[Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 07/13/2020)

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cfusionpm
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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Which also ties directly to my sentiments of loss. I can neither get invested in Snow for fear of its removal, nor can I consign it to an obvious and eventual ban. It lives in perpetual limbo until WOTC decides it's a problem.
I feel like snow is fine. I would be lying if I said I thought it was a well designed mechanic, because it's not. But, for the moment I don't think it's a shell that is broken on it's own. The problem in my opinion is that it amps up every other shell out there. We had Urza+Thopter/Sword+Emry/Engineer+Snow in a dominant deck. Uro+Snow, Oko+Snow.

It doesn't do much that's tangibly broken, but it does something that plays into most decks game plans, and slides almost effortlessly into any sort of midrange or control deck. It's a subtle effect and makes existing shells stronger. Whether that's ban worthy or if it's the things that are being enabled and will get overpowered again at some point that should be banned is the bigger question in my mind. For what it's worth I'm firmly on the ban Uro bandwagon, not ban Snow.
Either way, that still paints the same Schrodinger's Ban onto Bant Snow. A picture that doesn't really inspire me to spend several hundred dollars on paper Uros and green lands.

I made a joke a while back that there's no use buying *any* deck in paper right now (much less one as precarious as Bant Snow) since it's unlikely to have any meaningful paper events (even FNMs) until 2021. At least in the dumpster fire of the US. And in that time frame, who knows what else will be broken, what will be banned, or what stupid new card "shake up" everything again. There is no faith in the stability of pretty much any deck, other than Tron and Burn, who happen to inexplicably avoid any meaningful loss for the entirety of their life in Modern.

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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 3 years ago

Uro is powerful, but the issue being sidestepped is that the mana base allowing too much with little drawback. Picking uro doesnt make sense to me. I cannot justify a 3 color deck that can play field of ruins, mystic sanc, a color fix that cantrips, low painless mana thats blood moon proof. I suspect anyone who says otherwise is either benefitting from astrolabe or is very off their mark in card evaluations in regard to modern.

Cfusion is on point about the limbo effect.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Either way, that still paints the same Schrodinger's Ban onto Bant Snow. A picture that doesn't really inspire me to spend several hundred dollars on paper Uros and green lands.
This part I feel is completely fair. If we were seeing a more competitive focus on Modern right now, I think we would be seeing an Uro ban soon, but for the moment it's going to skate by. I bought some Uro's recently, because I live in a mostly COVID free area of the US, though I'm reconsidering if it's even worth the risk when FNM starts back up this week. Even though I bought them however, I stayed far away from the foil extended arts like I've been buying for most cards lately. just couldn't justify the risk since it feels like a potential ban is not baked into the current price when comparing Uro with say, Oko.

You can have as much confidence as you ever can in buying into Modern, but there's no confidence in buying into an Uro deck. The optimal buying strategy still applies for the format. The safest buys are decks that are piles of good stuff that don't work against each other. Decks that center on a single build around or combo (Uro or Snow) are inherently risky as they can't swap out a ban for the next best thing. Decks like Jund on the other hand, mostly shrug off bans because they lose some power, but simply just play the next best card.

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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 3 years ago

Heh, I had a feeling you played an astrolabe deck based on your response.

Also, playing paper mtg seems reckless, our country is on the verge of closing back down. Going out and exchanging germs seems like a particularly poor idea. Itll be mtgo for me until 2021

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

Me? Saying I play an Astrolabe deck is extremely loose. I have BUG Uro built, but I haven't once played it. My usual goto is Jund, but our FNM's are typically 10 people, on any given night between 8 and 9 others will be on some form of Tron (see my earlier comment about choosing fun over winning these days).

I assume something from the shell will be banned before paper is viable again. Like I said though, I live in a mostly COVID free area. I'm in South east Ohio and we've had a few cases, but not many. I suspect we will get another shutdown order soon though given the events of the last few days, or at least I hope we do. Even at the previous peak we had a fairly low rate of spread per capita (though almost everyone who got it died here). So, it's not worth going, but for a short while such as the time when I had ordered the cards, it looked like it would have been ok to do so but that's only because this region is a small town that has mostly avoided any major spread so far.

