Top Magic: the Gathering Stores & Marketplaces

In a similar vein as I set out to list all the top Magic content providers I wanted to do the same thing for Magic stores. Although, this is a larger and trickier task, I think that it is similarly valuable.

Stores

ABU
Bidwicket
Channel Fireball
MTG Fanatic
Star City Games
Strike Zone Online
TCG Player
Troll and Toad

A lot of stores fall under Bidwicket and TCGPlayer. If the store is a big one like Channelfireball I have listed it separately but I am not going to list out all the other smaller stores that fall under Bidwicket and TCGPlayer. Needless to say if the store is on Bidwicket or TCGPlayer that should give you some level of protection. Though if you care about the condition of cards I have found that some of the 'mom and pop' stores have some really questionable grading criteria, so keep that in mind.

Other Resources

eBay
magic traders (MOTL)
Facebook

The one that got away

magiccardmarket

Perhaps the most interesting card selection is one that is blocked for non-EU users. Magic Card Market has a huge selection of Magic cards in all sorts of languages and is a pretty great marketplace for picking up some of the more random Magic cards from.

There are stores popping up daily so I will have missed loads of random local stores (unless they are using Bidwicket or TCGPlayer) but if there are any that are truly worth adding here then please let me know.

Cheers,
Simon

Not so Mono Red Modern

I have been playing more and more MODO over the last couple of weeks. After starting off on basic mono red I have been slowly adapting my deck in order to give it a little more play and build up my collection of Modern/Legacy Staples. My deck of choice would be the UR delver list that Patrick Chapin played in the World Championships (or some variation). Unfortunately Scalding Tarn's are ~$40 a pop on Magic Online. It is hard to justify buying these when I instead bought Polluted Deltas for ~$5 each. Since it looks like I am in MODO for the long haul I am going the patient route. There are also a couple of UR commons that are quite pricey - Serum Visions ($6-7) and Gitaxian Probe ($2-3). For comparison Brainstorm is around $0.04 a pop....
 
Chapin's List
 

Creature [13]

1 Snapcaster Mage

4 Delver of Secrets

4 Monastery Swiftspear

4 Young Pyromancer

Instant [15]

1 Electrolyze

1 Izzet Charm

1 Mana Leak

1 Remand

2 Spell Snare

2 Vapor Snag

3 Thought Scour

4 Lightning Bolt

Sorcery [14]

2 Forked Bolt

4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Serum Visions

4 Treasure Cruise

Land [18]

1 Arid Mesa

1 Mountain

1 Sulfur Falls

3 Steam Vents

4 Flooded Strand

4 Island

4 Scalding Tarn

 

Sideboard [15]

2 Dispel

2 Spell Pierce

1 Negate

1 Bonfire of the Damned

1 Electrickery

1 Magma Spray

1 Harvest Pyre

1 Izzet Staticaster

1 Threads of Disloyalty

2 Blood Moon

2 Smash to Smithereens 

 
So like I said I have been buying the remainder of these cards to build up my collection but on the way I have been playing a tweaked version of this:
 

Shahar Shenhar List

 

Creature [8]

4 Goblin Guide

4 Monastery Swiftspear

Instant [16]

2 Searing Blaze

2 Skullcrack

4 Boros Charm

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Mutagenic Growth

Sorcery [12]

4 Lava Spike

4 Rift Bolt

4 Treasure Cruise

Enchantment [4]

4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Land [20]

2 Bloodstained Mire

2 Sacred Foundry

2 Steam Vents

3 Arid Mesa

3 Wooded Foothills

4 Mountain

4 Scalding Tarn

 

Sideboard [15]

2 Searing Blaze

2 Skullcrack

4 Geist of Saint Traft

3 Smash to Smithereens

2 Wear // Tear

2 Combust 

This is a pretty sweet little list and I fell in love with the Mental Misstep's for lightning bolt that (Mutagenic Growth) that are in Shenhar's list. The only card that I didn't pick up for this is Geist of Saint Traft and some slightly different fetch lands (Scalding Tarn again). Conveniently enough it seems like a large % of other people also wanted to play Either Patrick Chapins list above or Wrapters Jeskai Ascendency combo deck. Thankfully this version of Mono Red is pretty good against both.
 
My Current List:
 
Creature [8]

4 Goblin Guide

4 Monastery Swiftspear

Instant [19]

2 Searing Blaze

 

1 Searing Blood

 

4 Boros Charm

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Mutagenic Growth

3 Skullcrack

Sorcery [10]

2 Treasure Cruise

4 Lava Spike

4 Rift Bolt

 

1 Forked Bolt

Enchantment [4]

4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Land[19]

1 Steam Vents

2 Sacred Foundry

3 Arid Mesa

4 Blood Stained Mire

 

4 Wooded Foothills

5 Mountain

Sideboard [15]

1 Magma Spray

 

1 Grim Lavamancer

2 Smash to Smithereens

1 Combust

1 Timely Reinforcements  

2 Searing Blood

 

2 Searing Blaze

 

