A. It's all about your land base. If you don't have a good land base you're never going to play Modern. In recent years, if you play Standard you will be getting SOME lands that are good in Modern.
B. Pick an archetype, not a specific deck. You can swap out some pieces for others.
C. Tier 2 is a good place to start, there are some cheap decks.
D. Get used to substitutions.
E. Play to your local metagame, not the Grand Prix.
F. Have two Modern decks. This is because the format has a popularity influx where certain decks vie for Tier 1 status. Equally, if you're that "one guy" who spent his milk money on building Amulet Vial combo deck and then have to quit after it got banned. It does happen, mainly combo decks.
G. Get used to looking at reprint cycles and speculation cycles:
-4th quarter around Christmas card prices tend to fall and then sharply rally during January and oscillate through summer during "Modern season"
-Modern Masters tends to place a downward pressure on prices through to the release and slightly after. Buy up specific reprints.
H. Make friends and borrow decks.
I. Buy Khans Fetch Lands now, starting with Windswept Heath->Blue->Black in that order.
J. Trade off or sell off Standard fodder at the high for Modern staples.
K. Quit Standard
That's how I got to play this lovely format owning a number of good decks. Only have 3 left I really want to build. Ironically, they're the most expensive ones :s.
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Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
I cringe every time someone calls Standard "affordable", especially more affordable than Modern. Yes, Modern has a higher initial buy in but in the long run Modern is much cheaper. Make sure you buy into the right deck for your playstyle and once its built you only have to make small changes over time. Standard constantly rotates, you pay for limited every time you play. Modern is cheaper long term so it's the format I play most. I definitely think it's worth getting into.
Standard is cheaper than modern, it's just that it isn't eternal and has a rotation. Then we get into the entire problem with modern where most cards just can't compare or compete with prior sets because they keep doing this "power rotation" on different types of cards. This basically leads to having a format with nothing but powerful cards in all categories, hence why modern is basically a format defined by a small subset of cards while the rest are draft chaff.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
Make sure you buy into the right deck for your playstyle and once its built you only have to make small changes over time.
Unless it gets banned and the pieces you're left with still require hundreds more to spend making them into exponentially worse decks. So there's that risk. It's better to just play a cheap budget deck or some Tier 3 jank. Low cost, low expectations, low risk, still probably fun.
Though, if you don't want to play a budget deck, I still can't actually recommend the format at all to anyone that doesn't already have a deep collection of Modern staples. There's still too much fear and uncertainty about the format. It feels that ever since Twin's shocking ban and Eldrazi's emergency ban, everyone just lives 3 months at a time and very few new players are investing in for the long haul.
-4th quarter around Christmas card prices tend to fall and then sharply rally during January and oscillate through summer during "Modern season"
-Modern Masters tends to place a downward pressure on prices through to the release and slightly after. Buy up specific reprints.
H. Make friends and borrow decks.
I. Buy Khans Fetch Lands now, starting with Windswept Heath->Blue->Black in that order.
That's how I got to play this lovely format owning a number of good decks. Only have 3 left I really want to build. Ironically, they're the most expensive ones :s.
Card prices falling as Christmas season approach is very true. The kind people at SCG are really nice in their Black Friday sale. I used up some work income from November to buy almost all Khans fetch that I need, Inventors Fair, and a Mutavault. No regrets. If anyone wants Khans fetches, try to get what you need before the year ends.
Agreed on the "borrow deck" advise. I was able to borrow a friend's Abzan deck with finks and Rhinos, it's fun to experience other decks every now and then. Well, and there was one time that I let a friend borrow my affinity deck.
I used to make bunch of proxy decks thanks to magiccards.info and extensively test them with friends on the kitchen table until I found the one I liked the most. Then I bought into that one. As Modern can get expensive and banlist can send your favorite deck to the crap-rare zone, I'd suggest you'd make your homework seriously before investing into anything. Otherwise you risk spending a lot on various pieces without actually getting there until you know what you want.
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
The issue with modern is that you can build a 1000 dollar deck and thanks to wizards banning something suddenly have a 150 dollar deck. You're no safer in modern than a standard player unless you buy into very specific decks like Merfolk, which are resilient to the kind of ban hammer tactics that happen and are flexible enough to adapt to a sudden meta shift thanks to some newly broken OP card in standard finding it's way into the card pool.
As much as people may love their collections, the game is basically the TCG equivalent to Palladium books Rifts RPG. It's so broken due to OP options appearing in both new and historic products that there's no point even perusing the majority of the content out there except for commander / edh. How the cards manage to gain value I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly a big price bubble on the majority of cards except for the restricted list ones based almost entirely on how popular the game is, and given that the only thing even making these historic decks prices stick is modern tournament play, the second wizards finally moves on to Frontier or their official version of it modern will turn to legacy and fall by the wayside; played only by the select few from the generations that were around when most modern played sets were released.
