I have 3 MAIN Legacy decks I've been playing with, Elves, Reanimator, and Death & Taxes. I recently completed my elf combo deck, which got me in the mood to finish another one of my decks. So about a month ago, I made a vow to finish my Death & Taxes land base by the end of next year (4 Karakas, 4 Wasteland, 4 Port) and then it's completely finished.
Within this month up to this post, I have made $300 through spare change at the end of each day as well as Christmas gifts and small jobs going into my "Magic Savings Jar". Although with how fast I accumulated this money, I'm tempted to spend it on not parts for D&T, but for finishing two whole decks I've been building on the sidelines (these decks being LEDless-Dredge & Solidarity). I know it would be better getting 2 Karakas instead, but I could finish off two decks. What do you people think and how do you stop yourself from walking off the path of completing a deck
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
You have made a sacred vow to complete the DnT mana base, worked hard to accumulate the funds to make serious progress on this goal… and so you shall complete the DnT manabase! No waffling or dawdling!
Following through on a Magical vow will increase your mystical might, particularly with a white deck. Stick to your guns, shame and fie upon you for harboring impure thoughts! Only the straight and narrow path of the purest, whitest mana can save you. Repent! Lest you wind up among the degenerate, cursed Reanimator players who are forced to play this most broken and hated-upon of all decks!
I prescribe a day-long period of cleansing, prayer and fasting: during which time you shall chant the following article seven times.
First, I'd just steer you away from LED-less Dredge. Trust me, I've put in the hours. In a deck where the whole point is to win game 1 before your opponent can do anything, sacrificing a potential LED-Faithless Looting/Cephalid Coliseum draw just kills you. I'd also steer you away from Solidarity because I don't think it works without Candelabras. If you have them, good on you, go for it. Otherwise, save that one for playtesting where you can use proxies. I can tell from your post that you are either a Johnny by nature or a Johnny by budget or some combination of the two, and I've long occupied those two spots. I also try to seek out divergent decks, so just know that this is a safe place and I'm saying all these things from a positive head space.
There are a few approaches to this question - and maybe more that I'm not thinking of - but here are my thoughts on these angles:
Financially, Karakas is an investment. Like low-risk stocks or gold or property overlooking an Italian lake, that investment will pretty much go up in value for the rest of the foreseeable future. Huge downward price spikes don't happen in Legacy (for the most part, sticklers) because the format is incredibly stable. Taxes evolves maybe once or twice a year. The following will be a baseline truth of the deck for the rest of its existence, however: Karakas exploits Mangara (though he's clearly out of most lists now) and protects Thalia and Brimaz for free. These are two cards that probably aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Taxes passes in and out of highest-level status, but it is consistently a good (albeit meta-dependent) deck. Karakas is a good investment because as long as Brimaz and Thalia are viable in Legacy, people will play 3-4 copies of Karakas. Legacy changes over the course of months, usually, so if there is a price slide thanks to, say, a huge uptick in Wastelands or a newly spoiled Super Phyrexian Revoker Xtreme Edition that everyone jams into their decks as though they were Treasure Cruises, you'll be able to see the slide coming and hitting. You'll have a matter of months to sell them off; you'll never wake up on Black Tuesday and find out your Karakases aren't worth anything. So in this sense, Karakas is just a good financial move.
Playability would dictate that you should grab as many Karakases as you can. It is by far the most unfair thing you can do in a deck that is almost entirely fair. (Second would be Mom.) It's a deck full of cards that make everyone play fair. Containment Priest, the latest addition to Taxes sideboards, is the ultimate illustration of this. It was printed specifically to blunt reanimation, Natural Order, Oath of Druids, Aether Vial (which is, ironically, only played in Taxes {sorry, Merfolk and Goblins, you're not really decks as much anymore}), and, most notably, Show and Tell. It even plays nice with Batterskull so you reeeeally get the idea. Anyway, many Karakases -> Winningness.
