Dragon's Maze EDH Set Review, Part 1: Monocolor, Rare Split Cards

Dragon's Maze is officially and completely spoiled now, which means it's time again for the ol' EDH set review. The structure of this set, containing all 10 guilds, means the structure of this review is a little awkward. I'm kicking things off with the handful of monocolored cards that are worth looking at, and then the 5 Rare split cards. This is an awkward grouping, but the split cards have two halves from two different guilds, so it was all I could come up with.

Anyway, let's get the show on the road, shall we?

This really isn't a terribly exciting or powerful card, yet it will obviously get played in Populate decks. At worst, it's 6 power for 5 mana, with potential for a good deal more.

Possibly playable in some Teysa 1.0 decks.

I'm really digging this one. In many groups, where mono-colored decks are shunned, this will often be a two-for-one or three-for-one. Seems reasobly good for a two mana Instant.

Also, it's a good Sunforger target. This should see plenty of play, as long as your playgroup is multi-color saturated.

This is, officially, the worst Rare in the set. Thought opening all those Search the City's was bad? Try pulling this as your Foil Rare for a box.

Morphling on crack? Possibly. Will it see play in EDH? Definitely. Will it be any good? I'm not convinced, but I can see it's potential. It is damned hard to kill.

I'm equivocating a bit, here, but honestly I expect this thing to be snap-jammed into a million blue decks at first, then eventually pulled out of half of them for not doing enough. In the other half, it'll be an MVP.

One of the very, very few commons I feel like mentioning, and only because this is a great addition to my UR Instants and Sorceries Matter deck, and will likely see play in many similarly themed decks. Talrand, for example, will probably be happy to play this.

You really need to be commited to that theme, but if you are, this should be stellar.

It's no Crypt Ghast, but it's still pretty good. This is going to be murder in B/W token builds. Kill this on sight, lest every spell get an Exsanguinate kicker.

A not terrible peice of GY hate. Instant speed and they won't see it coming. The life gain is a nice bonus. Good way to hose Mimeoplasm, Dredge, Karador or Hermit Druid decks and gain some life in the process.

Terrible. There are a TON of ways in Black to draw cards that don't require me sticking a tiny creature AND being in top-deck mode. Trade this to Standard players.

And, this is the most annoying card in the set. Still, every set has to have one nod to the fans of Chaos decks, and as far as "wacky red Enchantments" go, this one is fairly amusing and interesting. Still annoying, though.

A bit too Spike-ish for EDH probably, but aggressive Goblin decks might still play it. It's an interesting way to design a Bloodrush creature with pseudo-Buyback on paper, but not something I'm interested in playing with in any format, save maybe Limited.

Nice anti-Blue card, but more of a constructed/sideboard card for 60-card formats. Not impactful enough to make much of a splash in EDH.

Seems like a shoe-in for any deck with +1/+1 counter theme. Animar, Kraj, Zegana, and many Edric decks, for instance, will likely play this.

Like all the rare split cards, this one is a bit expensive to Fuse, but well worth it if you can afford it. Seems tailor made for Kresh decks.

Protip: Pair this with Charnelhoard Wurm for fun and profit.

This is possibly the best of the rare splits for EDH, but the rare exception in that your mostly going to be playing it for the more expensive half. 6 mana is an awful lot to pay for a Zombify that also grants haste, but the added versatility of it being a split card, plus the fact that it can target creatures in opponents' graveyards as well as your own, I think, more than makes up for the extra cost.

Fused, this can absolutely blow out an opponent who's going in for an alpha strike. Seems unlikely they'd walk into the trap, though, if you're sitting there with 6 mana open and cards in hand.

My big complaint is that I wish Willing was a standalone card so I could play it in Vish Kal, but alas it is not (I am aware that Vault of the Archangel is a card, but opponents see that coming).

This one is obviously getting some competative attention, as a possible replacement for Glimpse of Nature, to get Elf combo decks back online in Modern.

As such, my gut tells me to try and trade these to Modern players or speculators, at least for now, as I don't see this having a lot of application in EDH.

Catch is neat, as a Threaten variant that can hit any type of permanent, but the release half is the sort of effect I generally dislike playing with, or against. It's definitely playable, but I don't like it.


