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
The issue with modern is that you can build a 1000 dollar deck and thanks to wizards banning something suddenly have a 150 dollar deck. You're no safer in modern than a standard player unless you buy into very specific decks like Merfolk, which are resilient to the kind of ban hammer tactics that happen and are flexible enough to adapt to a sudden meta shift thanks to some newly broken OP card in standard finding it's way into the card pool.
As much as people may love their collections, the game is basically the TCG equivalent to Palladium books Rifts RPG. It's so broken due to OP options appearing in both new and historic products that there's no point even perusing the majority of the content out there except for commander / edh. How the cards manage to gain value I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly a big price bubble on the majority of cards except for the restricted list ones based almost entirely on how popular the game is, and given that the only thing even making these historic decks prices stick is modern tournament play, the second wizards finally moves on to Frontier or their official version of it modern will turn to legacy and fall by the wayside; played only by the select few from the generations that were around when most modern played sets were released.
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
What deck went from 1k to 150 thanks to a banning? Banned cards will lose value to some degree (the amount lost will depend upon play in other formats), but the rest of the deck is usually fine. Also wizards needs older formats for the health of the game. Without getting into it to much, cards having long-term value is incredibly important to the game and definitely factors into WotC's decision making process (for the most part... they are human and make errors).
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
The issue with modern is that you can build a 1000 dollar deck and thanks to wizards banning something suddenly have a 150 dollar deck. You're no safer in modern than a standard player unless you buy into very specific decks like Merfolk, which are resilient to the kind of ban hammer tactics that happen and are flexible enough to adapt to a sudden meta shift thanks to some newly broken OP card in standard finding it's way into the card pool.
As much as people may love their collections, the game is basically the TCG equivalent to Palladium books Rifts RPG. It's so broken due to OP options appearing in both new and historic products that there's no point even perusing the majority of the content out there except for commander / edh. How the cards manage to gain value I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly a big price bubble on the majority of cards except for the restricted list ones based almost entirely on how popular the game is, and given that the only thing even making these historic decks prices stick is modern tournament play, the second wizards finally moves on to Frontier or their official version of it modern will turn to legacy and fall by the wayside; played only by the select few from the generations that were around when most modern played sets were released.
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
What deck went from 1k to 150 thanks to a banning? Banned cards will lose value to some degree (the amount lost will depend upon play in other formats), but the rest of the deck is usually fine. Also wizards needs older formats for the health of the game. Without getting into it to much, cards having long-term value is incredibly important to the game and definitely factors into WotC's decision making process (for the most part... they are human and make errors).
Splinter twin is an example of a deck being destroyed by a banning and while the cost might not be as drastic as that prior example the point from before still stands. If you play in a format that is completely dictating value on tournament play you are playing with fire and a hot potato if you have any concern about card value. So yes, Modern is god awful as a format for anyone who wants to play magic for the sake of playing it. You'll end up in a really uneven playing field (just like Palladium Rifts), basically get trounced by some random new comer who might be net decking unless somehow the janky budget deck happens to be just really well positioned against that deck, and the recourse more often than not is to go to the internet, see what decks are popular and working, and then pay a super high price tag to step into the ring on modern night. So yes, the format is irrevocably broken financially and from a gameplay standpoint. I know on this forum this isn't the popular point of view, but it's one carried by a lot of people who have tried to "play modern".
And before someone comes and argues that the format isn't broken because of all the lovely decks out in the different competitive and constructed forums, look at how many cards are actually being played vs the entire library of modern. The only reason modern is "not broken" is because the community has literally sifted through the muck and picked a subset of playable cards to use, many of which are printed at rare or mythic, thus causing supply issues.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
You can play Grixis without Scalding Tarn using Drowned Catacombs and other substitute fetches that are cheaper. Then when Tarns are reprinted in Standard, take the other fetch and use for another deck project. It's fairly simple long term adjustments.
Most of the issues are with universal pieces versus specific pieces. Affinity isn't a deck that's very good to maintain value because parts of it are probably ban worthy in the right metagame shift. However, historically it has been around since the inception of the format which lends some credibility for it to be around for a few more years in some form.
Now, taking Twin as an example. Yes the combo cards became next to worthless. Splinter Twin is a $3 card as of right now for the Modern Masters version. There are cards from that specific deck that are still good in other decks such as fetches and shock lands that maintain both value and replay value.
The issue lays with the pieces of the deck and how many different decks can be constructed out of those decks. Amulet Bloom only had good parts because Amulet Bloom pieces are necessarily specific to that deck. Affinity has some flexibility with Tezzerator and that other artifact control deck. Tron has again a lot of specific pieces, but typically parts can be used for Mono Blue Tron, Colorless Eldrazi, RG Eldrazi, or RG Tron.
