave them again, and they gave her the finger. Fans got buttdevestated and they rectified the issue by saying they just werent going to include her art in Legions but would use it in the future.
Lastly, and this is anecdotal, I have heard that she is extremely arrogant and can be rude or standoffish in person. Im sure these rumors float around about pretty much everybody whos name means anything, but this case doesnt seem like too much of a stretch to me.
But again, if youre not value trading, your options are difficult and expensive.
No one will accept a ban on a card that isn't a problem to "better the standard environment" because banning said card does not make standard a better environment. Your argument seems to be that you feel that Snapcaster Mage is the reason that no "good" or "flavorful" instants exist in standard (although Vapor Snag, Gitaxian Probe, Galvanic Blast, and about 25 other good and flavorful instants with a CMC of 1 or 2 would beg to differ), and that somehow the key to making standard better is to take the same action that was taken on broken cards in the past. By calling for a ban, you are effectively saying that Snapcaster Mage is on the same level of broken-ness and format-warping dominance as Memory Jar, Arcbound Ravager, artifact lands, Skullclamp, Jace the Mindsculptor, and Stoneforge Mystic. I regret to inform you that not only is Snapcaster Mage nowhere close to this level of power, but that the majority of posters in this thread disagree with your sentiment.
What utility do you think we'd "get back" if this card was banned anyway? I hope youre not implying that the reason we dont have Lightning Bolt (a card we don't even need in current standard by any stretch; everything we would want to burn kill dies to Shock/Galvanic Blast already), Path to Exile (a card that hasnt seen a reprint in a tournament legal set since Conflux. Are Dismember, Go for the Throat, Tragic Slip, and all the other removal not enough that you need Path back too?), and Counterspell (a card that hasnt been in standard since 7th Edition, a card that wont likely be put back into standard because its both "unfun" and unnecessary) is solely because of Snapcaster Mage. Thats just a silly argument to make.
How long do you think sets and mechanics take to design and balance? Are you saying it makes more sense for Wizards to design a set, release it, and then start desigining a new set? I suppose I could somewhat maybe almost potentially think about hoping of dreaming of understanding where youre coming from a little bit more if you were talking about new set implcations on eternal formats, but Standard? You have to be joking.
You know that when R&D designs a new set and playtests it in Future League, they dont just forget and lose access to all the information and cards from previous sets right? Its not like FL is currently playtesting Inn/RoR/M13 Standard and has no access to Inn block cards. It goes without saying that even though the development team is smart and adept at their job, its a given that they will underrate or fail to see something that the public will discover upon playing their product. Its a team of hundreds vs a playerbase of millions; its going to happen, get over it, and this time be glad it was something like Snapcaster Mage and not something like Skullclamp or Jace TMS.
Refusing to consider other's opinions, implies everyone else is close-minded. Come on dude, youre better than that.
What he said. Unless youre buying boxes at wholesale (youre probably not) and have the quantity of cards that people can buy their rares and their non rares from you (you dont), the likelyhood of you just breaking even is very unlikely, to say nothing for actually turning over a profit consistently. If youre going to put time and effort in to trading cards thats one thing, but if you could reliably buy sealed product, crack it, and make money, then everyone would be doing it.
Before you ask, yes I trade a lot, yes people know I trade a lot, and no nobody seems to mind looking through 4-7 binders (people dont usually care about the core set) when they have the opportunity to pick up however many they need of whatever many they need to play Standard that week.
Interestingly enough, I know more than one person who was introduced to Magic by essentially picking up a 1k full of cards that was left next to a trash can. You wouldnt even have to sell the packs; donating your crappy bulk cards to some random kid would be more than enough to ensure your hobbies longevity. Who here doesnt know multiple people who were introduced to the game by an older sibling, cousin, or friend/friends older sibling/cousin?
The duals in Ravnica are comparitvely cheaper anyway due to the amout of product that was open over its lifetime. The most expensive dual in Rav is what, Temple Garden? And that touches $20 on a good day, whereas not only are you more likely to pull duals out of Guildpact or Dissension, but you have Steam Vents (GP), Breeding Pool (DS) and Hallowed Fountain (DS) which are the only ones who break $30, to mention nothing of the fact that none of the other duals even come close. On top of that you only have what, Lightning Helix and Remand as far as real movable uncommons? And neither of those come close to Spell Snare in price or general ability to ship. Additionally, once again, Ravnica is a large set, so the chances of you pulling the money uncommons is less than a small set, and in this case the uncommon from Dissension youre more likely to pull that either of the ones from Ravnica is something along the lines of two to four times more expensive. Im not saying that Ravnica is at sll bad, but If youre looking at cracking money from Ravnica block, it boggles my mind why anyone would pay significantly more for a chance at cracking significantly less.