1 Skullcrack

2 Molten Rain

2 Everlasting Torment  

 
I have been pretty happy with the deck so far and it has quite a bit of reach and a little more play than your regular mono red deck due to Treasure Cruise, Boros Charm and Mutagenic Growth. I am being a little bit of a greedy face by only playing 19 lands but so far I haven't been punished too badly (yet). I really like the idea of having 1 shard volley in the list to help pump up my treasure cruises and give a little more reach but I don't think it is possible with only 19 lands. If I go up to 20 lands I don't think I have the space to shoehorn it in the list. The only kind of odd ones are the Forked Bolt and the Searing Blood. I have gotten quite a bit of mileage from both of these and they help diversify my burn spells some. Showing the Forked bolt after fetching for a Steam Vents often makes my opponent think that I am on UR delver which lets them walk straight into mutagenic growth. Searing Blaze seems much better than Searing Blood but often times you don't have any extra lands to trigger landfall making it slightly worse as the game goes on.
 
Cheers,
Simon

Buying Magic: the Gathering from Facebook

Lately, I have been using eBay and MOTL less and less to buy and sell Magic cards. I also buy very few Magic cards from US dealers (TCG Player, Bidwicket, SCG, CFB, etc.) because their prices are generally sky high and they don't have the niche items that I generally look for (miscuts, misprints and Russian cards). So where have I been buying my cards from? The perhaps surprising answer is Facebook. Before joining multiple online Facebook Magic groups I rarely used Facebook,mostly because I don't really care what other people are doing or what other people "like."

The first group I joined was Magic: The Gathering misprints and oddities. This niche group now has over 10,312 members. This is quite an astonishing number for such a niche market as misprints.

The second groups that I joined were the Non-English Magic the Gathering trading group and the High End Magic stuff for sale! These groups have ~2000 and ~15,000 members respectively.

The above groups are the groups that I still actively use to buy and sell Magic cards.

So why use Facebook instead of selling to a store, eBay, MOTL, etc.:

Pro -
No fees!
No picture limit
You can message the buyer/seller

Con -
Scammers
Posts can get lost

Be careful out there but don't forget to have fun and buy some new sweet cards (or sell some to me!).

Cheers,
Simon

Grab Bag - Magic Online (MODO), Modern Masters 2, Jeskai Ascendancy, Legacy

Grab Bag

Part 1 - Magic Online (MODO)
 
I have been spending more time getting myself immersed in the new world of MODO (for me anyway).
 
Which I have written a little about here:
 
http://mtgbazaar-teamz.blogspot.com/2014/12/magic-online-modo-buying-edition.html
 
http://mtgbazaar-teamz.blogspot.com/2014/06/why-hearthstone-made-me-better-at-magic.html
 
What I really want to utilize MODO for is playing legacy and modern. In order to do that I need to replicate my real life collection. I saw an interesting post recently that said to buy a playset of every card on MODO (cheapest version) would cost you approximately $25,675. That presumably includes a bunch of bulk cards that you wouldn't want, or you already got from opening packs, etc. I would estimate (completely unscientifically) that to get all the cards you would want on MODO for around $20,000. If you are willing to skip on certain niche cards you can probably bring this cost down even further. I would be interested in seeing the cost for all cards on MODO for legacy since I don't need Siege Rhino's, etc.
  
The best thing about buying in to MODO right now is that Vintage Masters is still fresh(ish) off the presses and the cost of the power 9 is probably at its lowest point until they re-print in the future (~$150 for Black Lotus). Also with KTK being heavily drafted there is an influx of cheap fetchlands available (sub $10). I highly suggest to anyone thinking about buying in to start now. I think the next 6 months is going to be the best time to buy in to MODO.  
 
Part 2 - Modern Masters 2
 
Continuing on from the above there is more good news in regards to buying MODO cards and that is the announcement for Modern Masters 2.
 
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/announcing-modern-masters-2015-edition-2014-12-08
 
The big re-print should be the Zendikar fetchlands which should hopefully reduce the price down similar to what KTK did for the Onslaught fetches. I have also seen some pictures of Emrakul so we will likely see Emrakul as well. The real question is will they reprint - Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant and Vendilion Clique again? I would be surprised if we don't see at least some of them again and if we don't see them all I think we can expect more price jumps.
 
Interestingly Wizard's post doesn't mention that the printing will be limited (they did for Modern Masters I). Remarkably Wizards is also going to have a two tier price structure for Online ($6.99) v. Paper ($9.99). I think this is a good move and I wish they would do the same for Standard packs as well. Though I guess they will be against this due to their redemption policy. Honestly, MODO is probably successful enough that they could do away with the redemption policy but I know a lot of people pay their way through the program using that as a revenue stream.
 
Part 3 - Jeskai Ascendancy
 
Jeskai Ascendancy had a big week and perhaps an even bigger weekend. It all started with Yuuya Watanabe's Standard Jeskai Ascendancy deck from Worlds and Josh Utter Leyton's Modern Jeskai Ascendancy deck. It ended with Brad Nelson's Legacy Jeskai Ascendancy deck making top 16 of SCG Portland.
 
