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.

Monday Magic #18

With new and improved employment secured on Saturday it was going to be considered a good weekend regardless. Was it topped off with a crushing 3 nil draft win?
No it was not, I think I had a good deck, but a combination of it not cooperating and some awful play on my behalf meant I went 1-2.

Annalise popped in prior to draft which is always nice and I picked up a Myr Battle Sphere for my cube. We finally got to meet Felipe as he managed to wrangle some free time on a Sunday so the spirits were warmer than the weather which was friggin awful.

I won the first round even though I drew my deck in all the wrong order thanks to multiple fireball effects. In round 2 I lost the decider through a  combination of bad play and a lack of lands. Later I kicked myself over some pretty awful side boarding. I purposely took Tears of Valakut and Aligned Hedron Network as great sideboard options over low end playables and then didn't bring them in for a match up they would have been great in. On board mistakes as well as spell order mistakes were disappointing. I haven't played that bad in a while.
No explanation for it but I just wasn't feeling "on". Round 3 were two non games with a mull to five and a mull to six which should have been five. The matchup wasn't that great to begin with. This really stood out as an abnormal amount of bad luck  for me because my % of non games (on my side) feels so low overall. It happens. If I had of won the second round I wouldn't have even had to play the last round as there would have been a split. So in a way that bad luck could have been avoided by me not punting the second round.
It's totally illogical to think like this but I guess it's a plus to use up the bad luck when I am playing badly anyway.

Next week the shop looks to be hosting a W50,000 original Zendikar draft. I plan on passing on that so a break will probably be good and allow me to come back more keen and focussed. So far only 4 have signed up and the person bringing the box wants a guaranteed 8. The Korean players don't seem interested as at W50,000 it's not good value if you are looking for cards and you are really paying for the experience. The kind of decks that I remember drafting in Zendikar were mainly very quick beat down decks or blue based control decks (that double bounce spell comes to mind). Nothing really special that I need to relive and I think MTGO represents better value for flashback drafts than the high price of real life boxes.
I am still enjoying Oath of the Gatewatch drafts so if that is the format I probably will make it out there.

Magic Monday #17 How does my Dictate

Pro tour Oath is in the books and the decision to ban Splinter Twin looks a bit silly. My super secret Faeries tech of Dictate of Erebos for the new post twin meta looks ridiculous now.
I don't feel upset about recent events as my over riding feelings are relief at getting out of Modern. I am not keeping up with that shit show.

From a spectators point of view it's been a while since we have seen pros actually "break" a format, it was kind of exciting. Eldrazi Mimic of all cards. None of the armchair finance experts predicted it and the secondary market went bananas as a result. I really enjoyed watching it up until LSV got knocked out in the semi finals. Nothing against the deck but the players left were quite methodical (polite for slow) so it was time to grab some sleep.

It will be interesting how this all plays out at the next bunch of GP's and right now I am enjoying all the previously bulk Eldrazi rares in my binder getting a massive boost. I also found a foil Eldrazi Sky Spawner I had stored in a box of otherwise bulk. Nice.

This has added a little bit more spice to our Oath of the Gatewatch drafts. I am enjoying the format but opening valuable cards is a lot of the attraction for most people and thrilling for everyone but those with the coldest of hearts. I am on a bit of a run of getting decent cards in either the draft or my prize packs. This week I took home the big boy Kozilek to go with my Kozileks Return from last week. Flavour win.

I drafter a red blue deck this week but didn't really go in for any surge shenanigans, instead focussing on value. My biggest mistake was thinking I was the beat down because I picked up cheap goblins pack one. It turned out I was instead the deck with inevitability and after losing round 1 I won the next two fairly easily. Much the same story as last week though that time I was playing green red.To be honest I really enjoy red in this (and most) formats so I was happy to get a first pick Fall of the Titans and not have to pretend I am not drafting red.