Edit: Ive revised my previous thoughts and would put Shadowmoor over Dissension, mainly due to the fact that I forgot Spectral Procession, Cursecatcher, Drove of Elves, Inkfathom Infiltrator, Murderous Redcap, Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers, and Beseech the Queen were even more money uncommons from the set. Im not sure what a third pick would be. Darksteel maybe? Ravagers and Swords and things of that nature. Not sure what youre trying to spend, so I dont know what else to suggest. To be fair, it would probably just be Shadowmoor a second time. Regardless, considering Im the only one throwing out any real numbers here and not "XXX set is best because I think so so there," Im pretty sure Im right in my assessment. And if push comes to shove, ask yourself this, for $400 between you and your friend, would you rather have 2 boxes of cards in which you're likely to pull something worth money, or 1 box of cards in which you're likely to pull nothing worth money?
I would recommend Dissension or Shadowmoor, in that order. Dissension is a smaller set that Ravnica, and though the number of duals from Dissension to Ravnica is 3 to 4, your chances of pulling one are higher. Additionally, two of the three duals are Hallowed Fountain and Breeding Pool (two of the most expensive), and Dissension has a surprising amount of good, powerful casual rares (Rakdos, Grand Arbiter, Momir Vig, etc) or cards that were powerful in comstructed once and may one day see a resurgance in popularity via Moderns growing popularity (Dovescape and Voidslime, for instance). Throw in access to Spell Snares, Trygon Predators, Indrik Stomphowlers, Azorious Guildmage, and very VERY popular signet/bounce land color combinations and you should have something thats worth a bit of money and funish to open.
Shadowmoor is similar. Though its a large set, you have access to many important rares (Reflecting Pool, Oona, Reaper King, Swans of Brynn Argol, the cycle of lieges, the cycle of reflections, the cycle of spirit avatars (Demigod of Revenge, etc), rare Scarecrows, filterlands, Woodfall Primus, Greater Auramancy, Painters Servant, Oracle of Nectars, Prismatic Omen, Puppeteer Clique, Rhys, etc). Shadowmoor boxes can be had for under $180 with shipping off eBay, and when you keep in mind that you will also have access to Kitchen Finks, Ram Gangs, Manamorphoses, Firespouts, Gutteral Responses, and a plethora of other good commons and uncommons in addition to all these rares, well, there you go.
That being the case, I would just play here for old times sake, have your fun, and be done with it. Having a discussion over $5 a head is a borderline wasted discussion, and 60+ miles either way will only be slightly cheaper (it will be more than two gallons of gasoline as youre not travelling in a straight line, and will be significantly more depending on what type of car youre driving and your A/C use), if not more expensive, and more of a hassle to coordinate.
Also, theres nothing stopping you from dissuading others at the event to not support the store, doubly so if you never plan on playing there again.
Again, it's not the cheapest way, but it allows stores to do what you're talking about without any serious complications or hassle, such as worrying about what condition they'll get the cards back in or someone giving the store whatever the "rental fee" would be and walking out with hundreds (thousands?) of dollars in cards: you buy cards, they're your cards. You sell cards, they're the store's again. This is the best way for the store to protect their interest and probably the cheapest way for you to play with 75 card decks of which you own none of the cards (and the store dealer will likely work with you to pay you more than buy list prices if he knows what you're doing beforehand. Since this would be a local thing and not a large event full of dealers who have no reason to trust you, you may as well talk with him before hand and see if you can work something out).
That's my advice anyway, but then people have been "renting" from me for years and years and years and years and years this way.
Blightsteel absolutely changed Vintage, despite the presence of StP, ASb, and TS (which don't see as much play as I think you think they do. StP in particular is ONLY good against Blightsteel; it's completely ineffectual against Dredge and costs like 4W to cast against MUD. What do you even want to remove against MUD or Dredge anyway?). For the purposes of your argument, TS is horrifyingly worse than Blightsteel; killing Blightsteel just shuffles it back in, and then next turn they're going to re-play it by flashbacking their Tinker with, you guessed it, Snapcaster Mage. You also have to activate the Morbid (which is hard in a format that has few creatures on the board unless you're about to die), and most of the cards you'd want to remove (Pridemage and Trygon in Fish variants, Dredge zombies, Lodestones/Slash Panthers/Wurmcoils in MUD, etc) all have 2 or more toughness; the rest have 1 toughness, which makes TS an inferior Darkblast. Hell, there was only even 1 copy of Aether Spellbomb that T8'd XTG back in November, and it was in the 6th place Salvager combo deck (and only 1 copy of StP T8'd that event for that matter. It was in the same deck as a sideboard card).