Okay, that's Part 1 down - now I have to figure out how I'm going to structure the rest of the review. We'll be back as soon as I figure that out.

Deck Doctor: Grixis Griefer

It has been far too long since I did one of these. My play group has been pretty stable as of late, with none of us really brewing new decks. But, finally, one of my friends decided to take his long-existing Thraximundar deck in a bit of a new direction. It’s now slightly more of a “griefer” or “punisher” deck. Basically, this archetype is one that seeks to punish it’s opponents for doing normal Magic things, like casting spells, drawing cards, or even tapping lands. These decks also tend to force awkward or no-win choices on opponents, like “Oh, you cast a spell? Well, you either have to discard a card or lose 5 life?” You don’t like either of those options? Too bad.

That all said, the deck in question has some issues. It’s mana curve is very top heavy leading to some pretty non-interactive early games. It doesn’t have all that many creatures, and most of the ones it has are really expensive. It has a lot of really circumstantial cards, and cards that are rather un-synergistic with the overall aims of the deck. And finally, it doesn’t have a whole lot of defensive measures. This is a deck that, if it’s working as intended, it WILL draw a lot of hate from the rest of the table, so being able to deal with threats is essential.

But the core of the deck is already in place to make it a very obnoxious deck – which is the point, after all – but we need to focus it to make it a bit more reliable and resilient. I’ve seen this deck work and I’ve seen it fall apart. The cool thing about it is, win or lose, it tends to do both spectacularly, earning nearly as many laughs as it does groans and eye-rolls.

Creatures

Thraximundar

Clone

Fleshbag Marauder

Cunning Lethemancer

Vampire Nighthawk

Mortivore

Necrotic Ooze

Guiltfeeder

Geth, Lord of the Vault

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Butcher of Malakir

Rune-Scarred Demon

Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs

Nemesis of Reason

Deathbringer Thoctar

Kaervek the Merciless

Blood Tyrant

Mindleech Mass

Prince of Thralls

Solemn Simulacrum

Psychosis Crawler

 

Spells

Cyclonic Rift

Copy Artifact

Twincast

Copy Enchantment

Cackling Counterpart

Rite of Replication

Vampiric Tutor

Bloodchief Ascension

Liliana's Caress

Blessing of Leeches

Megrim

Words of Waste

Underworld Dreams

Syphon Mind

Diabolic Tutor

Dread Return

Deathpit Offering

Syphon Flesh

Treacherous Urge

Exquisite Blood

Living End

Living Death

Liliana Vess

Painful Quandary

Beacon of Unrest

Life's Finale

Wild Ricochet

Reforge the Soul

Blasphemous Act

Dimir Signet

Izzet Signet

Rakdos Signet

Darksteel Ingot

Gilded Lotus

Lightning Greaves

Whispersilk Cloak

Bonehoard

Elixir of Immortality

Howling Mine

Otherworld Atlas

Skull of Orm

Memory Jar

 

Lands

Akoum Refuge

Command Tower

Crumbling Necropolis

Darkslick Shores

Drowned Catacomb

Izzet Boilerworks

Jwar Isle Refuge

Rakdos Carnarium

Reliquary Tower

Salt Marsh

Steam Vents

Watery Grave

Mountain x5

Island x7

Swamp x13

 

Well, that’s the list as it stands now. We do have some constraints to work under. One, of course, is budget and availability. If a card is too expensive it’s probably off the table. Similarly, even cheap cards, if our local game stores don’t have copies, it’s probably off the table. Internet shopping is a thing, but for the purposes of this article it isn’t a viable option. So we have to get whatever we need locally, and on the cheap. Fortunately I have a deep enough card pool I can probably trade some stuff to the owner if need be.

The other constraint is sticking to the theme without pushing it too far. It’s a griefer deck, and these decks just simply aren’t meant to be nice. That said, there is a line in the sand, and that line will vary from playgroup to playgroup. I want to make this deck mean enough to satisfy the mission statement inherent in the list presented, but I don’t want to overdo it to the point that no one enjoys playing against this deck. This means avoiding cards like Stranglehold that are already known to be funwrecking cards in my group. So the trick is to find that delicate balance, give our opponents a fair amount of grief, but without smothering any and all fun out of the game.

