All New Pay to Play Challenge.

My last Pay to Play challenge sort of petered out when I sold a huge chunk of my collection for enough money to draft for a couple of years. There was also the fear I would soon stop playing paper Magic much as attendance numbers were falling hard in Suwon and I didn't have the motivation to travel further. It was the 'Eldrazi Winter' and I think that block is going to be looked back on in a pretty poor light despite Marshall and LSV continuously defending it on Limited Resources.
With Shadows over Innistrad those problems look gone for the time being. I expect the set to be really popular as I know I am excited.

Now that things have settled down and I have a bit of time to myself it's time to restart it. I wanted it to be a fair reflection of how much it costs to play Magic and what you get for your money. This is not pack to power where I am trying to game the system and end up with a tier one deck in each format for only 10c a day or some rubbish. Just an average player whose only advantage over a newer player is experience.

Starting from April 1st (that's today) I will track how much I spend, how much I get back from any sales (not counting my cards from prior to Shadows)  and how many days it has been. I will also keep track of how many rounds I played as some sort of crude measure of "bang for your buck". To start with I have a deck box, an empty card portfolio and some sleeves which have seen better days.
I have a couple of other portfolios (conveniently coloured differently) with older cards but those transactions will be kept separate.

Total $ Spent: 0
Total $ Recouped; 0
Balance: 0
Total Rounds of Magic played: 0
Days: 0
Avg cost per day to play:  0

Bye bye Zendikar

The return to Zendikar is over and it seems I am not alone in being happy about that. I would say it was an interesting set with a lot of things to think about, but interesting doesn't always equate to fun.
Attendance was down and there were some real flaws in both sets design.
It's actually felt like a pretty mediocre year and a bit of Magic as everything has been significantly less fun to play than triple Khans.

The final two weeks of Oath//Battle draft did not fire at my store and I wasn't bothered. We played EDH one week and I was fine with doing that instead. EDH!!!
The EDH games were a little bit excruciating though as one of the players was new to the format and was very slow. You quickly learn that you shouldn't perform your operations the same as you would in a duel but he hadn't realised that so still made us wait while he searched for a card and then he passed the turn. Shortcuts like "I'm fetching a forest, go" are essential to keep the game moving as is thinking about what you are going to do on your turn BEFORE it starts. The going into the tank on upkeep is infuriating.
I don't like it in regular Magic but when 4 other people are waiting, sigh.

All that glumness is set to get blasted away by positivity though because I am super excited about the new set. So much so I plan to make the effort to attend the midnight pre release event.
Duels of the Planeswalkers has the Shadows over Innistrad expansion scheduled to hit on April 6th which is pretty soon. I have some coins in the bank and plan to take my time scaling the ladder this time while experimenting with some new Innistrad themed decks. 

Monday Magic #19

While I have been enjoying Duels of the Planeswalkers and the increased payouts for both quests and PVP play, for actual play with real cards i'm not quite feeling the 'Magic'. I don't know why, it's probably just mental tiredness as I'm happy but busy an with plenty of mental stimulation at work each day. As opposed to my last job where it was pretty dreary and days seemed to take forever.

I missed playing Magic the week before and hardly felt it and only went this week because I had other stuff to do in Suwon that day. I did really enjoy it while I was there even though I did poorly (1-2). I had a lot more fun going 1-2 than I did a couple of weeks ago when I went 3-0. I don't think I need to get great results to have fun but if I am not enjoying the set then I usually don't get very good results.

As always with Magic a new set is coming and that is always a shot in the arm. I do agree with another local player who voiced some reservations about the current R&D team. Recent sets have been pretty mediocre. I guess Khan's might have spoiled us but I feel disappointed to be stuck with worse sets for an entire year. It hasn't been awful and I like Origins but it hasn't been great either. A very forgettable year for Limited overall.

Between Conspiracy 2, Innistrad and Eternal Masters surely there will be a good one. Hopefully its not Eternal Maters because that's going to be a hard to find $50 draft.