Pride of ownership is quite subjective. I personally don't feel much when people see my cards. I'm not rubbing my Moat in peoples' faces during EDH games like, "YEAH, I'VE HAD THIS SINCE '94!" I also don't care much about whether my car is shiny. However, like guitars (of which I own a number), there are stories regarding certain cards - in particular the physical wear on them - that I think are just good stories of the Wild West days or have personal significance to me. I traded a Plateau to a predatory older player for a Baron Sengir in 1995, and I now keep it in my trade binder. Whenever a fellow fogey points it out and gives me props, I tell them about that trade. Same with my Arabian Nights Mountain, which is the first Magic card I ever saw. Currently, a pristine Baron will set you back about 5 bucks, which is 70 less than an Unlimited Plateau. And you know something? Nowadays, with my current income alleviating but not eliminating the financial barriers to playing the game, I'd do it again. I got supreme Timmy joy from that Baron Sengir compared to that Plateau, which featured a color I never played (red). It would have probably been used in a deck with white as a means of throwing off my opponent and providing a better Strip Mine target than a Plains. The Chrysler LeBaron is very beat up from many sleeveless years of being windmill slammed onto concrete at my school. I kept it even when I sold most of my collection in the early 2000s just before the Type 1.5 price spikes started happening. Bad market read on my part, but I was frightened by the horrible management of the Pokemon Trading Card game's secondary market values. Anyway, my point is that you'll presumably retain those Karakases for many years to come. I think that has at least some value, but like I said, it's totally subjective and you may not care about Karakas any more than you care about Tolaria.
You have made a sacred vow to complete the DnT mana base, worked hard to accumulate the funds to make serious progress on this goal… and so you shall complete the DnT manabase! No waffling or dawdling!
Following through on a Magical vow will increase your mystical might, particularly with a white deck. Stick to your guns, shame and fie upon you for harboring impure thoughts! Only the straight and narrow path of the purest, whitest mana can save you. Repent! Lest you wind up among the degenerate, cursed Reanimator players who are forced to play this most broken and hated-upon of all decks!
I prescribe a day-long period of cleansing, prayer and fasting: during which time you shall chant the following article seven times.
This post is 1000% correct.
Buying staples hurt, but in a few months you'll be thankful you bought powerful, expensive cards over sheer quantity.
I, like a lot of legacy players I believe, don't own a particular deck, but instead we own a bunch of staples that make appearence in tons of decks. That's the best way IMO
I would say stay on target. I made the mistake of starting work on Aluren prior to finishing Spiral Tide. This meant that there came a time when my third Candelabra of Tawnos for High Tide and my Underground Sea for Aluren were in conflict. That feels super awkward. I bit the bullet on the candelabra since it was the one available furthest below market value of the two, but it was still not ideal. Now I'm still stuck treading water on Aluren with a tropical island and underground sea left to acquire (fortunately I've been able to borrow these two cards rather reliably, but I'm interested in completing the deck without needing to arrange lendings prior to every event with the deck. Going sequentially would have saved me a lot of heartache (Also, I suppose I should mention that I also started Spanish Inquisition around the same time as Aluren and am also stalled on LEDs for that. Fortunately, I've set the priorities straight for the decks at this point and I'm committed to going for Aluren first).
I will say that there's a caveat to this. If there's a truly massive difference in expenditure, I might consider it okay to detour. For example, given that I owned all the pieces (and then some) for Spiral Tide (and really, for most any build of it too), I was essentially just Resets and Dig Through Times away from Solidarity. For me, this turned out to be just over $60 in expenditures. That was very reasonable to allow me to play an entire additional deck and I have been very glad that I pulled the trigger there instead of staying rigidly on target for Aluren.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
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ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
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I hear you man, I decided to build RUG Delver. I have my goyfs, forces, wastes, 2 volcanics and 2 trops. Just being a volcanic and tropical away, I build D&T in modern..... Thanks for the post I will be focusing on my last two duals!
Financially, Karakas is an investment. Like low-risk stocks or gold or property overlooking an Italian lake, that investment will pretty much go up in value for the rest of the foreseeable future.
Karakas is not on the reserve list, they COULD print a lot and make his price drops, hell they even can print "Event deck legacy" with 4 rishidan, 4 wasteland and 4 karakas!!
a real investment is anything on the reserve list.
i know this its not likelly to happen, but we see this sort of statments a lot pre world crisis 2008 and you know what happen with that very "low" risk investment.
short story: a black tuesday CAN happen to karakas (you know they cost less than 10 each 8 year ago or less, right?
