So lately I've taken a bit of a break from other hobbies (and my gf is gone for a month) to get my magic cards back in order and I've run into a bit of a problem with artifacts.
In the old brown frame days they were all colorless and could be run in any color deck. Now we have cards like Court Homunculus that cost colored mana, and cards like Malachite Golem that even though he doesn't cost colored mana to play he still needs colored mana to be used properly. There are also cards like Vedalken Shackles that work best in colored decks but don't need colored mana.
Getting to the question I'm wondering how everyone sorts their artifacts with all of these new types of cards. I've been thinking that if it COSTS colored mana it gets put in "Box B" otherwise it goes in "Box A with the rest of the artifacts so ...
For me, if it's blue, it goes with the blue cards, even if it happens to have type Artifact. If it's colorless, it goes with the colorless cards, even if it happens to have a blue mana symbol on it. That way I know where to look for everything.
for me, I just sort it by what colour it is, so if it's blue, it goes with the blue cards, regardless if it's an artifact or not and colourless stuff goes together
For me, if it's blue, it goes with the blue cards, even if it happens to have type Artifact. If it's colorless, it goes with the colorless cards, even if it happens to have a blue mana symbol on it. That way I know where to look for everything.
I would sort them with this mindset: Can this card be played in any deck? If yes, then it's box A and if it can be only played in a deck of a certain color, it goes to the same place with the cards of that color. That would mean Iron Myr would be Box A, but Vedalken Shackles would count as a blue card for sorting purposes.
This is fine with like, three special case cards, for a cube or something, but a nightmare for sorting.
You don't want special cases with sorting, you want hard rules. Weighing the viability of a hundred cards you'd never play outside of limited will slow you down.
It is worth noting that a colored artifact is both that color and an artifact. Depending on the size of your collection, you might want to make a "colored artifact" box or a "blue artifact" box, etc.
I'd put all other artifacts, even ones with colored mana symbols or references to artifacts, in the regular artifact box, for one reason. Those cards don't have different interior frames. The mirrodin ones are especially easy to miss, and you'll end up slowing down your process scanning your cards for colored symbols.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
This is fine with like, three special case cards, for a cube or something, but a nightmare for sorting.
You don't want special cases with sorting, you want hard rules. Weighing the viability of a hundred cards you'd never play outside of limited will slow you down.
This is mainly what I'm trying to get to the bottom of. I need a hard rule that I can follow that's why I went with "does it cost colored mana".
I had the colored artifacts in the boxes of what ever color they cost and it would take forever to put together an artifact deck because all of my artifacts would be in several different boxes, that's why I'm also trying to get them all into one place. That and if I am looking for a specific card it's a much smaller stack that I have to go looking though.
It is worth noting that a colored artifact is both that color and an artifact. Depending on the size of your collection, you might want to make a "colored artifact" box or a "blue artifact" box, etc.
I'd put all other artifacts, even ones with colored mana symbols or references to artifacts, in the regular artifact box, for one reason. Those cards don't have different interior frames. The mirrodin ones are especially easy to miss, and you'll end up slowing down your process scanning your cards for colored symbols.
My collection is to the size that each color takes up 2 card boxes and the gold and hybrid stuff is in a box. Artifacts are going to take up 2 boxes no matter what I do. I just need a way of saying box A or B.
As for the sorting problem, I don't have it. I'm a graphic designer so I get paid to notice little stuff (spelling aside, I'm horrible at that) and I have a fairly good list of cards in my head that fall under the "cost mana rule" so I'm not worried about getting slowed down.
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There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
All my cards are sorted by set, then by card number in the set. Coloured mana artifacts tend to be placed in with the colour them come from as I recall.
I sort things by 'collector number as if they were all in the same set'*. That is, all the white cards go together and are alphabetical, regardless of whether they're artifacts or not. Same for UBRG, all multicolored, and colorless artifacts. Colorless non-artifact has its own section, as it did with ROE (the order in ROE was: colorless non-artifact, WUBRG, multicolored, artifact, nonbasic land, basic land). Colored artifacts are stored with their color, as in Future Sight (Sarcomite Myr), Alara block, and New Phyrexia.
