Sixten explains:
“The Innovator” is the nickname of Pro Tour Magic player and renowned deck designer, Patrick Chapin.
He is known for saying, “You want the truth? Jace the Mind Sculptor is the truth. Everything else just helps you win.”
Chapin gets his own LCiE comic; I think my head just exploded.
Last panel refers to the last LCiE.
It seems like a bad Jay Leno joke: “Hey, have you seen the price of Mythics lately? It’s like Wizards of the Coast decided that they were going to print money instead of cards!” Ha! Good one, Jay.
This hasn’t been the first time I’ve taken a look at Mythics (where I predicted that three Zendikar Mythics would be over $10 a piece), and most likely it won’t be the last. Now that we have two full blocks and a Core Set printed with the Mythic rarity, we can revisit a look at why Mythics are spinning out of control in price. Besides discussing on how to beat Jund, the rising cost of Mythics have been one of the hot topics of Magic lately. Paying $70 of a single card in Standard? Aren’t you glad there’s a Reserved List to protect such cards from losing their value in the future?
What, the Reserved List doesn’t cover cards in the past 10 years? Oh. Ignore that last sentence then.
The most recent hot deck in Standard right now is a deck called “Superfriends” which includes 4 planeswalkers (i.e. the Superfriends). Taking down the evil known as Jund, these 4 superheroes were supposed to usher in the new metagame where we aren’t supposed to be afraid of that evil deck. But to summon these superheroes to fight you have to bring the cash money.
Elspeth is $40 a piece.
Gideon is $50 a piece.
Jace is $70 a piece.
They aren’t superheroes but mercenaries for hire.
Whoa, this is the first of March; why are we looking at a set that’s two months away? Wasn’t Worldwake released like three weeks ago?
As captured by Gatheringmagic.com so nicely, Dailymtg spoiled this card on March 1st (click the link, it’s worth it), so it’s all fair game to talk about. Now that we have to wait until April 17th to hold this card in the Rise of the Eldrazi pre-release, we might as well talk endlessly about it. And of course, we’ll answer every question that’s going on through your mind.
So, what’s going on here?
What we have here is the first official spoiler card for Rise of the Eldrazi. Gleaming information from this and Eye of Ugin, we can actually get a good idea of the set.
Rosterbation is a term that I learned from the great Seattle Mariner’s blog USSMariner (couldn’t find it’s true origin). When talking about dream lineups and rotations and trading players the term gets thrown around a lot in comments and forums (as well as the verb “Stop Rosterbating”). The ability to make the dream roster using whatever players there are in the game is something that passes through the mind of almost any sports fan and engages in great conversations. It’s not a bad thing, and in fact can be a healthy from time to time.
Magic has it’s own semi-related term: “Magical Christmasland” as coined by Brian David-Marshall (@Top8Games) (or Michael Jacob). It presents what the best situation is to get the most explosive opening hand draw. If your deck worked exactly like this every time it would be unstoppable. Of course, with Magic there is randomization and the very real possibility that you may never get a hand like that. When players are looking at new cards for the first time, it’s always the Magical Christmasland situation that gets people up in arms about how good a card actually is. It’s the hope that drives people to play those decks for the one time it does work.
Rosterbation is about what you would love to have but can’t get for a set of something while Magical Christmasland is the order that you would prefer it to be. There is cross-over in both areas: In baseball you want your lead-off guys to get on and your 3 & 4 hitters to drive them home (Magical Christmasland).
Today I’m going to talk about the other side: rosterbation for Magic. No, it’s not about acquiring cards that you need to build a deck, but having access to the cards needed to build it. Confused? Well answer me this: can you build a reanimator deck in Standard at this current time: (SHA, CON, REB, M10, ZEN, WWK)?
Continue reading “You Can’t Always Get What You Want: The Lack of a Decktype”
MTG Color Pie 