Gatecrash Financial Follow-Up

I’m bored today, so I thought I’d do a follow-up on the post I did a couple weeks back about the value of certain Gatecrash cards. The financial landscape of Gatecrash has shifted in a few surprising ways (and several unsurprising ways as well).

Like the last article, I’ll start off talking about the Mythics.

Mythic

Only one Mythic has seen an increase in the last couple of weeks, and it’s a pretty surprising one: Master Biomancer. The Biomancer is a pretty damn good card, though so it might not be as surprising if it weren’t for the fact that Zegana, the Simic’s other Mythic, fell 3 bucks, from $15 to $12. Meanwhile, Biomancer rose by 3 bucks, going from $10 to $13. That seems a bit odd to me, but if either card was likely to see Standard play it’d probably be the Biomancer, simply because it’s a 4-mana bomb rather than a 6 drop.

What does this mean for EDH players? Probably not a whole lot. If you wanted one of these cards, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll want both. If that’s the case, the total price of both cards is unchanged. All in all, it’s not a very big impact for us. Zegana’s slight drop, though, indicates she might not be quite as popular in the EDH crowd as expected, but $12 is still a formidable price to command, so she’s obviously getting some attention.

The biggest drops in Mythic-land are a bit more eyebrow-raising. Aurelia’s Fury droped by 33% to settle at $20.00.  I’d be surprised to see this drop much more. It seems like it has far too much potential to be written off at this point.

Duskmantle Seer and Gideon both saw their value cut in half. Seer went from $20 to $10, Gideon fell to $15 from the lofty $30 he commanded two weeks ago. I’m hardly surprised at either development, but I think the Seer is a big X-factor. No one really knows what to do with him yet. He might take time to catch on, like Sphinx’s Revelation did in the last set, or he might never make a dent in any competitive format. Neither Gideon nor the Seer are likely to be big hits with the EDH crowd either, so I still suggest trading these as soon as you open them, but if you wanted to hang onto them just to see if maybe they take off later, I wouldn’t fault you for it.

Most of the minor EDH-able Mythics have stayed put or dropped a little. Borborygmos went from $6 to $3, which is a big fat “Duh” because he’s not even that good in EDH. He’s an interesting General, but very niche. He's playable in a few decks, but not widely appealing.

Domri and Obzedat have stayed put at $25 each, which is a good sign. I still rank these as “keep one if you have a deck for it, trade the rest”. I dislike speculating on Planeswalkers, but Domri seems to have potential to climb higher, or at least hold onto his value.

Rare

Kicking off the Rare discussion, it’s impossible not to start with Boros Reckoner. What is it with this guy? He’s now $25.00 on starcitygames.com and most other places he’s sold out. That’s a $15.00 jump from two weeks ago – a 150% increase. (By the way, I have 2x of these guys for trade…) 25 bucks seems like the upper limit on this guy, folks. I can’t see him going higher, and holding this price can only last so long. It might take time for his heat to cool, but in the end, there’s only one way to go from here: down. If you aren’t a Standard player, trade these ASAP!

Other, more reasonable increases include Blind Obedience and Legion Loyalist. Both gained $2, with Blind Obedience weighing in at $7 and the goblin pulling a respectable $6. I think there’s more room for growth for both cards, but not a lot of room. Either could potentiall hit $10 at some point, but I don’t think it’s worth speculating on. The goblin is pretty worthless in EDH so he’s definitely a “trade” but the Obedience does have some potential in the format. I think I’ve managed to slot it into three of my EDH decks already. I’d hang onto one or two at the very least, but they may bring you more value as trade fodder.

Other rares have just had minor ups and downs, but a couple worth mentioning are Thespian’s Stage and Firemane Avenger. Firemane dropped from 6.00 to 4.00 which is exactly what I expected, given that she’s a precon rare. The slight increase two weeks ago struck me as odd, so this decline now makes a lot more sense. You also have to factor in that Boros Reckoner is basically hogging the entire Boros spotlight right now, so pretty much every Boros card that isn’t Reckoner is dropping.

