Are there any MTGO price gurus who can help me understand why a card like Engineered Explosives is more expensive than Snapcaster Mage? There are quite a few oddities like this that I struggle to comprehend. Is Explosives heavily played in commander or something?
Various factors depending on the card. EE is probably legacy/vintage driven (as it's the best place to play both formats for most people), and therefore it's inflated compared to paper. For example, a digital Hurkyl's Recall costs twice the price of paper because 1) it's necessary for Legacy/Vintage (and Modern, but less so) however 2) "printed" considerably less (only 10th Ed and MM2 release, whereas paper also had Revised, 4th, 5th, and Antiquities). Same shortage problem affects Lord of Atlantis (Time Spiral, Promo, and 7th Ed online) and just about all Mercadian Masques block cards (hellooooo Rishadan Port and Misdirection SRSLY).
The year of Modern flashback drafts has helped, but not tremendously so. For EE specifically, MODO was many orders of magnitude more played during Innistrad block than Mirrodin block. Tons more Snapcasters opened than EE even with 2 "releases".
Just going to put this out there for folks who have not finished their playset of one certain card and were on the fence... (warning: Eternal Masters spoiler)
You may want to pick up Counterbalance. It has been confirmed "out" of the number crunch when Counterspell got spoiled this morning/evening (yay~ time zones). With Top getting reprinted but no Counterbalance reprint in EMA, anybody who thinks this card may be a thing in Modern in the future should seriously consider moving in sooner rather than later.
All the top-32 of GP Los Angeles are solid decks. GP Charlotte... I'm lost. Especially Ad-Nauseam. How often does it win before turn 4? And where does it get its consistency from? You need multiple pieces, it's like a collected company deck without the beatdown plan. This is one deck I have no clue how it works.
Ad Nauseam can win on the draw on turn 2, but it's less than 1% out of all my games.
Don't tell people this, its more or less misinformation and the exact type of crap that spreads.
This situation demands exactly 9 cards for it work on Turn 2 on the draw (impossible on the play). Doing this with any sort of consistency/regularity would probably be cheating, and even pulling it off once ever is Magical Christmas Land.
Trying to be "technically correct" can be really misleading. I mean, U/B Mill "can win" on Turn 2 with Island, 1x Thought Scour, 1x Ghost Quarter, and 4x Archive Trap. Every person in the room will tell you how egregious these examples are.
It's particularly silly because they would probably reprint Boss in the new set, if they were really going with the mechanic. What better way to remind people how clever they were and create a tie-in to an old set? That said, if this is a super-sneaky "buy for the hype" speculation, where you get copies just to trick people into buying your copies, it makes more sense.
But dat futureshifted frame tho....
Contraption Combo Winter here we come! Choo choo~
You'd think people would realize having cards from Future Sight is usually a good thing. Heck, even Nimbus Maze is relative money and it's god awful everywhere as Glacial Fortress pretty much one ups everything about it. I remember being told "I'm sorry" by a store owner after cracking a pack of Future Sight to find a Daybreak Coronet only a few years ago... and look where that card went.
It's actually the other way around. Casting Tormenting Voice and discarding Fiery Temper means that you are able to cast it for it's maness cost before Tormenting Voice resolves. The order goes like this:
Announce you are casting Tormenting Voice
Pay all costs (including discarding a card). Fiery Temper goes to Exile.
Tormenting Voice is now on the stack waiting to resolve and Fiery Temper is sitting in Exile.
Fiery Temper's Madness trigger now goes onto the stack allowing you to cast it.
Pay the costs to cast it and now it goes onto the stack on top of Tormenting Voice.
Fiery Temper Resolves
Tormenting Voice resolves.
You will choose the targets of Fiery Temper as soon as you go to cast it (step 5 above).
Keep in mind that this order works like this because discarding a card is a cost to casting Tormenting Voice. Your summary would work if you were discarding a card as part of the resolution of a spell, such as Faithless Looting. In that case, the trigger to cast Fiery Temper for it's madness cost goes on the stack after Faithless Looting resolves. It will sit in Exile until you decide what you want to do with the trigger. Once you decide to cast it, you choose the targets at that time.