Karakas is not on the reserve list, they COULD print a lot and make his price drops, hell they even can print "Event deck legacy" with 4 rishidan, 4 wasteland and 4 karakas!!
a real investment is anything on the reserve list.
i know this its not likelly to happen, but we see this sort of statments a lot pre world crisis 2008 and you know what happen with that very "low" risk investment.
short story: a black tuesday CAN happen to karakas (you know they cost less than 10 each 8 year ago or less, right?
Karakas is still a fairly safe investment though. Chances are it won't see print in any sort of standard pools any time soon. I would only expect to see it in a Legacy Masters set, but those are far from a good way of knocking the price down. It would be rare enough that I woudn't be surprised to see it raise in price.
Financially, Karakas is an investment. Like low-risk stocks or gold or property overlooking an Italian lake, that investment will pretty much go up in value for the rest of the foreseeable future.
Karakas is not on the reserve list, they COULD print a lot and make his price drops, hell they even can print "Event deck legacy" with 4 rishidan, 4 wasteland and 4 karakas!!
a real investment is anything on the reserve list.
i know this its not likelly to happen, but we see this sort of statments a lot pre world crisis 2008 and you know what happen with that very "low" risk investment.
short story: a black tuesday CAN happen to karakas (you know they cost less than 10 each 8 year ago or less, right?
Karakas is a well known card from a Legends, a set with a print run of only 35 million cards. Regardless of reprintings, such a card would continue to maintain value simply on the basis of what it is. Much like the value of an original piece of artwork is not harmed by people selling prints of it. The same way a collectable stamp's value is not harmed by the postal service making more stamps that people can use to send letters.
The reserved list does not protect the value of collectable cards, it only hampers access to cards people need for play.
Also, an investment is anything that you spend money on with the intention of potentially selling later. If you want a guaranteed investment you should be buying treasury bonds, not trying to keep a private company from printing newer versions of one of their products.
There is no such thing as a guaranteed investment: there are only degrees of risk. Gold, the very example offered above, has fallen considerably in the past few years.
It is correct to say that Magic cards are riskier than a lot of financial instruments. This should surprise no one. We are talking about a small piece of cardboard with a picture and some text, used to play a card game by children aged 11 and up.
Within the realm of Magic cards, however, it is incorrect to perceive no difference in risk between Karakas, Underground Sea, Black Lotus, and Monastery Mentor. Each of these pieces of cardboard has a different risk profile, and it is true that holding Karakas carries less risk than holding Monastery Mentor. There are a few reasons that Wizards will not print Karakas in a massive, Standard-legal set.
I build Legacy decks around what I call the" Johnny Cash Theory", or" One Piece At A Time". For instance I am all but wrapping up my MUD build. I still lack 3 City of Traitors for it. Last week I needed a dozen or so cards. Welders, Chalices, and a couple of the 1ofs. I made it a point to get get stuff like The Platinum Emperium and Staff of Nin before I moved onto something else. Not that if a trade falls in my lap but I'm going to turn it awayas far as active purchasing or trading those were my focus.
When it comes to builds costing more than paychecks it's easy to be defeated by the enormity of the build itself I think. Set a goal, reach the goal, set a new goal. Your goal sounds like those Tundras, so go get those and move on.
When into to the card shop I have a few decks in mind d I want to make.
So I buy the cheaper cards and eventually I find what I want.
Right now I just splurged on 2 fow, the shopkeep is keeping an ear open for 2 more for me.
I can do blade decks, fish, some U combo maybe.
Or maybe soon the next new thing will come out.
I'm in no huge rush.
As a dredge player myself, LEDless isn't that great.
I would either get the LED's and do it properly or play Manaless dredge myself.
If I was in your position, I would consider finishing DnT your best option.
It's a very competitive deck, and considering the way WoTC have been printing lots of interesting white cards of late, I don't think you'll have too much trouble keeping the deck competitive for many years to come.
For myself I'm not limited to a lot of the economic restrictions many players are. I earn an excellent living and can afford for each deck to have its own proprietary copies of cards. It is a punch whenever it comes to building anything blue though. 4 FoWs, probably a Flusterstorm or 2 and that's not even digging the mana base or random weirdness like JTMS, S&T or whatever.Typically it works like this. "Hey, you should build this next!" Then I do it.