Thespian’s Stage continues to slowly drop, and is now a $3.00 card, with the foil dropping to $12. This is prime real estate for EDH and this thing could still pull a Vesuva on us down the road. If you’re an avid EDH player, snatch these up now while they’re dirt cheap.

One last thing to note: Sylvan Primordial dropped from $3 to $2, but the foil version has remained unchanged at $10 – which lends credence to my assertion two weeks ago that you should be snatching up Primordials, especially the foils. They aren’t likely to ever appreciate in value while in-print, but in a couple years when Gatecrash is just a memory to most players, foil Primordials will likely still be in much demand with the EDH crowd. And obviously the green one is the surest bet. I wouldn’t shell out cash for these but I’d definetly trade for them pretty aggressively, and if I crack any I’ll be hanging onto them for a while.

Uncommon

At uncommon, Boros Charm still leads the pack by a mile, hanging in there at $13.00 for a foil. Foil Skullcrack comes in at #2 with a $6 price tag. Guildmages and Charms all clock in at $3 to $4 each. Other notables are: Burning Tree Emissary, Experiment One, Ghor-Clan Rampager, and Rapid Hybridization all at $4.00.

Recommendations

My Trade/Keep recommendations from two weeks ago remain largely unchanged, which makes me feel good about my picks. There are a few changes, though.

High Priest of Penance,  Glaring Spotlight, and Spark Trooper all lost enough value that they’re not quite definite “Trades” anymore, so if you took my advice two weeks ago and offloaded them then, great call! If you still have any at this point, you might be stuck with them for a while. I do think I made the right call at the time, but at this point, I might just hang onto these.

As for the “keeps”, only Blind Obedience I’m not so sure about now. It was the right call then to keep, as the card has appreciated somewhat, but I’m not sure if it’s reached its ceiling yet  or not. It’s also pretty playable in EDH, so that complicates matters. Basically, I have to hedge on this one. I wouldn’t be in any hurry to trade these off, but I also wouldn’t turn down a good trade offer either. 

Enjoy!

Nin, the Pain Artist

Holy crap, a new decklist! I haven’t posted one of these in a while, but to be fair this deck was a bitch to get into working order. It’s still a long way from “perfect” if such a state can even be said to exist in this format, but I have finally managed to win exactly ONE game with it. It was a hard-fought battle, uphill all the way, and required some of the tightest play I could pull off to get that one win. In short, I had to play like I was in the Top 8 of a high-level tournament with fat stacks of cash on the line. I had to focus and play the best Magic I’m capable of, but in the end I got there.

The only problem is, I play EDH to avoid having to play tight, optimal games. I play to relax and have fun, so eking out such a grueling, hard-fought win is satisfying but not the experience I was hoping to craft.

That said, I knew the deck was far from perfect, and was going to be one of my weaker decks, and I was specifically playing it to “stress test” it to really find out what it was made of, so to speak. And I got a really good sense of that. I played another game with it that I came fairly close to winning but couldn’t quite get there. With just those two games, I got enough data to make a few more changes to the deck and now I think it is finally ready to be shared with the world.

Again, it’s still not “complete” but it’s definitely playable at this point. I expect it to undergo quite a few more changes over the next few months, and depending on what happens in Dragon’s Maze it may wind up being drastically altered… but that’s mere speculation at this point. The gist is, there are obviously some existing kinks that still need to be addresses, but at least it’s not a steaming pile of garbage.

