I don't know about the love for core sets. I don't feel like my M14 sealed pools have been any more powerful than my Theros sealed pools.
M14 is a pretty poor spotlight for core sets in this case. It was fun to draft but the powerlevel was not the same as other core sets. M11, M12, and M13 all have very strong cards.
Theros would also be complete garbage in this format because people are packing better removal then sip of hemlock. Bestow is a lot rougher ride when things like terror, dark banishing, doom blade etc. exist not to mention naturalize and the like or the narrower hate cards like erase. I don't have a lot of faith in theros limited mechanics being good in this sort of format.
Core sets generally have a higher power level for limited then other sets.
I am pretty sure you want to go with newer sets, especially for sealed. Lots of older sets are significantly bigger then the newer ones, so your variance on what you crack is going to be slightly higher.
Also, post damage on the stack rules have made more old cards bad then good (see: sacrificing).
Having said all that, I would totally go with 2 MM, 2 Innistrad, 2 whatever the best dredge set was for limited (I forget). Hard to resist the allure of opening some kind of broken graveyard strategy.
If you want to just squash people, I would probably go with at least 4 packs from 2 different core sets, maybe even just mono core set packs. You can also get some older core set packs with this too as power creep has impacted these sets less for limited. (trained armedon still OP)
Its pretty simple to get a very basic idea of the meta to whatever tournament your going to (barring completely new formats or formats where decks just got banned out). You can do this by knowing:
1) Whats you think is good
2) What other people think is good
3) Whats you think is good against what other people think is good
4) What other people think is good against what other people think is good.
When you "break" a meta its because:
1) What other people think is good is not so good
2) What you think is good is amazing
3) People's "counter picks" to decks are terrible vs your deck AS well as the common decks people think are good.
4) Nobody is playing decks that exploit your decks weakness (ie im running dredge and nobody is running graveyard hate [<---this is some of the most fun you can have in a magic tournament btw])
If you have knowledge of these things, you can roughly breakdown any meta. Any knowledge of local metas is a bonus but is certainly not required (unless the local meta is absolutely bonkers compared to what most other people have going on)
The more accurate knowledge you have of these things, and the more skilled you are as a magic player will obviously help you make much better meta calls and become a better tournament grinder. Most of the time, meta information is not super hard to figure out, its using it effectively that requires skill.
My DCI card is absolutely beaten and worn from use. Often I would have to read my code to the LGS organizer because the numbers are faded. For a while now, I've been thinking of trying to find if WOTC has a replacement policy for DCI cards. Is there anyway except getting a new DCI number to order a replacement or better DCI card?
We used to have this great thing called the player rewards program.
You played in events, got free cards based on how many you played in (not junk like FNM forbidden alchemy, real cards like wrath of god and damnation full art foils) AND had the option of getting a snazy plastic DCI card to avoid things like this.
However, wizards is very firm on their relatively new "nobody gets good promos cept' judges" policy, thus this program had to go.
As far as I know, your only option now is to reprint your card online from your DCI account (I think?). Have heard people talk about this but don't actually know much about it.
I see this as both right and wrong, because there are a lot of players in legacy who have played the same deck almost exclusively for years. Cedric Phillips plays goblins more than any other deck, despite the fact that its not one of the decks to beat, but he's doubtless a competitive player.
Yea, but I would also argue that Cedric Phillips would play something else if he thought it was the better metagame choice and if he really wanted to win a tournament.
This is pretty hard to judge in legacy because there is only a few (or 1?) legacy GPs a year that are the only pro point legacy tournaments.
If there was a legacy pro tour (I know, we wish), I am pretty sure you would see tons of pro players dropping their pet decks in order to try and win, even if the deck style was out of their comfort zone.
Just saying around this area you go breaking someones sleeves there will be an altercation between you and your opponent. You would buy me new sleeves and replace any damaged cards. There is absolutely no reason to shuffle hard enough to split sleeves
Altercations over breaking ultra pro sleeves? Really?
I have literally never seen anyone get upset over there crummy ultra pros crumbling to a regular shuffle in 10+ years of competitive magic. (At least since the quality of them went wayyy down anyways)
Buying cheap ultra pro sleeves and expecting them to not get busted in a tournament is like throwing a stack of tarmogoyfs in the air and expecting nobody to take them.
I am pretty sure you can split an ultra pro sleeve by calling it names so to expect opponents to replace ultra pros is completely absurd. You do not have to come anywhere close to damaging a card to split an ultra pro.
You would literally be "that guy" if you demanded this at an REL event.
