I should have probably getting it, for reals. Instead I'm sitting on a ton of what I knew for certain wouldn't be reprinted, Hierarchs and Karns and Vials and Explosives, all moving in the correct direction.
Mishra's Bauble was my only miss so of course I'm salty about not having a perfect record on calling these sets. If you maintained my level of excellence, any little mistake would gnaw at you, too. I got in on a set of Bauble's yesterday early morning after the Signets were spoiled but frankly I'm not sure it will be shipped to me, it hasn't yet.
So back to the original intent of my post, the majority of this set's value has all been printed in much cheaper standard sets just the last few years. If you're so new that you don't have that then I suppose it's more understandable to get excited over opening the same cards from $10 packs.
More like I just have it all already and am thoroughly unimpressed. I'll be happy to beat up on the new scrubs this will bring into the shop for weekly modern.
Afterall the vast majority of the value in this set we opened in Standard at $80-90 per box just a few short years ago.
Can I get some opinion on Vapor Snag vs Take Into Custody for the first few turns? Bounce during opponents combat, using mana to recast (or they take a different line) vs guaranteed value of fogging 1 attacker for 2 turns.
I feel like mana cost and wether or not they jam the same creature that gets bounced right back down has a big part to play in this decision. If the creature has haste and costs 1 mana, then vapor snag seems decidedly worse. If the creature has a 1-2cmc and an ETB effect, vapor snag seems worse. Vapor Snag is better against Thalia, but it feels like any deck that plays Thalia is going to be heavily favored for the match regardless.
Take into custody allows them to ignore that line of damaage for two turns while focusing their resources on building the board. Take into custody can never catch a creature mid combat after it's been buffed at instant speed, but Vapor snag potentially can. This seems to require my opponent playing poorly.
The final option is simply upping the Void snare count and giving me a wider range of targets at sorcery speed. Void Snaring a t1 expedition map, t2 pentad prism and so on can really slow down tron or ad nauseam.
The remainder of my Turns deck prison effects includes 3 Cryptic Command, 1-2 Void snare, 3 Gigadrowse and 4 Exhaustion. I've got 1-2 slots left for either Vapor Snag or Take Into Custody (or more Void Snare). I play 2 Snapcasters.
Thanks for any input. Meta is wide open as I play in a few different places.
Silkwrap super good right now with Dromoka's command numbers dropping as murderous cut numbers rise. Abzan players got sick of the 1 black 2for1 cut gets you against creature+command and it's disappearing.
This is the most thoughtful standard in.. ever maybe? Plotting your land drops in any 4-5color is more complicated than modern or legacy fetching. Massive amounts of interaction with all the recursion and 2for1's like jace, commands. I'm having a blast this standard. Every deck plays 10+ spells, there are no 28 creature decks in standard that can succeed, only 24 or less! This means more interaction and the simplicity of going wide or tall in aggro and turning right won't win you games. I suspect the difficulty of winning in standard right now is why it's less popular, and people who don't enjoy the thinking man's grind of dark jeskai mirror matches are masking their desire to just turn creatures right by complaining about the price of fetches and Jace.
I'm actually very disappointed to see Esper tokens win this, it's almost exactly my list and I didn't want the cat out of the bag yet. I was rooting against vikram from the get go despite enjoying seeing someone play the deck well. It's such an advantage to have a good deck that's not on the radar yet... sigh.
If there is a competitive list to play Drana right now, her perfect fit would be Esper Tokens. It's a deck that goes wide, hits BB on turn 3 for ruinous path, and hits WW on turn 4 for Gideon. Yet, no Esper tokens lists have even 1 copy of Drana that I've seen. So, Drana isn't a good card in the format right now, for competition. Every time I try to squeeze a spot for her into my BW splash U tokens deck, I can't justify giving the spot to her over something like Monastery Mentor.
Maybe a BW agro deck that stays very low with it's curve, Bloodsoaked Champions, Seekers, maybe hangarbacks or even endless one's (cuz always on curve) but that deck just folds to Languish, Radiant Flames, so it's not being played either.
Eh, Wizards and Distributors have been telling retailers for a while now that allocations on Fat Packs in particular are at least 20% lower than usual print runs and there will be no re-orders.
So any retailer that took pre-orders at their normal or higher than normal volume, willfully did so *hoping* what WoTC and their distributors were telling them wasn't true.
Booster boxes should be no problem. Fat packs are an intentionally smaller print run this time around.
Order these now if you can find them under $30, most stores that had it listed at less than MSRP are quickly jacking it up to the 29.99 MSRP or higher.
The only reason there was leftover product that appeared sort of like a 2nd wave is the unclaimed allocations. For every box still in any warehouse, there is some Core+ store out there that didn't order it's allotment.
The leftovers are being snatched up, supply will be completely out by mid June.
Mishra's Bauble was my only miss so of course I'm salty about not having a perfect record on calling these sets. If you maintained my level of excellence, any little mistake would gnaw at you, too. I got in on a set of Bauble's yesterday early morning after the Signets were spoiled but frankly I'm not sure it will be shipped to me, it hasn't yet.
So back to the original intent of my post, the majority of this set's value has all been printed in much cheaper standard sets just the last few years. If you're so new that you don't have that then I suppose it's more understandable to get excited over opening the same cards from $10 packs.
Afterall the vast majority of the value in this set we opened in Standard at $80-90 per box just a few short years ago.
I feel like mana cost and wether or not they jam the same creature that gets bounced right back down has a big part to play in this decision. If the creature has haste and costs 1 mana, then vapor snag seems decidedly worse. If the creature has a 1-2cmc and an ETB effect, vapor snag seems worse. Vapor Snag is better against Thalia, but it feels like any deck that plays Thalia is going to be heavily favored for the match regardless.
Take into custody allows them to ignore that line of damaage for two turns while focusing their resources on building the board. Take into custody can never catch a creature mid combat after it's been buffed at instant speed, but Vapor snag potentially can. This seems to require my opponent playing poorly.
The final option is simply upping the Void snare count and giving me a wider range of targets at sorcery speed. Void Snaring a t1 expedition map, t2 pentad prism and so on can really slow down tron or ad nauseam.
The remainder of my Turns deck prison effects includes 3 Cryptic Command, 1-2 Void snare, 3 Gigadrowse and 4 Exhaustion. I've got 1-2 slots left for either Vapor Snag or Take Into Custody (or more Void Snare). I play 2 Snapcasters.
Thanks for any input. Meta is wide open as I play in a few different places.
I'm actually very disappointed to see Esper tokens win this, it's almost exactly my list and I didn't want the cat out of the bag yet. I was rooting against vikram from the get go despite enjoying seeing someone play the deck well. It's such an advantage to have a good deck that's not on the radar yet... sigh.
Maybe a BW agro deck that stays very low with it's curve, Bloodsoaked Champions, Seekers, maybe hangarbacks or even endless one's (cuz always on curve) but that deck just folds to Languish, Radiant Flames, so it's not being played either.
So any retailer that took pre-orders at their normal or higher than normal volume, willfully did so *hoping* what WoTC and their distributors were telling them wasn't true.
Booster boxes should be no problem. Fat packs are an intentionally smaller print run this time around.
The leftovers are being snatched up, supply will be completely out by mid June.