Standard Corner #2: Follow the Money

So I'm going to do something very different tonight, and that's talk about standard. Most of you who know me, know I strongly Despise the format. I'm not a fan of playing only certain sets and I'm definitely not a fan of being forced to buy new cards every time a new set is released (even though I buy them anyways, I don't like being told what to do, call me rebellious). But, something struck me today pretty heavily, by following the money, you can follow how the standard format is evolving. Let's face it, most of the expensive cards in magic are the standard ones, because it's the most played format (obviously Legacy is more expensive, but it's more expensive to play standard in the long run). The strange thing about standard, is that the prices fluctuate so rapidly, it's sometimes difficult to get the right tech against a new deck that was built yesterday. Recently, I've been unemployed, so I've been trying to make money off selling cards, and that means following the buy prices very closely for updates. This means I can report some of my findings here! Research notes assemble!

Blade Splicer, Sword of Feast and Famine, and Elspeth Tirel: There's been a high demand for the former 3 cards because of a new U/W deck that's been the premier build for people licking their wounds after the Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic bannings. The deck is affordable, a little over 150+ bucks and has the luxury of using a bunch of planeswalkers, including Jace Beleren, Gideon Jura, Karn Liberated, and Venser, the Sojourner. Synergy with Venser and Blade Splicer gives you extra dudes, while Elspeth Tirel gains you life and adds to your army as you climb closer and closer to victory with this new U/W tempo heavy control deck. From a financial standpoint, Blade Splicer has not replenished inventory at my local card shop (which is a big name store) for a while and their buy price sits around 1.5, most people in trades will value the card highly because of it's difficulty to find (for some reason). Sword of Feast and Famine had a buy price of 8 bucks about 2 weeks ago and now has climbed to 15, with the value of the sword ranging from 19-25. As for Elspeth Tirel, the value hasn't changed, but demand has increased, so her buy price moved to 6-7, while she sells around 10 (which is good that the store offers you almost 60% value of the card in cash).

Consecrated Sphinx, Grave Titan, Dismember, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: As for U/B, Consecrated Sphinx is a house and draws tons of cards. What makes it better, it does not die to Dismember, making it a huge asset to the control powerhouse. Did I forget to mention Dismember is now a 4-6 dollar uncommon with a buy price around 2.5 and a foil going for around 20 bucks? Yeah.

Grave Titan shines still, as it gives you two dudes to join in the army and help beat your opponent to a pulp. The titan started to drop in value after M12 release, but quickly climbed back up the ranks and now sits at a value of 10 with a buy price around 6. Not bad. Hopefully, you haven't forgotten Grave Titan's foe, Elesh Norn. She completely destroys Grave Titan's upside and sits nicely as a hoser for all the heavy creature decks in the format right now. Elesh Norn has been sold out at 7 and has a steadily increasing buy price at 3.5

Tempered Steel: The deck is good. The tempered steel aggro deck saw tons of play in block constructed at Pro Tour Nagoya and it's no surprise that this deck makes it extremely potent after Zendikar rotates out of Standard. The deck is fast enough to outrace most decks who aren't even playing Day of Judgement (and even then, most of them just have it in the sideboard). Since it pumps everybody, including your lifelinking Vault Skirge, Signal Pest, and free Memnite's, it is a sick sick finisher. Tempered steel sits at a buy price of 3, while slowly climbing, and has a value around 6.

