I have no problem with proxies personally. I get the ‘detriment to Wizards’ thing, but that puts these cards out of my grasp too - I just don’t proxy because I don’t see the need (see below). The requirement to own these cards is still incredibly restrictive, and it would definitely stop me from even attempting this, as my available funds for my hobby are very much limited. That being said, I’m not your meta.
I’m gonna say you shouldn’t lie to them. It won’t end well. That being said if they require you own these cards, that speaks to me of well established players who have access to these sort of high power staples. If that’s the case you might be more comfortable finding a lower powered meta that you can compete with without the deception. That’s definitely the crux here - for these sort of cards I can understand not having that sort of money, but lying to make it work is not ok, and at some point it’ll bite you in the ass - when they find out, IF they still want to play with you, they’ll never trust you again, not really.
I’m also going to reiterate that these cards are strong, yes, but they’re far from essential to making a strong deck capable of holding its own and winning games. Cradle now has a functional reprint in Growing rotes of Itlimoc, and we’re in a really good era of commander, where there is a wealth of strategy, a wealth of powerful cards being printed, and plenty of ways to make them work for you. It’s a fallacy that these older, expensive cards are necessary to win games. They can, of course, but you can do just fine without them, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money to make a strong deck. Feel free to post your lists on the site here, and the community would be more than happy to help you come up with ways to win games on a shoestring.
While I don't agree with your statement 100%, specifically about alternatives, I really can't find any other way to say it best and applaud the effort you put into writing such a concise post. Kudos.
Thanks! And believe me, if I’m spending any money on a hobby it’s not going to be on fakes. I’m just well aware this is a casual format, so I’m not going to be too hard on someone who wants to play these cards. I can understand why someone would do this, as price and availability make them incredibly restrictive to acquire.
I fully stand by the second part of my statement though. I think recent printings have done an admirable job of leveling the playing field in terms of the idea of having to spend money to win games. There are still games where this happens, but it’s definitely not a necessity for success in this format. There’s no way I’d play EDH if it required substantial monetary input to win or have fun.
Don't get me wrong. You have a perfectly valid point about alternatives.
My disagreement, in part, is that there isn't always a reasonable alternative. I was absolutely delighted to find out Porphyry Nodes is a near functional reprint of Drop of Honey. Not a huge fan of the Ixalan alternative but it works for what it does. Some are trashy (Tabernacle). Others, AFAIK, like Chains still hasn't seen an equivalent. (Has it? 20,000+ cards, it's easy to miss.) All in all, Wizards has a mixed bag of success when it comes to alternatives.
To a lesser degree, such an argument is relevant only to EDH. A point I grudgingly concede to but wouldn't willingly do so for vintage/Legacy.
Don't get me wrong. You have a perfectly valid point about alternatives.
My disagreement, in part, is that there isn't always a reasonable alternative. I was absolutely delighted to find out Porphyry Nodes is a near functional reprint of Drop of Honey. Not a huge fan of the Ixalan alternative but it works for what it does. Some are trashy (Tabernacle). Others, AFAIK, like Chains still hasn't seen an equivalent. (Has it? 20,000+ cards, it's easy to miss.) All in all, Wizards has a mixed bag of success when it comes to alternatives.
To a lesser degree, such an argument is relevant only to EDH. A point I grudgingly concede to but wouldn't willingly do so for vintage/Legacy.
Oh, I get you now. Yeah, as far as I know Mephistopheles doesn't have a current equivalent. There are a few in that category. Honestly, though, most of these are corner case tech that do really specific things. So yeah, there are some specific strategies you'll have to dig deep in the wallet for, but there's not many.
For what its worth, Magus of the Tabernacle is a pale comparison, but it does work in my Bruna deck in ways that the original could not, insofar as I can reanimate it with ease. I could say the same with Magus of the Moat.
Total agreement regarding relevance to EDH - being a singleton format with a penchant for chaos helps that, I think. That being said, Vintage and Legacy, for all their charm, require a TON of money. And they're both pretty stale formats from what I can see. I could be wrong there, but that's how it looks to a relative pauper from the outside.
Thanks agian for all the responses and diffrent viewpoints.
I see the general viewpoint is i shouldnt lie and the general viewpoint is also i shouldnt have to lie.
Finding a diffrent playgroup is hard since i already posted messages on 3 diffrent forums asking where and when to play magic and i found a nice group on monday who didnt ask about any of this stuff yet. And a diffrent group on wednesday and friday, some frown upon proxys and some hate fakes i heard.