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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

How much are tcgplayer fees? I'm thinking of selling on there as a flea market seller, if they allow that. Ebay fees are 12%. I used to be able to move $250 to $500 worth of cards on ebay every 6 months but now i'm only able to move small stuff in the $5 to $20 range.

I googled this problem and apparently every ebay seller has experienced a decline in sales starting around mid april of last year. Even before Covid. Maybe ebay is in danger of becoming obsolete.

I kinda derailed the thread here but this thread seems busiest. I thought I'd ask as it still relates to mtg finance.

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Post by Tzoulis » 3 years ago

Ed06288 wrote:
3 years ago
I googled this problem and apparently every ebay seller has experienced a decline in sales starting around mid april of last year. Even before Covid. Maybe ebay is in danger of becoming obsolete.
While the US started to have problems with Covid 19 in April, most of Europe and East Asia had problems since February and earlier. Major MTG sellers like KidIcarus and goods-seller are shipping cheaply to those continents. So I suppose that's the reason for the decreased sales. Though ebay -for MTG sales- is kinda obsolete in Europe due to MagicCardmarket.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Ed06288 wrote:
3 years ago
How much are tcgplayer fees? I'm thinking of selling on there as a flea market seller, if they allow that. Ebay fees are 12%. I used to be able to move $250 to $500 worth of cards on ebay every 6 months but now i'm only able to move small stuff in the $5 to $20 range.

I googled this problem and apparently every ebay seller has experienced a decline in sales starting around mid april of last year. Even before Covid. Maybe ebay is in danger of becoming obsolete.

I kinda derailed the thread here but this thread seems busiest. I thought I'd ask as it still relates to mtg finance.
I've been buying and selling on eBay off and on for more than 20 years, currently with a little more than 1,000 positive feedback. Its fees do often suck, but you're often reaching a wider audience willing to pay more. While that doesn't matter too much for a niche market that are all fairly capable of looking and finding alternate places (like TCG Player), for whatever reason, eBay listings are often 2-10% higher than relative TCG player listings, and still consistently sell. So if you sell on TCG Player and intend on undercutting competition, the floor price of a card is much lower there than eBay, and your likelihood of getting your higher price is higher on eBay. So taken that your card will sell for less, but take less fees vs sell for more and slightly more fees, seems like a wash. Go with whichever system you are rooted and comfortable with. If you are not invested in either, I do know that eBay has a deals with USPS to get a % off of tracked postage. USPS First Class Package (up to 1lb) is frequently what I use for any card over $20, and is about $0.50-$0.75 cheaper thanks to eBay's contract discount.

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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

Well I'm finding it impossible to move anything on ebay. I can't even break into double digits for views. The ebay community threads are saying it's time to move on. Lots of people de-listing. I find it sad as I used to spend hours on ebay.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Yeah I misread. I also haven't listed much lately myself. But I imagine it's not an ebay problem, it's a MAGIC problem. It's another reason why I haven't been super motivated to liquidate my collection. Not much demand for Magic cards when paper events don't exist and nearly every format is suffering in turmoil.

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Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

just to add on the conversation about moving mtg cards. Our facebook group has really low activity on sellers as well. I guess it's the natural reaction when there's a highly contagious virus.. feels danger on cutting my opponent's deck for fear of infection, and I assume the feeling is often mutual. Also with my country still having a blockade on USPS, can't buy anything from SCG... so mtg is kind of dead for me right now.
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Post by Ym1r » 3 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
3 years ago
feels danger on cutting my opponent's deck for fear of infection, and I assume the feeling is often mutual.
At my LGS we have a "don't touch other players' cards" policy. If you want to read something your opponent has to flip it for you so you can read it, you ask your opponent to cut their own deck (or you trust your opponent because it's an LGS and we all know each other), cards like Oblivion Ring we just put the card on the side etc.
Counter, draw a card.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Ym1r wrote:
3 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
3 years ago
feels danger on cutting my opponent's deck for fear of infection, and I assume the feeling is often mutual.
At my LGS we have a "don't touch other players' cards" policy. If you want to read something your opponent has to flip it for you so you can read it, you ask your opponent to cut their own deck (or you trust your opponent because it's an LGS and we all know each other), cards like Oblivion Ring we just put the card on the side etc.
I've been playing Commander over Zoom and doing similar things. Like if someone steals a card, we usually just turn it upside down and push it up a bit. And much of what we do is the honor system. I've been doing similar for my D&D sessions. While I use a digital service (DnDBeyond), we still use pen and paper sheets and live dice rolls with the honor system. I don't want to lose the tabletop feel, which I feel we would if moving to the equivalent of MTGO (like roll20 or fantasy grounds).

