I do essentially what you did, for many reasons. In no particular order:
1. It's a small community. Making an $80 lopsided trade now could mean no one trading with you at all when it turns out the person you ripped off knows how to use Facebook/Twitter/etc.
2. It's a fiend of a friend, sure they may never find out, but you could also be making yourself and your friend look bad.
3. It's bad for the game. The more people who play, the more events, the more support, and more acceptance, and the more opportunities there are. Turning one casual player off from the game could prevent dozens of people from picking it up in the future.
4. If someone didn't do it to you as a new player, respect that and pass it on. If someone did it as a new player, think about how it feels now, and don't be that guy.
5. Networking matters, if even for selfish reasons. The guy you rip off today may be the one not offering you a job and a 20% raise in the future. They may may steer their friend with the foil Russian misprint one of a kind commander general you need away from you. They may sway their buddy from offering you a draw instead forcing you to play a bad matchup and miss top 8.
6. This is a game. That we play for fun and socialization. No one gets rich playing it. Only a handful of people make even a middle class living playing it. The fact that you are reading this and not testing with some of the top players right now suggests that you're probably not one of those people, so why treat this like Donald Trump treats business, when it's just not that serious.
When it comes to purchasing collections or cards for cash, that's another story. If someone asks me what something is worth, I'm going to be honest, it's the right thing to do. Even if I tell them that, retail, their collection it probably worth 2 grand, probably 1500 and 20 hours of labor to sell on-line, or 900 to a store, that doesn't mean they wouldn't still prefer $300 in cash right now with 0 more work involved. If someone says "hey I've got a bunch of cards I'll sell you for a hundred bucks for this game I don't play anymore", I think it's fine to make that exchange, barring it being a $10,000 collection or something outrageous. If it's someone I know, I'll still offer to make the deal, but let them know what their collection is worth. A few hundred bucks is just not worth your integrity.
If you're having trouble with Lifebane Zombie in GW, you may be playing the wrong GW deck for your meta. Not to mention, mono black only has 3 of them post-board, and only has them in game 2/3. There are plenty of times when you play turn 1 dude, turn 2 dude, they play Lifebane only to see Selesnya Charm, Advent of the Wurm, Call of the Conclave, land or something.
I can't remember the exact details, but I had a Jund midrange and an Esper artifacts draft deck back in the Allara block that I made a point of having a judge take a look at before I moved from the draft table. For Jund, it was something like Broodmate Dragon, multiple Sprouting Thrinax, multiple Putrid Leach, on-color tri-lands, and solid removal, to the point it could have almost passed for 2/3rds of a block deck. The artifact deck was the same, running multiple bombs and tons of synergy. I was fairly new to limited at that time, but even I knew it was busted enough that people might wonder, so I showed it to the judge who they'd be asking to head off any issues. The craziest though?
On the flip side, I've had sealed pools with a combined $1.50 in rares/mythics, several draft decks where the packs I opened and were passed were so bad my deck looked like draft rejects I pulled out of the trash can, so it goes both ways. In Zendikar sealed, I think I may have had the worst run of not opening Vampire Nighthawks of anyone I've ever spoken with, something like seeing 1 or 2 in close to 20 events.
I'm not sure why anyone really cares about this, it happens all the time in competitive sports. A company sponsors a certain team, team member, fighter, etc. for a contracted period of time, and if they feel they are getting a good ROI out of it, they renew/renegotiate that contract before it ends. If not, those individuals and teams go elsewhere for sponsorship. If SCG would rather pay some of the star players to write VS naming a team after the site, that means it very likely makes good business sense to do it.
This guy looks pretty solid, he's no Geist of Saint Traft, but the four toughness is pretty relevant VS blacks new -x-x removal, and reds burn at least. With pump spells he can get out of hand pretty quickly. I would expect to see control bring this in vs the mirror as well.