* Ghostfire was sorted with Red in Future Sight, but FUT also separated the jawbone bordered cards from the rest in each color, which I don't really like. Transguild Courier was sorted with colorless artifacts in RAV, but I've put it in multicolored, because that's where it belongs. Reaper King was sorted with colorless artifacts in Shadowmoor, but if I had one I'd put it with the other multicolored cards.
I sort things by 'collector number as if they were all in the same set'*. That is, all the white cards go together and are alphabetical, regardless of whether they're artifacts or not. Same for UBRG, all multicolored, and colorless artifacts. Colorless non-artifact has its own section, as it did with ROE (the order in ROE was: colorless non-artifact, WUBRG, multicolored, artifact, nonbasic land, basic land). Colored artifacts are stored with their color, as in Future Sight (Sarcomite Myr), Alara block, and New Phyrexia.
* Ghostfire was sorted with Red in Future Sight, but FUT also separated the jawbone bordered cards from the rest in each color, which I don't really like. Transguild Courier was sorted with colorless artifacts in RAV, but I've put it in multicolored, because that's where it belongs. Reaper King was sorted with colorless artifacts in Shadowmoor, but if I had one I'd put it with the other multicolored cards.
See this is mainly why I want a rule when it comes to sorting my artifacts. Yes there are going to be corner cases like Transguild Courier and Reaper King but with a hard rule I'll know what box they are in by following the rule. The courier would be in box A with a cost of 4 and no abilities that require color. Reaper King however has all five colors in his cost so he would be in box B.
I'm separating the artifacts from the other colors I already know that. Maybe that makes me a U player, maybe I really do have ADD but what I'm wondering is how do I separate the artifacts from themselves. There is a thread for posting how you sort your whole collection, that's not what I'm asking here. I'm asking "what do yo do about cards like Malachite Golem or Vedalken Shackles?".
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There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
If you start sorting cards by activated abillities, then the apocalypse cards with enemy color kicker would go in the wedge pile when they IMO belong in the pile of their color
See this is mainly why I want a rule when it comes to sorting my artifacts. Yes there are going to be corner cases like Transguild Courier and Reaper King but with a hard rule I'll know what box they are in by following the rule. The courier would be in box A with a cost of 4 and no abilities that require color. Reaper King however has all five colors in his cost so he would be in box B.
I'm separating the artifacts from the other colors I already know that. Maybe that makes me a U player, maybe I really do have ADD but what I'm wondering is how do I separate the artifacts from themselves. There is a thread for posting how you sort your whole collection, that's not what I'm asking here. I'm asking "what do yo do about cards like Malachite Golem or Vedalken Shackles?".
The corner cases I mentioned were just how things are sorted within the set, as Wizards decided to sort them. I use a hard and fast rule for my sorting: If it's white, it goes with all the other white cards. If it's multicolored, it goes with all the other gold cards (including Transguild and Reaper). Etc. Non-artifact colorless (Eldrazi, Ghostfire) is separate from colorless artifact.
So are mine in theory, but I usually end up with 4's instead so that I can find playsets more quickly for deck building.
I've got decks, I've got a trade binder full of rares, and I've got a huge box of commons/uncommons. I've started working on cube building, and I've taken to removing un/commons that aren't a playset, to use for blanking to make nice proxies for my cube. Those 30 copies of Strider Harness is now 4 copies, and a stack of 25 ready to be blanked.
I think that's better than working with spell colour, as its what determines EDH legality.
EDH legality is determined by colors in mana cost and colors in rules text. You get back to the same problem of off-color activated abilities, or off-color mana abilities.
If you start sorting cards by activated abillities, then the apocalypse cards with enemy color kicker would go in the wedge pile when they IMO belong in the pile of their color
Where did Ghostfire and Evermind come from?
I wasn't aware that there were artifact cards in apocalypse with colored kicker costs.
I'm talking solely about sorting artifacts. They are going to be in boxes by themselves, NOT with the other colored spells. That makes them too hard to find.
Let me try this again
I have one big pile of artifacts, I want to separate them with one simple rule that will apply not only to the cards i have now, but also to any cards that wizards will release in the future. Using simply the card color didn't seem good enough since it missed cards like Malachite Golem that's why I went with "If it costs colored mana". Yeah it misses cards like Vedalken Shackles but chances are if I'm going to use a card like that I will look for it specifically, and if there is a hard rule then it will be easy to find since I will know what box it is in.