Amulet Bloom for a new player without a "garage" of decks was a bad buy.
Twin was a good buy because of the effectiveness of the surrounding pieces to become Jeskai Nahiri, Grixis Control, Grixis Delver, Temur Tempo, and various other decks.
Affinity for a new player is a bad buy because of the lack of flexibility that the pieces have with other decks.
Typically there are decks that are good for entry level such as BW Tokens that can become Esper or Abzan later as "flex decks" that add upward mobility and flexibility in card buying purchases.
Ideally you want to build a deck that when you tear it apart to build another deck or two, you don't need to spend much money to build those other decks.
Which is why again I suggest having two separate decks in the start that can mix and match with other aspects of the collection to build other decks. Unless if you really have a love for that deck like Affinity or that combo deck like Amulet Bloom with the wisdom that the deck can go south if a card is banned out of that deck. Even then, you still want a good standby deck in another archetype to increase variety of replayability.
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Life is a beautiful engineer, yet a brutal scientist.
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
The issue with modern is that you can build a 1000 dollar deck and thanks to wizards banning something suddenly have a 150 dollar deck. You're no safer in modern than a standard player unless you buy into very specific decks like Merfolk, which are resilient to the kind of ban hammer tactics that happen and are flexible enough to adapt to a sudden meta shift thanks to some newly broken OP card in standard finding it's way into the card pool.
As much as people may love their collections, the game is basically the TCG equivalent to Palladium books Rifts RPG. It's so broken due to OP options appearing in both new and historic products that there's no point even perusing the majority of the content out there except for commander / edh. How the cards manage to gain value I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly a big price bubble on the majority of cards except for the restricted list ones based almost entirely on how popular the game is, and given that the only thing even making these historic decks prices stick is modern tournament play, the second wizards finally moves on to Frontier or their official version of it modern will turn to legacy and fall by the wayside; played only by the select few from the generations that were around when most modern played sets were released.
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
What deck went from 1k to 150 thanks to a banning? Banned cards will lose value to some degree (the amount lost will depend upon play in other formats), but the rest of the deck is usually fine. Also wizards needs older formats for the health of the game. Without getting into it to much, cards having long-term value is incredibly important to the game and definitely factors into WotC's decision making process (for the most part... they are human and make errors).
Basically all staples that were in the Twin deck have lost 50% or more of their value, including stuff like Cryptic, Snapcaster, Clique, Remand, not to mention Twin itself, which went from $20 to $2 (or $80 to $8 for a playset). If you were stupid enough to buy foils, you are out a even more money. Then there's the new money needed to spend to build something new, since the carcass of "UR Control" or even "Blue Moon" is laughably bad Tier 3 fodder. So there's about $300-700 more to build Nahiri, depending on if you own white cards, and at least a couple hundred to move into Grixis, especially if you didn't already had the manabase. The banning of Twin made lives miserable for a lot of players invested in URx staples; competitively, monetarily, and motivationally.
Personally I'd never recommend anyone play Modern Magic unless they got a collection already going they want to play with. The format isn't something you buy into from scratch and due to that the playability suffers immensely. Compare that to standard, EDH, or limited, which are the most affordable formats of Magic that someone might be able play at most LGS. Basically, Modern is the format for people that have been playing since probably original Ravnica at the latest, while Frontier is the new "modern" for players who have started more recently. Just doing a historic price look on cards and things like Gaddock Teeg went from being something like two bucks to nearly 10x the cost. Not even going to get into Rhys, the redeemed or Sensei's Divining Top. The later was an uncommon that was about 50 cents and people were opening them all over the place.
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
The issue with modern is that you can build a 1000 dollar deck and thanks to wizards banning something suddenly have a 150 dollar deck. You're no safer in modern than a standard player unless you buy into very specific decks like Merfolk, which are resilient to the kind of ban hammer tactics that happen and are flexible enough to adapt to a sudden meta shift thanks to some newly broken OP card in standard finding it's way into the card pool.
As much as people may love their collections, the game is basically the TCG equivalent to Palladium books Rifts RPG. It's so broken due to OP options appearing in both new and historic products that there's no point even perusing the majority of the content out there except for commander / edh. How the cards manage to gain value I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly a big price bubble on the majority of cards except for the restricted list ones based almost entirely on how popular the game is, and given that the only thing even making these historic decks prices stick is modern tournament play, the second wizards finally moves on to Frontier or their official version of it modern will turn to legacy and fall by the wayside; played only by the select few from the generations that were around when most modern played sets were released.
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
What deck went from 1k to 150 thanks to a banning? Banned cards will lose value to some degree (the amount lost will depend upon play in other formats), but the rest of the deck is usually fine. Also wizards needs older formats for the health of the game. Without getting into it to much, cards having long-term value is incredibly important to the game and definitely factors into WotC's decision making process (for the most part... they are human and make errors).
