Saturday, May 30, 2020

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (May 2020)



Another month, another round of updates to the average Karn, Silver Golem deck from EDHREC.

For the average Karn deck, there weren't many changes this month. The number of decks in the database increased from 241 last month to 259 this month. The only card that changed was Mage-Ring Network out and Bonders' Enclave in. It's relatively easy to meet the requirement on Bonders' Enclave and it draws a card at a reasonable rate. Mage-Ring Network was a short-lived change. Cost comparisons are still challenged due to the pandemic, but the overall cost of the deck increased from $604.03 last month to a whopping $732.56 this month. I expect prices to normalize once TCGPlayer begins aggregating cards again.

OUT                                                    IN


A note about the "cheap" version of the average deck. The sample size continues to be too small for the card changes to make sense. For this update and future updates, I'll be looking at the full average deck including all decks in the database for Karn, Silver Golem.

Friday, May 29, 2020

The Truth About Ultra-Pro Binders for MTG Card Storage





This is something I've been wanting to do for a while. I just have stacks of cards sitting around and I wanted to keep them more organized. I converted a Pelican case to store cards, but it's difficult to flip through and see the cards. Enter the binder.

My experience with binders from literally 25 years ago was that cards would get all screwed up. They would get bent. Or the rings would make indentations in them. It was bad. I've always kept my cards in boxes.

Over the years, they started making binders that have no rings. They are more like old CD cases, with individual lined pockets for the cards welded to a stiff cover. It looks like this inside.


The one downside I've read about binders like this is that they don't stay closed or lay flat. To counteract this, the manufacturer added a strap (or band) that keeps it closed. Here's a picture of it with the binder empty.


The strap is tight and keeps the binder closed. That's good. But there's a concern that when the binder is full of cards, the tight strap will bend the cards along the edges. There's probably some truth to this. Since I'm not using the binders to transport cards, only to organize and store them, I'm not using the straps to keep the binders closed.

But here's what it looks like with with a full binder. It doesn't look as extreme as I've seen in other pictures. You could probably stretch out the band and still use it to keep the binder closed without bending the cards.


Loading the binder is simple. The pockets are open on the sides (not the top) and are open to the "middle" of the page. In other words, cards on the left load from the right and cards on the right load from the left. Got it? Okay.




I am using 4-pocket binders because I mostly have play sets of four cards, I think it looks neat like this, and the smaller binders fit in my storage system.



It was relatively quick to organize my Old School cards into the binders. The binders hold 160 cards each and I only have about 400 cards in my Old School collection, so three binders did the trick with room to spare. One of the things I like about the Old School format is that I can have a focused collection. If you have a larger collection, I could see the benefit of getting one binder for each color plus one for lands and one for artifacts.

When the binder is full, it's full. You could technically fit more than one card in a single (individual) pocket, but I don't think the binder would even close if you loaded it up that way. All of my cards are double-sleeved and there's plenty of room in each pocket.

The build quality seems fine. The price is good. It does exactly what it is supposed to do. Watch out for the tight strap if you think it will bend your cards. Flipping through it feels like looking through a spell book. :)







Old School MTG: Red Atog Shops




I did it. Red is the last color in the series of decks that I'm building with an artifacts-focused theme. It was a blast to build all of these decks! But don't worry, I've got some other deckbuilding ideas planned for the rest of the year.

As I continue to take advantage of webcam games with Ben during the "stay home" order, I took this deck for a spin against his mono-black deck and his UW control/aggro deck. The games were quick! In one game I cast Wheel of Fortune into an Underworld Dreams hoping to draw one of my burn spells for the win. Spoiler alert: I didn't draw the burn spell. In another game I destroyed his Serra Angel with Chaos Orb and his Savannah Lions with my Falling Star on the same turn! That's two dexterity cards for those of you who are counting. The dex cards add a wonderful and whimsical element to the game.


Here's a picture of me attacking with a Shivan Dragon!


Here's a broken turn 1 Triskelion off Misrha's Workshop and Black Lotus, the way Richard Garfield intended. How cool is it that in Old School one of the most degenerate openers (6 mana on turn 1) results in a 4/4 robot with upside?


The broken triple Black Vise play. If only I could draw a Wheel of Fortune!

This deckbuilding project has been fun. I'm looking forward to being able to get together to sling some spells in person soon.



Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Old School MTG: Mono-Blue TwiddleVault Shops (All the Turns)


I'm still working through all the colors to build an artifacts-focused deck for each one. For blue, I knew I wanted to use Twiddle. There are so many cool tricks you can do with Twiddle! Not the least of which is to untap Time Vault.

Okay, here's the thing. I want to say this right now. I have no problem with combo decks. I don't have a problem with people who play combo. I don't have a problem playing against combo.