If anyone has a better rule then I would love to hear it, but it would have to be one simple question that I can ask myself if I see a new artifact.
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There's no proof she's being chased
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I would see those cards as being W and B respectively so ..
Do they cost colored mana? Yes and Yes
So they would go in box B
Yes there are times that you would pay the 2 life but if I would need them for an off color deck they would be much easier to find in the second artifact box then in the white and then the black color box like some in this thread are suggesting.
Again the reason I started this thread was to ask if anyone has any ideas for a better way to sort artifacts then to have them in about 12 different boxes, which again is where they would be if I just put them with their color instead of in a "colored artifact box".
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There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
I think the best solution to avoid these sorts of problems for the OCD-minded (myself) is to sort by set, then find a system within the set to further sort if you are inclined (I do color, then creatures vs non-creatures, sorted lowest cost to highest (1U being lower than UU, etc), then by copies I own within a cost from lowest to highest).
One advantage to sorting by set is you can have a seperate 5k count box reserved for storing current Standard-legal sets, and easily rotate them out as new sets come in.
I've never liked sorting by set because of what happens with cards like say Naturalize that are regularly being reprinted. I only need about 8 copies of such a card and if those 8 copies are spread over 6 different sets then what happens when I need 4 of them?
I also don't really bother with keeping standard legal stuff separated because I really only play in pre-releases anymore and I don't even do that very often (I don't even know how to check my DCI rank, I don't care).
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.
This thread is not about "how do you sort your cards?" there is already a thread for that. I'm looking for a hard and fast rule that I can use to separate the big pile of artifacts that I have AND any future artifacts that wizards might print.If I have to say that one more time I'm just going to ask the mods to lock this since it feels like I'm getting nowhere.
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In the old brown frame days they were all colorless and could be run in any color deck. Now we have cards like Court Homunculus that cost colored mana, and cards like Malachite Golem that even though he doesn't cost colored mana to play he still needs colored mana to be used properly. There are also cards like Vedalken Shackles that work best in colored decks but don't need colored mana.
Getting to the question I'm wondering how everyone sorts their artifacts with all of these new types of cards. I've been thinking that if it COSTS colored mana it gets put in "Box B" otherwise it goes in "Box A with the rest of the artifacts so ...
Box A
Vedalken Shackles
any color producers like
Iron Myr
any other artifacts
Box B
Court Homunculus
Malachite Golem
Immolating Souleater
This seems like it would work but I'm wondering what the rest of you think.
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
standard
BU control
BG infect
modern:
mill
edh:
devour for power
Shizuko ramp
This is what I do. Works well for me.
Colored artifacts are stored alongside the colored spells. Colorless spells are stored alongside Artifacts.
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This is fine with like, three special case cards, for a cube or something, but a nightmare for sorting.
You don't want special cases with sorting, you want hard rules. Weighing the viability of a hundred cards you'd never play outside of limited will slow you down.
It is worth noting that a colored artifact is both that color and an artifact. Depending on the size of your collection, you might want to make a "colored artifact" box or a "blue artifact" box, etc.
I'd put all other artifacts, even ones with colored mana symbols or references to artifacts, in the regular artifact box, for one reason. Those cards don't have different interior frames. The mirrodin ones are especially easy to miss, and you'll end up slowing down your process scanning your cards for colored symbols.
This is mainly what I'm trying to get to the bottom of. I need a hard rule that I can follow that's why I went with "does it cost colored mana".
I had the colored artifacts in the boxes of what ever color they cost and it would take forever to put together an artifact deck because all of my artifacts would be in several different boxes, that's why I'm also trying to get them all into one place. That and if I am looking for a specific card it's a much smaller stack that I have to go looking though.
My collection is to the size that each color takes up 2 card boxes and the gold and hybrid stuff is in a box. Artifacts are going to take up 2 boxes no matter what I do. I just need a way of saying box A or B.
As for the sorting problem, I don't have it. I'm a graphic designer so I get paid to notice little stuff (spelling aside, I'm horrible at that) and I have a fairly good list of cards in my head that fall under the "cost mana rule" so I'm not worried about getting slowed down.