I am strict with myself. I play a single deck for each eternal format. The extent of my "pimping" is black border for the deck. I detest foils and foreign languages. I have a taste for ABU when possible, but who doesn't really? I find the decks I enjoy and stick with them even if they are not in the vogue.
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Vintage-Shops/BUG/Dredge Legacy-Death and Taxes/Nic Fit
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
Anything that is not on the reserve list is an iffy long-term investment if it is currently at a high price. Magic cards fluctuate in value all the time based on meta swings and that's true even in Legacy.
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Within this month up to this post, I have made $300 through spare change at the end of each day as well as Christmas gifts and small jobs going into my "Magic Savings Jar". Although with how fast I accumulated this money, I'm tempted to spend it on not parts for D&T, but for finishing two whole decks I've been building on the sidelines (these decks being LEDless-Dredge & Solidarity). I know it would be better getting 2 Karakas instead, but I could finish off two decks. What do you people think and how do you stop yourself from walking off the path of completing a deck
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Following through on a Magical vow will increase your mystical might, particularly with a white deck. Stick to your guns, shame and fie upon you for harboring impure thoughts! Only the straight and narrow path of the purest, whitest mana can save you. Repent! Lest you wind up among the degenerate, cursed Reanimator players who are forced to play this most broken and hated-upon of all decks!
I prescribe a day-long period of cleansing, prayer and fasting: during which time you shall chant the following article seven times.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
It helps me to finish in one format then start a deck from another, but if you don't other formats that might not work.
There are a few approaches to this question - and maybe more that I'm not thinking of - but here are my thoughts on these angles:
Financially, Karakas is an investment. Like low-risk stocks or gold or property overlooking an Italian lake, that investment will pretty much go up in value for the rest of the foreseeable future. Huge downward price spikes don't happen in Legacy (for the most part, sticklers) because the format is incredibly stable. Taxes evolves maybe once or twice a year. The following will be a baseline truth of the deck for the rest of its existence, however: Karakas exploits Mangara (though he's clearly out of most lists now) and protects Thalia and Brimaz for free. These are two cards that probably aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Taxes passes in and out of highest-level status, but it is consistently a good (albeit meta-dependent) deck. Karakas is a good investment because as long as Brimaz and Thalia are viable in Legacy, people will play 3-4 copies of Karakas. Legacy changes over the course of months, usually, so if there is a price slide thanks to, say, a huge uptick in Wastelands or a newly spoiled Super Phyrexian Revoker Xtreme Edition that everyone jams into their decks as though they were Treasure Cruises, you'll be able to see the slide coming and hitting. You'll have a matter of months to sell them off; you'll never wake up on Black Tuesday and find out your Karakases aren't worth anything. So in this sense, Karakas is just a good financial move.
Playability would dictate that you should grab as many Karakases as you can. It is by far the most unfair thing you can do in a deck that is almost entirely fair. (Second would be Mom.) It's a deck full of cards that make everyone play fair. Containment Priest, the latest addition to Taxes sideboards, is the ultimate illustration of this. It was printed specifically to blunt reanimation, Natural Order, Oath of Druids, Aether Vial (which is, ironically, only played in Taxes {sorry, Merfolk and Goblins, you're not really decks as much anymore}), and, most notably, Show and Tell. It even plays nice with Batterskull so you reeeeally get the idea. Anyway, many Karakases -> Winningness.