So there isnt alot of choice.
About the deck building, i really dont have enouf knowlage about all the diffrent cards so i just picked 3 commanders with diffrent playstyles that seemed fun and started ordering, i went with 1 omnath deck, an princess galina deck and an nath discard deck. i ended up paying much more then i expected and hadnt found out about <50 euro budget decks yet.
Also i used webshops to order instead of cardmarket.eu but i just consider that learning money since i payed about 800 euro for maybe 400 worth of cards.
When i started magic i kinda wanted to play standard but they only host draft and tournaments and i just want to play without prices or drafting every week. The monday playgroup also plays an older format on wednesday with crazy expensive tournament decks, they basicly practice tournaments decks agianst each other and fine tune everything for the tournaments they play.
I own quite a few expensive reserved list cards, though for the most part I don't own multiple copies of anyone for this singleton format. That said, I've also purchased fake cards from Wish and Etsy, and in my personal playgroup I bought a "set" of fake ABUR duals and fetches and split them up among the group as a "Christmas gift", as a fun way for everyone to optimize their decks and try out things they haven't before. Most of us have played for over a decade, and have huge collections, but getting older and pairing down expensive collectibles from a hobby you don't get to devote as much time to as you did in your younger days makes sense, and none of us have a problem playing with these fake cards because we're all relatively on the same skill level and it's fun to get to use the strongest toys at the kitchen table. We even jib each other about it occasionally, "I'm going to tap this very real Volcanic Island".
If I play at a tournament or in my LGS, I swap out the fakes for their lesser versions that I don't own at least one real copy of and just go with it. I won't sit there and lie to people that are playing for any kind of prize, it makes my victories hollow and cheats honest folk. I understand the allure of faking those power levels in front of strangers, though, as we've all sat down in front of the guy with a deck of fully foiled fetchs, signed Mark Poole islands, and a Diamond Valley that you can't stop drooling over. Playing that guy is rarely fun, no one likes feeling inferior because they don't have the funds to throw away (or invest) in a game they play once a week to unwind. When it comes down to it though, skill will almost always beat card power, and you'll also come across those players who obviously bought expensive cards because they thought it would make them good at the game. Skill is developed by making the most of the least (which is a good reason why limited is such a good way to develop strong player habits, imo).
Purchasing a set of fake ABUR duals doesn't hurt WoTC in the slightest. I'm not going to go crack a pack and pull one. Fakes of cards that released 15+ years ago and are virtually guaranteed to never see another reprint don't take any money away from Wizards or Hasbro. If anything, I'd make the argument that by tracking any kind of sales data on those fake cards could finally give some incentive to create a long term plan to dismantle the reserved list. If and when it goes, collectors should be given the opportunity to cash out and have plenty of warning that their priceless heirlooms are about to take a financial nose dive. The rarity and price of many of these cards drive a market for fakes. Make these items attainable and watch the fake MTG market dry up. There are a lot of legitimate collectors out there, but there's a lot of scummy practices out there as well, prentices that have created vacuums on almost all valuable reserved list cards. To see all of that topple down would be great, and I don't think anyone would lose sleep if ol' Rudy lost his butt on his "Alpha Investments".
The only real issue I take with fakes on the player side is anyone attempting to pass these off as real cards for the purpose of trading. That's about the scummiest thing you can do, and anyone taking part in that should have their teeth kicked in for trying to take advantage of any other player.
Thanks agian for all the responses and diffrent viewpoints.
I see the general viewpoint is i shouldnt lie and the general viewpoint is also i shouldnt have to lie.
Finding a diffrent playgroup is hard since i already posted messages on 3 diffrent forums asking where and when to play magic and i found a nice group on monday who didnt ask about any of this stuff yet. And a diffrent group on wednesday and friday, some frown upon proxys and some hate fakes i heard.
So there isnt alot of choice.
About the deck building, i really dont have enouf knowlage about all the diffrent cards so i just picked 3 commanders with diffrent playstyles that seemed fun and started ordering, i went with 1 omnath deck, an princess galina deck and an nath discard deck. i ended up paying much more then i expected and hadnt found out about <50 euro budget decks yet.
Also i used webshops to order instead of cardmarket.eu but i just consider that learning money since i payed about 800 euro for maybe 400 worth of cards.