Jace, Memory Adept; Garruk, Primal Hunter; and Chandra, the Firebrand (And Solemn Simulacrum!): So, M12 has had an interesting financial impact on the community. The pre-order price on all three of the new planeswalkers has jumped by a few dollars these past few weeks, but no significant changes. How come? Although the price hasn't moved much, demand is still high. And that means, the buy price is high. The buy price for any of the planeswalkers was around 5-10 dollars from their release and has jumped to around 20 each. All 3 of them sit around 35 and some estimate they will hit 40. What do I think? I think that the hype is high now, because people are trying to see if the planeswalkers are strong enough to warp the format. Although Jace's milling may be good with the future Inistrad, and Garruk's token/drawing power will play a big role against control decks, and finally Chandra's -2 ability and synergy with Chandra's Phoenix are very powerful, most of these upsides are just speculation. Unfortunately, we won't know whether these planeswalkers will really pack a punch until after the release of Innistrad and the rotation of Zendikar block and M11. I think the planeswalkers are very powerful and definitely justifies their high demand. So, Solemn Simulacrum. This guy, started at 5 and is now climbing to 10-12. Why? Demand. The buy price around this guy started at 2 and now has jumped to 6 as stores are selling out. It has excellent synergy with Birthing Pod, but what else can it do? It ramps, it fixes mana (for all those decks losing fetch lands and man lands), and it draws a card when it dies. It's also a dude that can hold a piece of equipment, and he can hold down the fort against an onslaught and give you one more top deck after he dies. He's an every man's Golem (synergy with Blade Splicer!) and there's no surprise why people want him for EDH and Standard (especially in foil!).

These are just a compilation of notes and observations I've made while selling cards recently and I hope it helps anyone who's interested in becoming competitive in Standard. Who knows, maybe the money leads to a Top 8?

-David J.

Casually Hirarious #2: Garruk, Primal Hunter

So Garruk, Primal Hunter is no joke. Yes, he isn’t as flexible and fast as the original Garruk or me in bed, but beggars can’t be choosers who say, “Hey, I love you but I think I want to make you feel like crap, point out all the bad things about you and tell you how and when you’re going to fix them.” But yeah, this isn’t that kind of article. New Garruk still stays true to green with his abilities for one more green mana. In my honest opinion, he allows for better board with his first and final ability. If you really wanted to, for example, you can crank out a beast every turn without losing him, unless your opponent destroys him or goes all out to kill him. The last ability is also very relevant considering you’re going to be playing green (most likely, but if not, you should get some kind of trophy for pulling that off right….RIGHT?!?!?!?!) and you’ll probably have some kind of ramp going on, hence, lots of wurms….8====D ^1000. Also, the synergy with other cards makes him very relevant. His role as a token generator makes cards like Polymorph, Mass Polymorph, Doubling Season, Eldrazi Monument, and Akroma’s Memorial his posse.

The second ability is my favorite personally (see now you know what to get your favorite admin for his birthday). Because it’s something we don’t see very often in green: card draw. And it’s not just your everyday bland card draw like Harmonize (not saying this is a bad card AT ALL), but rather one that says to the color green, “You like playing fatties? Well let me reward you with--”

“SEX?!?!?!?!” asks the color green.

“Um, what? No, no not now.”

Rather, the bigger the fatty, the bigger the card draw. Imagine having a Kozilek on the board with Primal Hunter. That’s just wrong guys. Just wrong.

 -Carlos Cabrera

Philosophy Behind #4: Chandra, the Firebrand

Hello to Chandra, the Firebrand. She has to be one of the coolest and sexiest planeswalkers. Pun intended, that girl is hot! Ok now let's get to the review.

First of all, 3R is good for two reasons. First, she is the first colored planeswalker to only need one colored mana. This makes her incredibly splashable in decks and efficient in two- or three- color decks. Second, she has a converted mana cost of 4. Yes, the power of 4. The same CMC as Garruk, Wildspeaker, Elspeth Tirel, both Ajanis, Koth of the Hammer, Tezzeret, AoB and Jace, TMS. Ok, Nissa Revane and Sarkhan Vol were also 4 CMC and saw little play, but hey they are exceptions. However, Chandra, the Firebrand looks like no second-rate planeswalker.

• Her +1 ability is simply stronger than her Chandra Nalaar counterpart (just imagine that you're getting a better ability for a R less). Now, you can ping those 1 toughness annoyances or if you need to deal 1 more damage to destroy a creature, your opponent now has to think twice.
• Her - 2 ability is functionally Reverberate (or Fork) and everyone loves to copy spells. This ability is the most abusable in my opinion.What in new standard would we want to copy? Maybe, Arc Trail, Galvanic Blast, and Geosurge. I find Kuldotha Rebirth and Goblin Grenade particularly powerful for just a red mana. Zeniths, maybe? Since she's also so splashable, let's look at the different colors. Dispatch is a good white spell that comes to mind. Visions of Beyond and Tezzeret's Gambit make good card draw spells. Imagine 6 cards for a U (conditionally-speaking) or draw 4 cards for 2U, respectively. Or how about copying Caress of Phyrexia or Sorin's Vengeance? On to the next game. I think for green, our best bets are Rampant Growth, Lead the Stampede, and Overrun. And let's quickly look at the options that arent in standard. Things like, Fireblast, Lightning bolt, Cruel Ultimatum, Blightning, Ancestral Recall, Reanimate, Dark Ritual, and Lightning Helix look pretty good.
• Finally her -6 ultimate is pretty devastating if it goes off. Ok, it's generally not as good as Chandra Nalaar's ultimate (Firebrand can be better in multiplayer). I think 6 damage to 6 targets is still pretty powerful and it's devastating enough to take down Titans.

I think Chandra, the Firebrand is definitely and upgrade from her other two incarnations. I will dare say it that I think she will see more play than the new Jace and Garruk. She will work very well in the monored decks in the standard, in particular the control variants (whether it be artifact or burn spell-based). With that, time will tell whether she will live up to these predictions. That concludes my review for today.

-Michael Hood-Julien, Intern at the Miami-Dade Office of the Chief Medical Examiner-

Post #13: Hello, New World!

Hey everyone, this post is kind of an update to what's going on in the world of MTG Casual Net for people joining us and a couple updates for our already awesome members. This blog is dedicated to our Facebook group, where anyone who has an interesting article or segment they'd like to write about, can share their opinions with other members on the group. My name is David if anyone doesn't know me and I have a reputation for filling people's facebook notifications (sorry!). I'm the head admin of this group and we started it because we had a lot of people who played magic in Gainesville, Fl; however, a lot of people didn't exactly know each other. This group was a way for us to network together and eventually developed into a small community of magic players across Gainesville to Orlando, Fl. The group primarily focuses on casual magic, but branches out into Standard/Type 2, Limited/Draft, and any other format under the rainbow. We share rulings, card/deck ideas, or just funny links. If anyone is new to magic, don't hesitate to ask any type of question. We have a small group of admins (shout out to Sean Wang, Carlos Cabrera, C.J. Hunter, Nick LoCastro, and Michael Julien) that are more than willing to help out. I hope that you're time with the group is enjoyable and we continue to provide a welcoming atmosphere for new members and players. 

You'll rarely hear me discuss standard, but this title refers to the release of M12 (which ironically will be changing the format quite a bit). So very quickly, Chandra's Phoenix, Go!

This card, Chandra's Phoenix will compliment a very impressive mono red build that seems to be interacting heavily with the graveyard (Grim Lavamancer too? Hello Graveyard-Based Innistrad!!). A 2/2 flyer with haste for 3 mana is pretty sick and has already seen some play before, similar to Hell's Thunder from Shards of Alara that made many a Standard players hurt. I like a card that can punch a weak planeswalker dead because my creature has flying and their creatures don't and I giggle a little inside. Chandra's phoenix also has some pretty sick recursion synergy with Chandra, the Firebrand and will definitely be pushing mono red into the right direction.

Cards to look out for with rotation closing in on us:

Consecrated Sphinx. When I saw this card, it was love at first sight. This card is incredible on the casual table and it's no different in standard. If it goes unanswered, the sphinx draws up any answer or counter magic you'll need to hold your opponent's board down. The sphinx can also hold a piece of equipment, why not a Sword of War and Peace and gain life for all those cards you've been drawing? Finally, the sphinx just escapes the premier removal card, Dismember and proves to be very resilient to surviving.

Birthing Pod: So, graveyard based future set, right? So, there's all these creatures in New Phyrexia that want to die? And now, Solemn Simulacrum? This card is going to be insane because it does similar things to Survival of the Fittest and allows you to tutor up answers or tech to your opponent's strategy, handing you the game with ease. 

What about Casual and EDH? Might I introduce you to the cycle of mages.. magi?

These guys are pretty sweet tech if you're running into certain problems in your playgroup due to your metagame. The red one provides haste, blue one draw cards, white one gains life, green gives dudes, and black gives deathtouch. I think the magi cycle are pretty cool and I definitely expect to see them as good 'build me up' cards in some EDH matches. Not to mention they are insane in draft and sealed.

I can't cover every card because I'm just one person, but M12 will be impacting the Standard format and I'm really excited to see what innovative deck builders will cook up.

If anyone would like to write for the blog, just send me a fb message with your article, so I can edit it and get it posted. =] Until next time, Magic players.

-David J.

Post #12: M12 Prerelease Victory!

So I went to Phoenix Games yesterday to hang out with some friends and do some trades at the M12 prerelease. I was really looking for a copy of Chandra, the Firebrand for myself and a couple copies for my friend, so I was on the look out. I was playing an edh game with a friend and I looked around and noticed that everyone there was playing in the prerelease. Damn. I really didn't want to sit there and be bored the whole time, but I really didn't want to spend money. After a bit of convincing, I decided to sign up. Let the grind begin.

After opening my packs, I opened 4 reprints out of 6 packs. Great. Including 2 rare lands and 3 other bad rares. I did get a Skinshifter, which proved to be a very good card. I initially saw Volcanic Dragon as being the best creature in my sealed pool along side a pair of Chandra's Outrage. So I decided to play red even though I had 0 bloodthirst red creatures and the other red creatures were extremely sub par. =[ I initially was going to play blue with a single copy of Mind Control, Mana Leak, Chasm Drake, and Cancel. I was going to enter red/blue, but I felt the deck worked strangely because I ended up playing 5 copies of 1 drop goblin creatures. Goblins with counterspells? The idea felt really foreign. I noticed there were a lot of 2 power creatures in the set, so I felt my goblins would be overwhelmed fairly quickly. I looked at my green section and I had a pair of Stampeding Rhinos, Giant Spider, a pair of Titanic Growths, and a Lurking Crocodile (not to mention that Skinshifter). With past experience with core set drafts, W/U flyers seemed to be a crazy deck and if you're not packing the removal, they'll just fly over you. If you can't defend yourself in the air, then just beat them in the face on the ground. I figured with a spider and a pair of titanic growths, I could shoot any flyers down. Lurking Crocodile got better with the package of 5 1 drop goblins and is amazing against the blue control decks. It was a tough call, but I felt the green package was more consistent with the red I already opted to play.

Volcanic Dragon: This card is amazing. I would almost put this card on the same power level as a titan (did David just go off the deep end??) This card bashes in for 4, with evasion, the turn he comes out and does again on the second combat phase, 8 damage in total. A 6/6 would just hit for 6 damage by the end of two combat phase rotations (although the titans do other things that make them better.. and yeah, I'll end my comparison). BUT, this guy is a house and brings on the beats especially against the flyers deck that loses when you produce a larger flyer and they don't have Pacifism, Oblivion Ring or Ice Cage to keep on the offensive. The dragon is also very difficult to answer because your opponent needs an instant speed removal or they're going to eat 20% of their life total.

Crown of Empires: 

I first looked at this card and thought it was extremely unexciting. An overcosted Tumble Magnet? Eww. After thinking about it more and the fact that I was playing R/G aggro beats, I realized that this card could become very useful. When I considered playing it, I thought that I could use it to tap down an opponent's creature and give one of my creatures 'kind of unblockable' until end of turn. Since I was playing pretty beefy 4/4s (OMG 4/4s!!), forcing your opponent to lose a blocker could make them eat 4 damage every turn, which would make them dead very quickly. After playing with it in a few matches, the card is absolutely insane. I could keep one of my opponent's bombs tapped for the duration of the game or prevent my opponents from damaging me in the early game and preventing the onslaught of aggressively costed bloodthirst creatures.

Volcanic Dragon and Crown of Empires were my two MVP cards for the deck and won game after game against opponent's who managed to pack extremely good cards, especially in the top tables. In the 4 round swiss, I went 3-0-1 and split with the only other undefeated player for a guaranteed spot in the top 8. I ranked as #1 with that record going into the Top 8. In the top 8, I went 3-0 against my opponents after a very close final game with a loss in game 1 and two consecutive wins for a 2-1 victory. The ironic thing is, I asked the Top 8, the semifinals, and even during the final match if they wanted to split prize pool instead of playing it out and no one wanted to. Appreciate that.