We now have a starting point, an end goal, and the constraints under which we’re operationg, so let’s get to work and start gutting this thing.

 

Creatures

I’ll start with the creature base, cutting the following:

Mortivore, Necrotic Ooze, Kazuul, Nemesis of Reason, Mikaeus, Deathbringer Thoctar, Rune-Scarred Demon, Blood Tyrant and Mindleech Mass.

Dead Mike, Rune-Scarred Demon and Blood Tyrant are all acceptable cards, and I like them, but they don’t exactly push the deck’s theme or shore up any of its weaknesses. Thus, they are getting the axe for cards that will either help patch a hole or fit the theme and strategy of the deck a little better.

The other 6 cuts are more definitive - they are either too underpowered, lack any real synergy, or both. From looking at this list, and seeing the deck in action, I just don’t see what Mortivore, Kazuul or Deathbringer Thoctar add to the deck. Mindleech Mass and Nemesis of Reason have effects we probably would like, if they were reliable enough to actually impact the game before dying, but they basically never do. Necrotic Ooze can do crazy, cool things, but there aren’t really any ways to utilize within this deck, so it’s far too reliant on our opponents having relevant copyable abilities in their graveyards. That’s way to iffy, so it has to go.

These replacements will come in:

Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Mindclaw Shaman, Anathemancer, Dimir House Guard, Niv-Mizzet, and the three Gatecrash Primordials of appropriate color.

The Primordial trio – Sepulchral, Molten and Diluvian – are all well-positioned in this deck to be swingy, if not game-winning. Really, they don’t require much explanation beyond that. They’re good virtually anywhere, but this deck in particular should make great use of them.

Mulldrifter and Shriekmaw are boring but essential utility cards. They have a mildly interesting synergy with Thraximundar or Butcher of Malakir, but more importantly they give this deck some early plays that it was lacking before. Also they are great Mimic Vat targets, which will come up later…

Mindclaw Shaman, Niv-Mizzet and Anathemancer are all good “punisher” cards and fit the theme and mana curve nicely. The inclusion of the Firemind makes me want to go whole-hog on the “Draw 7” effects, but I don’t think Wheel of Fortune is in our budget. But there are a lot of other draw effects like Howling Mine or Memory Jar that make Niv-Mizzet downright essential. Anathemancer is just criminally underplayed in the format, and is great at punishing people for having more expensive mana bases than we do.

Finally, Dimir House Guard is a very versatile tutor, that moonlights as a sac outlet if needed. Yes, Demonic Tutor would just flat out be a better pick, but DHG does find a number of key spells, and we will be keeping Liliana Vess and Diabolic Tutor as unconditional tutors, so I am perfectly comfortable with his spot in the deck.

I still have a few more creatures in mind to add, so I’m going to have to cut a few non-creature spells to make room. This will increase the creature count slightly, but not significantly enough to make certain cards work. I’ll be cutting the following creature-centric cards:

Cackling Counterpart, Deathpit Offering, Living End, Blessing of Leeches

Blessing of Leeches and Deathpit Offering are just not very good. Offering can be cool if you build around it, but we aren’t so it has to go. Cackling Counterpart is awesome, but I don’t think we need or want it here. There just aren’t enough really good targets and this deck often doesn’t really focus on creatures sticking around. That said, it does have potentially awesome synergy with some of the EBTF creatures I have already added… but I still don’t trust the card not to be a virtual blank 50% of the time.

Living End, to put it bluntly, is a liability. Living Death can blow out a game, if we time it right, but forcasting it several turns in advance gives our opponents plenty of time to set up their board state so that when Living End does finally go off, it is almost always going to be in their favor, not ours. Factor that in, along with our lower-than-everyone-else’s creature count and LE will probably just lose games for us. Do not want.

Instead, we’ll beef up our creature count slightly by adding in:

Blood Artist, Shadowmage Infiltrator, Lightning Reaver, and Sheoldred, Whispering One.