Basically all staples that were in the Twin deck have lost 50% or more of their value, including stuff like Cryptic, Snapcaster, Clique, Remand, not to mention Twin itself, which went from $20 to $2 (or $80 to $8 for a playset). If you were stupid enough to buy foils, you are out a even more money. Then there's the new money needed to spend to build something new, since the carcass of "UR Control" or even "Blue Moon" is laughably bad Tier 3 fodder. So there's about $300-700 more to build Nahiri, depending on if you own white cards, and at least a couple hundred to move into Grixis, especially if you didn't already had the manabase. The banning of Twin made lives miserable for a lot of players invested in URx staples; competitively, monetarily, and motivationally.
The format as a whole has lost value since Conspiracy 2 was released. Format staples are at their lowest point since January 2013. So no, the current prices of twin staples being down (with the exception of the combo itself) are not because of twin being banned. The only argument I could see for a loss of financial viability due to a would be an incredibly synergistic deck with cards only being played in THAT one deck (such as Amulet Bloom). Snapcaster is still higher today than than in Jan 2015 year when Twin was legal.
Agreed, but with Standard you're guaranteed to lose your money. You see I play Burn since almost the beginning of Modern, and this deck is probably going nowhere as it is balanced enough and not oppressive like Twin was. I just had to change a few cards according to the evolution of the sets and meta, but that's it.
If you take the risk of playing decks that consistently populate half of the top 8's, you know you're living on borrowed time. Decks like colorless Eldrazi had a big "BAN ME" painted on their foreheads. Decks like Infect, Burn, Abzan & co have enough ins and outs that they're probably a safe place. This said, yes, Wizards can wreck your favorite deck on a whim. But there's still a pattern of "safety".
Snapcaster is still higher today than it was this time last year when Twin was legal.
Uh... what? Snapcaster Mage was $60 December 2015, down from an $80 peak after all those Twin staples were printed in MM15 that Summer. Today it can be bought for $35.
Corrected my post above to the date I was looking at (my bad), but the point still stands that Snapcaster's value has less to do with twin and more to do with the FORMAT AS A WHOLE being on a massive downward trend at the moment. If you were looking to buy into a deck / format staples, now would actually be a great time to do so (or you can try to see if it'll bottom out further).
Corrected my post above to the date I was looking at (my bad), but the point still stands that Snapcaster's value has less to do with twin and more to do with the FORMAT AS A WHOLE being on a massive downward trend at the moment. If you were looking to buy into a deck / format staples, now would actually be a great time to do so (or you can try to see if it'll bottom out further).
I only make a big deal out of it because price fluctuations are definitely happening disproportionately worse to U/URx staples, especially Twin. Here's a quick example, pulling some cards from Goldfish's "Top Cards Played" lists and comparing with some Twin staples that have lost A LOT.
And before conspiracy 2, cards like Snapcaster Mage were still sitting at around $58 on average. My point is that there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to card value, but your splinter twin deck didn't go from 1k to 150. The current trend of of downward pressure on values has more to do with print decisions (again I'm looking at you Conspiracy 2) plus the time of year. Just to add to your picture there, cards like Fulminator Mage are down 50% over the course of the year, so it isn't just URx (again, format as a whole).
I'll also add that I'm not 100% on where you are pulling your numbers from since I'm getting different numbers for Clique as an example (12/15 @ 39.9, 12/15 29.5). Again not saying cards haven't dropped in value, but it is part of a bigger trend currently and once again, the banning of twin didn't make URx staples worthless.
And before conspiracy 2, cards like Snapcaster Mage were still sitting at around $58 on average. My point is that there are a lot of moving parts when it comes to card value, but your splinter twin deck didn't go from 1k to 150. The current trend of of downward pressure on values has more to do with print decisions (again I'm looking at you Conspiracy 2) plus the time of year. Just to add to your picture there, cards like Fulminator Mage are down 50% over the course of the year, so it isn't just URx (again, format as a whole).
I'll also add that I'm not 100% on where you are pulling your numbers from since I'm getting different numbers for Clique as an example (12/15 @ 39.9, 12/15 29.5). Again not saying cards haven't dropped in value, but it is part of a bigger trend currently and once again, the banning of twin didn't make URx staples worthless.
So you basically just made his point that prices are not stable and you can't rely on collection prices staying up, you just did it in a different way. "Oh no, it wasn't bans that lost tons of value, it was every card in modern! We all lost a fortune over the last year, so modern is a great format to get into."
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Using Goldfish and trying to pull as close to today's date as possible (12/3). For Clique, I used the original printing.
And yes, a lot of other cards are losing value too, but they all have to do with playability. A LOT of decks are just no longer reliably competitive in such a hostile format (like URx decks). As such, all those cards are going down. Fast, proactive decks are the only ones staying steady or trending up (along with specific hate cards to fight that, like EE).
You keep citing Conspiracy 2, but NOTHING from there is relevant to Modern, outside of Serum Visions and Inquisition. And both of those had already lost ~50% value beforehand anyway. Serum Visions, because no top decks play it. And Inquisition, because it was already falling from a ridiculous price spike.
Edit: but the bigger point is that yes, $1500 decks didn't go to $150. But they lost a LOT of value in terms of money, a lot of value in terms of playability, a lot of value in the cost to build new decks, and a lot of value in trying to keep motivation to play after you just lost all that value on your expensive, fun, unique deck that you loved to play.
Hmm, I wonder if the OP had made of his mind by now. I always ponder that every time I pop into this thread.
New member with only 1 post says it's either a troll post to spark discussion or someone who has no idea what's going on with the format. I'm going to guess the former. But at least it gives another thread to talk about the format and whether or not it's "worth it."
Using Goldfish and trying to pull as close to today's date as possible (12/3). For Clique, I used the original printing.
And yes, a lot of other cards are losing value too, but they all have to do with playability. A LOT of decks are just no longer reliably competitive in such a hostile format (like URx decks). As such, all those cards are going down. Fast, proactive decks are the only ones staying steady or trending up (along with specific hate cards to fight that, like EE).
You keep citing Conspiracy 2, but NOTHING from there is relevant to Modern, outside of Serum Visions and Inquisition. And both of those had already lost ~50% value beforehand anyway. Serum Visions, because no top decks play it. And Inquisition, because it was already falling from a ridiculous price spike.
Edit: but the bigger point is that yes, $1500 decks didn't go to $150. But they lost a LOT of value in terms of money, a lot of value in terms of playability, a lot of value in the cost to build new decks, and a lot of value in trying to keep motivation to play after you just lost all that value on your expensive, fun, unique deck that you loved to play.
I am citing Conspiracy 2 not because it printed modern cards, but the PRECEDENT that it sets (see Show and Tell, Berserk, and Burgeoning as examples). As much as people criticize limited print run sets like Masters, they at least keep values somewhat intact. Putting cards of that kind of value in an unlimited print run does have a major impact on the secondary market. Some people think that is a good thing and others see the problem. You can also see that the recent major dip correlates with the release of Conspiracy 2.
So you basically just made his point that prices are not stable and you can't rely on collection prices staying up, you just did it in a different way. "Oh no, it wasn't bans that lost tons of value, it was every card in modern! We all lost a fortune over the last year, so modern is a great format to get into."
I never tried to counter that cards have lost value. I just pointed out that it is absurd to say a 1k deck went to 150 BECAUSE of a banning (again, if someone can point to a specific deck where the players lost that much because 1 card got banned, I'm willing to retract my statement). Now back to the original question of "is modern worth getting into," it will depend on several factors. Prices being down right now is great for someone who wants to buy in, but sucks if you already have a collection, bought at a higher price, or sell on the secondary market. If you are just trying to play at your LGS, kudos you get to save some money.
I am citing Conspiracy 2 not because it printed modern cards, but the PRECEDENT that it sets (see Show and Tell, Berserk, and Burgeoning as examples). As much as people criticize limited print run sets like Masters, they at least keep values somewhat intact. Putting cards of that kind of value in an unlimited print run does have a major impact on the secondary market. Some people think that is a good thing and others see the problem. You can also see that the recent major dip correlates with the release of Conspiracy 2.
There's a MASSIVE drop about that time due to a change in the way they calculated value of individual cards. I forget the exact mechanics, but it correlated with TCG Player's move away from TCG Mid to TCG Market Price. No natural market would take a 35% drop in value in 24 hours without a catastrophic disaster. The individual cards reflect gradual changes over time, and if you normalize the curves, there is still a large disparity between the gains/losses between decks still relevant today and decks like URx that have lost proportionally more value. The timing of Consipracy 2 may have had an impact, but the drop you refer to is a technical and mathematic one, not directly based on Conspiracy. The slope of growth is downward, but it's not steep. Plus, Modern card values always trend downwards leading into January before spiking back up.
But my last statement was by far the most important: $1500 decks didn't go to $150. But they lost a LOT of value in terms of money, a lot of value in terms of playability, a lot of value in the cost to build new decks, and a lot of value in trying to keep motivation to play after you just lost all that value on your expensive, fun, unique deck that you loved to play. And that's the point. Be careful what decks you invest in from scratch, because they can be invalidated and made "worthless" on several different axes in the blink of an eye.
I've been having an itch to come back to the game after about a 2 year hiatus. I completely shelved the game when the eldrazi sets came out (which apparently is now called eldrazi winter?).
So is this a good time to come back to the format/game? Whats happened with modern in the past 12ish months.