With a 6-0-1 record, I got first place at the Phoenix Games M12 Prerelease in Ocoee, Fl. The prize pool was a whopping 20 packs. Sweet!

Thanks to all the people I met out at Phoenix and to the members of MTG Casual Net. I hope that our group of admins and I can continue to write content that interests you about Magic, the Gathering. Shout out to Jav and Orion for coming out and slinging some new cardboard at the prerelease. Also another shoutout to Patrick from Bojukablog, Debi, Bryan, and Baby Koth (Marley, hope I spelled that right) from Avant Card Show and Kevin, level 1 judge from Phoenix Games.

-David J.

Post #11: Story Time!

I was at the beach today reading Aesop's Fables on my Kindle app and I was brainstorming how some of these tall tales relate to Magic: the Gathering. (I'm so bored right now, its come down to this)

My friend (shout out to Gyula) bought me a Rith, the Awakener FTV foil card for helping him out with some of his deck tech in an EDH deck. I didn't have a sleeve on me, so I asked him if he had an extra. Luckily, he had a couple left, Sweet! After getting the card, I took Rith everywhere with me using my wallet as a protective shield against the elements. We waltzed through a field of flowers.. blah blah. So later that week, I went to get dinner with my parents and I took out my phone and the card that was still in my pocket and put the card on the phone. After dinner, I was outside the restaurant and realized the card was missing. I mistook the card for a napkin (because the sleeve was white), so I ran back inside to find a girl cleaning up the table. Shit. Frantic and panicking, I asked her if she had seen any cards lying around. She pulled out a card out of a cup of pepsi and asked if it was mine. My heart sank, my card just got owned by a bunch of soda. I took the card and left the restaurant. A couple minutes later, I realized the card was perfectly fine and none of it got into the sleeve. YES! Thanks to a simple sleeve, the card was saved from drowning in a chasm of carbonated goodness. The moral of this story is.. always use sleeves to protect your cards. Or don't take your cards on a night on the town..

Another story involved one game where I was playing a terrible deck (like always) and was losing miserably to a red/black vampire standard aggro 'beat me in the face till i start crying and remembering repressed childhood memories' deck (shout out to Mike for the pilot of this deck). I had a rhystic study in play and I knew he had me dead on board. Forgot how I knew what card he had in his hand, but I knew somehow. Anyways, he cast one of the cards in his hand and I had a Rhystic Study in play. I'd been using the enchantment to draw a lot of cards that game and it was annoying a few people at the table by this point. As he was tapping his lands for his spell, I said 'rhystic study trigger?'. He thought about it for a second and said 'yeah, i'll pay 1'. I realized, that after paying the 1 mana so I wouldn't draw a card, he couldn't kill me that turn with the card in his hand. YES! I lived and killed him on my following turn =] The moral of this story is.. don't forget the triggered abilities (all of them!) This kind of delves into a couple other things I see a lot. Sometimes (even I do this quite often), people forget exactly what options they have. Whether that be an unearth creature, specialty lands, exiled cards with abilities, or just playing their general. Take your turns slowly if you have a cluttered bored (edit: i see this mispelling. it's an indicator of how bored i was). Who knows, you might just win a game with some good memory.

This one goes out to Cj (and Andrew as a bystander who joined me in revelry). I played Kira, the Great Glass Spinner and Andrew sighed deeply after I cast it. Cj sensing the card would be a problem, asked me 'how big is it' (no innuendo intended). I said it was a 2/2 flyer. Cj immediately said, 'Don't worry, I got this' and cast lightning bolt targeting Kira and continued with his turn. I looked at Andrew and looked at Cj looking at the cards in his hand and at his board and laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes. Andrew joined in the laughter. Moral of this story. Read your opponents cards. So many misplays/errors could be avoided if people were to read what their opponent was playing. If you're having trouble keeping up with the pace, ask your opponent to explain each spell they're playing. If you're playing with someone who's willing, they might even explain why they're playing that card to give you some perspective. Love you Cj.

I got more stories, but I'll hold them for another entry. Until next time guys!

-David J.