Anyone I know who buys ultra pros does it for a single tournament and fully expects that set of sleeves to probably not survive the day. If your lucky, you might get 2 big events out of your ultra pro sleeves but this is pretty rare.
I think people make the jump to being a competitive player when winning the game starts to become just as/more important then how your playing magic/enjoy magic.
ex: You LOVE aggro but control is the best deck right now so you play control even though you might not like it as much to win games.
In other words, your sacrificing other aspects you enjoy about the game in order to win. I think when players make this jump is when they really start to get competitive and try to be the best.
If your willing to play the "deck to beat" even though you hate it and its out of your comfort zone, your taking a big step forward in competitive magic. I see tons of players that are simply not willing to do this and they just get stuck at the same play level forever.
150$ price tag is pretty fair from a local retail store.
You have to remember this is one of the more profitable MTG things that LGSs get to sell and most LGSs could use to extra money tbh. If your store sold these for less then 100$ its probably because they were doing well enough to be able to do so OR you preordered it before any of the cards were spoiled.
If you want a better price your going to have to go into the secondary market. You can probably swindle someone down to about 100$ to buy one in person locally.
I almost always shuffle my opponents decks, especially if they are a newer player because:
1) They almost never properly randomize there deck (regular shuffle twice, mana weave etc.)
2) Some people get tilted when people shuffle there deck even though its a basic rule of competitive magical cardboard.
I just do the regular sleeve shuffle. Anyone who's played the game for a decent amount of time knows ultra pro's will split like crazy so you should not feel bad if you bust your opponents ultra pro sleeves.
But please, don't riffle your opponents deck. Even if your an expert shuffler never damage cards blah blah etc. people just feel more comfortable if you are gentle to their decks. Riffling your opponents deck is probably one of the fastest ways to make enemies in MTG.
Find a super awesome looking land that you love and buy a bunch to play with. Playing with your favorite art on lands is probably one of the best things about magic for me. They also do appreciate in value eventually depending on what ones you get. I mean I have stocked up on gurus, APACs, arenas, betas, unglued, unhinged, and other types before they ever got expensive.
Also just plain basics from sets can be pretty sweet too. The #287 Ron Spears island from Lowryn looks AMAZING foil as well as the #333 Eric Peterson plains from Odyssey.
Unfair decks: doing degenerate things with your magical cardboard in a game
Examples: Turn 2 Emrakul, play 9 spells them storm you out turn 2, Tinkering out a blightsteel colossus turn 1, anything involving oath of druids, worldgorger dragon combo, dredge, doing anything that jan van der vegt does in MTGO cube drafts, resolving a hypergenesis off a cascade trigger to put 20+ power into play etc.
Unfair decks are basically playing a very different game then there opponents. While your opponent may be trying to gain incremental advantage with value cards, or kill you with 1 mana 2/2s, or control the boardstate, the unfair deck simply wants to "go off" and completely annihilate the opponent very abruptly and generally from out of nowhere.
The unfair deck is basically trying to create a scenario that is so overwhelming that you simply loose on the spot or are in an impossible situation to come back from and its generally trying to do this as fast as possible without really worrying about what the opponents deck is trying to accomplish.
Unfair decks are generally reserved for eternal formats and peoples cubes and occasionally pop up in other formats, only to be quickly banned out (see: the entire modern format)
Fair decks are generally everything else that people are used to playing and seeing in common tournament formats. Even most recent combo decks are pretty fair most of the time as wizards seem to be done with supporting unfair strategies or combo in general.
EDIT: Fair decks occasionally do unfair things because they have certain cards or draw really well but these decks are still considered fair because the overall strategy of the deck is not meant to "break the game" by doing something very unfair.
Everyone netdecks! I mean look at Brad Nelson at last weeks invitational.
From the competitive players standpoint, its equally annoying when I get paired against you round 1 with your brew that can only ever beat my deck and dies violently to the rest of the meta and then they go on and on about how great they are at building decks and how they know the meta so well and I prepared specifically for you blah blah then promptly loose the rest of their rounds because my deck only represents 10% of the meta.
Netdecking helps formats make sense so we can build decks according to matchups etc. It would be hard to take a format seriously if the entire thing was random brews that you could never possibly have a reasonable SB plan for. Magic has enough luck involved in it already without the inclusion of unstable and random metas. Magic without netdecks is the equivalent of competitive magic becoming league of legends ARAMs.
#1 Having no way to check if someone trades outside of the USA before checking out a trade thread or profile or whatever. As someone who is from Canada, this is very frustrating to deal with especially when people don't even indicate it in their threads.