When i started magic i kinda wanted to play standard but they only host draft and tournaments and i just want to play without prices or drafting every week. The monday playgroup also plays an older format on wednesday with crazy expensive tournament decks, they basicly practice tournaments decks agianst each other and fine tune everything for the tournaments they play.
Don't just write off ALL older formats as expensive - it's all relative, so to speak. I play legacy too, and the decks i started out with were all 'budget' decks, and were still very competitive (still is competitive at ~$200). The decks i play nowadays are still relatively inexpensive compared to the rest of the field, but not 'cheap' out of context.
And besides, commander/EDH is an old format. It existed before legacy and vintage, as far as i know (though type 1 and 1.5 are older).
If I were you, i'd tell the playgroup that you're very seriously considering buying into those cards (because you are, to some extent), but you're unsure about whether or not you wanna spend like €100 on a mox diamond or city of traitors. Just get some paper, scribble up the more expensive cards you want to have in the deck and play it to get a good feel for the deck. In testing, i generally chuck out like 10-20 cards that i thought would be necessary but aren't, and that saves me a lot of money on the long run. i'm sure that most people would be fine with that. I mean, you're a new player to the game. And unlike them, you don't already have many of the cards, and you're not even sure if you need chains of mephistopheles in your deck. Or juzam djinn. or the tabernacle at pendrell vale. or mishra's workshop.
By the way, chains is a somewhat overrated card. It hoses some decks, but more often than not, it's very lacklustre. Unless you have some specific way of abusing it, it's not amazing. the same with the abyss. In fact, most of the cards i just listed are good in quite specific decks.
Anyways, i also have to echo another piece of advice i read further up, which is don't throw like thousands of euros into a new hobby. Ease yourself into it.
lol, why is Juzam Djinn in the same list as workshop, tabernacle, and chains? The rest are niche but powerful. Juzam is just...cool looking, mostly?
Anyway, imo there's some value in preserving your "innocence". Which is to say - if you start proxying tabernacles and abysses you don't have a ton of room to explore. I'd start with a precon, personally, and tune it from there. That way you can ease yourself into the format without needing to worry about deck construction any more than you want to, or spend more than you're comfortable.
I have sympathy for people who are trying to put themselves through college or whatever, and for whom even spending $50 would be a major financial burden. But if you're dropping nearly $1000, then you should be able to get basically everything you'd need to make a strong deck - the thing you should be focusing on is the skill to build a good deck, not fretting about not owning a tabernacle. I've got a tabernacle. It's not that good of a card. You don't need it. Nobody needs it. If you want to try them out as proxies with people who are ok with it, go nuts I guess, but I don't think you'll be learning anything very useful. Focus on building a good deck within your budget, and don't worry so much about those chase rares.
I guess you've not seen the prices of juzam djinn recently. Even with its equivalent being 30 cents, the djinn (last i saw) commanded like 900 dollars. the djinn is pretty awesome in a mono black suicide/nostalgia deck.
I'm gonna echo Dirk's position of 'preserving innocence'. A big part of the game is the exploration into the cards. Before i think it was 1997-ish, there were no deck lists, no set lists, and many players had no idea what cards actually existed in the game. A truly brilliant era to play. The day when i first saw leviathan, i was completely blown away, thinking it was way OP. If you start by playing 'the best deck', then the game can get stale pretty quickly.
Also, just to add to that, i've been finding that playing lower powered decks can be really fun; probably more fun than playing highly tuned awesomeness.
I guess you've not seen the prices of juzam djinn recently. Even with its equivalent being 30 cents, the djinn (last i saw) commanded like 900 dollars. the djinn is pretty awesome in a mono black suicide/nostalgia deck.
I know it's super expensive (it's by far the most expensive legal card I don't own) but there's no way you can convince me it's a good card anywhere. It's neat to run for nostalgia purposes granted - but tabernacle, chains, abyss, etc show up in cEDH lists...djinn definitely does not...in fact, it's in a shocking 16 decks. Which in terms of fame:usage is an incredible ratio. Squire sees the same popularity.
Alright. My current view on my questions above is, i wont lie about the fakes im currently running and just ask upfront if they mind.
Ill make a nice budget deck that seems cool to me and play that more often if people do mind. I just wish there was a commander version. In mtg arena. That game is so well made and easy to use.
