#mtgreprint

Well, we’re back with another episode of Far Wanderings! Where I talk about a certain format/topic/deck in the game, this week or two has all been about Modern Masters 2017-which I hoped many of you had the chance to open a box with your friends or just sit down at your local game store for a simple draft.

Well...MM17 was a blast! I wrote a small article back then with a slight tinge of ranting, in which I was disappointed about the lack of good reprints in the set when it is very close to it’s release date. With much fear among stores around the world dumping pre-order boxes of the set. Not only did MM17 prove me and many others wrong, it smashed through everyone’s biggest hopes and dreams, had an awesome draft environment and the box design was ~Amazing~. 

But first, how good was my box?

I did have a good chance to draft MM17, when a fellow lecturer of mine could get a box around SGD250(around USD178), a few of us decided to chip in seeing it was bought at a cheaper price. This was the “notable results” of our box:

The box overall was not as bad as I have though it would be, having hit both Goyf, Lili and Voice aside from the other jank mythics was extreme luck on the box’s part, I also pulled myself a foil Venser which was something I really wanted( besides Snapcaster of course :] ). However, the biggest letdown was 1 Fetch and the fact there were no Damnations, Blood Moons or even Goblin Guides. Considering that we bought the box for cheap, we still broke even and manage to keep the remaining rares, commons and uncommons for free.

Seeing other box openings though, especially on Youtube such as Alpha Investments, Boogie, Tolarian and many others have done. The whole topic on box openings seems to me like a big hit or miss. Some boxes can have 1 or 0 fetches, whereas others have all 5 fetches and 3 solid Mythics. Considering they all of them have opened at MSRP/Net Price, I would consider myself to be very lucky where I had someone who could pre-order for a considerably cheaper price.

The draft environment 

This is what I clearly like about this set, the fact that there is strong support pushing 2, 3 or 4 color draft archetypes. The fact that all 10 Signets, all 10 Guildgates as well as the 5 Tri-Lands from the Shards of Alara clearly is not only helpful support for the draft environment but also provides a strong welcome challenge towards draft, going 3 or more colors. Something which has not been open or encouraged to do in draft, is now possible and could very well be playable.

Some of the archetypes I felt were well supported, often could do better with the addition of a 3rd color, such examples would include:

UW Blink to Bant Blink (Thragtusk and Vital Splicer are strong additions together with Stoic Angel/Rhox War Monk)

BG Sacrifice to Jund Sacrifice (Holy crap Red/Jund offers some really strong value creatures that would LOVE to be sacrificed)

RG Aggro to Naya Aggro (Thornscape Battlemage gives more reach and GW provides all the beatdown any aggro fan would love in draft)

UB Control to Grixis Control (Not sure about you, but if you picked Cruel Ultimatum at any 1 point, changing the deck to Grixis Control is worth the try with access to Terminate, Falkenrath Aristocrat or even Sedraxis Specter)

If you really couldn’t have more fun drafting a strong 2 color archetype, the set is quite forgiving at giving players the reach they need for a 3 color manabase, at the same time providing more powerful options for their 3rd color.

I managed to draft twice, my first time trying out a spicy Jund aggro deck featuring Broodmate Dragon and Desecration Demon, my 2nd attempt however was UW Blink with 2 Vensers, Restoration Angel and Deadeye, together with an unruly crew of creatures having an ETB I could grab at that point.

Let’s talk about Rarity

Many would have known by now, a bunch of cards having their rarity downgraded, most possibly to allow an easier/much forgiving draft environment or to help Pauper out(Pauper players unite!). As me being quite a Pauper man at heart, I was extremely excited to see some cards finally getting a downshift to common. I’ll just make a small section of the top 5 MM17 Pauper Cards here.

#1: Burning-Tree Emissary

Everyone’s dream card that was in Pauper has finally finally printed as a common. Burning-Tree Emissary might finally be the final piece that Pauper Zoo or any RGx Shenanigans need. The 2 drop previously from Gatecrash is a very sick card, effectively a 2/2 for 0 that can follow up with a tempo play. Whether you decide to use the RG it produces for removal or another creature, Burning-Tree Emissary is one of those cards that is sure to shake up the Pauper metagame.