Blood Artist could also be Falkenrath Noble or even Masscre Wurm, but I went with the lowest CMC option for now, because we already have a top-heavy mana curve. Shadowmage is just a really great early play that looks innocuous enough but will likely put us a few cards ahead before it finally gets swatted away. Lightning Reaver is a bit of a pet card of mine, but I suggest it hear because it is kind of a “punisher” card, it’s good for keeping Planeswalkers in check, and it has wicked art. This slot is definitely negotiable, though. Sheoldred is all but tailor made for decks like this. She kinda competes with Sepulchral Primordial, but they are still different enough that I think both are highly warranted.

Spells

                    

In addition to those swaps, I think there are still a number of decidedly subpar cards left, so we’ll take care of those before moving on to the mana base:

OUT: Copy Artifact, Copy Enchantment, Dread Return, Syphon Flesh, Whispersilk Cloak, Bonehoard, Otherworld Atlas

Copy A and Copy E are cool, if we can double up on our griefer enchantments and artifacts. Having two Painful Quandaries in play would absolutely wreck almost any deck in our group. But how often will that actually happen? There are better ways to gain redundancy, and I think these two cards are just too circumstantial overall.

Syphon Flesh is just a bad card. I liked it on paper, but having seen it in action a number of times since the Commander decks came out, I am less and less enamored every time it gets cast. This slot becomes Barter in Blood which is almost always more powerful and more reliable. That it makes us sac two as well is likely to be irrelevant or at least a cost well worth paying 90% of the time.

The two Equipment I’m cutting are both just sorta “meh” in a deck like this. They’ll be irrelevant quite a lot, and only so-so when they are relevant.

Dread Return seems ridiculously unlikely to be flashback-able, and even if we do have 3 creatures in play at once, they’re not likely to be worth sac-ing to bring back one other. Simply put, we don’t have a lot of cheap expendable guys to throw away. This isn’t really a reanimator deck anyway, but we still have Beacon of Unrest and Sheoldred as stand-ins. Not to mention Geth and Sepulchral Primordial for their guys.

Otherworld Atlas is fine, and can probably stay in the deck – but I have a more techy option in mind…

Replacing these last 6 cuts will be these fine cards:

IN: Evacuation, Oppression, Barter in Blood, Slave to Bolas, Mimic Vat, Temple Bell, and Geth’s Grimoire

There are very few decks in EDH in which Mimic Vat is bad. Here, it seems absolutely fantastic. If all goes well, creatures are going to be dying right and left most games, and this gives us a theortically endless supply of creatures to make up for the lack of actual creature cards in the deck. It also makes us far less afraid to use a Wrath effect even when we have a really good creature on the table.

Slave to Bolas is always a great addition to any Grixis deck. Talk about “griefer”: Steal you guy. Hit you with it. Sac it so you don’t get it back. All on one card.

Oppression is oppressive. Nuff said.

Evacuation is both a concession to budget restrictions (Damnation, sadly, is probably off the table), but it’s also pretty tech-y with the right draw. I have always been a big fan of playing a mass-bounce spell like this, and following it up with a Reforge the Soul or similar effect.

As stated above, Barter in Blood is a straight upgrade from the weaker Syphon Flesh.

Geth’s Grimoire comes in for Otherworld Atlas. It has great synergy with all the other discard effects in the deck, notably Rix Maadi which will be showing up in the Mana section shortly. But because is a situational card, I also added the cheaper/faster version of Atlas, Temple Bell. I just like the Bell better because, as I said, it’s cheaper and faster.

Lands

So, now we come to the land. I want to keep this as budget-y as possible, but it definitely can be much improved without needing the most expensive duals on the market.

I’m going to cut 6x Swamps, 1x Island and 1x Salt Marsh, giving us 8 slots to fill up.

Dragonskull Summit, Blackcleave Cliffs and Dimir Aqueduct are all cheap and accessible, and help round out the duals already in the deck. (Adding Blood Crypt and Sulfur Fulls would complete the remaining triptychs but are likely out-of-reach at the moment).

Desperate Lighthouse and Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace are great utility lands that are on-them and on-color. Rix Maadi + Geth’s Grimoire is a great draw engine that also strips our opponents’ hands away. Sweet! It also, obviously has great synergy with Megrim and other such cards. Desperate Lighthouse is a bit expensive, but it is fantastic for smoothing out draws late game.

Temple of the False God is a must-run with our bloated mana curve. I did what I could to smooth that out, but it’s we still have a high number of 6+ mana cards, so Temple is much-needed ramp for us.

Finally, Terramorphic Expanse and Exploring Wilds obviously help color-fix. We’re skewed toward Swamps in the basic land department, so these two commonly-played lands will help us find out Islands and Mountains when we draw too much black mana. Pretty much every three-color deck should play at least one of these two, but with so many Basics, I think we really want both.

That’s it! We’re done tinkering (for now), so let’s put it all together and see what our finished list looks like:

 

CreaturesThraximundar

Clone

Mulldrifter

Diluvian Primordial

Blood Artist

Fleshbag Marauder

Cunning Lethemancer

Vampire Nighthawk

Dimir House Guard

Shriekmaw

Guiltfeeder

Geth, Lord of the Vault

Sheoldred, Whispering One

Sepulchral Primordial

Butcher of Malakir

Mindclaw Shaman

Molten Primordial

Anathemancer

Shadowmage Infiltrator

Lightning Reaver

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

Kaervek the Merciless

Prince of Thralls

Solemn Simulacrum

Psychosis Crawler

Spells
Twincast

Cyclonic Rift

Rite of Replication

Evacuation

Bloodchief Ascension

Vampiric Tutor

Liliana's Caress

Megrim

Words of Waste

Oppression

Underworld Dreams

Syphon Mind

Diabolic Tutor

Barter in Blood

Treacherous Urge

Living Death

Beacon of Unrest

Painful Quandary

Exquisite Blood

Liliana Vess

Life's Finale

Wild Ricochet

Reforge the Soul

Blasphemous Act

Dimir Signet

Izzet Signet

Rakdos Signet

Darksteel Ingot

Gilded Lotus

Lightning Greaves

Elixir of Immortality

Howling Mine

Skull of Orm

Mimic Vat

Temple Bell

Geth's Grimoire

Memory Jar

Slave of Bolas

 

Lands

Akoum Refuge

Jwar Isle Refuge

Crumbling Necropolis

Command Tower

Steam Vents

Watery Grave

Drowned Catacomb

Dragonskull Summit

Blackcleave Cliffs

Darkslick Shores

Dimir Aqueduct

Izzet Boilerworks

Rakdos Carnarium

Desperate Lighthouse

Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace

Reliquary Tower

Temple of the False God

Terramorphic Expanse

Exploring Wilds

Island x6

Swamp x7

Mountain x5

As always there were a number of cards that were considered and didn’t wind up making it in. Here are some suggestions for what could potentially come in if some of the suggestions above don’t pan out or aren’t readily available to us.

Jace’s Archivist

Nin, the Pain Artist

Massacre Wurm

Consuming Aberration

Parallectric Feedback

Manabarbs

Spiteful Visions

Vicious Shadows

Whispering Madness

Skull Rend

Phyrexian Tyrrany

Venser’s Journal

Teferi’s Puzzle Box

Nephalia Drownyard

Any of the above cards could absolutely be playable in this deck. I particularly like Spiteful Visions, Skull Rend and Parallectric Feedback. In fact, I think it was a mistake to leave Skull Rend on the bench. But ultimately it comes down to what cards we end up having available. Some of my proposed changes, I’m sure, will not be made simply because the card required is in another deck or something. So, this is a pretty good list of “alternates” that can sub in for preferred cards that aren’t available.

Similarly, there were a few obvious inclusions that I skipped for reasons:

Mindlock Orb/Stranglehold – My group would be okay with hosing Demonic Tutors, Survival of the Fittest and such, probably, but hosing Cultivates, too? Not fun. These are just too unfun to be worth it. Also Mindlock hoses several cards in this deck, so it’d be pretty bad.

Bottomless Pit – The “random” part of this is what really gets hackles up. I’ve seen this card induce nerd rage and rage quits enough to know better.

Uba Mask – I’ve done this before. It works, but it’s definitely on the wrong side of the line.

Well, that’s it folks. Enjoy!

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!