In fact Stephen Menendian wrote about Blightsteel in October last year in an article called "Is Vintage 'Too Fast' or in a Golden Era?" (which was itself a counter-argument article penned in response to Brian DeMers "Is Vintage too Fast?" article on SCG). I believe that it went something along the lines of (Tldr: Yeah Blightsteel is a negative on the format):
"The first leg of his argument is that Blightsteel Colossus has sped up the format. He’s absolutely right. Blightsteel Colossus is a blight on the format, and it is too bad that there is now a single, universal Tinker target where once there were many to choose from, each with its own merits and demerits based on an expected metagame. If there is one area of Vintage in which I’d say it is universally worse than it was in the past, it’s this one. For a format in which there is more choice than ever, this is one of the few areas in which there are truly fewer meaningful choices.
Just a year ago, players who used Tinker had to choose from several Tinker ‘robots’: Inkwell Leviathan, Darksteel Colossus, Myr Battlesphere, Sundering Titan, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind, among others. Players had to carefully weigh the benefits and disadvantages of each for their particular metagame and their particular deck. Blightsteel Colossus has obsolete these options, as it is the only one-turn clock Tinker target, and that fact gives it a leg up on every other alternative, regardless of the resilience they offer. Consequently, the printing of Blightsteel Colossus has necessarily sped up the format slightly, since, before its printing, the same Tinker play would have taken at least another turn to win in most scenarios."
And I think we can all agree that if there's one guy who knows more than pretty much everyone on this site about Vintage, its Stephen Menendian.
Staying on point with the issue of the thread, I don't have opinion on Snapcaster one way or the other, but I would like to remind everyone using the "They tested this set 3 years ago, how could they not know it was a mistake?!?!?!?1" that Snapcaster was a last minute addition to the set. I don't remember who the invitational winner was who is responsible for the cards creation, but this isn't even the card he designed. He submitted a card design that was a land that could be channeled for 2UU to counter a spell (think Last Word that could tap for mana), and when R&D tested it and found it to be too powerful everywhere (according to them anyway), they rushed a design for Snapcaster Mage and thus we have that today. So yes, it may very well have been a mistake from WotC's point of view.
As far as the topic's title is concerned, I see no reason to defend playing combo any more than I see to defend playing a prison style deck. I'm going to play this game with infinite variety the way I want to play it. If that involves me cloning Tangle Wire until I ramp into a pair of Smokestacks and chip away at you with tiny creatures who got in under the lock, or if that involves me Donating an Illusions of Grandeur in a Necropotence fueled deck with enough countermagic to box you into an inescapable corner, then so be it. I have no problem with anyone playing the game the way they want to play it, nor do I have any problem with people not playing casual Magic with people who play archtypes they don't enjoy playing against, but I've found more often than not that people who complain about certain styles of play are akin to the child who throws his video game controller across the room when he encounters an opponent he can't figure out how to beat in a video game. "Oh he takes the game too seriously", "Oh _______ is a broken strategy, why can't he just play aggro/control/etc like me?" It usually just boils down to a "stop liking/playing what I dont like/play!!!", and in those conversations, nothing actually gets accomplished.
TCG Player, on the other hand, has WLG at almost 100 less feedback than SZO (3CC has 46 while WLG has 233 and SZO has 323, so no, WLG sounds much larger than 3CC by any comparison, or any local store that has no online presence, unless that store is some kind of Walmart-esque establishment). That puts my store of choice at the largest, but I feel that for the sake of argument, I would be remiss if I didn't establish that SZO also sells Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokemon, D&D Minis, Heroclix, and I believe Redakai.
As I said before, I usually shop SZO (and I never sell cards to online retailers), and the practices that Im hearing in this thread sound very much like practices I could not condone from any business for any reason, but I found the claim that of being the biggest to be somewhat interesting and worthy of some verification (as it's something that is usually boasted by a business for whatever region), and potentially true looking at the numbers from FMC and TCG-P.
Though I guess its not the main issue here. Oh well