Few decks have puzzled and plagued me the way this one did. I’ve actually had it sleeved up since shortly after AVR came out, but it was just basically an unplayable piece of crap until the Return to Ravnica brought new Izzet cards. In the end, I didn’t actually include that many RtR cards, but regardless, the set did inspire a shift in direction and helped guide me to the point it’s at today. In the end I had to make some really tough choices and abandon a bunch of really cool ideas, but there was no way to make the deck do everything I wanted it to do. I needed to narrow down the focus to make it good at executing a plan, rather than being capable of half-assing a variety of different plans.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the current list:

General: Nin, the Pain Artist

Creatures

Snapcaster Mage
Gilded Drake
Jace's Archivist
Lunar Mystic
Archaeomancer
Talrand, Sky Summoner
Aeon Chronicler

Guttersnipe
Charmbreaker Devils

Nivix Guildmage
Izzet Chronarch
Mercurial Chemister
Dominus of Fealty
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

Solemn Simulacrum
Stuffy Doll
Psychosis Crawler

Spells

Rapid Hybridization
Pongify
Cyclonic Rift
Frantic Search
Repulse
Oona's Grace
Undo
AEtherize
Mystic Retrieval
Deep Analysis
Leyline of Anticipation
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Reins of Power
Evacuation
Spelltwine
Time Spiral

Mizzium Mortars
Recoup
Increasing Vengeance
Chaos Warp
Wheel of Fortune
Repercussion
Past in Flames
Chandra, the Firebrand
Wild Ricochet
Mass Mutiny
Vicious Shadows
Insurrection
Blasphemous Act
Devil's Play

Cerebral Vortex
Prophetic Bolt
Epic Experiment

Sol Ring
Izzet Signet
Izzet Keyrune
Basilisk Collar
Lightning Greaves
Runechanter's Pike
Illusionist's Bracers
Magebane Armor
Staff of Nin
Sphinx-Bone Wand

Lands

Steam Vents
Sulfur Falls
Shivan Reef
Izzet Guildgate
Izzet Boilerworks
City of Brass
Thawing Glaciers
Terramorphic Expanse
Riptide Laboratory
Desolate Lighthouse
Homeward Path
Reliquary Tower
13x Island
13x Mountain 

So, as you can see, it’s a bit ugly. I am still struggling to make Nin more important and useful, and to make winning a bit easier without the game turning into a gruelingly long and grindy ordeal. Stuff like Insurrection should help with that, but Insurrection is notoriously unreliable in my group due to the high popularity of sac outlets in my group. Stuffy Doll is cute and can kill of one player but is unlikely to outright win games. I think the best win con at the moment is Blasphemous Act + Repercussion, but that has to be timed just right – when you have few or no creatures, and you opponents have several. And, again, they have to not have sac outlets.

No clue yet if Epic Experiment is going to be any good, or a total dud. I haven’t even drawn it yet.

There are a few notable cards that I really think need to be in here, but haven’t yet acquired:

Chamber of Manipulation
Consecrated Sphinx
Plagiarize
Venser’s Journal

Chamber of Manipulation seems incredibly useful here. Constipated Sphinx is an over-played “good stuff” card, but you have to admit, the synergy with Nin is irresistible. Plagiarize is a cute trick and nothing more, but I have to try it out. Venser’s Journal actually seems pretty good here, or at least has potential. The deck definitely needs more Reliquary Tower effects, and the lifegain from the Journal should also be very relevant as this is an incredibly slow deck.

Quick Update

Edit: Just added some Rav shock duals to the binder!

Yesterday, I updated my Trade Binder page, which can be found here.

Will update decklists soon - have to buy some more Gatecrash stuff first. Actually, the first step is to have money. Working on it now. Literally - I am on the clock as I write this post. Shhh... that's between you and me.

Epic game story: Three way game between myself (Edric), vs. The Mimeoplasm and Thraximundar. Game goes on for quite a while, and Mimeo tries to set up a Lab Maniac win, exploiting the hell out of a Greater Good to do so. Thankfully my Scavenging Ooze exiles the Maniac after Thrax kills it. So now most of Mimeo's deck is in his graveyard but he's still got a strong position.

A bunch of big swingy plays get made, but each one gets answered in turn, netting none of us a real advantage for some time. Eventually, Mimeo gets a Kessig Cagebreakers online and wipes out Thraximundar quite definitively.