I used to mostly play and still have all my cards for a snapcaster/clique deck or some version that revolves around those but could theoretically get cards to fill out a similar type of deck
so card availability isnt a sticking point but trying to recreate a similar experience.
Looking through the state of the format thread also didn't tell me much as its just people arguing back and forth over cards i dont know anything about.
If it makes any difference i came back to mtg at the tail end of the first zendikar and played the modern format (ptqs and occasional fnms) roughly since it started so not a total noob.
Back in 2012 when I started building Jund I knew it would be better investment over Pod and Twin. After Pod got the axe I was relieved I didn't invest in a deck that revolves around its namesake, then Twin happened.
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A. It's all about your land base. If you don't have a good land base you're never going to play Modern. In recent years, if you play Standard you will be getting SOME lands that are good in Modern.
B. Pick an archetype, not a specific deck. You can swap out some pieces for others.
C. Tier 2 is a good place to start, there are some cheap decks.
D. Get used to substitutions.
E. Play to your local metagame, not the Grand Prix.
F. Have two Modern decks. This is because the format has a popularity influx where certain decks vie for Tier 1 status. Equally, if you're that "one guy" who spent his milk money on building Amulet Vial combo deck and then have to quit after it got banned. It does happen, mainly combo decks.
G. Get used to looking at reprint cycles and speculation cycles:
-4th quarter around Christmas card prices tend to fall and then sharply rally during January and oscillate through summer during "Modern season"
-Modern Masters tends to place a downward pressure on prices through to the release and slightly after. Buy up specific reprints.
H. Make friends and borrow decks.
I. Buy Khans Fetch Lands now, starting with Windswept Heath->Blue->Black in that order.
J. Trade off or sell off Standard fodder at the high for Modern staples.
K. Quit Standard
That's how I got to play this lovely format owning a number of good decks. Only have 3 left I really want to build. Ironically, they're the most expensive ones :s.
Modern
Commander
Cube
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Standard is cheaper than modern, it's just that it isn't eternal and has a rotation. Then we get into the entire problem with modern where most cards just can't compare or compete with prior sets because they keep doing this "power rotation" on different types of cards. This basically leads to having a format with nothing but powerful cards in all categories, hence why modern is basically a format defined by a small subset of cards while the rest are draft chaff.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Unless it gets banned and the pieces you're left with still require hundreds more to spend making them into exponentially worse decks. So there's that risk. It's better to just play a cheap budget deck or some Tier 3 jank. Low cost, low expectations, low risk, still probably fun.
Though, if you don't want to play a budget deck, I still can't actually recommend the format at all to anyone that doesn't already have a deep collection of Modern staples. There's still too much fear and uncertainty about the format. It feels that ever since Twin's shocking ban and Eldrazi's emergency ban, everyone just lives 3 months at a time and very few new players are investing in for the long haul.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Card prices falling as Christmas season approach is very true. The kind people at SCG are really nice in their Black Friday sale. I used up some work income from November to buy almost all Khans fetch that I need, Inventors Fair, and a Mutavault. No regrets. If anyone wants Khans fetches, try to get what you need before the year ends.
Agreed on the "borrow deck" advise. I was able to borrow a friend's Abzan deck with finks and Rhinos, it's fun to experience other decks every now and then. Well, and there was one time that I let a friend borrow my affinity deck.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
The issue with Standard is that your $500 become $20 after rotation. If I were a new player and had 500$ to put into that game, I'd rather look for something with more long-term potential than the next year and half.
The issue with modern is that you can build a 1000 dollar deck and thanks to wizards banning something suddenly have a 150 dollar deck. You're no safer in modern than a standard player unless you buy into very specific decks like Merfolk, which are resilient to the kind of ban hammer tactics that happen and are flexible enough to adapt to a sudden meta shift thanks to some newly broken OP card in standard finding it's way into the card pool.
As much as people may love their collections, the game is basically the TCG equivalent to Palladium books Rifts RPG. It's so broken due to OP options appearing in both new and historic products that there's no point even perusing the majority of the content out there except for commander / edh. How the cards manage to gain value I'm not entirely sure. It's mostly a big price bubble on the majority of cards except for the restricted list ones based almost entirely on how popular the game is, and given that the only thing even making these historic decks prices stick is modern tournament play, the second wizards finally moves on to Frontier or their official version of it modern will turn to legacy and fall by the wayside; played only by the select few from the generations that were around when most modern played sets were released.
So yeah, I'm not too keen on "card value" with this game. Having to pay 20 usd for a craterhoof behemoth or 90+ for a Scalding Tarn when those cards may become historic artifacts at some point sounds like a really poor decision.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What deck went from 1k to 150 thanks to a banning? Banned cards will lose value to some degree (the amount lost will depend upon play in other formats), but the rest of the deck is usually fine. Also wizards needs older formats for the health of the game. Without getting into it to much, cards having long-term value is incredibly important to the game and definitely factors into WotC's decision making process (for the most part... they are human and make errors).