I also got to draft my cube last weekend. I judge it a success as people couldn't stop talking about their decks, what they drafted and what they wanted to draft. Powered cube is great in small doses and it had been a while. I skipped the trip to Kindle the other foreigners were going on. With most of my valuable cards sold my main motivation for going was gone. Playing two headed giant sealed sounded fun but it's just so far away.
I do want to get there again though, if just to approach Min Yeong about writing articles, proper ones like I wrote for Paper-Gamer not the rants I put here, for his new website. My contract runs out at the end of this month and a new one isn't secured so the next few weeks are full on and not the best time to start making more promises but once things settle down I want to take a crack at trying to be the "Korean Magic coverage guy".

Pay to Play: Not much to report, my Magic coffers are overflowing after selling out of modern and I haven't been tempted to spend on anything more than our weekly draft.

Magic Monday #16

Mission accomplished in regards to trimming down my collection. I sold pretty much all my Modern cards that weren't in my Faeries deck and some that were (bye bye 1 mana discard spells).
I sold it all for 65% of the Card kingdom value which I felt was pretty fair and am still happy with. I was previously aiming for 70 - 75% but one person offered to buy the entire binder and I was saved a trip to Seoul so I think giving a discount was fair enough.

I am not sure what he plans to do with the cards, I expect him to turn it over for a profit or it may form part of the stock when the Suwon store finally launches singles. Collected Company spiked the next day so hopefully he will do well out of the transaction. He is better connected to the Korean Magic community, I consider him a friend and the timing was fantastic for me and my family so I genuinely want this to be a win win transaction. I am in that sticky part of the year where I only have one month of my contract left and new employment hasn't been locked in yet. This deal was a couple weeks worth of wages for me so a nice breather.

My binder now looks really barren and it's questionable if it is worth taking at all. It's at the point where it's time to add expensive uncommons like Young Pyromancer and Gitaxian Probe to fill it out. I kind of suspect those may move quicker anyway.

I am really enjoying the new set even though I am kind of struggling with it. Not  results wise (2-1 each time) but it's just hard. So much going on but aggro is much better than it was in triple Battle so I am happier. I wouldn't touch an ally with a 40ft barge pole before but I have taken my fair share this time. I even drafted green and didn't want to shoot myself.

Monday Morning Magic #15 Coldsnap

Over winter I switch to a morning schedule with zero extra time in the office. Now that I am back in my very very cold office I feel like typing something if just to check that my fingers still have feeling in them.

Thanks to selling some Puca points I have nearly $100 credit in the theoretical bank that is my Magic allowance despite breaking down and buying a card for my cube (Treachery for $13). I think the $2 a day series is flawed because I already have a pretty big collection that I could use to pay for Magic for the next couple of years.

The recent Splinter Twin ban and my own situation (raising a kid with autism is expensive) have me looking at my collection in a different light. I love my cube, it's good to have a couple of EDH decks but what about Modern and Legacy. In Legacy I have the one dredge deck that I never get to play but have some weird compulsion to keep. Perhaps selling that only as a lot makes sense and not parting with the cards otherwise.

As for Modern, sigh. I only had the Splinter Twin deck together for a short time before it got hit with the ban hammer but I had fallen in love. Play style wise it felt very much like my favourite deck Faeries and with it's parting I'm a lot sourer on Modern. I am siding with keeping Faeries and selling the rest but what about that one Modern WMCQ a year I keep threatening to play in, don't I want a competitive deck for that?
Just typing that out has answered it for me. I don't need a great Modern deck. I only have time for draft and keeping all these extra modern staples is not necessary.

I plan to head to Kindle shop soon to really lighten my collection and restart the $2 a day challenge at $1 a day without a huge bank of spare cards backing me up. I have also enjoyed not taking my binder to events lately and taking the subway without a back pack. I do feel like I am giving up value if I leave my binder behind though, all those standard cards pulled from draft just sitting there. Off loading all the playables will be a load of my mind, an early spring cleaning if you will. The space my collection takes up seems to keep growing with each set so it's not far off the mark.

Magic wise I am enjoying the new set and Duels of the Planeswalkers (especially with the improvements to quests).