Money Ramp

Monday: Money Ramp with Zack Alvarado

How Do You Brew?

Aphetto_alchemist
Aphetto Alchemist. (c) 2013 Wizards of the Coast.

When it comes to “rogue decking,” how exactly do you brew? And no, I’m not talking about logging onto mtgtop8.com, searching rogue builds, and tweaking the tech to contend with your local meta – I’m talking about sitting down, fortressing yourself with a collection of cards, and wildly applying critical thought to develop a new, potent recipe; much like a seasoned cocktologist, surrounded by liquor, herbs, syrups, and juice – everything must be in the right place, with the proper amount added, or surely it’ll be bitter (pun). To ensure a good blend, take into consideration factors such as mana curve, land base, play style, and, most importantly, the to-beat metagame.

So, where to begin? Do you pick a color scheme to build around, i.e. Bant? Do you select a single card? Do you choose your favorite guild? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re more than likely a casual player who has never experienced the headache that is home brewing for a serious competition – and there’s nothing wrong with that. Sure an ‘Orzhov’ deck, or an ‘Aurelia’ deck are neat, but they don’t match up with tier 1 builds, and this is where many casual players fall short: they try to tune their casual decks for competition and ruin the fun of a good deck. Make note which of your builds are just for fun, and which are tournament contenders; this should help you decide where your time and money are best channeled.

Starting a brew from scratch is simple: the goal is to create a unique and powerful deck that nobody at your tournament is prepared to deal with. If you intend to tweak a current build, like Naya Humans, expect plenty of your opponents to have sideboard answers such as Blind Obedience & Rolling Temblor. Instead, look for pinholes in your competition and magnify them. Do not hesitate to mainboard the usual sideboard tech if it makes sense. Roughly 80% of my Modern meta is using some variant of aggro (mostly tribal), so I mainboard Ghostly Prison in my White Weenie deck to slow down opposing aggro. But why stop with one card? Why not design a deck to maneuver through your entire meta with impunity? Add plenty of combo-counter, an unpredictable win condition, and multiple layers of protection; now that sounds solid, in theory, but what does that look like on paper? Allow me to share a rogue-build of my own that I’ve been fine-tuning for the last three weeks; it’s far from perfect, but I believe that it illustrates the breadth and depth that goes into a strong brew.

 

My Cup Overfloweth

Walkers: 4
4x Jace, Memory Adept

Creatures: 17
1x Griselbrand
3x Thragtusk
3x Duskmantle Guildmage
3x Crypt Ghast
3x Arbor Elf
4x Vampire Nighthawk

Other Spells: 17
1x Army of the Damned
1x Increasing Ambition
2x Underworld Connections
3x Mind Grind
3x Farseek
3x Chalice of Life
4x Killing Wave

Land: 22
1x Alchemist’s Refuge
1x Nephalia Drownyard
2x Hinterland Harbor
2x Woodland Cemetery
4x Breeding Pool
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Watery Grave

The functions of this deck are simple: gain tons of life and ramp hard. Seems easy enough, right? Exactly, it is – and it works. Why? Because of what we do with that extra life and mana. So what do we do? Well let’s start with the primary win conditions. First up is Chalice of Life. This artifact gains us life, which not only contributes to its transformation, but restores life spent on our Killing Waves, Underworld Connections and Pain Lands. The transformation of this card is so powerful!

chalices
Chalice of Life / Chalice of Death. (c) 2013 Wizards of the Coast.

It may seem as if getting to 30 life could take awhile, but with the help of Griselbrand, Thragtusk, Vampire Nighthawk, and Crypt Ghast’s Extort ability, it’s rather easy. Once at 30+ life, you can gleefully tap away your Chalice of Death, inflicting 5 points of damage every time. Now for our second win condition: Duskmantle Guildmage! With so much mana ramp between Crypt Ghast, Arbor Elf, and our ‘Swamps’, it’s not difficult to cast a large Mind Grind, mill 10+ cards, and kill your opponent with Guildmage’s effect. Speaking of milling 10+ cards, Jace, Memory Adept is a huge threat for damage when paired with Duskmantle. Our third win condition is sweet and simple: cast Army of the Damned and rawr-smash-face with tons of zombies. And finally, the obvious and brutish win condition here is to mill your opponent’s deck to 0 with Jace, Guildmage, and Drownyard.

Beyond multiple win conditions, this deck offers a lot of tech; most of which has great synchronicity with other cards in the build. At first glance, it’s easy to spot TONS of life-gain, but after a second and third look-over of the list, you’ll notice that there are many outlets to spend that life to gain an advantage: Griselbrand, Underworld Connections, Killing Wave, and Pain Lands all cost us life at some point in the game, but provide great trade-offs. If you’re running low on cards, Griselbrand and Underworld Connections are there to refill your hand, so that you can keep on digging for your kill – though Griselbrand can be a win-con all by himself. If you find yourself being pressured by aggro, cast Killing Wave and watch the tides turn as mid-game approaches: aggro players tend to pay the life, only to get bricked later by Nighthawks and Thrags that quickly overwhelm the field and expand the gap between life totals. Killing Wave also gets around hexproof (to an extent), and pressures decks that aren’t overly concerned about board wipes (like BWR Aristocrats). Increasing Ambition is a small piece of tech that offers crucial assistance, such as: grabbing a Thrag to help transform Chalice; grabbing a Mind Grind or a Jace to finish milling; or grabbing Army of the Damned to overrun your opponent. Our final piece of tech in this build is Alchemist’s Refuge; with so much mana at our disposal, this baby is affordable and attractive. Casting a Chalice and transforming it before your upkeep is AMAZING; so is flashing in a Nighthawk or a Thragtusk at the end of your opponents turn, or as a blocker. Versatility is the fruit of the land, and this deck has plenty.