I agree were kinda spoiled by the internet. There are website that display all decks of top 30 people of every big tournament that you can just copy and order by clicking 1 button and see what the total cost is. But i find that the same with everything else aswell. Every online game has guides on the optimum gear/builds where people do alot of calculation to get the best damage ect. Sure i can decide not to read them or follow them, but in the end i just do worse then the rest who is following the guides, and have a bigger learning curve until im caught up with all the cards, effects, combos and playtesting every deck for years. Especially in magic the sheer ammount of combos is insane, and im not a big fan of infinite combos anyway.
Ive played agianst a coinflip commander yesterday who did 80 commander damage and draw 6 cards and after attack played a spell that give another player 80 damage. Just by having his 2 commanders up. There are insane and funny combos and im still getting into the politics, not trusting people when they promise me they wont attack if i do a certain action for them ect.
Much to learn, especially the unwritten social rules
Honestly I'm going to have agree with your playgroup, you really shouldn't proxy expensive cards if you have no intention of EVER getting them but for testing purposes i'd say your fine unless you "test" the cards for longer than say a month, cuz then that show your real intentions of never getting the cards.
It's not ok to lie if playgroup don't like proxy cards..I don't have problem with them. I have four commander decks, some cards i play in two or three deck. So i made proxy but only cards that have. My proxy's are with image in color.
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Modern: Elves(GB), Merfolk(U), Grixis Death Shadow Standard: Dinosaurs(GR) Commander: The Ur-Dragon, Arahbo-Roar of the World, Zacama-Primal Calamity, Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Play proxies if you want but the majority of people are not playing these cards for the exact same reason you are. Im sure your deck would be just fine without them if its such a divisive issue.
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EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
Its just in friday night magic "events" that i play.
With the first group i played with i told them upfront i was playing with a few proxies in my deck and then said they were fine with it.
After the game the wondered where my proxies were but 1 was already on the board (geae's).
I thought proxies were just fake cards (since thats how i googled them and got on aliexpress)
But after the game they told that at a certain table the people playing there disliked fakes, they didnt mind if i had a few hand written cards with the intend of buying it after saving or after testing it in the deck.
Tbh, i see this as a fun hobby and already spend atleast 500 euro on it.
None of it went to the magic company since i bought them second hand so the card company doesnt suffer from it.
Thanks for the many responses
You have a terrible grasp of what is and is not ok. Just because you spent some money on the game doesnt give you cart blanch to have proxies( counterfeights) and then say others are over reacting.
Buying fake cards 100% hurts wotc, the makers of Magic
come correct
Not if they are on the reserve list. It may hurt the secondary market, but wizards is' hardly reliant on that anymore. Obviously it's stealing intellectual property and undermining the property power structure is bad. I personally only proxy standard cards and encourage everyone I meet to do the same, because I actively hate magic the gathering, but no one will play better games as long as magic is still a thing.
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Check out my Sales 50% OFF everything for the next 48 hours.
Haven't seen this possibility mentioned: Try gold-bordered cards. They're the closest to pro-wotc proxies you can get and they cost enough now that you display the sufficient fiscal commitment. I personally play a few and no one has ever balked at them.
Alrighty then.
I just sold back most of my cards back to the store for the buyprice.
Now im ready to find some cool concept decks.
Yesterday i played agianst some1 with the exact same deck as me, like every card, he copied the same deck as i did haha.
If anyone has some suggestions of not much played decks that are budget friendly let me know
There's also Zada, Hedron Grinder, which can be a bit of a glass cannon depending on the build, but can also be built to a low budget — thread is here.
There's also Commander's Quarters on YouTube devoted to budget builds, and most of them are focused level.
don't buy fakes. don't ruin the game for everyone else who plays it.
that said...
...what i don't know doesn't hurt me. no one is pulling your cards out of sleeves to inspect them, and no one is taking the risk that they're real to tear them in half to be sure they aren't.
Wife to husband, "Does this make me look fat?"
I think that would explain why the polar ice caps are melting. It has nothing to do with global warming. It's global lying.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Don't get me wrong. You have a perfectly valid point about alternatives.
My disagreement, in part, is that there isn't always a reasonable alternative. I was absolutely delighted to find out Porphyry Nodes is a near functional reprint of Drop of Honey. Not a huge fan of the Ixalan alternative but it works for what it does. Some are trashy (Tabernacle). Others, AFAIK, like Chains still hasn't seen an equivalent. (Has it? 20,000+ cards, it's easy to miss.) All in all, Wizards has a mixed bag of success when it comes to alternatives.
To a lesser degree, such an argument is relevant only to EDH. A point I grudgingly concede to but wouldn't willingly do so for vintage/Legacy.