Standard

Land (24)

• 3x Battlefield Forge
• 3x Flooded Strand
• 1x Island
• 2x Mountain
• 4x Mystic Monastery                    
• 2x Plains                    
• 3x Shivan Reef
• 2x Temple of Epiphany
• 4x Temple of Triumph

Instant (14)

• 2x Jeskai Charm
• 4x Lightning Strike
• 4x Raise the Alarm
• 4x Stoke the Flames

Sorcery (8)

• 4x Hordeling Outburst
• 4x Treasure Cruise

Creature (8)

• 4x Goblin Rabblemaster
• 4x Seeker of the Way

Planeswalker (2)

• 2x Chandra, Pyromaster

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Jeskai Ascendancy                    

Sideboard (15)

• 1x Anger of the Gods                    
• 4x Disdainful Stroke                    
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion                    
• 3x End Hostilities                    
• 2x Erase
• 2x Glare of Heresy                    
• 2x Magma Spray

 
 
Modern

Creatures (4)

• 4 Fatestitcher

Lands (22)

• 2 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 1 Arid Mesa
• 4 Faerie Conclave
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Seachrome Coast
• 2 Steam Vents

Spells (34)

• 4 Jeskai Ascendancy
• 4 Dig Through Time
• 4 Izzet Charm
• 3 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Path to Exile
• 3 Remand
• 4 Thought Scour
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Serum Visions
• 1 Treasure Cruise

Sideboard

1 Deprive

3 Gifts Ungiven

1 Pact of Negation

2 Swan Song

3 Wear // Tear

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

2 Timely Reinforcements

1 Unburial Rites

 
Legacy

Creatures (8)

• 4 Fatestitcher
• 4 Young Pyromancer

Lands (18)

• 3 Arid Mesa
• 1 Faerie Conclave
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 3 Tundra
• 3 Volcanic Island

Spells (34)

• 4 Jeskai Ascendancy
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Mental Note
• 3 Spell Pierce
• 4 Thought Scour
• 1 Faithless Looting
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Treasure Cruise

Sideboard

• 2 Pithing Needle
• 3 Meddling Mage
• 1 Sulfur Elemental
• 2 Hydroblast
• 1 Pyroblast
• 3 Surgical Extraction
• 2 Wear // Tear
• 1 Faerie Conclave

The Invitational coming up in Seattle should be very interesting with these decks now on peoples radar.

Note - this deck is very difficult to play on MODO because of all the triggers, this may influence the % of this deck in the metagame.

Note 2 - Jeskai Ascendancey is only about $2 a pop at the moment so it is probably worth buying or trading for a playset just in case. This is the case even if it does get banned in some number of formats.

Part 4 - Legacy

Just in case anyone wasn't sure RUG Delver (Temur Delver) is still a thing.

-Cheers-

Tri v. Scry by Ty Thomason

Today on Twitter, StarCityGames.com editor Cedric Phillips had this to say:

Flying across the country editing articles and working ondecklists for #SCGPORT. Step one = Get these Nomad Outposts out of Mardu ASAP.
— Cedric Phillips (@CedricAPhillips) December 1, 2014

This sparked a brief back and forth with some of his followers, including myself. I thought I would make a post to clarify my viewpoint and explain my reasoning.

Note: Cedric is not suggesting cutting Outpost from the deck to play more basics, or to play Mana Confluence. He is only comparing it to playing additional scry lands.

My official position is this: Tri-lands are awesome and you should play four of them.

To explain my reasoning, there are a few assumptions I will be making. First, we are talking about 60 card constructed decks. If you have both tri-lands and scry lands in your draft deck, you should just play all of them. Second, current standard decks are mostly homogeneous when it comes to spell power level. If there was a specific card that you HAD to draw in order to win,scry lands are a lot better. The function of scry lands in standard is mostly one of avoiding mana flood, or pushing slightly inferior / matchup dependent cards to the bottom in hopes of drawing better options. Third, you want to play somewhere between 23-26 lands. Many color source balancing issues can be fixed by simply playing more lands (a good trick to remember for limited), but at some point mana flood becomes a real issue.

So starting with the basics. How many colors can you play in a 60 card deck if you only have basic lands? The spells you want to play determine the number of required colored sources you want, and then you add lands to meet those requirements. Frank Karsten did the hard work already. This article shows that if you have double colored manarequirements in two colors and want to play these spells by turn 4, you would need 12 lands of each color. With only basics, this is 24 lands total, and pretty much limits deck construction to two colors. This is also the reason that the conventional wisdom is to draft two color decks in most formats. Without access to common mana fixing like in Khans or RTR block, playing 3 colors requires 19-21 total lands.

As you allow access to dual colored lands, it becomes much easier to meet the minimum requirements set in Franks article. With dual lands available in each color combination, the 12 dual land and 4 of each basic gives you 12 sources of each of three colors while still within 24 land slots. If you allow the tri-land of those three colors, you could end up with 15 sources in each color easily. Franks math was only done to ensure 90%certainity. With more sources you can be more certain of having the colored mana you need. Brad Nelson has shown that when you add enough tri-lands, four color decks become possible!