When Mimeo comes at me with the Cagebreaker and an army of wolves, but I have Evacuation in hand. On my next turn, I use Vendilion Clique to put the Cagebreakers back on bottom of his library, which at this point only has about 5 or 6 cards.

Somewhere around this time, I make a critical error. I had Jace Beleren in play, and at one point I used his -1 ability so that I would draw a card. If I had used his +2 ability instead I almost certainly would have won. But I didn't know that at the time.

Anyway, I play defensively to stay alive and start +2-ing Jace to try and deck Mimeoplasm. He does a bunch of stuff but I defend myself successfully, and I start to realize that the only card he has left that can beat me is the Cagebreaker, which is his last card. He also has Lightning Greaves in play, so I have a very narrow window to answer them when they finally arrive.

I need to topdeck any Fog effect, Bribery, or anything that will kill the Greaves. So I have about 6 or 7 cards I could top deck that would automatically win me the game. I'm playing Edric, too, so I am going to be drawing extra cards each turn.

In the end, he manages to draw the last card in his Library, which we both know is the Cagebreakers. I have not topdecked any of the possible outs, so I try to bluff him into making a misplay. I count my mana in several different ways and act like I'm trying to figure out a sequence of plays and it stresses my opponent out badly... but he knows that there is EXACTLY one play he can possibly make to win - ANY other play and he loses. So he has no choice but to call my bluff and attacks for well above lethal with about 26 Wolves, plus the Cagebraker.

He wins the game with ZERO cards left in his Library. It was an epic and well-deserved win, and the last 3 or 4 turns we were both on the edge of our seats. Ultimately I was a bit upset to realize that the one and only time I was "selfish" with my Jace cost me the game, but the last leg of that game was so damned intense that I can't realy complain. Losing to Kessig Cagebreakers of all things is a pretty cool way to lose. You don't see that one coming... except when you do.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

 

Wherein our Humble Author pretends he knows jack shit about the Financial side of Magic.

So, I don't really do financial articles here, because frankly I'm not really "qualified" to do so. Meaning, I don't do Excel spreadsheets or analyze tons of card prices from all over the net to see what's "trending" right now. That said, I do keep an eye on current Standard cards likely to be valuable and I look for random old cards that are cheap that suddenly become Legacy staples and skyrocket in price overnight.

For example, I was aware that Daybreak Coronet went from a $1.00 card to a $20.00 card quite suddenly, and this is the kind of thing I'm looking to cash in on. I have some Coronets, so when the price spiked I made note to add a few to my trade binder, and if I happened to see any copies at an LGS that hadn't caught wind of the price spike, I'd pick them up.

Serra Ascendant is another example - it went from about 5 bucks to 20 bucks almost overnight, and the next day I picked up an extra copy at an LGS that was still marked at $5. But, I'm not a speculator. I don't try to predict what's going to happen, I just wait for it to happen and try to get in on the action. If a store doesn't update their pricing on singles and keep up with the market, well, that's their problem.

That said I'm not going to go buy 50 copies of a 1.00 rare that is expected to go up to 4.00 just to make a tiny little profit. For one thing I don't have a big enough Magic community in my town to be able to unload 50 copies of ANY card! For another, I'm not trying to make a living doing this shit.

I just want to have good cards in my binder to make trading with other players compelling and rewarding. I want to have a page or two of cards that are at least $20 at all times. And I want to know if some jank bargain rare that has been in my binder for years is suddenly worth $10.00 for some reason, so I don't get ripped off.

Anyway, none of that really has anything to do with what I want to talk about, which is Gatecrash and what is currently worth trading away, or trading for. My data is based solely on starcitygames.com prices, because I'm too lazy to look elsewhere, just FYI. And take any predictions on my part with a grain of salt, because, again, I'm not a money wizard.