Normal, live opponent play is going to be weird and distant for a long time, especially in the US. Many of our states are having to go BACK on lockdown because we are filled with morons who believe their individual freedom to not want to wear a mask is more important than the health and safety of those around them. And all of that is made worse by a collection of state and national leaders that seem wholly disinterested in actually doing anything to help fight the spread. We are literally back where everyone was in April because our leader refuses to lead. We tried everything from pretending it's not a problem to pretending the problem is over. /rant

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
I've been playing Commander over Zoom and doing similar things. Like if someone steals a card, we usually just turn it upside down and push it up a bit.
Take a big piece of paper and write the name on it to represent it was stolen. Then they can control it to tap, untap, etc... and you can just put it off to the side.
We are literally back where everyone was in April because our leader refuses to lead. We tried everything from pretending it's not a problem to pretending the problem is over.
We're in even worse shape than that honestly. At this point I'm skeptical that paper Magic even resumes in 2020. WotC canceled all remaining GP's for the year, I wonder if they'll even come back at some point in 2021, and what's going to happen to FNM's. An extreme outcome here (though more likely now than it was in March) is that paper Magic gets discontinued in favor of a larger digital push. With no real paper game for just about all of 2020, WotC might simply look at that as their natural time to switch.

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Post by th33l3x » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago

Normal, live opponent play is going to be weird and distant for a long time, especially in the US. Many of our states are having to go BACK on lockdown because we are filled with morons who believe their individual freedom to not want to wear a mask is more important than the health and safety of those around them. And all of that is made worse by a collection of state and national leaders that seem wholly disinterested in actually doing anything to help fight the spread. We are literally back where everyone was in April because our leader refuses to lead. We tried everything from pretending it's not a problem to pretending the problem is over. /rant
You're actually not back where you were in April, you're doing much much worse. 50000+ infections every day with 100000/day just around the corner... I really feel for you. At the same time I feel like a lot of the US population just can't be helped...

BTW I feel like the growing presence of Cling to Dust is really helping combat Uro. It's a clean, easily maindeckable answer that can get back the value you lose when exiling Uro a turn or so later. I've been maindecking 2-3 in Grixis Control and that card makes UGx Snow matchups downright trivial.

Veil of Summer continues to be a bummer of course.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

Cling to Dust is doing well. It's something you can run main or side, and even when you don't need GY hate it can function as a cantrip or sometimes even additional value later in the game.

It's a little awkward in decks running other titans like Uro mirrors or even Kroxa Jund but it still works. The biggest drawback to it is that it can't stop a cast+escaped titan in the same turn due to priority (assuming a sufficient GY).

I'm getting more nervous over the future of paper Magic though. Lots of things are permanently changing due to COVID, and I could easily see WotC using this as a time to just move everyone to online play. And even if they don't, it's not like selling out of Arena can happen so people who migrate there will stay there. MTGO is a bit more fluid but even then... given the way prices have dropped out of the bottom of paper cards, and MTGO being less expensive I see it possibly helping to answer some of the card price issues people have brought up with the game.

Are there any numbers on MTGO popularity before all this started happening and now?

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

th33l3x wrote:
3 years ago
You're actually not back where you were in April, you're doing much much worse. 50000+ infections every day with 100000/day just around the corner... I really feel for you. At the same time I feel like a lot of the US population just can't be helped...
You're not wrong. I could go on for ages about the stupidity of our people and our current leadership. But I don't want to drag that much more into my fantasy card game.
BTW I feel like the growing presence of Cling to Dust is really helping combat Uro. It's a clean, easily maindeckable answer that can get back the value you lose when exiling Uro a turn or so later. I've been maindecking 2-3 in Grixis Control and that card makes UGx Snow matchups downright trivial.
I've seen 1x main deck Cling in a ton of decks capable of casting it. It's been annoying, but not back breaking when playing Uro. Though pretty mediocre when playing anything else.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

I ebay as a last resort, paypal f and f over local trades and groups is best.
In person trading is hard now, of course, but not impossible to have open air pick ups.