There's 2/3rds of a spoiler to go, but as of today mono black is slightly better than before, and pretty much all the other decks are the same, other than a couple that are slightly worse due to mono black getting a couple of nice new removal tools. If you get into mono black, expect a lot of mirror matches. If that isn't your cup of tea, I would look elsewhere. Naya does have some good tools to fight mono black, although the mana base isn't the best. Assemble the Legion is as good as ever, although your token army is easier to wipe out now with blacks new tools, and Mizzum Mortars and Chained to the Rocks are still great removal VS black.
They've supposedly invested in legacy which raised prices on a few cards, and people who didn't think to do that themselves aren't happy about it.
Their prices are on the high side, which annoys people who don't realize there are hundreds of other options.
They're the biggest vendor in the game right now, so they are easy to point fingers at.
Overall, the very few times I've purchased from them, everything was just fine. Their tournaments that I've attended have been well run, and had solid prize support. They host a lot of tournaments which promotes the game as a whole and creates opportunities for a lot of people. They have some useful articles on their site. Overall, the hate seems unwarranted, and I personally think they do a lot more good for the game than bad. I don't buy cards from them because the price isn't great, but I do subscribe to their site because the articles they sponsor are useful to me.
Having a pair of Burning-Tree's die at the end of turn 2 on the draw is not a beating a want to be on the receiving end of... I think this card is a format staple that is going to be a big consideration in deck building and in play any time your opponent has 2 black mana and cards in hand. I don't think it's broken, but I'm not very happy about it, since it thwarts many of the ways I have to beat black in Rw devotion. I'll be keeping an eye out for foils.
Mortars. It deals with all the good 4 toughness dudes getting in the way of your beatdown, and in the long game in wins creature stalls once in a while. If you need more than that and Domri, and your mana base can support it, Chained to the Rocks is very good as well.
Now I love me some Clan Defiance, but in non controlling or ramp heavy decks, you sit there with 5 mana not being able to kill that 4 toughness dude way more often than you get to kill a Grey Merchant and a Nightvale Specter in one shot.
Nothing spoiled so far really looks to shake things up drastically. Mana gets a bit better for decks that run the color pairs that are getting scry lands, existing decks get a few good tools, but that's about it. Now that statement may sound moronic when 20 more cards are spoiled, but as of right now I see U and B continuing to be strong choices. Having Infest again will likely be a big boon for black based decks, but most decks have plenty of options for non X/2 creatures.
I want to get back into Legacy, it's been a few years, and Jund is what I'm thinking of playing. I have and enjoy playing Modern Jund, so Legacy Jund seems like a logical jump. Previously in Legacy I played Merfolk, but I'm looking for something different. Since I have Modern Jund, it won't be quite as painful to get into the Legacy version. Looks like about $900 or so, which I can trade/win/buy into over time. So my question really comes down to: Should I? It seems like a relatively strong deck that should be easy to jump into, but since it's going to take some work, I wanted to check with the experts before I make the plunge. Any pros/cons/alternative options I should consider? Thanks!
Master of Waves and Desecration Demon can be big issues for the deck, so in a meta full of them, it's a bad idea to forgo Chained to the Rocks. If they aren't common, and ideally, if control is, then Domri is great. That being said, I feel like RG Monsters is a better Domri deck, so I would go with one or the other. Those are the two archetypes I've had the most luck with in standard currently, and I think the stock lists are pretty much optimal.
Until Burning-Tree Emissary rotates, it's going to be a staple, and probably until it rotates itself, barring a massive change to standard. It's just to good of a card not to show up. Sure, you get terrible hands with decks that run 4 legendary, initially colorless lands, and a bunch for 2 and 3 mana symbol permanents, but you also get plenty of hands where you get do something cool. People like doing cool things that win them games, especially people like me who are very much average skill wise. I'm not likely to win a tournament by making a lot of decisions that net a minimal amount of value over the course of a lot of rounds, but jamming a the board with a bunch of dudes and then tapping for a bunch of mana I can handle.
