Quote from AzureShadow »Just because it's pyramid scheme doesn't mean it's bad, per say. It provides a service that nowhere else does, just like one could argue that Bitcoin does, albeit an illegal one in that case. It does, though, absolutely fit the textbook definition of what a pyramid scheme is. The initial referers or payees have the highest amount of value in the system, and that collectively decreases as it spreads to the bottom.
The biggest risk to pucatrade is that the owner can give himself an account with, say, a few million points and buy up a huge pile of cards, then shut the entire thing down. I don't think that's particularly likely, but it is possible.
EDIT: Actually, allow me to amend that. The biggest risk to pucatrade is that the owner(s) can give themselves any points at all, because if they exchange them for cards then that represents more loss when the system inevitably closes, period. That is the big payoff of the pyramid scheme, is that they can exchange a non-existent entity that will eventually lose all value and which they can generate in infinite quantity, which can then be traded to others for physical value. It is very easy to obscure that, and I'm sure it does happen. The question then becomes how long it's worth risking the use of the system before it shuts down and the value vanishes.
I've seen this pop up a few times--why would puca close down? I also believe enough people buy points to hurry some of the process along (thus keeping the site up). I could see everyone trying to cash out if they did announce closure, but its a hypothetical that seems to be getting more attention that it probably should (surprise surprise).
Since they have a snap out--you can't really survive as long as you think--and if they breach you lose all your permanents. Best plan is wait most of the time (look at their list comp...they don't always have the combo like you may think) and build up until its safer I think.
Some weird choices out of them too--ones that don't look like typos.
Besides, you have ******* lab man.
I do appreciate that this card ramps and digs--but brain in a jar never took off and they're 'basically the same card'.
The planeswalker rule doesn't effect us--UW is already nearly a 100% bye and the first baby gideon was already a gotcha, doubling down on gideons is more or less meaningless once the first one resolved.
Fracturing gust and slaughter games seems like it'd be my first cuts. I don't think stuff like wear//tear and wargate are good in the sideboard--they're for casting from the hand, not wishing for then casting a turn later--in the games you want them, you want to be fast, so either run multiples or figure something out that's better.
I'm going to try your list--but thinking about running 2 tolaria west/1 boseiju main as a way to force ad naus in game 1 against U decks.
Any idea of Sideboards--to me that's the most important part these days.
More like, should we split our win-cons between 3 good ones, for 1 of them, then a sudden 4th that has zero upside compared to the others and doesn't work with another half of our combo?
Conflagrate is sweet (everyone forget this one slots into our deck?!), lightning storm is best, lab man solves the corner cases, card being discussed is garbage.
The deck is poorly positioned right now, I think the results we see are just more or less luck dodging bad matchups or the rare miraculous triumph over grixis. More or less the deck is fine against counters OR discard coupled with a fast clock, but not counters and discard and STILL maintaining a fast clock. I don't think there's a brewable situation out of this conundrum unless we're given access to a more robust back up sideboard plan (something better than ramp into fattie).
There may be a solution where the deck goes all in on dropping and winning through a lab man, or flinging a big death's shadow--but thats a big departure from the deck we all know. Might be worth exploring?
Link to the kind of decks I've seen in the past:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/woo-brews-modern-negative-life-combo/
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/dos-equis-1/
In general though, I don't feel great about the deck and have been playing other stuff in the meantime (legacy ANT), been taking a tour of the different modern decks to see what does feel good until ad naus can come back. I took UW control to vegas which felt like a big personal betrayal--been testing it and it feels good but wins slow. Well, it gets slower in a GP setting where people are more serious and also not at the level of my local shop. I drew 3 times on day one playing against troglodites. never play a deck that can't close out a game at GP.