Right.

With that out of the way, actually playing with a combo deck only sort of feels like playing Magic. Basically, you do stuff for a couple of turns and for the most part it doesn't matter what your opponent is doing and then you win (or lose).

My goal for this deck was to beat down with robots, but to use the Time Vault and Twiddle combo to give the deck some oomph. I liked the idea of getting in an extra attack when the opponent wasn't expecting it. What I did not expect was to simply take all the turns that easily.

There isn't one Old School format. There are several different groups that have slightly different restricted lists. The differences really start to show with the Twiddle Vault deck. In all of the major groups, Twiddle is unrestricted. But in some of the groups, Recall and Time Vault are restricted.



For those of you who have not seen the combo, it goes like this: Time Vault comes into play tapped. Use Twiddle to untap it. Tap Time Vault to take another turn. Use Recall to get Twiddle back into your hand. Continue to take turns until you find a win condition. Win.



You are exiling Recall as you go, but it's common to end up Recalling 2-3 Twiddles back to your hand a couple of times and that's a lot of extra turns to figure out a way to win. If you have a Timetwister and run out of Recalls, you can always cast that and hope to draw more Twiddles to keep the party going. Even just a Feldon's Cane is probably enough for the small percentage of time that you would run out of cards without being able to win for some reason.

I am playing Pacific Old School rules which allows only one Time Vault but four Recall. Even without multiple copies of Time Vault (or other obviously broken cards like Black Lotus, Time Walk, or Timetwister), this deck is still bonkers in how easily it strings together a fantastic number of turns.



Usually this is an all-in combo deck with Fireball for the win-con. It runs all five colors for all the restricted cards. It usually runs a Mana Short and/or Power Sink to help set up the turn where your opponent is tapped out and cannot interact with your combo. It usually runs multiple Transmute Artifact to get the Time Vault quickly.

This version of the deck isn't doing any of those things and it still takes all the turns. I can only imagine playing a version with multiple Time Vaults (Atlantic / Swedish)!

I goldfished quite a few times with this to get the hang of it. That seemed fine. But it got crazy when I actually played with it.


We were just playing around for fun at home. I think she got two or three turns in before I took all the turns and won with a combination of Triskelion beats and the Rocket Launcher. The combo was new for the family, so it was fun to demonstrate. Then we swapped decks.


This time I got beat with good old-fashioned robots and Copy Artifact.

We played at least one more time and the combo was readily available and took all the turns.

All the turns.

Playing a combo deck like this is not my jam. That wasn't even my plan. Even just taking a few turns in a row and then passing back creates a massive advantage. Depending on which Old School format they use where you play, if you have access to four copies of Recall it's probably difficult to avoid the combo.




Thursday, May 21, 2020

Old School MTG: Titania's Green Shops



I'm on a quest to build an artifacts-focused deck in each color this year. With white and black behind me, green is up next. Green is a tricky color to make work in an artifact-focused deck. There are plenty of good green cards that can work in a deck that also has artifacts, but finding a card that supports the artifacts is the trick. The other colors have something obvious that interacts favorably with artifacts. For green, I decided on Titania's Song.



Since the Song turns non-creature artifacts into creatures, higher casting cost artifacts can come out of nowhere and start the beat down. Moxes die due to the zero casting cost, though. That's not great to be on the receiving end of, but at least it's symmetrical. The Song let me work in some artifacts that otherwise aren't that great but that can turn into huge surprise robots.

What's better than a robot? A surprise robot.



I decided to also work Millstone into the deck. Millstone interacts favorably with Sylvan Library and can be turned on the opponent depending on how the game develops. The trick of putting back two card you don't want with the Sylvan and then milling yourself to take a look at three new cards on your turn is powerful when it works.

Ben gives me the thumbs up as he throws creatures at me for the win. Millstone beatdown?


I played a few games against Ben via webcam. He brewed up a few new decks that put me in the dirt. It wasn't close. There was one game where he had triple Lightning Bolt + Chain Lightning to take me from 12 to 0 in one turn. I might have been able to turn the corner in that game, but the burn would have caught up with me a turn later either way.

Not a bad turn 2 after she used Strip Mine to take care of my other Island!
I also played some games at home with the family. We switched decks around as we played, which was fun to see it working from the other side of the table. The deck might need one more Mirror Universe to buy time. It creates a fun mini-game against aggressive decks. During one game where I was playing against this deck, I got mirror-swapped and killed with Hurricane. That was fun!


The green deck using Titania's Song to animate artifacts is fun. It's not going to light up the tournament scene any time soon, but where else are you going to get to attack with a 10/10 Aladdin's Lamp?

