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.
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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!
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So last week was originally intended to be sort of a “Week 1 Winners and Losers” bit, along the lines of what I have done in the past. That piece didn’t go up due to scheduling complications courtesy of Hurricane Matthew- fast-forward to THIS week, where the Pro Tour is starting on my USUAL publishing day. What I have decided to do is include the parts of last week’s piece that are still relevant (updating where necessary), while including my PT expectations as well.
Obligatory “Blue Hurricane” insert.
LOSER: CHANDRA, TORCH OF DEFIANCE: Chandra was almost inevitably going to be branded as a bust coming out of the gate. It is nearly impossible for a planeswalker to perform well enough to justify a $60 price tag in a new format, and Chandra’s intangibles (RR casting cost, the fact that she’s red at all) only made that harder. Of the mono red planeswalkers, Koth of the Hammer probably had the best career; all of the others were gadget roleplayers at best (Sarkhan Dragonspeaker falls somewhere in the middle). I’m not sure where Chandra’s home is, in the sense that she doesn’t seem to play any singular role exceptionally well. Ignoring Jace, the Mind Sculptor, all of the best planeswalkers can be slotted into fairly definitive roles- Liliana of the Veil is the Pox/grindy attrition planeswalker, Ajani Vengeant is the Zoo topper, Nahiri (the good one) fit perfectly into Modern Jeskai control strategies. If Chandra is able to have a dominant weekend at the Pro Tour (multiple 4x decks in the Top 8, including some camera time in the finals), then its possible that the price bounces back. More likely, however, is that Masterpieces continue to exert downward pressure on rares and mythics, and Chandra eventually bottoms out somewhere around $18-22. At this point, the only thing keeping her up is SCG not wanting to drop the price from 60 to 30 so quickly.
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Welcome back to the second half of my Standard Kaladesh review. I actually may have saved a bit TOO much for today, so we REALLY gotta get started. You can find last week’s installment here.