I see. So the scenario where I get the information first (i.e. see the drawn cards) is when it's a loot effect (Faithless Looting & Jace, Vryn's Prodigy), not when it's a cost of casting the spell. That means the shortcut I mentioned above is more or less in line with what's supposed to happen.
My question regards the "timing"/"stack order" of triggers when discarding cards with madness to spells that contain "as an additional cost discard a card" text on them.
I've seen people use a shortcut in draft or more casual games along the lines of "I cast Tormenting Voice, pitching Fiery Temper. I'll pay R and deal 3 dmg to you while drawing 2 cards". For some situations this doesn't particularly matter but when I want to draw certain cards (more beneficial removal perhaps) and have to make a conscientious choice of pointing the Fiery Temper at the creature to kill it or the player's life total I'd like to know how much information I have access to before choosing targets and paying the mana for madness cost.
My scenario: I cast Tormenting Voice and discard Fiery Temper as an additional cost.
My question(s): What is the exact order of the stack/triggers here? I'm casting Tormenting Voice and of course Fiery Temper does not start resolving until after I've drawn... but at what point do I choose targets for and pay R for Fiery Temper? Also, does Fiery Temper hang out in limbo while Tormenting Voice finishes resolving before being placed on the stack, or is it in exile or some temporary zone?
I've got some rules lawyer type Magic buddies and I want to be up to speed on this... and I don't trust the "well [this] happens on MODO" argument ever. I need a real person explain it in real words Thanks!
A picture worthy of being taken by a GameBoy Color. Way too much distortion around that set symbol. Maybe they're in the set, but I don't think this is the proof.
I think people are actively forgetting that "no Modern Pro Tour" also means a significant reduction in "overnight explosive price increases" in obscure cards. How many times did we see after a Pro Tour (or large scale streamed event like GP or World Champ) the price of singular obscure cards skyrocket literally within hours of public viewing? A short example list: Porphyry Nodes, Shadow of Doubt, Ensnaring Bridge, Hive Mind, Worship, The Rack, Primal Command... the list goes on.
Price increases will still occur as new decks build popularity on MODO or SCG Open, but maybe over days or weeks not mere hours. I can only see this as a blessing as someone who has been keeping up with modern since its original announcement in 2011 and wants to see his friends who haven't be able to afford playing the format as well.
Illness in the Ranks is still a thing. Yeah, it doesn't stop the life gain but it does stop the army that will swing out at you or prevent your attack or kill you with Tezz ultimate. It also helps hose any Kiki-Mite players and B/W tokens (provided they don't have one anthem effect down).
So now that Guildpact is upon us, are there any words of wisdom from folks who have played this "middle" format before?
I've played a couple drafts and the format seems slower than 3x RAV. And the picks in pack 3 feel really weird after the linear drafts of 3x RAV.
As we always are after a banlist change. From there things will smooth out with probably Abzan, U/W Eldrazi-tron, some sort of Kiki deck, and Melira Company.
This is, of course, not taking into consideration anything from SOI's release. Which could see an uptick in Dredge/dredgevine, Jund, and zombie/vampire tribal builds.
Will Eternal Masters have any effect on Zendikar fetchland prices?
There are three options:
1) they are reprinted, and the price collectively goes down (for some indeterminate amount of time)
2) the are NOT reprinted, and the price spikes another $10~$20 across the board
3) they are reprinted, and the price goes up for reasons that baffle scientists to this day
Also, I agree with ktkenshinx's assessment of werewolf spec. With that said, you can spend ~$25 to buy all the werewolves, barring Huntmasters, and be prepared. I did this with slivers (m14), allies (BFZ) and werewolves (SOI), and each time the deck got tested but never made a "tier"... however it was worth it in terms of fun/satisfaction to keep them aside in my collection, even if I "went minus". At least I didn't pay $10 for a single Sedge Sliver (more like 10 for a playset).
Various factors depending on the card. EE is probably legacy/vintage driven (as it's the best place to play both formats for most people), and therefore it's inflated compared to paper. For example, a digital Hurkyl's Recall costs twice the price of paper because 1) it's necessary for Legacy/Vintage (and Modern, but less so) however 2) "printed" considerably less (only 10th Ed and MM2 release, whereas paper also had Revised, 4th, 5th, and Antiquities). Same shortage problem affects Lord of Atlantis (Time Spiral, Promo, and 7th Ed online) and just about all Mercadian Masques block cards (hellooooo Rishadan Port and Misdirection SRSLY).