Unfortunately, tri-lands aren't all upside. They enter thebattlefied tapped, but so do scry lands! The issue comes down to how many ETB tapped lands we can afford to play. Another way to look at it is how many untapped sources do we need to play, since we can always play more tapped lands instead of spells. The typical standard Mardu deck plays 9-10 tapped lands.

I love scry lands. I was one of the few people in my play group not disappointed when they were spoiled. New Benalia was always a card I loved. That said, I think they are worse than tri-lands.

What advantages do scry lands have? They help mitigate flood, and the more you play the better they are. However, Most decks in standard also run fetchlands, which undo the scrying you have already achieved in the game. A deck like Blue-White Heroic shouldn't play Windswept Heath because it scrys so much that it would do more harm than good, even considering that it adds to delve to reduce the cost of Treasure Cruise. Scrying can also be used to "fix" your mana, digging you for the colored source you are missing. This isn't an advantage over tri-lands though, since tri-lands already provide the missing source. Deciphering between which land you want to keep and which land to push is another added level of complexity to the deck that might lead to more mistakes. Having to keep a land on top because its thecolor you need when you already have drawn plenty of manasources is not taking full advantage of the scrys you get.

It is completely possible to get the mana ratios right using less than 4 copies of a tri-land. With each copy you don't play, you are increasing the liklihood of not having the mana you need. In return, you get to scry. Is the likelihood of the scry helping you out higher than the likelihood of running into mana issues?

 

Maybe it is lazy deckbuilding, but it's something I've spent lots of time thinking about before. What tri-lands do is very unique and it's hard to find something to compare it to. From the Seaside Citadels of Brian Kibler's Next Level Bant, to the Savage Lands (instead of extra man lands!) of Simon Gortzen's Jund deck, they have a place in deck construction. I think 4 is the starting number, and I wonder how many more I would be willing to play.

Another way to think about tri-lands and their importance is to look at fetch lands in formats where dual lands are fetchable. In a typical Legacy deck, you run many more fetches than duals, many times not even running the full 4 copies of any one dual. This is because fecth lands that can get any of the 3 dual lands you use function as tri-lands until you fetch them. A fetch land in your hand with and single other colored land gives you access to all three colors of mana for your deck. Waiting to crackfetchlands is very important not just for brainstorming, but also so you don't restrict the colors of mana you have access to. Similarly, it is also important to not fetch the last copy of a dual land in your deck unless you have a good reason to. Not having a Tundra to get with Scalding Tarn the turn you need to cast Swords to Plowshares will cost you.

Bonus Top Ten - Top Ten Dual Land Cycles

1.Tundra
2. Hallowed Fountain
3. Adarkar Wastes
4. Mystic Gate
5. Seachrome Coast
6. Celestial Colonade
7. Temple of Enlightenment
8. Glacial Fortress
9. Flooded Strand (number 1 if Tundra / hallowed fountain are legal)
10. Skyclould Expanse

Reminder that fetchlands aren't as good without dual lands!

Thanks,
Ty

Magic Online (MODO): The Buying Edition

Despite purchasing a laptop specifically to play MODO I have been dragging my feet on making the jump into the online universe of Magic. Paying for digital versions of cards is just nowhere near as exciting and I have preferred to spend a lot less money playing Hearthstone (i.e. almost none) and buying fun foreign and miscut cards off eBay instead. I talked about this briefly before.

This weekend while sleep deprived and up way too late with the little one, I decided to mess around on MODO some. After expending some  more time and energy winning 5 card booster packs in the new MODO player draft events I was getting a little bored...Aside - Wizards is that really the best you can do for new players? Winning a 5 card booster and getting 4 commons and an uncommon is a really miserable experience. With my new found interest in MODO piqued (and my distaste for 5 card boosters), I started exploring Magic singles and was sent into a nonsensical spiraling world of bots, websites, credits, PayPal and tix. Oh my, is this a whole different language and style than the regular process of point and click purchasing. That is before you even look at pricing trends (Ex - Real life Daze $3, Online Daze $30). This is going to take some work...

First, I searched for reviews of bots and sites, etc. There are a lot of them out there and using MODO alone will not help whatsoever, so you will need to search the internet for more info. Aside - the online market place is a total shit show and is completely nonsensical to new players... I found a few helpful articles but in all honesty nobody broke it down enough to make it 100% useful.

Second, what did I want to play? I am fine playing any Magic format (minus EDH) because I just love Magic but my preference is to play Legacy for the sole reason that it is easier to keep up with if I have to take a break or I am unable to get a hold of new cards, etc. I also just like playing with the old cards that I am familiar with. I would have liked to build UR delver or something similar, as I have been playing a lot of UR delver in the real world and it seems like it would be a fine deck online as well.

I was prepared to pay for the Volcanic Islands and Force of Wills (around $30 each) but I was not prepared for the price of some of the commons (Daze $30 and Pyroblast $7). Consequently I stepped back a second and decided to go with Stage 1 of UR delver which is simply Burn. After I filled my cart with the cards for Burn I noticed that I also had most of the cards for modern burn minus a few of the Modern only cards (i.e. Skullcrack, Flames of the Bloodhand, etc.). Thus, I filled out my cart with these cards too. I still had some new player event tickets and I noticed that there were some New Player Standard Queues in which I could play (I really want more 5 card packs!). From my initial card collection and the 5 card boosters I had already won I had a good start on Boss Sligh, so I decided to pick up the remainder of that deck minus the Stoke the Flames (already had 1) and Goblin Rabblemasters (which only some versions use).

All in all, I got x3 playable if not Tier 1 Magic decks for ~$140. In this purchase I also bought some of the cheap blue cards to give me a head start on UR Delver (Brainstorm, Ponder, Delver, Young Pyromancer, etc.) I probably bought from one of the more expensive stores (MTGOTraders) but their search engine was the best and they let you pay through PayPal easily. Oh yeah and I found a coupon for 8% off my entire order which leveled the playing field a little.

Lastly, I later found that these exist for ~$30...

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/mtgodeckseries/themedeck#deck1

I could have saved quite a bit of money and time if I had purchased this instead and I definitely need to keep and eye out for future ones (the $7 Pyroblasts I bought are particularly galling). Also, I will definitely be buying the white one to get the x3 Stoneforge Mystic, x1 Jitte and x4 Swords to Plowshares.   

On the plus side, I did win my first New player Standard 1v1 (oh yeah 5 card pack) as well as my first 1v1 2 tix event (oh yeah 15 card card pack).

Cheers,
Simon

Magic: the Gathering Strategy Resources

As my time to play Magic continues to diminish I get most of my information from articles and streams . I wanted to know if I was missing any resources, so I set out to see if there were any sites that I didn't know about. I was very surprised to be unable to find a comprehensive list of Magic blogs and online content. For a community that is extremely reliant on the flow of information from articles and other online content it was quite surprising to me that nobody has compiled this list already (as far as I could find anyway). Maybe this list is so ingrained into our Magic consciousness that we don't even think about needing such a list. Consequently, I wanted to create a list of the Magic: the Gathering resources.

For each item on the list I have added a personal Pro and Con so that the uninitiated can use that to guide where they want to go. Enjoy.

Article Sites:

http://www.blackborder.com/
Pro: Content is free.
Con: They don't have quite as many big names but they have a lot of pro tour players and judges writing for them.

http://www.brainstormbrewery.com/
Pro: Content is free.
Con: Limited number of writers.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/
Pro: Content is free.
Con: Content is primarily driven by standard and can sometimes be updated in patchy bursts.

http://www.eternalcentral.com/
Pro: Free-ish.
Con: Irregular updates + downloadable articles that you need to pay for.

http://www.happymtg.com/
Pro: This site was off the radar for a long time until Saito starting spamming twitter, etc. with deck lists. Previously, I used to get a lot of Japanese "tech" from this site (all formats). Also content is free.
Con: Content is in Japanese but you can use Google translator which makes some of the articles close to unreadable. Thanks goodness deck lists don't usually need an explanation.

http://www.starcitygames.com/
Pro: Has the most content on the internet and posts new content daily. Does have some free content.
Con: Costs money for premium though you can get a free month every time you play in an SCG event.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/
Pro: Content is free.
Con: Their site is totally terrible and the content is usually a re-hash of content that is already on Starcitygames or Channelfireball.

http://www.manaleak.com/mtguk/
Pro: Content is free.
Con: Limited number of writers.

http://themeadery.org/
Pro: Content is free.
Con: Limited number of writers.

Blogs:

http://bmkgaming.com/blog/
Pro: As far as big names in Magic go, this is pretty high up there and it feels a little more personal than an article.
Con: Not that much Magic content but occasionally there are some good tidbits on there.

http://blog.mtgmadness.com/
Pro: A literal shit ton of pros are on this team
Con: The updates are patchy as hell but the content is sometimes very good if you strike it at the right time.

http://mtgbazaar-teamz.blogspot.com/
Pro: Varied content.
Con: Patchy updates.

Forums:

http://mtgthesource.com/
Pro: Legacy.
Con: Only Legacy and the quality of posts seems to diminish day-by-day.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/
Pro: May be the best place for spoilers.
Con: The quality of forum posts is total garbage.


Twitch:

www.twitch.tv/ajsacher
Pro: Free...good commentary
Con: Currently he is all Hearthstone all the time though the Legacy GP in NJ changed that recently.

www.twitch.tv/pvddr
Pro: Watch a member of the HOF stream MTG or Hearthstone
Con: I find Paulo really difficult to listen to.

www.twitch.tv/scglive
Pro: Any time Patrick Sullivan is in the booth (and Cedric too).
Con: Sometimes they are a little off base but this is the best live content you will see. Also don't listen to Patrick talk about NJ.

This list is severely slanted to the places that I personally go to find content. If you have any other places that are worthy of a mention please let me know and I will update.

Cheers,
Simon

Legacy - UR Delver (with a little Green)

I have been a big proponent of Delver of Secrets since it was first printed and the new UR Delver deck has taken my fancy for the last couple of weeks. I have a few small changes that are a little different that what most people are playing.

 

My List:

 

Creatures (11)

• 4 Delver of Secrets
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Young Pyromancer

Lands (16)

• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 3 Flooded Strand
• 4 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Tropical Island
• 4 Volcanic Island
• 2 Wooded Foothills

Spells (33)

• 4 Brainstorm
• 3 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Pyroblast
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Forked Bolt
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Ponder
• 4 Treasure Cruise

The list is mostly stock other than the Tropical Island (for the sideboard) and the Spell Pierces. Nobody is running spell pierce right now so nobody is playing around it and I have caught quite a few Batterskulls with it. I do not know if the Basic Mountain is required and it may just be better off as another fetchland to help fuel Treasure Cruise. I am also interested in running a singleton Wasteland but currently the list is so tight that it is tricky to know how to shoe horn it in. When nobody is playing around Wasteland the power of the card goes up a lot. The tough thing is that you really want to draw spells and not lands off your Treasure Cruises...I also think that I have seen more basic lands than I have seen in legacy since 2002.

My Sideboard:

• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 0/1 Flusterstorm
• 2 Sulfuric Vortex
• 2/3 Destructive Revelry
• 1 Blue Elemental Blast
• 1 Electrickery / Sudden Demise / Forked Bolt
• 1 Price of Progress
• 3 Pyroblast
• 1/2 Grim Lavamancer

The sideboard feels very strong to me. Everyone is bringing in Blue Elemental Blast, Disenchant and Wear/Tear, so it may be correct to cut the Sulfuric Vortex but they are just so strong vs. miracles and the mid-range stone forge decks. The Destructive Revelry is there primarily to blow up Artifacts but it can also be used to blow up Rest in Peace, Energy Field, Moat, etc.

What you do not see here is Blood Moon. Every deck at the moment seems to be playing basics as there is a dip in the number of 3 colour tempo decks. As a result I don't like Blood Moon and I also cut down on the number of Price's for the same reason. Having your opponents play around cards you aren't even playing is also very beneficial, especially when it lets you play other random cards that they might not be ready for. :)

Cheers,
Simon

A Little Hearthstone Motivation

Just in case I needed a little more motivation in my climb up the ladder:

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/15955974/hearthside-chat-youre-better-than-you-think-9-18-2014

If what they are saying is accurate then I am consistently in the top 2% of Hearthstone players. I still want to be in that top 0.5% though.

Cheers,
Simon

Return of the Red Deck

Tom the Boss Ross is at it again:

18 Mountain

4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Firedrinker Satyr
3 Frenzied Goblin
1 Arena Athlete

2 Hordeling Outburst

4 Stoke the Flames
2 Lightning Strike
4 Titan's Strength
4 Dragon Mantle
4 Hammerhand
1 Coordinated Assault
1 Hall of Triumph

SB: 3 Peak Eruption
SB: 2 Lightning Strike
SB: 4 Searing Blood
SB: 4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
SB: 2 Magma Spray

Another hyper aggressive red deck that attempts to run under everybody. With all the current spot removal in the format this deck seems relatively well positioned.

I have been wanting to test out something like the below for a while now but I just haven't had the time to test.

10 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Mana Confluence

4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Firedrinker Satyr
3 Frenzied Goblin
1 Satyr Hoplite

2 Hordeling Outburst

4 Stoke the Flames
2 Lightning Strike
4 Titan's Strength
4 Dragon Mantle
4 Hammerhand
1 Coordinated Assault
1 Hall of Triumph

SB: 1 Forest
SB: 3 Destructive Revelry
SB: 2 Lightning Strike
SB: 4 Searing Blood
SB: 3 Eidolon of the Great Revel
SB: 2 Magma Spray

I would love to fit a forge devil or two in the sideboard or main if the mirror match becomes more common. I would also think about running one scouring sands if this or the Jeskai tokens decks become super popular.

-Cheers-

Hearthstone Ladder - October 2014

I have been playing Hearthstone on and off for the past several months as a way to kill time, to make up for a lack of Magic and just as something to do while I cook and/or watch TV (multitasking is great!).

The monthly cycle has been me willy nilly jamming games and getting to level 5-10 before I get bored, frustrated and/or busy and end up shelving the grind in exchange for more arena or another activity. The timing this month seems good to try and make a push for Hearthstone legend. My collection is small and my time is short so it is going to be a challenge but I am going to try and mini-grind every day (we shall see) to try and achieve the rank of totally irrelevant Legend! To add further complications and time constraints my wife and I will also be having a baby this month...don't worry though the hospital has Wi-Fi (my wife asked not me)!

So for better or for worse, I am going to try and update this little guy day-to-day to let you guys know how it goes.