An icon on the thread or having people put something in their trade/sales thread title to indicate this would be muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch appreciated.
EDIT: I don't care if they trade only in the USA or not, I wish only for it to be clearly indicated somewhere. A filter would be great too!
Since I have played control for the past 2 standard rotations, I often get a crowd because my matches tend to be one of the last ones going (more because people play slow vs control then me playing slow).
I find you can use this to your advantage by showing a lot of confidence in your body language in everything you are doing. The crowd sort of shifts into your favor and your opponent feels the pressure instead of you! I think I have a higher win percentage when I get a feature match or people are watching because of this lol.
You don't even have to say anything. Just make all of your body language oozes confidence to demonstrate that you are in control and that you are the one who is going to win the match. (this is also useful when playing without people watching!).
M14 is a pretty poor spotlight for core sets in this case. It was fun to draft but the powerlevel was not the same as other core sets. M11, M12, and M13 all have very strong cards.
Theros would also be complete garbage in this format because people are packing better removal then sip of hemlock. Bestow is a lot rougher ride when things like terror, dark banishing, doom blade etc. exist not to mention naturalize and the like or the narrower hate cards like erase. I don't have a lot of faith in theros limited mechanics being good in this sort of format.
I am pretty sure you want to go with newer sets, especially for sealed. Lots of older sets are significantly bigger then the newer ones, so your variance on what you crack is going to be slightly higher.
Also, post damage on the stack rules have made more old cards bad then good (see: sacrificing).
Having said all that, I would totally go with 2 MM, 2 Innistrad, 2 whatever the best dredge set was for limited (I forget). Hard to resist the allure of opening some kind of broken graveyard strategy.
If you want to just squash people, I would probably go with at least 4 packs from 2 different core sets, maybe even just mono core set packs. You can also get some older core set packs with this too as power creep has impacted these sets less for limited. (trained armedon still OP)
1) Whats you think is good
2) What other people think is good
3) Whats you think is good against what other people think is good
4) What other people think is good against what other people think is good.
When you "break" a meta its because:
1) What other people think is good is not so good
2) What you think is good is amazing
3) People's "counter picks" to decks are terrible vs your deck AS well as the common decks people think are good.
4) Nobody is playing decks that exploit your decks weakness (ie im running dredge and nobody is running graveyard hate [<---this is some of the most fun you can have in a magic tournament btw])
If you have knowledge of these things, you can roughly breakdown any meta. Any knowledge of local metas is a bonus but is certainly not required (unless the local meta is absolutely bonkers compared to what most other people have going on)
The more accurate knowledge you have of these things, and the more skilled you are as a magic player will obviously help you make much better meta calls and become a better tournament grinder. Most of the time, meta information is not super hard to figure out, its using it effectively that requires skill.
We used to have this great thing called the player rewards program.
You played in events, got free cards based on how many you played in (not junk like FNM forbidden alchemy, real cards like wrath of god and damnation full art foils) AND had the option of getting a snazy plastic DCI card to avoid things like this.
However, wizards is very firm on their relatively new "nobody gets good promos cept' judges" policy, thus this program had to go.
As far as I know, your only option now is to reprint your card online from your DCI account (I think?). Have heard people talk about this but don't actually know much about it.
That is pretty awesome and makes me want to try and do a pope hat (Urza's Miter) pumpkin for next Halloween.
Yea, but I would also argue that Cedric Phillips would play something else if he thought it was the better metagame choice and if he really wanted to win a tournament.
This is pretty hard to judge in legacy because there is only a few (or 1?) legacy GPs a year that are the only pro point legacy tournaments.
If there was a legacy pro tour (I know, we wish), I am pretty sure you would see tons of pro players dropping their pet decks in order to try and win, even if the deck style was out of their comfort zone.
Altercations over breaking ultra pro sleeves? Really?
I have literally never seen anyone get upset over there crummy ultra pros crumbling to a regular shuffle in 10+ years of competitive magic. (At least since the quality of them went wayyy down anyways)
Buying cheap ultra pro sleeves and expecting them to not get busted in a tournament is like throwing a stack of tarmogoyfs in the air and expecting nobody to take them.
I am pretty sure you can split an ultra pro sleeve by calling it names so to expect opponents to replace ultra pros is completely absurd. You do not have to come anywhere close to damaging a card to split an ultra pro.
You would literally be "that guy" if you demanded this at an REL event.
