Category Archives: Accumulated Knowledge

Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: More Recalibrating or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Goldnight Castigator

AUTHOR’S NOTE: We are really jumping in on the deep end this week. Be ready!

I’m gonna start by stating something that really took me a while to realize that you may or may not have noticed. Magic, just like every other thing involving multiple parts, has a formula. It has since Alpha, and it continues through Shadows over Innistrad. Now, that formula has certainly changed, both in the short and long term sensabilities, and the definitions of what those pieces are have expanded, but that’s just part of organic growth. Before I get too much further, let me show you what I mean:

  • Every large Magic set needs a Wrath of God (“Destroy all Creatures”) effect.
  • Every large Magic set wants between 2 and 4 Planeswalkers.
  • Every large Magic set needs a degree of mana fixing, typically with dual land cycles at more than one rarity.
  • Every large Magic set needs to have some form of the most basic utility spells (Disenchant, Shatter effects) at Common or Uncommon.

Do you see what I’m trying to get at? Even though Alpha iconics like Wrath of God and Birds of Paradise are no longer themselves part of the formula, their legacy is. Now, this is being written before the rest of the set is dumped on Friday, but we’ve already seen some of the new underclassmen for these staple effects.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: Recalibrating

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I am really excited about Shadows over Innistrad. The cards are all extremely evocative in terms of flavor, Madness is one of my favorite abilities, and moreover I love playing my games out of the graveyard. I’m also the kind of person who gets really excited by big swings in Standard, and I think that the new rotation schedule is going to be a huge benefit to the game in the long-term. Today is not going to be my end-all preview (because we are still missing way too many cards), and from what I’ve heard, we ARE going to be divvying up the eventual set reviews (I called dibs on Green a few weeks back, hopefully that pans out). I want to talk about a couple of the new cards that we have seen so far, as well as some older ones that may benefit from the change in scenery.

Before we get going, I want to make a clarification that some of these cards will not themselves be cards worth buying low on, but rather they may be indicative of larger trends. Cards shape Standard regardless of rarity- things like Lightning Bolt can have a huge ripple effect regardless of the fact that the card itself may never go up significantly in price. These elements are tough to predict (unless they are super obvious like with Lightning Bolt), and often don’t present themselves until the entire set is revealed and played with for a little bit (typically around PT time). Assume that any commons or uncommons that we discuss today fit somewhere into this discussion.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: Playing Better part 3, Deckbuilding

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What is the best deck for a person ultimately more concerned with Magic Finance?

Red Deck Wins.

See you next week!

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…What, you’re still here? Okaaaay, we’ll actually do this. Geez, y’all are a pushy bunch.

All joking aside, there are two major points that I want to touch on today, and they are both important subjects that have not been covered much, if at all, recently. The first is going to be the shorter, more game-play based topic of playing the right type of deck, while the second is going to try and figure out HOW to buy in to future Standards. The latter may sound silly at first, but recognize that we are still treading into unknown territory with regards to the new rotation schedule, and if you haven’t been around since Khans, where do you start? Figuring out how to get new or lapsed players in (or back in) to the tournament scene is a great way to grow your market, as well as anticipate future trends.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: Everything In Its Right Place

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This week’s article is not a continuation of the Playing Better series (which will continue next week), but is more of an address to the various things that have come up since I started that series. This is going to be one of those grab bag style pieces that is slightly more focused than a collection of quick hits. If there is one major point to be made, however, it’s the following:

NOT EVERYTHING IS FOR EVERYBODY: We have three supplemental Magic products coming out this summer, and they are all in the form of actual sets (as opposed to pre-constructed decks or something). This is unprecedented, and has a type of psychological impact that people have largely had trouble articulating.

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expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.