Mythics

The top five most valuable cards in Gatecrash are:

1. Aurelia's Fury                            $30
2. Gideon, Champion of Justice      $30
3. Obzedat, Ghost Council             $25
4. Aurelia, the Warleader               $25
5. Domri Rade                               $25

Before the Prerelease, Aurelia was preordering at $15.00 but now she's jumped $10 in price to knock the $20 Duskmantle Seer off the bottom of the list. Not sure what all the buzz is around Aurelia, but her X Spell, Aurelia's Fury is definitely going to be an important card in Standard, so maybe it's a combination of that, plus hype from the prerelease where Boros seems to have exceeded most people's expectations.

The rest of the mythics have not changed from their preorder prices now that they're actually on sale. I won't even try to predict the planeswalkers, as they are still a big x-factor. Most of them start out very high, then when they fail to set any competative formats on fire, they drop off sharply.

I plan to keep any Domri Rade's I open and will aggressively trade away any and all Gideons I crack, mostly due to personal preference. I think Gideon sucks but if he holds his value I'll be happy because he'll be great trade fodder for my binder.

On the other end of the spectrum, Lord of the Void and Giant Adaphage are both $3.00 which is a GREAT deal for Mythics that are certainly EDH playables. I don't expect them to be worth investing in - neither are likely to appreciate, but on the other hand they don't have a lot of room to drop either. So if you're just looking for cool new toys for your EDH decks, both are solid picks at a great budget-friendly pricepoint.

Rares

The biggest mover in the Rare category is Boros Reckoner, which jumped a full six bucks, going from $4.00 to $10.00. Personally I think $4 made more sense, and I expect it to settle back down at around $5.00 but clearly someone knows something I don't because a six dollar jump is a big deal for a non-Mythic rare.

I traded for one at the prerelease, getting it for about a $3 value, so I feel good about that - but now I'm wondering if I should try to trade it off again, or just hang on to it and wait. Well, actually, I've already put it into my Gisela deck, so I guess it's a keeper.

Other increases of note: Crypt Ghast and Firemane Avenger, both went up by $1.00. Not surprising in the Ghast's case, as it is clearly a strong card. Even without a home in Standard, it will be a popular casual and EDH card.

Firemane Avenger suprises me a little, simply because it is available in the Boros precon deck. As a precon rare, it should drop off soon now that the set is widely available. But if it becomes a key Standard card, it may hold it's value or even rise, despite being a precon rare.

Similarly, High Preist of Pennance is holding steady at $6 despite also being a precon rare. This makes the Orzhov and Boros precon decks fairly compelling purchases. Both have playable foil rares, but it's the other rare in both cases that is the more valuable. If your going to buy one of the intro decks, I'd go with one of those two.

The Primordial cycle is very inexpensive right now. The green one is 3 bucks, and the rest are all $2.00 or less. Makes sense, as the Green one has echoes of Primeval Titan (though he's clearly less broken). EDH players will be grabbing these up right and left, so after Gatecrash has been out of print a while, these might wind up increasing in value somewhat. I wouldn't expect to profit much off the regular ones, but the foils will definitely be worth picking up if you see them. The Green one is already $10.00 in foil, and I wouldn't be surprised if it climbed to $20.00 eventually, once Gatecrash has been out of print a while.

The only card in the set to DROP in price from preorder to sale is, surprisingly, Thespian's Stage. This is destined to become an EDH staple, and so dropping from $6 to $5 was not the movement I expected to see. I'd definitely suggest snatching these up while they're cheap, especially the foils ($15 for a foil is not cheap to some, but for an EDH staple non-basic it is likely to only ever go up from here).

Finally, I wanted to mention Merciless Eviction, a card that isn't particularly valuable right now, but could potentially take off. It's definetly one of the most EDH-worthy cards in the set, outside of the Primordials. Foils are cheap, regular ones are rock bottom. I'll be snaging a few of these, mostly to play them, but I wouldn't mind having a few for trade as well.

Uncommon

A foil Boros Charm is $10 to $12 right now. This likely has a ton of crossover appeal right now, because Standard players seem to be favoring Boros heavily right now, and it's the best Charm in the cycle for EDH as well. Unless you really, really need it for your deck, I'd trade it ASAP. Who knows if it'll hold or not, but if Boros doesn't dominate Standard it might depriciate quite a bit.

