Howdy! And welcome to… VINTAGE SET REVIEWS: INVASION!
Invasion is one of those sets/blocks that I have a personal fondness for, even though it predates my competitive involvement with Magic. On a larger scale, Invasion was a big hit for Wizards, coming off of two previous blocks (Urza’s and Masques, respectively) that did some serious damage to the game’s reputation capital. It was largely the same kind of effect the first Ravnica block had1, although I think Ravnica was a much cleaner and better designed set overall. This is also around the time where Magic was “famously” featured on ESPN2, a sort of Magic culture meme that has largely died out (along with other favorites like “mise tings”).
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
What I want to talk about today falls more under the realm of Magic economics, not Magic finance. I want to explore a couple different concepts that may turn out to be farfetched, but have nonetheless grasped my attention. This is going to be largely theoretical at first, as there is a wide-range of stated positions even within the involved parties. Lastly, this is not an indictment (yet) of any political figure, organization or belief; although my personal views are probably somewhat apparent. My goal here is not to insult or inflame, merely to play out some scenarios that could have a tangible impact on Magic. I realize that in the grand scheme of things that a card game is not the top priority on everyone’s list, but perhaps you can apply the thinking to other aspects of your life. What I’m building towards is evergreen information, but the potential causes are in this case shaped by recent political events.
Make Dominaria Great Again!
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
Today is another round of quick hits, since I don’t plan on doing a true Commander set review, and I didn’t want to do a Vintage Set Review. I still kinda feel like Kaladesh just came out (because it did), so I don’t want to keep inundating you will set analysis. I do want to talk about some of the new cards, but I’ll uh… try to keep it relatively uninformative.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
Today is not going to be about the new (old?) Standard rotation structure. I’ll tell you that I like it, though, and I suspect that my LGS’s lagging FNM attendance will improve because of it. Today is going to be the start of a new mini-series, and it’s focused on the aspect of Magic finance that tends to get overlooked.
Players new and old tend to approach the concept of Magic finance as “how can I make my hobby cheaper or free?”, only to realize that most of the conversation in that sphere is between vendors. In honor of Game Day Weekend (and a month of [NEW SET] singles pouring into the market), I’m going to tell you which Standard deck I recommend for the upcoming format. This is for the people who want to play in FNM, PPTQ, and 5k level events but don’t have the time, energy, or resources to learn and buy-in to the entire format. These are not going to be “budget” decks, but a key component in my selecting them is that they are cheap enough to give you a good shot at breaking even. I think this first installment does a good job encapsulating a lot of what I want to get across with this series, so let’s dive in!
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