Anyone I know who buys ultra pros does it for a single tournament and fully expects that set of sleeves to probably not survive the day. If your lucky, you might get 2 big events out of your ultra pro sleeves but this is pretty rare.
ex: You LOVE aggro but control is the best deck right now so you play control even though you might not like it as much to win games.
In other words, your sacrificing other aspects you enjoy about the game in order to win. I think when players make this jump is when they really start to get competitive and try to be the best.
If your willing to play the "deck to beat" even though you hate it and its out of your comfort zone, your taking a big step forward in competitive magic. I see tons of players that are simply not willing to do this and they just get stuck at the same play level forever.
You have to remember this is one of the more profitable MTG things that LGSs get to sell and most LGSs could use to extra money tbh. If your store sold these for less then 100$ its probably because they were doing well enough to be able to do so OR you preordered it before any of the cards were spoiled.
If you want a better price your going to have to go into the secondary market. You can probably swindle someone down to about 100$ to buy one in person locally.
1) They almost never properly randomize there deck (regular shuffle twice, mana weave etc.)
2) Some people get tilted when people shuffle there deck even though its a basic rule of competitive magical cardboard.
I just do the regular sleeve shuffle. Anyone who's played the game for a decent amount of time knows ultra pro's will split like crazy so you should not feel bad if you bust your opponents ultra pro sleeves.
But please, don't riffle your opponents deck. Even if your an expert shuffler never damage cards blah blah etc. people just feel more comfortable if you are gentle to their decks. Riffling your opponents deck is probably one of the fastest ways to make enemies in MTG.
Find a super awesome looking land that you love and buy a bunch to play with. Playing with your favorite art on lands is probably one of the best things about magic for me. They also do appreciate in value eventually depending on what ones you get. I mean I have stocked up on gurus, APACs, arenas, betas, unglued, unhinged, and other types before they ever got expensive.
Also just plain basics from sets can be pretty sweet too. The #287 Ron Spears island from Lowryn looks AMAZING foil as well as the #333 Eric Peterson plains from Odyssey.
Plenty of gems to be found in basic lands.
Examples: Turn 2 Emrakul, play 9 spells them storm you out turn 2, Tinkering out a blightsteel colossus turn 1, anything involving oath of druids, worldgorger dragon combo, dredge, doing anything that jan van der vegt does in MTGO cube drafts, resolving a hypergenesis off a cascade trigger to put 20+ power into play etc.
Unfair decks are basically playing a very different game then there opponents. While your opponent may be trying to gain incremental advantage with value cards, or kill you with 1 mana 2/2s, or control the boardstate, the unfair deck simply wants to "go off" and completely annihilate the opponent very abruptly and generally from out of nowhere.
The unfair deck is basically trying to create a scenario that is so overwhelming that you simply loose on the spot or are in an impossible situation to come back from and its generally trying to do this as fast as possible without really worrying about what the opponents deck is trying to accomplish.
Unfair decks are generally reserved for eternal formats and peoples cubes and occasionally pop up in other formats, only to be quickly banned out (see: the entire modern format)
Fair decks are generally everything else that people are used to playing and seeing in common tournament formats. Even most recent combo decks are pretty fair most of the time as wizards seem to be done with supporting unfair strategies or combo in general.
EDIT: Fair decks occasionally do unfair things because they have certain cards or draw really well but these decks are still considered fair because the overall strategy of the deck is not meant to "break the game" by doing something very unfair.
From the competitive players standpoint, its equally annoying when I get paired against you round 1 with your brew that can only ever beat my deck and dies violently to the rest of the meta and then they go on and on about how great they are at building decks and how they know the meta so well and I prepared specifically for you blah blah then promptly loose the rest of their rounds because my deck only represents 10% of the meta.
Netdecking helps formats make sense so we can build decks according to matchups etc. It would be hard to take a format seriously if the entire thing was random brews that you could never possibly have a reasonable SB plan for. Magic has enough luck involved in it already without the inclusion of unstable and random metas. Magic without netdecks is the equivalent of competitive magic becoming league of legends ARAMs.
An icon on the thread or having people put something in their trade/sales thread title to indicate this would be muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch appreciated.
EDIT: I don't care if they trade only in the USA or not, I wish only for it to be clearly indicated somewhere. A filter would be great too!
I find you can use this to your advantage by showing a lot of confidence in your body language in everything you are doing. The crowd sort of shifts into your favor and your opponent feels the pressure instead of you! I think I have a higher win percentage when I get a feature match or people are watching because of this lol.
You don't even have to say anything. Just make all of your body language oozes confidence to demonstrate that you are in control and that you are the one who is going to win the match. (this is also useful when playing without people watching!).