Some other valuable uncommons:
Burning Tree Emissary (Foil) - $4
Dimir Charm (Foil) - $5
Experiment One (Foil) - $4
Ghor-Clan Rampager (Foil) - $4
Rapid Hybridization (Foil) - $4
Simic Charm (Foil) - $5
Skullcrack (Foil) - $6
Urban Evolution (Foil) - $4
Vizkopa Guildmage (Foil) - $4

There aren't really any commons that are valued above the norm. Guildgates are usually about $2.00 for foil versions, so those seem like an okay purchase. They're not as good as the original Ravnica block's common bounce lands, though, so they're unlikely to ever appreciate significantly.

Recommendations

Below I will list my recommendations of "trade" or "keep". Of course this is based solely off EDH, and if you play competatively in addition to EDH, this won't really apply to you.

Trade

Obzedat, Ghost Council (keep one if you like, trade additional copies)
Duskmantle Seer
Gideon, Champion of Justice
Domri Rade (unless you have a Stonebrow deck or something)
Aurelia's Fury (Keep 1 if you have a deck for it, trade the rest)
Glaring Spotlight
Frontline Medic
Boros Reckoner
High Priest of Penance
Legion Loyalist
Spark Trooper
Boros Charm (Foil)

Keep
The Guild Leaders (besides Obzedat)
Any and all dual lands (unless you're trading dual for dual)
Any Mythic under $10
Thespian's Stage
Mind Grind
Merciless Eviction
Crypt Ghast
Clan Defiance
Blind Obedience
Any Primoridals, especially if they're foil

Enjoy!

Altered States

As much as I love art, and in particular the art of Magic: the Gathering, it’s a little surprising to me that I have never really talked about altered Magic cards. There is a whole, thriving subset of Magic players that buy, sell, trade or create Magic cards with altered artwork. Usually this is done via paint and ink, but there are digital techniques out there as well. The ins and outs of the culture are byzantine, and would take too long to expound upon, but the main point is that these cards are NOT proxies. If you have a custom-painted Ghave as your general, it is assumed that it is a real, actual Ghave card, just with a coat of paint. Usually some portion of the original card – name, mana cost, P/T box, and often the rules text box are still visible and unobscured enough that you can verify that your opponent’s sweet Library of Alexandria painted to look like Jabba’s Palace is in fact a legitimate copy of that very expensive card. Digital alters are a bit of a different animal, and while I definitely appreciate the medium of digital art, and have seen some sweet digital alters, I greatly prefer hand-painted alters by a huge degree.

But I don’t really want to get into the digital vs traditional debate, or the proxy debate, etc. I just want to display some fantastic alters that I consider to be amazing displays of creativity and talent. Here are a few samples from some of my favorite artists.

Klug

First up, a few pieces from one of the masters of altering technique, Eric Klug. One of the things I love about Klug’s work is that he can emulate various classical painters like Van Gogh or Picasso, recreating an iconic piece of Magic art through the lens of an iconic painting style. I myself am a HUGE fan of Mucha and the Art Nouveau genre, and Klug is particularly adept at emulating this style. Here are a few stand-outs:

Yes, that is a real Black Lotus that he painted over, and yes someone paid him to do that. I’d be mortified if it weren’t such a damn fine piece, but it’s absolutely gorgeous.

Klug is far from limited to the nouveau style, of course. You can check out tons upon tons of quality work over at his blog, here. Here’s one more alter, one of my favorite non-nouveau alters:

Seesic

Seesic is a favorite of mine for his very unique and instantly-recognizable style. I probably wouldn’t want to play a deck full of Seesic alters, because his washed-out colors and abstracted designs makes individual card recognition a bit of a chore from across a table. But as collectible pieces of real artwork, I think they are absolutely amazing, and I would love to have a few pieces just to have them.