I do 3 to 400 gbp (500 ish usd) pcm, have 2k plus feedback- feedback is like leprechaun crap it us that rare- one in ten leave it if I am lucky. Ebay is much better in the UK to sell than the US. It is worse to buy- no ebay bucks, I have had maybe 3 discount codes is years I could use. Selected retailers never includes mtg.
The US has postal service issues- card munching numbers in the machines is higher- that is why you can get non machine readable stamps I believe- and scammers seem more prevalent than most European countries bar Italy, where the tactic is often to haggle- after tha cards gave gine out. That is all anecdotal. All countries have scammers.

I think I would use TCG in the US.

The potential to be scammed is higher than anyone would like, sadly, but I suspect the game being bigger in the US makes it easier to move cards on. Many local game stores don't buy in large amounts here, moving high end scammed cards on is harder. We have mkm, too.

Sales gave been excellent until the last couple of weeks- I stopped for two months almost due to lockdown. EDH, EDH, EDH. They are moving like hot cakes.
Collector boosters are killing the value of core 21, as expected, and people spending their are cash on crap- secret lair, collector boosters etc. Thanks to your 1200 stimulus the RL staples took a boost, but we can exploit arbitrage every now and then.

Modern is shafted, get it in your heads now, the modern staples are hard to.move anywhere near decent prices, bar....fetches. of course. If it is not an EDH card, forget it.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
3 years ago
Modern is shafted, get it in your heads now, the modern staples are hard to.move anywhere near decent prices, bar....fetches. of course. If it is not an EDH card, forget it.
Yeah. Luckily, I'm not in a position of financial need (both wife and I can/have been working remotely for full salaries), and I haven't had a NEED to liquidate a bunch of stuff collecting dust. If I had to though... oof on those current prices. Good time to buy at least?

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Yeah. Luckily, I'm not in a position of financial need (both wife and I can/have been working remotely for full salaries), and I haven't had a NEED to liquidate a bunch of stuff collecting dust. If I had to though... oof on those current prices. Good time to buy at least?
Yep. I'm debating what I want to do. I'm starting to get seriously worried about the future of paper Magic, and in an online only format Modern is never going to get a good showing since it won't be on Arena for a long time.

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Post by Mapccu » 3 years ago

I mentioned a few times already in other threads, but I sold out of a pretty decent chunk (roughly 50-60%) of my paper staples. Checking the price of Noble Hierarch today it looks like I hit the jack pot. I sold to a store for $40 USD each and that card can be had for roughly $35-40 USD from online retailers today. That wasn't even 6 mo the ago.

The fetches I sold, the bobs I sold over a year ago, and more have barely moved from when I off loaded them.

I'm shocked paper has been able to maintain its values for so long to be honest. There is a minimal chance of being able to build a tier one deck through cracking packs. It's always surprised me that this model was somehow sustainable for larger stores?

There is a floor on a lot of these cards. Kitchen table and casual groups are willing to pay quite well for a number of cards. Many modern staples are even great for kitchen table formats too. Prices may dip along with attendance, but there is no real cost to housing a decent sized collection (few shoe boxes of staples and chase cards tucked away in a closet). Just park that stuff and wait for the price to rebound on most of it.

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Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

since many here are talking about moving moving modern cards. I don't have much value cards left. Only about 30 khans fetches, and 3 sets leyline of the void. Prices are so low these days though... could there be a chance for prices to go back up again once a vaccine for corona is available next year?

and on something else. I saw a Song of Creation deck being tested at mtgsalvation - there is also a mention there of someone seeing a version of the deck that can win turn 3 with summoner pact and wild cantor. Deck looks promising.
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Post by th33l3x » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
So, about Astrolabe:

Modern Challenge: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-07-05

Astrolabe decks: 12/32 decks(2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30)
Veil of summer : 15/32 decks.
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath: 12/32 decks.
Exactly this, and please nobody say "but they didn't win the event". That's no real indicator for power. Representation among T32 is what counts.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

astrolabe is not in modern and it is a bad card

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Post by Albegas » 3 years ago

The wrong card was tagged, but the post was definitely referring to Arcum's Astrolabe, not Astrolabe. In the context of Modern, Astrolabe is almost always shorthand for Arcum's Astrolabe unless stated otherwise

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