Splinter twin is an example of a deck being destroyed by a banning and while the cost might not be as drastic as that prior example the point from before still stands. If you play in a format that is completely dictating value on tournament play you are playing with fire and a hot potato if you have any concern about card value. So yes, Modern is god awful as a format for anyone who wants to play magic for the sake of playing it. You'll end up in a really uneven playing field (just like Palladium Rifts), basically get trounced by some random new comer who might be net decking unless somehow the janky budget deck happens to be just really well positioned against that deck, and the recourse more often than not is to go to the internet, see what decks are popular and working, and then pay a super high price tag to step into the ring on modern night. So yes, the format is irrevocably broken financially and from a gameplay standpoint. I know on this forum this isn't the popular point of view, but it's one carried by a lot of people who have tried to "play modern".
And before someone comes and argues that the format isn't broken because of all the lovely decks out in the different competitive and constructed forums, look at how many cards are actually being played vs the entire library of modern. The only reason modern is "not broken" is because the community has literally sifted through the muck and picked a subset of playable cards to use, many of which are printed at rare or mythic, thus causing supply issues.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
You can play Grixis without Scalding Tarn using Drowned Catacombs and other substitute fetches that are cheaper. Then when Tarns are reprinted in Standard, take the other fetch and use for another deck project. It's fairly simple long term adjustments.
Most of the issues are with universal pieces versus specific pieces. Affinity isn't a deck that's very good to maintain value because parts of it are probably ban worthy in the right metagame shift. However, historically it has been around since the inception of the format which lends some credibility for it to be around for a few more years in some form.
Now, taking Twin as an example. Yes the combo cards became next to worthless. Splinter Twin is a $3 card as of right now for the Modern Masters version. There are cards from that specific deck that are still good in other decks such as fetches and shock lands that maintain both value and replay value.
The issue lays with the pieces of the deck and how many different decks can be constructed out of those decks. Amulet Bloom only had good parts because Amulet Bloom pieces are necessarily specific to that deck. Affinity has some flexibility with Tezzerator and that other artifact control deck. Tron has again a lot of specific pieces, but typically parts can be used for Mono Blue Tron, Colorless Eldrazi, RG Eldrazi, or RG Tron.
Amulet Bloom for a new player without a "garage" of decks was a bad buy.
Twin was a good buy because of the effectiveness of the surrounding pieces to become Jeskai Nahiri, Grixis Control, Grixis Delver, Temur Tempo, and various other decks.
Affinity for a new player is a bad buy because of the lack of flexibility that the pieces have with other decks.
Typically there are decks that are good for entry level such as BW Tokens that can become Esper or Abzan later as "flex decks" that add upward mobility and flexibility in card buying purchases.
Ideally you want to build a deck that when you tear it apart to build another deck or two, you don't need to spend much money to build those other decks.
Which is why again I suggest having two separate decks in the start that can mix and match with other aspects of the collection to build other decks. Unless if you really have a love for that deck like Affinity or that combo deck like Amulet Bloom with the wisdom that the deck can go south if a card is banned out of that deck. Even then, you still want a good standby deck in another archetype to increase variety of replayability.
Modern
Commander
Cube
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Basically all staples that were in the Twin deck have lost 50% or more of their value, including stuff like Cryptic, Snapcaster, Clique, Remand, not to mention Twin itself, which went from $20 to $2 (or $80 to $8 for a playset). If you were stupid enough to buy foils, you are out a even more money. Then there's the new money needed to spend to build something new, since the carcass of "UR Control" or even "Blue Moon" is laughably bad Tier 3 fodder. So there's about $300-700 more to build Nahiri, depending on if you own white cards, and at least a couple hundred to move into Grixis, especially if you didn't already had the manabase. The banning of Twin made lives miserable for a lot of players invested in URx staples; competitively, monetarily, and motivationally.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The format as a whole has lost value since Conspiracy 2 was released. Format staples are at their lowest point since January 2013. So no, the current prices of twin staples being down (with the exception of the combo itself) are not because of twin being banned. The only argument I could see for a loss of financial viability due to a would be an incredibly synergistic deck with cards only being played in THAT one deck (such as Amulet Bloom). Snapcaster is still higher today than than in Jan 2015 year when Twin was legal.
Agreed, but with Standard you're guaranteed to lose your money. You see I play Burn since almost the beginning of Modern, and this deck is probably going nowhere as it is balanced enough and not oppressive like Twin was. I just had to change a few cards according to the evolution of the sets and meta, but that's it.