Friday, May 15, 2020

Erasing Gamer Grime from Magic the Gathering Cards


Do you have white-bordered cards that look dingy? Are they covered with grime? Yeah, me too. There's something completely obvious that I've been wanting to try for a while, but never got around to it. Today was the day. I used an eraser on some cards to clean them up.

Here are before and after pictures of the process. I used Revised Hypnotic Specters that I've had in my collection for, well, since Revised came out. They look okay, but dirty.

I used a soft eraser. This is not a normal pencil eraser. I got it from an art kit. It's soft and doesn't crumble. It feels like plastic or clay. It's the "Hi-Polymer Eraser" made by Pentel. It claims to be non-abrasive and latex free. So, there's that.


Here are the cards before I started on them with the eraser. This is the infamous "before" picture.


Here's a close-up before picture of the card on the left, the one in the worst condition.


It's dirty around the edges. This is from a combination of shuffling it without a sleeve and "gamer grime." You know about gamer grime. It's the stuff that collects on your hands from food and drinks and sweat. It's on the tables at your LGS that never get cleaned. It slowly transfers to your cards and builds up over time. Eventually, it starts to look like your cards have black spots. This is more obvious on white-bordered cards, but it's happening to your black-bordered cards too.

Here is the same card after erasing around the border the first time. I only used the eraser on the border, quickly going up and down using short motions, turning the card so that the angle of my hand and the eraser stayed the same on each border. The eraser is soft enough that it didn't feel like it was doing anything, but check this out.


The card is immediately whiter and there are less black spots around the border. This might be difficult to see in the pictures, but it was obvious in the normal light. So, I hit it with the eraser again. Same technique. It looked like this.


Not all that different this time. So, I used my fingernail and lightly went over the edges to see if the remaining black spots were stuck there or if the eraser just didn't have enough oomph to get them off. After that, I erased the borders again. it looked like this.


Almost all of the black spots are gone. The corners still look dirty and there are a few black spots left. As best as I can tell, they are in little pits or grooves in the surface of the card. It's likely possible to remove these as well if you had a small enough tool. I felt like it was an improvement, so I did the same to the rest of the cards. They were already in better condition than this one was to start, so I expected similar results.


These are the same cards in the same order. This is the infamous "after" picture. The card borders are brighter, whiter, and have less black spots and grime on them. The card that was in the worst condition (on the left) looks much better but still a bit yellow compared to the others. Better than it was though. Here's a rough before and after comparison.



The before picture is on the left. The border is noticeably darker and filthy with gamer grime. The after picture is on the right. The border is noticeably whiter and nearly gamer grime free. Same card after about two minutes of erasing.

If you do this to your precious cards, start with cards you won't be heartbroken over if something bad happens. The eraser I used was super gentle. Start there and see if you like the results. If you figure out a way to clean up the corners, let me know. Good luck!









Friday, May 8, 2020

Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem (April 2020)





Here's the April 2020 update for the Average Commander project. I'm focused on Karn, Silver Golem. The last update contained notes for Kozilek, the Great Distortion, but that deck barely moves and I'm digging robots right now.

As always, these are the average decks on EDHREC in both the budget (cheap) and budget (normal) configurations. I haven't been tracking the budget (expensive) configuration. These updates are comparing the cards that changed on average from one month to the next.




Karn, Silver Golem (Average Budget Deck)
There was a net increase of 13 decks in the database for Karn, with only two card changes. On average, players swapped out Wurmcoil Engine for Meteor Golem. Those two cards have bounced between each other over the past few months. The Golem makes an immediate impact (ha, see what I did there?) and (nearly always) handles the biggest problem. The other swap players made on average was to take out Scavenger Grounds for Mage-Ring Network. Perhaps Scavenger Grounds isn't doing enough to combat graveyard-based strategies and the ramp offered by Mage-Ring Network is more important. Due to the pandemic crisis, getting a consistent cost comparison between the periods is difficult. The average price of the deck increased from $563.03 to $604.03 on the day I measured it.

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Karn, Silver Golem (Cheap Budget Deck)
There was a net increase of 2 deck in the database in this category. Arcbound Crusher is back, swapping for Salvager of Ruin. Magnifying Glass came out for Planar Bridge. In a deck that is almost all permanents and makes a ton of mana, paying a total of 6 mana to investigate+sac to draw a card vs 8 mana to tutor a card directly onto the battlefield is a reasonable upgrade. Swiftfoot Boots swapped back in for Brittle Effigy, which it has been doing all year. As for land changes, Sea Gate Wreckage came out for Karn's Bastion. Also a Wastes came out for Urza's Mine. Without the other two Urza lands, this swap doesn't make any sense. I'm chocking it up to a small sample size. Again, price comparisons are inconsistent due to the pandemic, but the price for this deck changed from $101.82 to $92.41 on the day that I measured it.

        OUT                                                        IN