As you can see, this talented artist has an original distinctive style that is all his own. It’s not going to appeal to everyone, but I find it tremendously appealing myself.

Demonium71

I know this artist has produced an abundance of quality work, but for today I wanted to highlight one stunning alter:

 That’s right. Gandalf on a Force of Will. The likeness is incredible, yes, but the detail and the rich use of color is mind-blowing, when you take into account this artist was working on a “canvass” measuring roughly 2” wide. I’m sure I’ll feature more of Demonium’s work in later installments, but I’m just too enamored of this one to look around for more right now.

Yawg07

Another well-established name in the altering community, Yawg07 is a regular at the EDH forums. Yawg is a more practicle sort of alterer, in that he generally leaves the original art intact enough that you’ll easily recognize the card at a glance. Sometimes he just does simple border-extensions,  and sometimes he goes all-out and completely redoes the art.

 By the way, that’s gold leaf behind the top, so it’s shiny! Magic players tend to like shiny cards, right?

Anyway, we’ve barely dipped our toes into the world of altering, and there are dozens of talented individuals producing hundreds of great alters every month. I’ll try to make this a recurring feature here at The Command Zone, because great art deserves a spotlight now and then, and art is one the few things I passionately enjoy as much as I do Magic.

If you’ve got a tip on a favorite alter artist, drop me a comment and let me know. I’ll check ‘em out and if I like what I see, I’ll feature their stuff in a future column!

First Impressions: Gatecrash

So, the Gatecrash prerelease is behind us. We've played with some of the cards, so it's not all up to speculation and theorycraft anymore. We can now actually say "I played this card, and it was awesome!"

Anyway, I wanted to talk briefly on my experience, and what I think I learned from it all.

First of all, I only got to play one event this time. I usually do two flights at least, occasionally three if I can swing it. But time and money constraints forced me to abstain from indulging after the first tournament was over. I'm getting old...

Since I knew going into this that making a second event was iffy at best, I resolved to play Orzhov in the first one. Me and the Ghost Council go WAY back, and I have been a full-on Orzhov devotee for a long time. I'm Izzet by personality, but nonetheless, W/B is my favorite color pair in Magic. So, I didn't want to blow my chance at opening GhoCo 2.0.

I had practical reasons as well. After studying the spoilers furiously for days, and constantly checking online perorder prices, I decided that I needed to go with either Boros or Orzhov. I felt like both guilds represented a strong chance at winning packs, BUT they also offered the best chance at opening valuable cards if I failed to win anything. Aurelia and Obzedat are both solid, desirable and above all valuable. Both guilds also seemed to be the only two guilds with more than one Rare above the 2.00 level.

So it was down to those two for sure. If two events had been in the cards, I'd have picked Boros the second time around.

Another mitigating factor in choosing Orzhov on Friday night though, was the unsurprising popularity of Boros. It seemed like there were as many Boros players as the other 4 guilds combined. I dreaded round after round of Boros on Boros mirrors, and Orzhov seemed like the best guild to chose if I wanted to metagame against Boros.

Sure enough my only loss that night came at the hands of the Simic Combine (who cheated and dipped their toe into Gruul for removal and combat tricks!). I slaughtered every Boros deck I faced that night. The top 8 ended up being 5 Boros, two Orzhov and 1 Simic deck, which I think is slightly skewed by the shear number of Boros players.

One of my friends went Boros and was undefeated all night. Impressive, yes, but I'm relatively certain he didn't have any Orzhov matches.

All told I think Boros is the most obviously powerful guild, while Orzhov is the more subtly powerful guild. As long as Boros remains "the Guild to beat", I will happily endorse Orzhov as the antidote.

Also, to all the haters who thought Extort was going to suck... Pay up, suckers. Extort was the real deal and I heard half a dozen people or more admitting that they had seriously underestimated the guild and their mechanic. I admit, I knew it was going to be good, and had been defending the mechanic for weeks now, but even I was surprised how crucial it was to most of my games.