He's a little slow for RDW, where if you even run a 4 drop, it's likely Fanatic or Chandra main, and Burning Earth in the board.
I think it's a lot of fun to play him with cards like assemble the legion or Elspeth, but if you have either in play he may be somewhere redundant at that point.
It's not in the best place right now. VS decks that don't pack a lot of instant speed removal such as RG monsters, it still doesn't match up all that well VS their 4 and 5 toughness dudes. VS most other decks, it's a 3/3 for 2, which is fine, but not unique, and GW isn't a top tier color combination right now. The other issue is that Voice/Sylvan/Ooze and even Skylasher all compete for that slot right now, as well as the two token generators at 2 cmc. That's not to say it isn't a fine card, it's just not doing much at the moment.
1. It's a small community. Making an $80 lopsided trade now could mean no one trading with you at all when it turns out the person you ripped off knows how to use Facebook/Twitter/etc.
2. It's a fiend of a friend, sure they may never find out, but you could also be making yourself and your friend look bad.
3. It's bad for the game. The more people who play, the more events, the more support, and more acceptance, and the more opportunities there are. Turning one casual player off from the game could prevent dozens of people from picking it up in the future.
4. If someone didn't do it to you as a new player, respect that and pass it on. If someone did it as a new player, think about how it feels now, and don't be that guy.
5. Networking matters, if even for selfish reasons. The guy you rip off today may be the one not offering you a job and a 20% raise in the future. They may may steer their friend with the foil Russian misprint one of a kind commander general you need away from you. They may sway their buddy from offering you a draw instead forcing you to play a bad matchup and miss top 8.
6. This is a game. That we play for fun and socialization. No one gets rich playing it. Only a handful of people make even a middle class living playing it. The fact that you are reading this and not testing with some of the top players right now suggests that you're probably not one of those people, so why treat this like Donald Trump treats business, when it's just not that serious.
When it comes to purchasing collections or cards for cash, that's another story. If someone asks me what something is worth, I'm going to be honest, it's the right thing to do. Even if I tell them that, retail, their collection it probably worth 2 grand, probably 1500 and 20 hours of labor to sell on-line, or 900 to a store, that doesn't mean they wouldn't still prefer $300 in cash right now with 0 more work involved. If someone says "hey I've got a bunch of cards I'll sell you for a hundred bucks for this game I don't play anymore", I think it's fine to make that exchange, barring it being a $10,000 collection or something outrageous. If it's someone I know, I'll still offer to make the deal, but let them know what their collection is worth. A few hundred bucks is just not worth your integrity.
On the flip side, I've had sealed pools with a combined $1.50 in rares/mythics, several draft decks where the packs I opened and were passed were so bad my deck looked like draft rejects I pulled out of the trash can, so it goes both ways. In Zendikar sealed, I think I may have had the worst run of not opening Vampire Nighthawks of anyone I've ever spoken with, something like seeing 1 or 2 in close to 20 events.
Their prices are on the high side, which annoys people who don't realize there are hundreds of other options.
They're the biggest vendor in the game right now, so they are easy to point fingers at.
Overall, the very few times I've purchased from them, everything was just fine. Their tournaments that I've attended have been well run, and had solid prize support. They host a lot of tournaments which promotes the game as a whole and creates opportunities for a lot of people. They have some useful articles on their site. Overall, the hate seems unwarranted, and I personally think they do a lot more good for the game than bad. I don't buy cards from them because the price isn't great, but I do subscribe to their site because the articles they sponsor are useful to me.
Now I love me some Clan Defiance, but in non controlling or ramp heavy decks, you sit there with 5 mana not being able to kill that 4 toughness dude way more often than you get to kill a Grey Merchant and a Nightvale Specter in one shot.
I think it's a lot of fun to play him with cards like assemble the legion or Elspeth, but if you have either in play he may be somewhere redundant at that point.