Oh, I get you now. Yeah, as far as I know Mephistopheles doesn't have a current equivalent. There are a few in that category. Honestly, though, most of these are corner case tech that do really specific things. So yeah, there are some specific strategies you'll have to dig deep in the wallet for, but there's not many.
For what its worth, Magus of the Tabernacle is a pale comparison, but it does work in my Bruna deck in ways that the original could not, insofar as I can reanimate it with ease. I could say the same with Magus of the Moat.
Total agreement regarding relevance to EDH - being a singleton format with a penchant for chaos helps that, I think. That being said, Vintage and Legacy, for all their charm, require a TON of money. And they're both pretty stale formats from what I can see. I could be wrong there, but that's how it looks to a relative pauper from the outside.
Fun fact edit: Porphyry Nodes is a pseudo-anagram of Drop of Honey.
I see the general viewpoint is i shouldnt lie and the general viewpoint is also i shouldnt have to lie.
Finding a diffrent playgroup is hard since i already posted messages on 3 diffrent forums asking where and when to play magic and i found a nice group on monday who didnt ask about any of this stuff yet. And a diffrent group on wednesday and friday, some frown upon proxys and some hate fakes i heard.
So there isnt alot of choice.
About the deck building, i really dont have enouf knowlage about all the diffrent cards so i just picked 3 commanders with diffrent playstyles that seemed fun and started ordering, i went with 1 omnath deck, an princess galina deck and an nath discard deck. i ended up paying much more then i expected and hadnt found out about <50 euro budget decks yet.
Also i used webshops to order instead of cardmarket.eu but i just consider that learning money since i payed about 800 euro for maybe 400 worth of cards.
When i started magic i kinda wanted to play standard but they only host draft and tournaments and i just want to play without prices or drafting every week. The monday playgroup also plays an older format on wednesday with crazy expensive tournament decks, they basicly practice tournaments decks agianst each other and fine tune everything for the tournaments they play.
If I play at a tournament or in my LGS, I swap out the fakes for their lesser versions that I don't own at least one real copy of and just go with it. I won't sit there and lie to people that are playing for any kind of prize, it makes my victories hollow and cheats honest folk. I understand the allure of faking those power levels in front of strangers, though, as we've all sat down in front of the guy with a deck of fully foiled fetchs, signed Mark Poole islands, and a Diamond Valley that you can't stop drooling over. Playing that guy is rarely fun, no one likes feeling inferior because they don't have the funds to throw away (or invest) in a game they play once a week to unwind. When it comes down to it though, skill will almost always beat card power, and you'll also come across those players who obviously bought expensive cards because they thought it would make them good at the game. Skill is developed by making the most of the least (which is a good reason why limited is such a good way to develop strong player habits, imo).
Purchasing a set of fake ABUR duals doesn't hurt WoTC in the slightest. I'm not going to go crack a pack and pull one. Fakes of cards that released 15+ years ago and are virtually guaranteed to never see another reprint don't take any money away from Wizards or Hasbro. If anything, I'd make the argument that by tracking any kind of sales data on those fake cards could finally give some incentive to create a long term plan to dismantle the reserved list. If and when it goes, collectors should be given the opportunity to cash out and have plenty of warning that their priceless heirlooms are about to take a financial nose dive. The rarity and price of many of these cards drive a market for fakes. Make these items attainable and watch the fake MTG market dry up. There are a lot of legitimate collectors out there, but there's a lot of scummy practices out there as well, prentices that have created vacuums on almost all valuable reserved list cards. To see all of that topple down would be great, and I don't think anyone would lose sleep if ol' Rudy lost his butt on his "Alpha Investments".
The only real issue I take with fakes on the player side is anyone attempting to pass these off as real cards for the purpose of trading. That's about the scummiest thing you can do, and anyone taking part in that should have their teeth kicked in for trying to take advantage of any other player.
Don't just write off ALL older formats as expensive - it's all relative, so to speak. I play legacy too, and the decks i started out with were all 'budget' decks, and were still very competitive (still is competitive at ~$200). The decks i play nowadays are still relatively inexpensive compared to the rest of the field, but not 'cheap' out of context.
And besides, commander/EDH is an old format. It existed before legacy and vintage, as far as i know (though type 1 and 1.5 are older).