For me, though, the real surprise was the Simic. Holy shit those guys are scary. If you don't have a ton of removal or a blazing fast deck, they will likely overwhelm you with constantly growing guys. They just get out of hand FAST, if you let them.

I still think they can be a bit clunky if you don't open the right pool, or just draw awkwardly. They lack the consistency of Boros and the resilience and inexorability of the Orzhov, but with a little luck and skill, they can easily overpower ANY of the other 4 guilds. I was impressed by the Simic based on the spoiler alone. NOW, they have my respect.

Gruul and Dimir were basically no-shows. By the 4th round, those two guilds were firmly relegated to the loser brackets. That said, Gruul was a great support guild in several Simic and Boros builds I saw, while I also did see a Dimir deck win via decking more than a few times. That it happened at all was surprising. That it happened once or twice each round was actually a little scary.

By the end of the night I was overhearing people talking about how they sideboarded in 3 or 4 more lands as insurance against mill. Wow!

So what does that tell us about the future Limited environment? Nothing much. Draft is such a drastically different beast from Sealed to begin with, but the presence of the Guild Pack REALLY skews the results. I still think Boros will be popular early on, due to carry-over hype. But I'd expect Gruul to be a much bigger player in the Draft scene than they were in Sealed.

Simic seem to be middle-of-the-road. With some lucky picks early on, and if you aren't being cut off later in the packs, Simic should be Tier 1 for sure. But I think you can easily wind up with a few great Simic cards early and have to dip into another guild (Gruul, ideally) for support as your luck dries up.

But who the hell knows? I don't draft nearly enough to know what I'm talking about, and even when I did draft all the time, I was hardly a pro.

All this to say, Boros is the shit, but everyone already knew that. Orzhov is also the shit, much to the surprise of many. Not me, though. I am a man of faith, and I knew my guild wouldn't disappoint.

So, in the end, how'd I do? A 3-1 record netted me 4 packs, one of which contained a Domri Rade. Woot! I wanted one for my Stonebrow deck, so I was mucho pleased with that. I also traded for a shit ton of stuff, including a Lazav, an Aurelia and, I don't know, probably 15 or so other rares.

Walking out of there with 3 good Mythics and about 20+ new rares was a fine haul for one evening. I've already slotted about 12 to 15 new cards into decks, but I'm starting to think the Dimir of Gatecrash are going to necessitate a complete overhaul of my Wrexial deck.

Also, Edric is due for a serious reworking, thanks to the Simic being way more impressive and exciting than I'd expected. I like the low-key style Edric currently has, as it let's me fly under the radar and avoid being The Threat. But the Simic have some pretty bomby stuff. I don't think anyone is going to be fooled into thinking I'm harmless with stuff like Zegana, Master Biomancer or Biomass Mutation in the deck, no?

All in all, I think Gatecrash far and away exceeds the standard set by Return to Ravnica. In all fairness I am biased though. For one thing, Gatecrash had more of my favorite guilds (Orzhov, Boros and Dimir) while Return to Ravnica mostly just had Izzet (though Golgari got such a good face lift that they rose considerably in my esteem). For another, Return to Ravnica was very clearly aimed more toward constructed play, and tournament players. Gatecrash is unabashedly more oriented toward casual, multiplayer and EDH crowds.

So, it just so happens that 75% of my favorite guilds were in this set, AND the set was intentionally aimed more at the kind of player I am. So yeah, I am definitely digging Gatecrash. I can't wait to buy some packs! 

Gatecrash EDH Set Review Portal

As is the custom here at The Command Zone, I've set up this post as a convenient page of links to all seven parts of my Gatecrash EDH set review. The links below are broken up by color.

• Part 1: Orzhov
• Part 2: Boros
• Part 3: Gruul
• Part 4: Simic
• Part 5: Dimir
• Part 6: White/Blue/Black
• Part 7: Red/Green/Other

Please leave a comment if I missed a card, if you think I assessed a card wrongly, or if you just have some cool uses for a card in the set.

Enjoy!