Thank you for reading my ramblings of brewing; hopefully you’ve gathered something beneficial from this, even if elementary. I apologize for the lack of financial content, but I wanted to explore a topic that in a very unnoticeable way, redefines the prices within our market. All it takes is one weekend of some rogue brew to top a GP, for a card like Craterhoof Behemoth to skyrocket in price. This will conclude my weekly installment for MTGPrice.com.

 

Money Ramp Weekly Tip:

[Sell off your Boros Reckoners before the weekend is over]

 

Until next time,

Zack R Alvarado
zackalvarado@gmail.com
Twitter: Rh1zzualo

Common Cents

Common Cents with Aaron Dettmann

1 Comment

A Season for Selling

Second Sunrise. (c) 2013 Wizards of the Coast.
Second Sunrise. (c) 2013 Wizards of the Coast.

Now is the time to sell off all of your Modern cards. Why, you may ask? Two reasons: the Modern PTQ season is near its end, and because Modern Masters will be printed soon.

Most people are aware of the ebb and flow of Standard card prices, rising as States and the Standard PTQ season approaches, and falling as the season finishes. This ebb and flow of prices holds doubly true for Modern, as there are a lot fewer tournaments outside of the PTQs to affect their prices. Virtually every card that has seen play in Modern has gone up in price since the end of summer, many by a significant amount.

Some examples of cards that have doubled or more in prices since the end of summer:

Even the all-star cards you haven’t regularly been hearing about have still gone up in price by a good amount. You would have still made a solid profit if you invested in cards such as: 

My point is that there were very few poor investments when buying Modern cards before the PTQ season started. You could pretty much choose whichever Modern playable cards you wanted to buy, and made a profit on them.

The other reason to sell off your Modern cards now, besides the fact that the PTQ season is nearing its end, is because Modern Masters is soon going to see print. Now, I acknowledge that long term Modern Masters will overall raise the price on Modern cards, as it piques interest in the format. However, some high priced Modern cards will be reprinted in that set, which will increase card availability, decreasing the price on those cards in the short term. Conversely, any cards that aren’t reprinted in that set should see their price remain steady or eventually go up. However, I don’t really feel like playing roulette on guessing which cards will be reprinted, and which ones won’t. Instead, I’ll just trade or sell all of my Modern cards now so I don’t risk them dropping in value if they’re reprinted. And as for the Modern cards I want that aren’t reprinted in Modern Masters, I’ll just trade or buy them back for the same price that I got rid of them (remember, Modern Masters is being released during the slow season for Modern, so there won’t be an immediate frenzied demand for any Modern cards). The net result will be your breaking even on the Modern cards that aren’t reprinted, and saving yourself from losing money on the cards that were reprinted and dropped in price.

Now, with all this being said, in the long term I expect Modern card prices to stay firm or rise yet more, even the ones reprinted in Modern Masters. This is because new players are discovering this game every day, which keeps increasing demand for cards they don’t have. A year from now, I’m confident Modern card prices will be similar to what they are now, or even higher. However, short term, as Modern Masters is released and the Modern PTQ season ends, the reprinted cards will dip in price.

Common Cents

Thursday: Common Cents with Aaron Dettmann

Champion of the Parish. (c) 2013 Wizards of the Coast.
Champion of the Parish. (c) 2013 Wizards of the Coast.

This past weekend we saw what the Standard metagame looks like after the Pro Tour, at Grand Prix Quebec. A few new successful decks have emerged as options to play in Standard. There are many cards that normally I would be very keen on acquiring based on those decklists, but I feel I should temper my enthusiasm on the cards that happen to be in the preconstructed Gatecrash Event Decks.

Now, I don’t know for sure how much of an impact a card appearing in an Event Deck has on its price, but let’s take a look at some past cards:

Woodland Cemetery was the hot land as Return to Ravnica was nearing its release date. Everyone wanted to play Golgari, which resulted in that land outpacing its brethren in price. However, shortly after the November release of the Return to Ravnica event deck, Woodland Cemetery plummeted in price; it kept on falling, and it’s only been in the last month that it’s stabilized at around $9.

Thragtusk, on the other hand, is a card that proves that being printed in an event deck is not the death knell for its price. Indeed, this card was actually printed in two event decks (M13’s Repeat Performance, along with Ravnica’s Creep and Conquer), and still held steady at $25 until recently. It wasn’t until Thragtusk was reprinted yet again in a third event deck (Gatecrash’s Thrive and Thrash), that its price fell to its current $15. However, I attribute its resilient price to the factors that it was just that dominant in Standard at the time, along with not as many M13 packs being opened compared to other non-base sets.