#2: Mortician Beetle

This little beetle got turned from Rare to Common :/ . Not something we see everyday in a reprint set but it seems to be another new toy for Pauper to play with. Pauper already has a BG Aristocrats/Sacrifice deck, that features Carrion Feeder, Bloodthrone Vampire and a bunch of other creatures that produce value when they die, Mortician Beetle not only fits perfectly in that deck, but it is scary with the already favored sac outlet/win-con Carrion Feeder, having 2 one-drops that are sure to grow big when the engine of the deck starts going makes GB  Aristocrats a deck to be reckoned with sometime in the future.

#3: Magma Jet

Magma Jet is probably one of my favorite red instants in the whole game, though cards like Lightning Strike and Searing Spear do 3 damage for the same cost. What has made Magma Jet an Uncommon all this while before MM17 was the fact that it had Scry 2. I could see this played in almost any Aggro shell, Burn or even a spicy UR Tempo build anytime soon. Overall, I’m very impressed with Wizards’s decision to push Magma Jet down to a common.

#4 Augur of Bolas

Augur of Bolas has only been printed 2 times, both at uncommon. With it now at common, control decks in Pauper finally look like they have a solid choice of dig in the form of a 2 drop. Augur will die to a bolt and any other removal, but it does provide a solid body early game. Generating card advantage for 2 mana is quite strong at any stage of the game. Thumbs up to Wizards again :)

#5 Dinvora Horror

Instead of playing the Chittering Rats/Archaeomancer combo in UB control, that deck sure has a new toy to play with. It sure is large and really reminds me of Capsize. Dinvora Horror is more than Capsize though, being a 4/4 for 6 isn’t really amazing but the fact that blinking it multiple times is ridiculously powerful. This might be a very big piece of the UB control deck already smashing results in the Pauper meta or it could also give rise to UBx control decks in the format. I was definitely not expecting this to show up in the set at common but I’m quite happy it is!

There were a bunch of other cards that were downshifted in rarity too, making the draft environment more exciting and the cards themselves easier to get as well as making them legal in certain formats/cubes. A few of the noteworthy ones include:

Placing Obzedat at Rare is pretty rude though >_<

A score for the set?

Every set needs a rating, I really find it hard to put a fair score on MM17 though. I did enjoy the set very much, the reprints and draft environment were very well designed by R&D team, for this, I feel we have to compare this to...

The Original!

Modern Masters 2013 probably has a special place in everyone’s hearts, the set was just sick. Like literally sick, it was filled with raw power at every level of rarity, the reprints were awesome and the set in today’s standards is brimming, if not overflowing with value~.

Modern Masters 2017 was good, wayyy better than 2015′s and slightly edging over Eternal Masters if I say so myself. It was a very special set with meaningful reprints and strong color support in draft. I would say it’s quite close to the original but not really what the original Modern Masters would bring. Overall, it was a solid set that definitely took many people by surprise. We will never know when we will see cards like these getting reprinted again:

I guess the reprints really speak for the set :D

Conclusion

I do believe that MM17 deserves to be one of the higher, more respected Masters sets in time to come, Wizards really put the ace in the hole on this one, fair credit to them. With the increasing prices of cards, I do believe MM17 is helping the playerbase in one way or another, which is clearly what the community wants. If Wizards could keep such a trend with their upcoming sets, I’m sure much good is sure to come for most formats. Until next time! 

Spoiler season for Amonkhet has officially started, which probably brings the speculators, fan-fiction writers and that rookie player who goes to the store every Friday something to look forward to. Spoiler seasons is normally a very busy time for different groups of people, some would pay more particular attention to the spoilers with a varying levels of hype, while others like me are more laidback-not too interested in Standard and slowly sifting through MagicSpoiler.com/MythicSpoiler.com for potential EDH cards. 

For today’s article of Amonkhet however, with the whole set not fully spoiled, I’ll like to talk about Amonkhet’s Expeditions..I mean Inventions...no wait...ahh..they’re called Invocations!

In case you haven’t been catching up with the spoilers, these are the “Masterpiece” series of Amonkhet, otherwise known as Invocations!

Now the first thing that might come to mind after seeing these would be:

Or....

Now before the masses mention how bad they look, the horrible font or the fact that the Masterpieces look like Yugioh trading cards. But aside from the visual aesthetics of the cards, these are still Masterpieces of the set. However, they look bad. Art-wise, 10/10, design-wise? Probably a 2.

Straight off the bat, you might’ve thought that today’s article is about flaming Wizards for their poor choice of design in terms of the visual/readability aspect of Invocations. However, I’ll like to highlight another issue I feel needs to be addressed, and that is the choices of cards being placed as an Invocation

Right now, here is the color pie for all Invocations excluding the 5 new Gods:

In this very simple color pie I’ve made up, there already is an obvious problem..