If you take the risk of playing decks that consistently populate half of the top 8's, you know you're living on borrowed time. Decks like colorless Eldrazi had a big "BAN ME" painted on their foreheads. Decks like Infect, Burn, Abzan & co have enough ins and outs that they're probably a safe place. This said, yes, Wizards can wreck your favorite deck on a whim. But there's still a pattern of "safety".
Uh... what? Snapcaster Mage was $60 December 2015, down from an $80 peak after all those Twin staples were printed in MM15 that Summer. Today it can be bought for $35.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I only make a big deal out of it because price fluctuations are definitely happening disproportionately worse to U/URx staples, especially Twin. Here's a quick example, pulling some cards from Goldfish's "Top Cards Played" lists and comparing with some Twin staples that have lost A LOT.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I'll also add that I'm not 100% on where you are pulling your numbers from since I'm getting different numbers for Clique as an example (12/15 @ 39.9, 12/15 29.5). Again not saying cards haven't dropped in value, but it is part of a bigger trend currently and once again, the banning of twin didn't make URx staples worthless.
So you basically just made his point that prices are not stable and you can't rely on collection prices staying up, you just did it in a different way. "Oh no, it wasn't bans that lost tons of value, it was every card in modern! We all lost a fortune over the last year, so modern is a great format to get into."
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
And yes, a lot of other cards are losing value too, but they all have to do with playability. A LOT of decks are just no longer reliably competitive in such a hostile format (like URx decks). As such, all those cards are going down. Fast, proactive decks are the only ones staying steady or trending up (along with specific hate cards to fight that, like EE).
You keep citing Conspiracy 2, but NOTHING from there is relevant to Modern, outside of Serum Visions and Inquisition. And both of those had already lost ~50% value beforehand anyway. Serum Visions, because no top decks play it. And Inquisition, because it was already falling from a ridiculous price spike.
Edit: but the bigger point is that yes, $1500 decks didn't go to $150. But they lost a LOT of value in terms of money, a lot of value in terms of playability, a lot of value in the cost to build new decks, and a lot of value in trying to keep motivation to play after you just lost all that value on your expensive, fun, unique deck that you loved to play.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I am citing Conspiracy 2 not because it printed modern cards, but the PRECEDENT that it sets (see Show and Tell, Berserk, and Burgeoning as examples). As much as people criticize limited print run sets like Masters, they at least keep values somewhat intact. Putting cards of that kind of value in an unlimited print run does have a major impact on the secondary market. Some people think that is a good thing and others see the problem. You can also see that the recent major dip correlates with the release of Conspiracy 2.
I never tried to counter that cards have lost value. I just pointed out that it is absurd to say a 1k deck went to 150 BECAUSE of a banning (again, if someone can point to a specific deck where the players lost that much because 1 card got banned, I'm willing to retract my statement). Now back to the original question of "is modern worth getting into," it will depend on several factors. Prices being down right now is great for someone who wants to buy in, but sucks if you already have a collection, bought at a higher price, or sell on the secondary market. If you are just trying to play at your LGS, kudos you get to save some money.
There's a MASSIVE drop about that time due to a change in the way they calculated value of individual cards. I forget the exact mechanics, but it correlated with TCG Player's move away from TCG Mid to TCG Market Price. No natural market would take a 35% drop in value in 24 hours without a catastrophic disaster. The individual cards reflect gradual changes over time, and if you normalize the curves, there is still a large disparity between the gains/losses between decks still relevant today and decks like URx that have lost proportionally more value. The timing of Consipracy 2 may have had an impact, but the drop you refer to is a technical and mathematic one, not directly based on Conspiracy. The slope of growth is downward, but it's not steep. Plus, Modern card values always trend downwards leading into January before spiking back up.
But my last statement was by far the most important: $1500 decks didn't go to $150. But they lost a LOT of value in terms of money, a lot of value in terms of playability, a lot of value in the cost to build new decks, and a lot of value in trying to keep motivation to play after you just lost all that value on your expensive, fun, unique deck that you loved to play. And that's the point. Be careful what decks you invest in from scratch, because they can be invalidated and made "worthless" on several different axes in the blink of an eye.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
So is this a good time to come back to the format/game? Whats happened with modern in the past 12ish months.
I used to mostly play and still have all my cards for a snapcaster/clique deck or some version that revolves around those but could theoretically get cards to fill out a similar type of deck
so card availability isnt a sticking point but trying to recreate a similar experience.
Looking through the state of the format thread also didn't tell me much as its just people arguing back and forth over cards i dont know anything about.
If it makes any difference i came back to mtg at the tail end of the first zendikar and played the modern format (ptqs and occasional fnms) roughly since it started so not a total noob.
Thanks in advance.
Back in 2012 when I started building Jund I knew it would be better investment over Pod and Twin. After Pod got the axe I was relieved I didn't invest in a deck that revolves around its namesake, then Twin happened.