Now, with all that information in mind, let’s take a look at a couple of cards that did well over the weekend, but were also printed in a Gatecrash Event Deck.

Based on the results from both last weekend, and at the Pro Tour, Champion of the Parish is normally a card I would really want to buy. It was a 4-of in the winning decklist at the pro-tour, and now it also won GP Quebec in a completely different decklist, along with three total decks in that top-8 playing them. Clearly, this is an extremely important card in an aggressive aggro deck.

Champion of the Parish as of Feb 27, 2013
Champion of the Parish as of Feb 27, 2013

In addition, this is near the end of when you can buy Innistrad block cards cheaply, as people are going to start looking for cards from those sets as the Standard PTQ season is approaching very soon. However, I’m a little hesitant to buy in, as even if store are charging more than msrp for those event decks, it’s undeniable that there will be more copies of those cards floating around. Champion is still cheap enough that I may trade for a few copies, but I doubt it will define the format as Thragtusk did, so I don’t think it has a very high ceiling.

Silverblade Paladin is in a similar situation as Champion of the Parish; it appears in the same Event Deck, and is also usually found in the same Standard decks as well. Silverblade Paladin has more casual appeal, as it is the flashier card that can lead to easy blowout wins, but Champion of the Parish is the card that is always played as a 4-of in tournament decks.

Silverblade Paladin as of Feb 27, 2013
Silverblade Paladin as of Feb 27, 2013

One card I would invest in based on this past weekend is Lotleth Troll. Did you know this card has fallen all the way to $2?! This card has just made the top-8 of a GP, and it has historical precedence of doing well too, as it made the top-8 of multiple SCG opens before R/B Zombies became the popular choice. This is still a very strong card that has many relevant abilities, that has simply been searching for a home. I would pick them up now before they find a popular one.

Money Ramp

Monday: Money Ramp with Zack Alvarado

Increasing Sales via Inventory Organization

Strategic pairing can improve both cards' sales appeal.
Strategic pairing can improve both cards’ sales appeal.

Eric Froehlich’s Naya Zoo deck was composed of 83% rare or mythic cards, making his deck a perfect example of how expensive it is to be a tier 1 competitor. Most of the cards he used are expensive from the perspective of most casual players, but not so expensive that they could not afford a few if they really wanted ‘em. It is certainly obvious that most casual players will not be playing decks composed so expensively as Froehlich’s. Despite this fact, many MTG retailers stock their singles space with mythic and chase rares that sell for at least $10 each. The problem here is that this makes the majority of the inventory held by retailers geared toward a minority of the market; it means that there is just no way that they are all going to sell, and that many cards will be left sitting on shelves not producing profit.

So, the question becomes, “How do magic card retailers gear their inventory toward a larger portion of the market? And how do they clear the inventory of mythic and chase rares that they already have?” By giving the average player a reason to buy expensive cards. Casual players will not be filling their decks with high-priced cards. The only expensive cards that these players will be buying are those which work best with more affordable cards. As you may know, pretty much all of the chase rares work extremely well with less expensive cards. The problem is that not everyone else does, and the solution is proper organization of trade/sell binders. For example, a casual player opening a binder is likely to see the first few pages packed with chase rares that he already knows he cannot afford, and, having no reason to buy, flips right past them without even stopping to give them consideration. On the other hand, the casual player may open a binder and see a combo build with cards that he most certainly can afford or may already have.

Let’s say your customer has some Spark Troopers, Cloudshifts, or Duskmantle Guildmages laying around in his extras not really being used; then, he opens your binder and sees a Thragtusk that he doesn’t want to pay for, but instead of being surrounded by other cards that aren’t in his buy range – it’s sitting there, right next to a card he can afford: Cloudshift. Hell, he probably already has a playset. It’s a simple, game changing combo that just fell into his lap. The Thragtusk will immediately become more appealing to the customer, and every other customer who looks at that Thragtusk and realizes the potential power it has if used with a card they already own. It’s the same concept a car salesmen will use when selling an expensive car; but, instead of just being a car – it’s leather upholstery, tinted windows, and all the things that contribute to the desire and/or impulse of owning such a luxurious object.

The MTG salesmen version of leather upholstery and tinted windows are:

In other words – organizing your trade stock in a way that allows customers to realize the potential benefits of chase-rares, in conjunction with easily affordable cards, will increase the appeal of otherwise difficult to sell cards. Instead of letting chase rares sit on shelves, doing nothing other than being drooled at by the occasional customer shuffling by, retailers should be reorganizing their binders and cases in such a fashion that these chase rares become more appealing to customers.

Other good examples of cards that are easily made more appealing are:

So, you get it – now go out there – put the rubber to the road and make some extra cash!
This will conclude my third installment, thank you all for reading.

Money Ramp Weekly Tip: [Pick up tons of Sphinx’s Revelations]

Until next time,

Zack R Alvarado
zackalvarado@gmail.com
Twitter: Rh1zzualo

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