If your answer was “No Green?”. 10 points to a fellow reader like you! I don’t think that either Expeditions nor Inventions had a biased spread of reprinted cards like these, the only actual Invocation with a green symbol on it is Maelstrom Pulse. Aside from having no Green cards as Invocations, I’ll like to highlight almost half of the cards from this collection is Blue, seriously?

I can see why some people are not happy with the Invocations, it lacks diversity, and most of the chase cards are in Blue. Featuring 2 of the best Counterspells ever made as well as a host of other hard to find/staples in various formats.

Invocations grouped by usability of each format:

Modern Staples: 7

Legacy Staples: 9

EDH Staples: 8

To make things fair, some cards do see popular play in more than 1 format, thus I have added them to 2 formats for same cases.

As you can see, most of the Invocations are slightly leaning towards Legacy, a good attempt by Wizards to attract die-hard collectors to pimp their decks. But when you take a closer look at the “chase” Invocations...

The top 5 most expensive Invocations at the time of this writing

To start off, I might be a big fan of Blue, but what the actual hell. Firstly, more blue cards were printed, to the point where there were no remaining slots for Green. Secondly, again, these blue cards, including those not shown(Counterbalance, Divert, Stifle, Consecrated Sphinx). If you compare to the other colors, it seems Invocations were a straight up Pimp-Reprint for Magic’s best counterspells. 

It’s rather bittersweet for me, seeing that a lot of strong reprints are in Blue, but much of the value has been diluted. I believe this would make belief that most players would want to open a Blue Invocation, meaning a higher chance to open something more valuable when compared to an Invocation of any other color. Of course, I feel this is a design error by Wizards, they could’ve removed 2 Blue cards which I deem unnecessary and probably place 2 Green cards in their place.

Conclusion

I think the Invocations as a small collection deemed premium to players, has received the proper praise/credit it deserves, aside from the argument where the visual aspects were poor and that Wizards were very biased, causing aggressive reprints in Blue. Overall, I do hope Wizards would give the other colors a chance in Hour of Devastation’s Invocations. Until next time, good luck and enjoy your Amonkhet Spoiler Season!

Woah Woah Woah! 2 articles in 3 days? Flippin bananas what is exactly going on?!

Before we all go too crazy, I’ll like to mention this is a quick article from me, as I’m writing this there is a small but marginally growing problem I feel that I wanted to talk about. And that is Modern Masters 2017.

Straight into the issue

At the time of me writing this article, it is exactly 28 days to the release of Modern Masters 2017.

I shall mention this with a very heavy heart: “I have never seen so little hype for any Masters set”. Period. The hype for Modern Masters 2017 is so bad, a lot of things are happening around us that players do not normally see. You might ask, “What exactly is wrong with this set? The cards have not been spoiled.” - exactly! We are just under a month away to the actual launch of a Masters Set, a one and only unique, premium, posh, high-standards and high hopes set, that finds a place into most player’s wishlist and no cards have been spoiled/announced by Wizards for the set.

It is disappointing really. No, I’m not disappointed because there are no spoiled cards, but the secondary market is not reacting the way it should be. After some quick reads on Reddit. Many stores across the USA are dumping preorder boxes of Modern Masters 2017, yes you heard it right, stores are dumping boxes of Modern Masters 2017, for 10-15% of original MSRP pricing set by Wizards! This is probably the only time I’ve heard such a case has happened for any sort of Masters set. Back in 2013, when the original Modern Masters came out, boxes were healthy in terms of pricing, around low $200s which maintained it’s pricing despite Wizards releasing another small wave of them to the market. 2 years later, Wizards released Modern Masters 2015, placed the set alongside a couple of huge Modern GP’s alongside it just to made sure it would sell out, the set would later release criticism, on it’s atrociously bad Rare, Uncommon and Common slots as well as the disastrous pack material that was used to “save the environment” somehow managed to scam many many people’s money, by just selling them “searched” packs. 

State of Modern

Not exactly the actual state of Modern’s meta-game, but the state where how the market will react to the release of the set. I’ll also break down the state of Modern’s playability after that release of that Modern Masters set as well as the cards included, sealed environment, Wizards’s marketing, etc...

