Quest for the Holy Relics #4: Pack to Power

I started my first Pack to Power project a little more than half a year ago and failed miserably. I used a binder that was rather clunky and cumbersome to move around and I felt embarrassed to hold a binder full of 'junky' cards in the beginning. Worst of all, I didn't have my trading priorities in order.

(If anyone's curious, Pack to Power is a project started by Jonathan Medina on Gatheringmagic.com. For more details, check out Quest for the Holy Relics #1: Humble Beginnings)

At the time, trading had become a big thing and I thought I was ready for the next step. Using my personal trade binder, I had been able to trade for almost anything I wanted or needed at the time. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in trading for things I wanted or cards that looked cool instead of cards I knew could move. At the time, I was unable to make the switch from personal trading to a 'next-level' trading. This time, I'm all in.

I picked up a new, light-weight binder that will make it easier to move around and it'll have a better presentation. I've also put Standard deck building aside to completely commit to the Quest. This shouldn't be too difficult considering I want to play more EDH and Casual magic in the next few months and dedicate more time to articles about them and growth of the casual formats. Any involvement I have in Standard will be reduced to borrowing decks and commenting on the format by following the Star City Games Standard Open Series and other big events. This will help me maintain focus on the Quest. I've also slowly emptied my personal binder towards Power and relics to reduce the amount of binders I'll be carrying.

I picked up this binder a couple days ago along with this lone Innistrad pack that I hope will become a piece of power one day and a binder that will be my Trusty Machete. I was aiming to pull an Innistrad dual land, a rare that sees play in sideboards or maindecks, or even a mythic rare to help me get through the grueling beginning stages. Unfortunately, none of those things happened.

Our beginning contents begin with an overly impressive assortment of cards. yay..

Blasphemous Act

Delver of Secrets

Bloodcrazed Neonate

Silverchase Fox

Spare from Evil

Geistflame

Stitcher's Apprentice

Mulch

Smite the Monstrous

Armored Skaab

Blazing Torch

Unburial Rites

Rolling Temblor

Rakish Heir

Wolf Token

Double-Faced Card Proxy

Hm. Not the best pack in the world, but we can work with it. Blasphemous Act has seen play in Standard decks' sideboards that don't have the means to get double red for Slagstorm but still want to kill off the token armies. Delver of Secrets is also really hot right now, I'm just not sure how many people haven't already bought their copies. There's also that Unburial Rites that's in a strange spot of being good, but not good enough. I'm hoping to find someone with a B/W EDH deck that hasn't picked up their copy yet. The proxy card is obviously, priceless. After putting everything away in the binder, I sat down to play some Casual games with a couple of guys sitting around. One of the guys (that also had the name David!) spotted the Rakish Heir and needed it for his red deck. Awesome start!

-1 Rakish Heir $0.59

+1 Brutalizer Exarch $0.20

Total: -$0.39

(Prices taken from Coolstuffinc.com)

Already off to a loss, I made a few mistakes with this trade. I should have thrown in another common or two considering he really needed the card and I didn't think the Rakish Heir was worth more than a quarter. Hopefully, I can find someone with a green EDH deck that needs an exarch, considering he's very strong. I'll have to be more aggressive in the future trades. Live and learn. 

Going back about a week ago, I had been stalking the price of Underground Sea for a while for the Quest. The price of the dual had been on the fall recently, since the U/B decks in Legacy had been falling short these past few months. To my surprise, a mint condition Sea was listed, when there had only been played versions available for several weeks. A lot of the trade opportunities that have come up for Underground Sea have fallen through too many times and I knew I had to act fast. 

I had a quite a bit of cards ready to sell set aside to obtain it, considering it's the most expensive of the dual land cycle and I knew it would be a tough one to tackle. After putting everything in the buy cart, here were the numbers.

Daybreak Ranger

Mikaeus, the Lunarch

Knight of the Reliquary (promo foil)

Green Sun's Zenith

Seachrome Coast

Basilisk Collar

Stoneforge Mystic

Necroskitter

2x Damnation

Helm of Kaldra

Pristine Angel

Decree of Pain

Buried Alive

2x Black Sun's Zenith (promo foil)

Damnation (promo foil)

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of all the traded cards because it was an FNM night and the local store was crazy with people running around, sorry about that. The store was packed and I patiently waited for the staff to resolve (i got jokes!) all of their other plethora of buy orders of Yugioh cards. I kept myself entertained watching Evan dance around frustrated at them taking so long and the text messages from CJ, complaining about how late we were for his friend's birthday party. Relics have priority tonight. I walked home with this awesome pick up.

Underground Sea: valued at $127.79

After nabbing the Sea, I felt a really big sense of accomplishment and realized there were only 3 more duals left to tackle, Savannah, Scrubland, and Plateau; all relatively easier to the one's I've already obtained. This dual also set the precedent of starting the hunt for Power of 9. A feat I've never had experience with and am extremely reluctant to start. I've already received offers and potential trades for Power, but I've been almost afraid to put so many resources in to obtain. It's difficult to justify trading away a bunch of playable cards for a relatively unplayable piece of power, unless you're jumping into Vintage. There's a grey area in Magic cards between utility and luxury. An idea I'll have to Ponder over for the next few weeks. I'll save the bigger complications and details behind my recent Power searches in another post. Until the next relic, Magic players!

Interested in more Magic content? Check out every series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!

-David J.

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