The year of Modern flashback drafts has helped, but not tremendously so. For EE specifically, MODO was many orders of magnitude more played during Innistrad block than Mirrodin block. Tons more Snapcasters opened than EE even with 2 "releases".
This situation demands exactly 9 cards for it work on Turn 2 on the draw (impossible on the play). Doing this with any sort of consistency/regularity would probably be cheating, and even pulling it off once ever is Magical Christmas Land.
Trying to be "technically correct" can be really misleading. I mean, U/B Mill "can win" on Turn 2 with Island, 1x Thought Scour, 1x Ghost Quarter, and 4x Archive Trap. Every person in the room will tell you how egregious these examples are.
But dat futureshifted frame tho....
Contraption Combo Winter here we come! Choo choo~
You'd think people would realize having cards from Future Sight is usually a good thing. Heck, even Nimbus Maze is relative money and it's god awful everywhere as Glacial Fortress pretty much one ups everything about it. I remember being told "I'm sorry" by a store owner after cracking a pack of Future Sight to find a Daybreak Coronet only a few years ago... and look where that card went.
I see. So the scenario where I get the information first (i.e. see the drawn cards) is when it's a loot effect (Faithless Looting & Jace, Vryn's Prodigy), not when it's a cost of casting the spell. That means the shortcut I mentioned above is more or less in line with what's supposed to happen.
Thanks for the clarification!
I've seen people use a shortcut in draft or more casual games along the lines of "I cast Tormenting Voice, pitching Fiery Temper. I'll pay R and deal 3 dmg to you while drawing 2 cards". For some situations this doesn't particularly matter but when I want to draw certain cards (more beneficial removal perhaps) and have to make a conscientious choice of pointing the Fiery Temper at the creature to kill it or the player's life total I'd like to know how much information I have access to before choosing targets and paying the mana for madness cost.
My scenario: I cast Tormenting Voice and discard Fiery Temper as an additional cost.
My question(s): What is the exact order of the stack/triggers here? I'm casting Tormenting Voice and of course Fiery Temper does not start resolving until after I've drawn... but at what point do I choose targets for and pay R for Fiery Temper? Also, does Fiery Temper hang out in limbo while Tormenting Voice finishes resolving before being placed on the stack, or is it in exile or some temporary zone?
I've got some rules lawyer type Magic buddies and I want to be up to speed on this... and I don't trust the "well [this] happens on MODO" argument ever. I need a real person explain it in real words
Price increases will still occur as new decks build popularity on MODO or SCG Open, but maybe over days or weeks not mere hours. I can only see this as a blessing as someone who has been keeping up with modern since its original announcement in 2011 and wants to see his friends who haven't be able to afford playing the format as well.
I've played a couple drafts and the format seems slower than 3x RAV. And the picks in pack 3 feel really weird after the linear drafts of 3x RAV.
You are my hero.
That enchantment seems absurdly good.
As we always are after a banlist change. From there things will smooth out with probably Abzan, U/W Eldrazi-tron, some sort of Kiki deck, and Melira Company.
This is, of course, not taking into consideration anything from SOI's release. Which could see an uptick in Dredge/dredgevine, Jund, and zombie/vampire tribal builds.
There are three options:
1) they are reprinted, and the price collectively goes down (for some indeterminate amount of time)
2) the are NOT reprinted, and the price spikes another $10~$20 across the board
3) they are reprinted, and the price goes up for reasons that baffle scientists to this day
Also, I agree with ktkenshinx's assessment of werewolf spec. With that said, you can spend ~$25 to buy all the werewolves, barring Huntmasters, and be prepared. I did this with slivers (m14), allies (BFZ) and werewolves (SOI), and each time the deck got tested but never made a "tier"... however it was worth it in terms of fun/satisfaction to keep them aside in my collection, even if I "went minus". At least I didn't pay $10 for a single Sedge Sliver (more like 10 for a playset).