Modern Masters 2013

Hailed as probably the best Masters set of all time. The very inception of Masters set itself was at a time where Wizards wanted to promote Modern as a new, safe and strong eternal format. All at the same time being a good alternative for Legacy. The set was filled with an outrageous, and I mean holy cow! The mythic slots were crazy, the rares were what people wanted, the commons and uncommons were flipping people off. It seemed like a set that just wanted to focus on value, both from a playability and monetary standpoint. Wizards did feed the market and the playerbase well with this set, the original pricing and quantity was reasonable enough for many players to get their hands on a box or even a couple of packs for draft. Even a few months later after the release of the set, Wizards printed a 2nd wave, smaller than the 1st wave of boxes but was much appreciated by most of the market and the playerbase alike. Today, box prices are high due to the amount of power and staples included in the set, cards of all rarities are sought after in the set as well as players cracking open a box or too for it’s flavorful, simple yet powerful draft environment. Rating: 9/10

Modern Masters 2015

Many players have a complicated love-hate relationship with this set, Modern Masters 2015 was released for what I believed was the time when Modern was at it’s very zenith. Players were enjoying having Modern in Pro Tours, more players were investing into the format, prices were still quite stable at that time. When the set was officially released, Wizards hosted 3 GP’s dedicated to Modern and the set’s sealed events. Many players were thrilled and it just took off from there on to be honest. Prices were stable and though some slots for rares, uncommons and commons seemed like an oddity, the set still sold well to the playerbase and secondary market. It was only just a few months later, a turning point in which I felt changed Modern forever. Splinter Twin, one of Modern’s biggest decks got banned from the format, an announcement from Wizards that shook the Modern community and took them by surprise. The meta-game changed to aggro’s favor and then came the Eldrazi Winter, which crushed Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch and again left Modern in a state of shock. Shortly after, Wizards officially decided to push Modern out of the Pro Tour, indicating a sign that the format was no longer in Wizard’s fullest attention. All of this happened in a flash, nobody expected a rising format to crush so soon, Modern will then go into a “slumber” and would now be seen as a solved format to a few. In terms of sealed, Modern Masters 2015 did quite well, it’s biggest letdown however was the inclusion of a few “oddities”, causing it to lose out to the original Modern Masters. Rating:5/10

How bad it seems

So bad, a box theme/design has not even been spoiled. Guess we’ll stick to an actual black box.

In terms of the spread of sets included in Modern Masters 2017, the picture above mentions: “Representing everything from 8th Edition through Magic 2014–including trips through Innistrad and Return to Ravnica” Now here are the possible predictions many have been speaking of:

No Shocklands - the market will go tank-town 

Lili and Snap at Mythic

Usual Goyf/Clique/Bob/Cryptic reprint 

Comet Storm will be reprinted in the jank mythic slot (no one can take Lord Comet Storm’s place)

Pushing that out of the way is the biggest, burning question in my mind - “Can Wizards really really really make Modern Masters great again?”. Answer is, it’s gonna be pretty hard to do so.

I don’t think the 5 cards mentioned above will be guaranteed reprints, I’m not even talking about the Zendikar fetchlands here, just showing examples of staples in Modern. To go on with this rant of mine, I’ll just make a list of cards I feel needs reprinting

Arcbound Ravager

Mox Opal

Steel Overseer

Glimmervoid

Inkmoth Nexus

Blood Moon

Path to Exile

Thoughtseize

Voice of Resurgence 

Fulminator Mage

Stony Silence

Lightning Bolt

Goblin Guide

Tron Lands

Karn

Ugin

Mishra’s Bauble

Kitchen Finks

Scapeshift

Through the Breach

Goryo’s Vengeance

Ancestral Vision

Pact of Negation

Bloodghast

Celestial Colonnade 

Auriok Champion

Remand 

Surgical Extraction

Ancient Stirrings

You see what I mean?

It is a guarantee that Wizards cannot make everyone happy, but desperate times really call for desperate measures. I feel it’s time for Wizards to get their act together and try to make Modern Masters 2017 just like the very first one. One that many players remember and have high respect for even today, the state of Modern in terms of playability and monetary value is just too high for many players to afford, combine that with the fact it’s rather “solved” is really a shame.

Writing it off dreadfully...

All we can pretty much do is hope Wizards will learn their mistakes from Modern Masters 2015 and the small print run of Eternal Masters. The spoilers have not rolled in yet, but there is a small talk going round the community this is the set in which Wizards will save Modern from falling into it’s bigger brother Legacy. Until next time, do keep following up on the articles, follow the blog and keep up with the spoilers! Goodbye and have a great weekend ahead!