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
* Ghostfire was sorted with Red in Future Sight, but FUT also separated the jawbone bordered cards from the rest in each color, which I don't really like. Transguild Courier was sorted with colorless artifacts in RAV, but I've put it in multicolored, because that's where it belongs. Reaper King was sorted with colorless artifacts in Shadowmoor, but if I had one I'd put it with the other multicolored cards.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
See this is mainly why I want a rule when it comes to sorting my artifacts. Yes there are going to be corner cases like Transguild Courier and Reaper King but with a hard rule I'll know what box they are in by following the rule. The courier would be in box A with a cost of 4 and no abilities that require color. Reaper King however has all five colors in his cost so he would be in box B.
I'm separating the artifacts from the other colors I already know that. Maybe that makes me a U player, maybe I really do have ADD but what I'm wondering is how do I separate the artifacts from themselves. There is a thread for posting how you sort your whole collection, that's not what I'm asking here. I'm asking "what do yo do about cards like Malachite Golem or Vedalken Shackles?".
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
So slash panther goes in the red pile
Ghostfire colorless/artifact pile
Evermind blue pile
Malachite Golem colorless/artifact pile
If you start sorting cards by activated abillities, then the apocalypse cards with enemy color kicker would go in the wedge pile when they IMO belong in the pile of their color
MOD::symw::symu::symb: Gifts
LEG::symg::symb: Infect
Selling
-Legacy-
Merfolk
Zoo
Burn
Reanimator
:0mana:Karn, Silver Golem:0mana:
:symw::symr:Jor Kadeen:symr::symw:
I've got decks, I've got a trade binder full of rares, and I've got a huge box of commons/uncommons. I've started working on cube building, and I've taken to removing un/commons that aren't a playset, to use for blanking to make nice proxies for my cube. Those 30 copies of Strider Harness is now 4 copies, and a stack of 25 ready to be blanked.
EDH legality is determined by colors in mana cost and colors in rules text. You get back to the same problem of off-color activated abilities, or off-color mana abilities.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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Where did Ghostfire and Evermind come from?
I wasn't aware that there were artifact cards in apocalypse with colored kicker costs.
I'm talking solely about sorting artifacts. They are going to be in boxes by themselves, NOT with the other colored spells. That makes them too hard to find.
Let me try this again
I have one big pile of artifacts, I want to separate them with one simple rule that will apply not only to the cards i have now, but also to any cards that wizards will release in the future. Using simply the card color didn't seem good enough since it missed cards like Malachite Golem that's why I went with "If it costs colored mana". Yeah it misses cards like Vedalken Shackles but chances are if I'm going to use a card like that I will look for it specifically, and if there is a hard rule then it will be easy to find since I will know what box it is in.
If anyone has a better rule then I would love to hear it, but it would have to be one simple question that I can ask myself if I see a new artifact.
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
Legacy:
UR UR Delver
UBR Ad Nauseam Tendril
W Death & Tax
Modern deck:
UW UW control (with Spreading Seas and Wall of Omens)
BRG Vengevine!
I would see those cards as being W and B respectively so ..
Do they cost colored mana? Yes and Yes
So they would go in box B
Yes there are times that you would pay the 2 life but if I would need them for an off color deck they would be much easier to find in the second artifact box then in the white and then the black color box like some in this thread are suggesting.
Again the reason I started this thread was to ask if anyone has any ideas for a better way to sort artifacts then to have them in about 12 different boxes, which again is where they would be if I just put them with their color instead of in a "colored artifact box".
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
I've never liked sorting by set because of what happens with cards like say Naturalize that are regularly being reprinted. I only need about 8 copies of such a card and if those 8 copies are spread over 6 different sets then what happens when I need 4 of them?
I also don't really bother with keeping standard legal stuff separated because I really only play in pre-releases anymore and I don't even do that very often (I don't even know how to check my DCI rank, I don't care).
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.
This thread is not about "how do you sort your cards?" there is already a thread for that. I'm looking for a hard and fast rule that I can use to separate the big pile of artifacts that I have AND any future artifacts that wizards might print.If I have to say that one more time I'm just going to ask the mods to lock this since it feels like I'm getting nowhere.
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson