Fancy vs. Expensive

From way back, I've always liked foreign and signed versions of cards. Well, foreign to me anyway. Before "foils" were a thing, I was collecting cards that were different from the cards you might crack in a pack here at home. It was the early days of trading online and I got burned a few times, but I still have cards in my collection that I look back on and remember getting.

As the Commander format started to gain steam, it became apparent that I am not the only one in the world who approached card collecting this way. Lots of people online post montages of the decks they bring to the table. It's not just a list of cards. The actual cardboard matters because the cards themselves are special in some way.




They call this "pimping" your deck.

Let me explain where I think that term comes from. There was a period of time where men who I presume were actual pimps dressed in outlandish ways, showing off their style and flaunting their wealth. The idea of showing off in that particular way was linked to the term "pimping." That term had (and continues to have) a separate connotation that is confusing in this context. But, there is it.

The morphology of the term went something like this, I'm guessing:

• That guy is all dressed up, super fancy. He's a pimp.
• That fur coat is something a pimp would wear. It's pimp.
• Your car is ugly. I will pimp it by making it look outrageously awesome.

And, there you go. Replacing all of the boring non-foil cards in your deck with foils makes it pimp. Ergo, you are pimping your deck. (Yo dawg, I heard you like foilz. Thanks Xzibit!)



Loaning your deck out for others to use (for a price) would be more in line with the other use of the word. But, I digress.

Where was I? Oh yes, fancy vs. expensive. There are cards that are just flat out expensive. Moat, for example, is perfectly legal in Commander and is worth over $300. The Tabernacle and Pendrell Vale is another perfectly legal card that is worth upwards of $500. Both of these cards are covered by the official reprint policy. In other words, unless you happen to have one of these cards in your collection already, or you are rich, or you find one at a garage sale, the chances that you will run out and buy a single card for a price that doubles most of the decks you'll face at the table is slim.



Moat and Tabernacle are certainly fancy, but they are also expensive. When you field cards like this, your opponents have no chance of picking up on your strategies and running with them. A friend of mine put up a post that he was looking to sell his Underground Sea playset. Someone else posted that they would be willing to pay $270 for one. I thought he was joking. My friend countered with $300. Per card. I just about fell out of my chair.



If you play Magic competitively or you have $300 laying around, there is no doubt that Underground Sea is the best at what it does. But, it is also a single card that is worth about as much as many of the decks I run into at my friendly local gaming store. I have Underground Seas in my collection because I've always had Underground Seas in my collection. But, it just doesn't sit right with me to throw them onto the table in a casual game of Commander.



On the other hand, I have tons of foils and promo cards in my mono-black deck. Most of the cards are foreign. My commander, Sheoldred, is foreign and foil and promo. It's super fancy. However - and this is the point - if someone liked my deck or strategy, they could run with it by using the regular copy of Sheoldred. It works exactly the same as a non-foil, non-promo, non-foreign card.

Want a more obvious comparison?

My mono-black deck runs all full art swamps from the Unhinged set. They are trading for about $9 each. I have 30 of them in the deck. They look awesome. I've had them forever. Although it makes my deck look fancy, a normal swamp from any of the recent sets that isn't worth the cardboard it is printed on does the exact same thing. It's not like my fancy Unhinged swamps tap for 1.15 mana. They don't do anything special in the game except look dead sexy on the table.



The Commander format is becoming more popular. That's awesome. I love having new people to play with. But with this popularity, the price for some cards is skyrocketing. I get it. I would never sell my original dual lands unless there was a serious emergency and I needed cash. Lots of people are probably like me, so the price goes up. There's a lesson about supply and demand in here somewhere. But, some of these cards are so strong that it's almost like the people who have them aren't playing the same game as the people who don't.

I've played a few games with my old cards. Invariably, someone who is relatively new to the game will say something like, "That card is awesome!" Then, someone else will say, "Yeah, it's also $500." To which they will reply with, "Oh." I lose at that point even if I win the game.

I lose because there is nowhere to go from there. How many times does a new player run into this situation, decide that they will never be able to afford those cards, never be able to complete, and quit the format? Even if it's not true that you need those cards to compete, I bet it happens. And when it does happen, we all lose.