Supply and Demand aside, the problem with any given card becomes that every one of them is owned by someone. It's like schrodingers cat, packs dont count because you dont know if a pack contains a card, and once its open you (or someone) owns thoes cards.
Let's say I'm your average player. I'm not selling off my collection because I need money to pay the mafia or anything, I just want to make the proper amount of money on my extras to have some money to maybe buy more cards down the life. Lets say i have a goyf i want to sell. I go to ebay and see that there are 50 of them listed (so its obviously not a supply issue, they are available). They all are in the 80 dollar range and all have bids. What is my incentive to list it for any lower than 80? I can obviously get that much based on the market, so why should i sell for less.
Everyone has this mindset when selling, people and stores alike. No one is setting the market price, and no one is selling the cards to "Help the gaming public" or any sense of altruism. As long as people keep buying at 80, the card is 80. When people stop buying them prices will drop (it will eventually die down, as the hoarders move their extras for inflated prices and people who get their cards stop investing in them because they have theirs) .
The real question on any legacy card we should ask is why are we all buying them when the price is up? They are legacy, you can wait for the price to drop and buy them, the card will always be playable in eternal formats.
I don't think i want specific enemy lands that are the same quality of allied ones, it sorta defeats the purpose. for instance in standard right now its probably arguable that the fetches are worse for enemy colors than the M10 lands are for allied colors.
One land functions as a true dual from turn 2 onwards
the other is only a one time selection and costs life
Add in non basics with basic subtypes and suddenly enemy colors are comparable to allied, which is mostly counter to the aspirations of the designers.
All that being said i would like to see some lands that promote enemy or tri color strategies in M11. Some lands I would love to see come back are City of brass or gemstone mine (without painlands in the format), Ancient Ziggurat, Shimmering Grotto, Mirrodin's Core (Maybe not M10 but mirridon?), or even tendo ice bridge
Boros is pretty amazing right now from what I have played with it. it puts out damage with the speed of RDW's but with more board permanence. Turn 3 is very doable with it and it has good answers to DOJ with summons combo.
The deck has shifted a little from being Boros towards being more of a Boros Deck wins thing, but overall its still very strong.
4 x Lotus Cobra
4 x bops
4 x Maelstrom angel
4 x Harrow
4 x rampant growth
4 x Prophetic Prism
4 x Violent Ultimatum
4 x Cruel Ultimatum
3 x 1 one of each eldrazi titan
plus land
But really I mean I don't see that its worth it at all.
I'm not sure if Hymn would break open the format too badly, but it certainly has the potential to do so. I also wonder if some combination of Fires of Yavimaya, devastating summons, bloodbraid elf, and all that other aggro goodness couldn't do so as well.
The more i think about what the format can be the more I wonder what the counter war is going to look like to keep all the crazyness in check. I really feel like Foil will be heavily played (along with Squee, Bloodghast, vengevine, etc) to keep the format in check. Just off the top of my head, assuming that this format is masques up, a core control / dredge list might be a great option:
4 x Foil
4 x Daze
4 x Bloodghast
4 x Counterspell or mana leak
4 x Tarmogoyf
4 x Tombstalker
Ajani Helix can kill a guide or geopede and gain 3, which can over the course of turns be a 5+ point swing.
If plainswalkers really want to stave off burn until they get the walker lock out there are any number of very strong options including: Kabria Crossroads, Sejiri Refuge, Kor Firewalker, Rest for the Weary (stupid amazing against a pure burn lists), etc. There are plenty of tools.
I played this in bushwhacker and was really happy with it. Would tweak my numbers a bit from what I did play, would up the burst of speed count in the deck to 2, as bursting a geopede or lynx turn 3 is often a game winner as well.
My list ONLY worked because of Ancient Ziggurat though. CITP lands cant happen in this deck, so to get the big goldfish win turn 3 you would need:
Ziggurat -> Steppe Lynx
Red fetch -> attack -> Geopede
Red Fetch -> Float 3 red-> Summons + Bushwhacker
That does 25 damage over 3 turns. There are redundant ways to do lethal damage as well, such as turn one lynx, turn 2 Kiln Feind, turn 3 elite vanguard summons burst
The deck is scary fast, and as weak as it is to DOJ sometimes, it's also really resilient against it the other times. Any tapout player who DOJs you before you summons needs to pray you don't have it in hand.
My biggest learning with the card though is DON'T CAST IT UNLESS IT WINS. I had a few games where I decided to get my opponent down to 3 life or something with it and then lost because I couldn't draw burn. Also not a fan of it with Ranger of Eos or ad nauseam as I feel they have conflicting goals. Running this for a turn 5 win is kind of silly as there are better wins that late in the game, run this is you want to win fast.
Well if BSA is in the set I cant imagine it not being the chase rare of the set. But honestly Noctornus is the second most valuable card in the set and is basically blacks Baneslayer. I wouldn't be surprised if WOTC valued it a lot higher and Baneslayer a lot lower when first conceived.
I want to believe it will be the new dragon everyone thinks is happening, but since I almost feel like that is being created as reds "Baneslayer", I don't know that the intention will be the same. Maybe they will just cheap out and give us yet another promo alt art plainswalker, which i think would mostly suck.
I think if we do get a single colored card, it would have to be a blue one. Blue has gotten the shaft with most prerelease cards and to my knowledge hasent had one in quite a while. While a foil alt art timewarp would be nice, i would much rather see blues version of baneslayer at this point.
What do people think the Prerelease promo will be for M11. Historically the Prerelese card has always been something unique to the set (not a reprint) and a Mythic. M11 had Noctornus which turned out to be a big money card, so out of the remaining Mythics what would it be?
My gut instinct is that it would be a new Mythic card. I suspect M11 will have at the least 5 new Mythics replacing older ones (and by new i mean brand new and not reprints) as Mythics sell packs and since base sets traditionally don't sell too well when most players have the majority of the cards in them, new mythics are a good way to move boxes.
The other logical option is Darksteel Colossus because of the obivous implications with The next block, but that almost feels like fatty overload with the eldrazi right behind us.
Deathless angel is totally playable. Granted it does not have the power level of Iona or BSA, but it comes out a turn earlier than Iona and trumps baneslayer.
Whites deal as of late seems to be just slamming down a must answer threat starting at 4 mana. This is just another card in the arsenal. You cannot ignore this card when it hits the table, just like you cant ignore a baneslayer. Decks only have so much removal, and then only so much that works.
Even if you angel eats it because you play it turn 6, you still traded card for card and ate some removal. you may put them in the position by that time where they don't have any answers left for when iona hits the table. Plus this thing is all but immune to burn even without its ability. I've double bolted a baneslayer before, I've never triple bolted anything.
Once KotWO and Elspeth rotate, This may go up or down in value. White might need to compensate for the ability to no longer ramp to 4 (maybe chalice?) and the loss of their 4 drop threat. But this is just one more card on the "answer this or lose the game" list that white has.
I'm of the camp that believes FOW should come back. FOW in a void is not that great, without the support it gets in legacy (Daze, Brianstorm, etc) and with standard being mostly combo free right now, all it would really do is bring a heavy blue counter deck maybe up the the powerlevel of the aggro decks that currently trounce control.
It's also coming into an environment where card's can't be pitched for it (colorless stuff) and monocolored decks (specifically blue) are not very good at all. There are also a lot of answers available in cascade, Lodestone Golem, etc.
That being said, My want is not so much for force of will, though I would like to see it be reprinted so people can play legacy more, but for free counters for blue. I think that both daze and Foil could both come back in standard and extended, let alone this new format and have positive but balanced impact on the game. Outside of Merfolk I don't see those cards getting all that much play to be honest.
I think the Affinity golems in this format would be a welcome addition. Since they didn't catapult off each other and treat ornithopter like a mox like affinity artifacts, they are relatively well balanced. Affinity is a much beloved ability that was done wrong in a lot of places, but i think that razor golem and his ilk are perfectly fine.
Would also love to see the echoing cards come back, as it's a cool yet basic ability. A mox in extended would be great and Chrome seems perfectly well balanced to get a reprint, and i wouldnt count out the possibility with a land with the Locus type, be it reprint or not. Maybe a legendary Locus?
Nyxathid - I feel like this card is super well balanced and very much represents blacks slice of the color pie. Also generic enough to see a base set (elemental, not really plane specific)
Memory Erosion - Power level feels comparable to cards in the base set, plus the card has interesting interaction besides pure mill.
Path to Exile - Path is a card people love, and in standard its downside can actually be a reason to think about including it or not. Base set magic has traditionally had a slot dedicated to 1cc White exile spells, and this one is probably the most balanced of them (vs swords to plowshares, etc)
Slivers - This might be me being too optimistic, but since slivers are such a Magic "flagship" creature and are very will known, and are really very basic in functionality (they are all basically lords), it wouldn't be out of line to get one basic sliver for each color. It will allow them to utilize them later on if they ever get reintroduced, and can make for cool but simple multi-color decks. My guess would be if they were to bring back 5 we would see: Heart Sliver, Muscle Sliver, winged sliver, Talon sliver, and Crypt sliver.
Let's say I'm your average player. I'm not selling off my collection because I need money to pay the mafia or anything, I just want to make the proper amount of money on my extras to have some money to maybe buy more cards down the life. Lets say i have a goyf i want to sell. I go to ebay and see that there are 50 of them listed (so its obviously not a supply issue, they are available). They all are in the 80 dollar range and all have bids. What is my incentive to list it for any lower than 80? I can obviously get that much based on the market, so why should i sell for less.
Everyone has this mindset when selling, people and stores alike. No one is setting the market price, and no one is selling the cards to "Help the gaming public" or any sense of altruism. As long as people keep buying at 80, the card is 80. When people stop buying them prices will drop (it will eventually die down, as the hoarders move their extras for inflated prices and people who get their cards stop investing in them because they have theirs) .
The real question on any legacy card we should ask is why are we all buying them when the price is up? They are legacy, you can wait for the price to drop and buy them, the card will always be playable in eternal formats.
One land functions as a true dual from turn 2 onwards
the other is only a one time selection and costs life
Add in non basics with basic subtypes and suddenly enemy colors are comparable to allied, which is mostly counter to the aspirations of the designers.
All that being said i would like to see some lands that promote enemy or tri color strategies in M11. Some lands I would love to see come back are City of brass or gemstone mine (without painlands in the format), Ancient Ziggurat, Shimmering Grotto, Mirrodin's Core (Maybe not M10 but mirridon?), or even tendo ice bridge
The deck has shifted a little from being Boros towards being more of a Boros Deck wins thing, but overall its still very strong.
4 x Lotus Cobra
4 x bops
4 x Maelstrom angel
4 x Harrow
4 x rampant growth
4 x Prophetic Prism
4 x Violent Ultimatum
4 x Cruel Ultimatum
3 x 1 one of each eldrazi titan
plus land
But really I mean I don't see that its worth it at all.
The more i think about what the format can be the more I wonder what the counter war is going to look like to keep all the crazyness in check. I really feel like Foil will be heavily played (along with Squee, Bloodghast, vengevine, etc) to keep the format in check. Just off the top of my head, assuming that this format is masques up, a core control / dredge list might be a great option:
4 x Foil
4 x Daze
4 x Bloodghast
4 x Counterspell or mana leak
4 x Tarmogoyf
4 x Tombstalker
Some dredge stuff, shock and fetch lands, etc.
If plainswalkers really want to stave off burn until they get the walker lock out there are any number of very strong options including: Kabria Crossroads, Sejiri Refuge, Kor Firewalker, Rest for the Weary (stupid amazing against a pure burn lists), etc. There are plenty of tools.
My list ONLY worked because of Ancient Ziggurat though. CITP lands cant happen in this deck, so to get the big goldfish win turn 3 you would need:
Ziggurat -> Steppe Lynx
Red fetch -> attack -> Geopede
Red Fetch -> Float 3 red-> Summons + Bushwhacker
That does 25 damage over 3 turns. There are redundant ways to do lethal damage as well, such as turn one lynx, turn 2 Kiln Feind, turn 3 elite vanguard summons burst
The deck is scary fast, and as weak as it is to DOJ sometimes, it's also really resilient against it the other times. Any tapout player who DOJs you before you summons needs to pray you don't have it in hand.
My biggest learning with the card though is DON'T CAST IT UNLESS IT WINS. I had a few games where I decided to get my opponent down to 3 life or something with it and then lost because I couldn't draw burn. Also not a fan of it with Ranger of Eos or ad nauseam as I feel they have conflicting goals. Running this for a turn 5 win is kind of silly as there are better wins that late in the game, run this is you want to win fast.
I want to believe it will be the new dragon everyone thinks is happening, but since I almost feel like that is being created as reds "Baneslayer", I don't know that the intention will be the same. Maybe they will just cheap out and give us yet another promo alt art plainswalker, which i think would mostly suck.
1UUU
4/3
Flying, Protection from damage, shroud
I mean why not?
My gut instinct is that it would be a new Mythic card. I suspect M11 will have at the least 5 new Mythics replacing older ones (and by new i mean brand new and not reprints) as Mythics sell packs and since base sets traditionally don't sell too well when most players have the majority of the cards in them, new mythics are a good way to move boxes.
The other logical option is Darksteel Colossus because of the obivous implications with The next block, but that almost feels like fatty overload with the eldrazi right behind us.
So thoughts?
Whites deal as of late seems to be just slamming down a must answer threat starting at 4 mana. This is just another card in the arsenal. You cannot ignore this card when it hits the table, just like you cant ignore a baneslayer. Decks only have so much removal, and then only so much that works.
Even if you angel eats it because you play it turn 6, you still traded card for card and ate some removal. you may put them in the position by that time where they don't have any answers left for when iona hits the table. Plus this thing is all but immune to burn even without its ability. I've double bolted a baneslayer before, I've never triple bolted anything.
Once KotWO and Elspeth rotate, This may go up or down in value. White might need to compensate for the ability to no longer ramp to 4 (maybe chalice?) and the loss of their 4 drop threat. But this is just one more card on the "answer this or lose the game" list that white has.
It's also coming into an environment where card's can't be pitched for it (colorless stuff) and monocolored decks (specifically blue) are not very good at all. There are also a lot of answers available in cascade, Lodestone Golem, etc.
That being said, My want is not so much for force of will, though I would like to see it be reprinted so people can play legacy more, but for free counters for blue. I think that both daze and Foil could both come back in standard and extended, let alone this new format and have positive but balanced impact on the game. Outside of Merfolk I don't see those cards getting all that much play to be honest.
Would also love to see the echoing cards come back, as it's a cool yet basic ability. A mox in extended would be great and Chrome seems perfectly well balanced to get a reprint, and i wouldnt count out the possibility with a land with the Locus type, be it reprint or not. Maybe a legendary Locus?
Nyxathid - I feel like this card is super well balanced and very much represents blacks slice of the color pie. Also generic enough to see a base set (elemental, not really plane specific)
Memory Erosion - Power level feels comparable to cards in the base set, plus the card has interesting interaction besides pure mill.
Path to Exile - Path is a card people love, and in standard its downside can actually be a reason to think about including it or not. Base set magic has traditionally had a slot dedicated to 1cc White exile spells, and this one is probably the most balanced of them (vs swords to plowshares, etc)
Slivers - This might be me being too optimistic, but since slivers are such a Magic "flagship" creature and are very will known, and are really very basic in functionality (they are all basically lords), it wouldn't be out of line to get one basic sliver for each color. It will allow them to utilize them later on if they ever get reintroduced, and can make for cool but simple multi-color decks. My guess would be if they were to bring back 5 we would see: Heart Sliver, Muscle Sliver, winged sliver, Talon sliver, and Crypt sliver.