If I were you, i'd tell the playgroup that you're very seriously considering buying into those cards (because you are, to some extent), but you're unsure about whether or not you wanna spend like €100 on a mox diamond or city of traitors. Just get some paper, scribble up the more expensive cards you want to have in the deck and play it to get a good feel for the deck. In testing, i generally chuck out like 10-20 cards that i thought would be necessary but aren't, and that saves me a lot of money on the long run. i'm sure that most people would be fine with that. I mean, you're a new player to the game. And unlike them, you don't already have many of the cards, and you're not even sure if you need chains of mephistopheles in your deck. Or juzam djinn. or the tabernacle at pendrell vale. or mishra's workshop.
By the way, chains is a somewhat overrated card. It hoses some decks, but more often than not, it's very lacklustre. Unless you have some specific way of abusing it, it's not amazing. the same with the abyss. In fact, most of the cards i just listed are good in quite specific decks.
Anyways, i also have to echo another piece of advice i read further up, which is don't throw like thousands of euros into a new hobby. Ease yourself into it.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Anyway, imo there's some value in preserving your "innocence". Which is to say - if you start proxying tabernacles and abysses you don't have a ton of room to explore. I'd start with a precon, personally, and tune it from there. That way you can ease yourself into the format without needing to worry about deck construction any more than you want to, or spend more than you're comfortable.
I have sympathy for people who are trying to put themselves through college or whatever, and for whom even spending $50 would be a major financial burden. But if you're dropping nearly $1000, then you should be able to get basically everything you'd need to make a strong deck - the thing you should be focusing on is the skill to build a good deck, not fretting about not owning a tabernacle. I've got a tabernacle. It's not that good of a card. You don't need it. Nobody needs it. If you want to try them out as proxies with people who are ok with it, go nuts I guess, but I don't think you'll be learning anything very useful. Focus on building a good deck within your budget, and don't worry so much about those chase rares.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'm gonna echo Dirk's position of 'preserving innocence'. A big part of the game is the exploration into the cards. Before i think it was 1997-ish, there were no deck lists, no set lists, and many players had no idea what cards actually existed in the game. A truly brilliant era to play. The day when i first saw leviathan, i was completely blown away, thinking it was way OP. If you start by playing 'the best deck', then the game can get stale pretty quickly.
Also, just to add to that, i've been finding that playing lower powered decks can be really fun; probably more fun than playing highly tuned awesomeness.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Ill make a nice budget deck that seems cool to me and play that more often if people do mind. I just wish there was a commander version. In mtg arena. That game is so well made and easy to use.
I agree were kinda spoiled by the internet. There are website that display all decks of top 30 people of every big tournament that you can just copy and order by clicking 1 button and see what the total cost is. But i find that the same with everything else aswell. Every online game has guides on the optimum gear/builds where people do alot of calculation to get the best damage ect. Sure i can decide not to read them or follow them, but in the end i just do worse then the rest who is following the guides, and have a bigger learning curve until im caught up with all the cards, effects, combos and playtesting every deck for years. Especially in magic the sheer ammount of combos is insane, and im not a big fan of infinite combos anyway.
Ive played agianst a coinflip commander yesterday who did 80 commander damage and draw 6 cards and after attack played a spell that give another player 80 damage. Just by having his 2 commanders up. There are insane and funny combos and im still getting into the politics, not trusting people when they promise me they wont attack if i do a certain action for them ect.
Much to learn, especially the unwritten social rules
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
Standard: Dinosaurs(GR)
Commander: The Ur-Dragon, Arahbo-Roar of the World, Zacama-Primal Calamity, Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
Not if they are on the reserve list. It may hurt the secondary market, but wizards is' hardly reliant on that anymore. Obviously it's stealing intellectual property and undermining the property power structure is bad. I personally only proxy standard cards and encourage everyone I meet to do the same, because I actively hate magic the gathering, but no one will play better games as long as magic is still a thing.
I just sold back most of my cards back to the store for the buyprice.
Now im ready to find some cool concept decks.
Yesterday i played agianst some1 with the exact same deck as me, like every card, he copied the same deck as i did haha.
If anyone has some suggestions of not much played decks that are budget friendly let me know
There's also Zada, Hedron Grinder, which can be a bit of a glass cannon depending on the build, but can also be built to a low budget — thread is here.
There's also Commander's Quarters on YouTube devoted to budget builds, and most of them are focused level.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
that said...
...what i don't know doesn't hurt me. no one is pulling your cards out of sleeves to inspect them, and no one is taking the risk that they're real to tear them in half to be sure they aren't.