Oct 1 - The new season resets and I am a whopping rank 20/21, I cannot remember the exact rank but it doesn't really matter. I think I ended the last season at rank 9/10 since I had put the game down and only picked it up during the last week or so of September.

The decks that I will be playing with:

Aggro Mage

Aggro Zoo

Aggro Hunter

See a pattern here? Just like in Magic, the aggro decks are much cheaper (or free) than the mid-range and control decks. The good thing is that you generally win or lose the games relatively quickly, so you can grind a little quicker. First day and I just play a couple of games and move up to rank 19. Oh yeah, guess who gets a new card back at the end of the month.... 

Start - 20/21
Finish - 19

Oct 2 - It is Day 2 and Thursday night legacy is going to get in the way of playing Hearthstone! Oh no, well good thing the game store has Wi-Fi and I have an I-pad. I play 3 games while I am waiting for legacy to start (2-1 record). I don't have the time to play any games in between rounds so my plan doesn't exactly go as planned. I end up 3-0-1 in legacy which is good for top 4 and $35 of store credit (BUG with lots of Scavenging Ooze). Instead of going straight to bed I jam a couple more games and end up with a little run to push me ahead a couple of levels.  

Start - 19
Finish - 16

Oct 3 - Half day Friday, so that should give me some time to jam some games in the afternoon before the wife gets home. I do also need to walk the dog and do some other adult/household shit. I played for about 2 hours on Friday and it was a long, slow, miserable grind. My deck just seemed poorly positioned against everything and winning games seemed nigh impossible. I was going 50/50 until I managed to finally break through the lull and win a string of games to make a little progress for the afternoon. I may have also played Arena for a little while to take a break. My arena didn't go great, 7 wins but I did open a pack with a golden Epic which was good for 1600 dust.When the wife got home we went and ate some Italian food (Giacomo's Cibo e Vino) which was delicious. We wound down the night with a little TV and I played a couple more games to round out the day.  

Start - 16
Finish - 14

Oct 4 - I started the morning off with a cup of tea, a pumpkin scone and my first game of Hearthstone. Then it was off to walk the dog. Then to the supermarket to grab some food...I try to play Legacy every Saturday if I can but it starts at 1pm and goes for 4/5 hours, so it really fucks my day up for doing anything productive. The weather was 100% beautiful and I really wanted to be outside but I am trying to cram as much pre-baby Magic in as possible, so I decide to go play. I played a game or two of Hearthstone before I started Magic, just like I did on Thursday, the in-between round games never happened (still nice in theory). That night we went out for Mexican food (and Margaritas), I ate way too much and drank way too many margaritas. When I got home I played a couple more games and managed to level up a little. At this point I was pretty much just jamming zoo, as I couldn't get Hunter to beat anything and Aggro Mage just seemed awful in theory so I couldn't bring myself to even play it.

Start - 14
Finish - 12

Oct 5 - Similar to yesterday, a cup of tea and hearthstone to start the day. Then off to take the dog for his walk. We then went for crepes at my favorite breakfast spot, which is a crepe strand. The weather was lovely, though it started to get a tad warm. The middle of the day was consumed by grabbing some last minute baby stuff, building some baby stuff and cleaning! After that, I got to start playing some games, the games were going pretty poorly again and I was dropping some games because I was screwing up while multi-tasking, washing/cooking dinner, etc. I took some short breaks to watch some of the coverage from GP Orlando. I also watched some of the Hearthstone streams for a little bit. I watched one of my friends (ThatsAdmirable and Here) get crushed in the big Hearthstone tournament. His opponent (Ant) crushed him with a zoo deck, I went to look for his zoo list with Loatheb but couldn't find it.

I did however find a pretty sweet Hunter list:

I had everything for the deck except Black Knight which I replaced with this:

Go go budget deck! It is a Beast which is relevant for the deck (Kill Command), it is also good on curve, etc. The main negative is that it is really poor against Sludge Belcher. Whereas Black Knight is very good. I went on a tear and beat a bunch of people with the deck. The deck had some pretty nutty draws as long as my hand didn't get clogged with too many Traps. I was pretty happy to end the weekend under level 10. I wish I knew a little more info than just my level though: How long had I played?, How many games?, how many wins and how many losses?, etc. Maybe I need to start tracking this info. I would still like to get Ants zoo list with Loatheb since I am interested to see what he cut for that. 

As the grind gets a little harder and as I get closer to Legend (which is still far, far away) I may start putting the stars next to my rank so tracking progress is a little easier.

Random Thought - It seems like every single deck right now is playing Loatheb, is it just too good?

Start - 12
Finish - 9

Oct 6 - Monday... I considered bringing my ipad to work so that I could jam a few games at work (during lunch) but decided against it since I needed to re-charge my ipad and presumably get some actual work done. I am not ruling it out for the future though. I did play some https://geoguessr.com/ during the day which wasn't entirely productive, so maybe I should just jam some Hearthstone.  Tonight I will start with the Aggro/Mid-Range Hunter deck against which hopefully hasn't spawned all over the place. Well I did get to play a few games but it was a struggle all night. I seemed to draw secrets in every opening hand and would just mulligan into more secrets...sometimes you just cannot win for trying. I also made a couple of subtle mistakes that cost me at least 1 or 2 games. The most interesting game of the night was against Warlock zoo where I make an interesting attack to make sure all of his guys die to explosive trap but then he doesn't attack into the trap so we just sort of stare at one another for multiple turns. 'Twas a pretty interesting stalemate to say the least.