Pride of ownership is quite subjective. I personally don't feel much when people see my cards. I'm not rubbing my Moat in peoples' faces during EDH games like, "YEAH, I'VE HAD THIS SINCE '94!" I also don't care much about whether my car is shiny. However, like guitars (of which I own a number), there are stories regarding certain cards - in particular the physical wear on them - that I think are just good stories of the Wild West days or have personal significance to me. I traded a Plateau to a predatory older player for a Baron Sengir in 1995, and I now keep it in my trade binder. Whenever a fellow fogey points it out and gives me props, I tell them about that trade. Same with my Arabian Nights Mountain, which is the first Magic card I ever saw. Currently, a pristine Baron will set you back about 5 bucks, which is 70 less than an Unlimited Plateau. And you know something? Nowadays, with my current income alleviating but not eliminating the financial barriers to playing the game, I'd do it again. I got supreme Timmy joy from that Baron Sengir compared to that Plateau, which featured a color I never played (red). It would have probably been used in a deck with white as a means of throwing off my opponent and providing a better Strip Mine target than a Plains. The Chrysler LeBaron is very beat up from many sleeveless years of being windmill slammed onto concrete at my school. I kept it even when I sold most of my collection in the early 2000s just before the Type 1.5 price spikes started happening. Bad market read on my part, but I was frightened by the horrible management of the Pokemon Trading Card game's secondary market values. Anyway, my point is that you'll presumably retain those Karakases for many years to come. I think that has at least some value, but like I said, it's totally subjective and you may not care about Karakas any more than you care about Tolaria.
Hope my long answer helps you figure it out.
This post is 1000% correct.
Buying staples hurt, but in a few months you'll be thankful you bought powerful, expensive cards over sheer quantity.
I, like a lot of legacy players I believe, don't own a particular deck, but instead we own a bunch of staples that make appearence in tons of decks. That's the best way IMO
I will say that there's a caveat to this. If there's a truly massive difference in expenditure, I might consider it okay to detour. For example, given that I owned all the pieces (and then some) for Spiral Tide (and really, for most any build of it too), I was essentially just Resets and Dig Through Times away from Solidarity. For me, this turned out to be just over $60 in expenditures. That was very reasonable to allow me to play an entire additional deck and I have been very glad that I pulled the trigger there instead of staying rigidly on target for Aluren.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
Karakas is not on the reserve list, they COULD print a lot and make his price drops, hell they even can print "Event deck legacy" with 4 rishidan, 4 wasteland and 4 karakas!!
a real investment is anything on the reserve list.
i know this its not likelly to happen, but we see this sort of statments a lot pre world crisis 2008 and you know what happen with that very "low" risk investment.
short story: a black tuesday CAN happen to karakas (you know they cost less than 10 each 8 year ago or less, right?
Karakas is still a fairly safe investment though. Chances are it won't see print in any sort of standard pools any time soon. I would only expect to see it in a Legacy Masters set, but those are far from a good way of knocking the price down. It would be rare enough that I woudn't be surprised to see it raise in price.
Karakas is a well known card from a Legends, a set with a print run of only 35 million cards. Regardless of reprintings, such a card would continue to maintain value simply on the basis of what it is. Much like the value of an original piece of artwork is not harmed by people selling prints of it. The same way a collectable stamp's value is not harmed by the postal service making more stamps that people can use to send letters.
The reserved list does not protect the value of collectable cards, it only hampers access to cards people need for play.
Also, an investment is anything that you spend money on with the intention of potentially selling later. If you want a guaranteed investment you should be buying treasury bonds, not trying to keep a private company from printing newer versions of one of their products.
It is correct to say that Magic cards are riskier than a lot of financial instruments. This should surprise no one. We are talking about a small piece of cardboard with a picture and some text, used to play a card game by children aged 11 and up.
Within the realm of Magic cards, however, it is incorrect to perceive no difference in risk between Karakas, Underground Sea, Black Lotus, and Monastery Mentor. Each of these pieces of cardboard has a different risk profile, and it is true that holding Karakas carries less risk than holding Monastery Mentor. There are a few reasons that Wizards will not print Karakas in a massive, Standard-legal set.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
When it comes to builds costing more than paychecks it's easy to be defeated by the enormity of the build itself I think. Set a goal, reach the goal, set a new goal. Your goal sounds like those Tundras, so go get those and move on.
So I buy the cheaper cards and eventually I find what I want.
Right now I just splurged on 2 fow, the shopkeep is keeping an ear open for 2 more for me.
I can do blade decks, fish, some U combo maybe.
Or maybe soon the next new thing will come out.
I'm in no huge rush.
I would either get the LED's and do it properly or play Manaless dredge myself.
If I was in your position, I would consider finishing DnT your best option.
It's a very competitive deck, and considering the way WoTC have been printing lots of interesting white cards of late, I don't think you'll have too much trouble keeping the deck competitive for many years to come.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!