Random Thought - I cannot imagine playing Hearthstone on a real laptop since I have only ever played on an ipad. I wonder if I am missing any functionality?

Start - 9 (2 stars)
Finish - 9 (4 stars)

Oct 7 - I played one singular game when I woke up and won...100% win record...I thought I might have a new baby in my hands today but that ended up not coming to fruition, so I am back to being on standby for that. Roasted Chile Pesto marinated pork for dinner should give me some time to jam some games while the meat cooks. :)

Another night of hitting my head against the wall...It seems like every deck I played against was a bad matchup. I made it all the up to 8 and all the way down to 11 then managed to stabilize back to almost where I started.

Random Thought - I wonder if there is a best time of the day to jam games? When do the best players play? When do the worst players play? Which category do I fall into?

Start - 9 (4 stars)
Finish - 9 (2 stars)

Oct 8 - After the trials of yesterday, I think I need to switch gears and jam some zoo for a little bit. There are a few hyper aggressive Hunter decks which I may also try out. I only played 3 games tonight going (2-1).

Random Thought - Why doesn't Hearthstone have the equivalent of sideboard games? Only playing one game is quite frustrating and not having any deck flexibility can be annoying when you are in a Rock - Paper - Scissors metagame.

Start - 9 (2 stars)
Finish - 9 (3 stars)

Oct 9 -12 - A busy couple of days prepping the house for the impending baby (could be here any minute now) means I skip my Thursday and Saturday Magic but this does allow me a few more Hearthstone games that normal on those days. In between moving furniture, cleaning and eating I make some major progress with an insanely aggressive Hunter deck capping out at 3 mana spells on the top end. Knife Juggler + Release the Hounds is insanely fun.

I also tweak a couple of Zoo lists. I finally find ANT's Zoo list with Loatheb (as I spoke about above). In Zoo I am currently utilizing power overwhelming as another way to trigger some of the deathrattle effects and for a last minute damage burst.

Quick note - I did make it all the way up to Level 4 but then got paired against the same Warrior 3 times in a row (lost all 3 games) and kind of went on super tilt and crashed back down to level 5. Warrior is basically an unwinnable matchup for both Hunter and Zoo. I have gotten to the point that I see if I can god hand them in 4-5 turns and if they have managed to gain any control at that point (unless they are super low on life) then you may as well disconnect. The matchup is that bad. Just thinking about it makes me sad.

Start - 9 (3 stars)
Finish - 5 (3 stars)

Oct 13 - Busy night so I only had time to play two games and I lost both...I did sell some crappy furniture that I needed to get rid of on Craigslist. I also listed and sold some more Magic cards to help pay for me completing my full 40 of Russian fetchlands.

Start - 5 (3 stars)
Finish - 5 (1 stars)

Oct 14-15 - The time is flying by at the moment and I haven't played any games over the last couple of days. We are at the middle of the month and I really need to step up my game if I want to get to Legend this month.

Start - 5 (1 stars)
Finish - 5 (1 stars)

Oct 16-19 - The mid month lull. It seems like the other slow people have finally caught up and I am stuck playing against mirror matches and those seem to give me a win % of roughly 50/50 depending on play or draw and who gets the superior draw. I lost several games where I was 1 point short or they had exactly enough damage to push through when they were dead on the counter swing. To be fair though I probably only played maybe 10 games over these several days...

Start - 5 (1 stars)
Finish - 5 (0 stars)

Oct 20-25 -  Lots of time in the hospital while my little (or not so little) baby boy is born. The Wifi at the hospital keeps dropping my connection so I give up on playing ranked matches as losing when you are super far ahead is the worst. I decide to just jam some arena as losing doesn't matter as much but I eventually stop playing arena as well when my connection starts dropping. I finally drafted what I think should have been an easy 12 victory deck and losing games to a dropped connection is just the feel worst.

Start - 5 (1 stars)
Finish - 5 (4 stars)

Oct 26-31 - Finally back home with the wee man. I don't get much game time in until the last 2 days of the season and I manage to make it all the way up to rank 2 and then I just don't have the time to make the push to rank 1.

Start - 5 (3 stars)
Finish - 3 (4 stars)

It was a fun experiment and I got pretty close(ish). Losing around 5 days of playing time was no ideal ,though it was not a foregone conclusion that those days would have helped me make the push all the way to Legend. I am not sure if I will try again unless I have an easy month ahead of me (which seems unlikely with a newborn). I think jamming lots of arena games in order to increase my collection will be the goal for the next couple of months. I really want to flesh out my collection before the next expansion comes out that will have around 100 new cards.  

Cheers,
Simon