The Stack #46- Mo Mana, No Prollums

Welcome back to TGZ's Saturday Specialty, The Stack!

Today's theme is ramp. As theme and strategy, ramp is some of the best card advantage you can get in the game. Every time you have to the opportunity to exchange a card for a land in your deck, it's a solid opportunity that increases your chances of drawing spells you need as the game progresses. Being able to smooth out mana, and reach castability for those 6+ spells I rarely ever play is only ever going to help.

The gang and I have assembled a list of our absolute favorites, which shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Then again, anything can happen.

THIS IS THE STACK!

UNCLE LANDDROPS' PICK 

Uncle Landdrops-  THUMBS THROUGH THE ROOF!
I finally arrived at the card choice that takes zero brain power for me. Hooray for easy victories!

Seriously my favorite card. I play it in almost every deck I own, and attempt to recur it multiple times. So far, my single-game record stands at 5 (Which I've gotten in two decks). It is a card that has seen a significant rise in my playgroup as a result, and would probably be my avatar if it weren't for the fact that it is already another person.

I love everything about Sad Robot/Marvin's original art too. It looks like he went and took a photo at Sears. Plus, he doesn't get mistaken for an Etched Oracle.

Obviously, playing this card is cheating, and picking it here is a little too easy because it does so much more than accelerate/thin out your deck. But there's just no other way I'm going to be convinced to settle for my second or third choice this time.

The only other thing I want to say about Solemn is that if you cast this card in a game, the chances of you winning go up dramatically. That sounds suspect, but the correlation is value, which is Solemn Freaking Simulacrum.

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
Yippee Ki-yay melon farmer! There are some things you just don't leave home without. Grab your keys, your phone, your wallet, and your Solemns. It's telling that UL and I both made the same argument for why these are our favorite ramp cards: playing them just makes you win. Mana sum theory suggests that the guy who has and uses more mana is most likely to win. Simple. I have also been oft-quoted as saying that the most important resource in Commander is cards, and to be ahead on cards is to be ahead in the game. The common ground between Solemn and Reach is easy to see: they advance your resources on two fronts. You get more mana to work with and a free 2-for-1. They accomplish what most cards can't even dream of at a bargain price.

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
Certainly a classic card in any Commander deck (any deck that wins, at least), the Simulacrum is a true multi-tasker, one that has no problem dying, especially if you can sneak in a way to revive him from the grave (like Reclaim) or bounce/flicker him. These are all things that really didn't need explanation though, because the sad robot is so ubiquitous.

VENSER'S JOURNALIST'S PICK

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
Why Blue? Why not? I prefer mana acceleration that can be re-used because I've had my fair share of one-offs that didn't quite help later on in the game. Granted Harrow is probably a better way to achieve this effect because you don't have to discard a card to pay its cost, the Dreamscape Picasso's cost for his ability shouldn't bother you if you've got a full hand and ways to retrieve things from the graveyard.

Uncle Landdrops-  THUMBS UP
I've talked at length about how I think having Spellshapers in your deck with relevant abilities can compensate for our inefficiencies. This is probably the most efficient and playable spellshaper on the market.

Because just having Harrow isn't enough, Dreamscape is at its best when you have relevant one or two-cost disruption in your hand. Forcing your opponent to have to guess what future mana you may be holding up adds a cerebral quality to the game that makes for the kinds of games I like to play. Even though this card has one ability with logical targets, it can be used in skillful ways to leverage tempo if you have other cards to play and your timing is right.

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
Harrow is significantly worse than this, largely because you do actually have to discard that card, the Harrow itself. This is an engine, naturally you would have to feed it something to keep it going, but unlike most mana ramp cards, this is one that actually loses effectiveness pretty quickly. You generally want more mana so that you can use the cards in your hand more quickly or more effectively than your opponent. There is an inflection point where you simply run out of junk to pitch to this and would rather cast those cards instead. The point of comparison really comes in the late game when this has expended its utility, or you draw it at an inopportune time. You had to plant this Creature down on the board just to have the privilege of buying Harrows, but when that time is over you can suit up and beat down. The same cannot be said for drawing a Rampant Growth late.

There is something to be said here about the cost structure in designing spellshapers, or really any creature with an activated ability. The best offerings in this category have a cost and body that is appropriate AND is exactly one less than the cost to activate its ability. Naturally, you will want to begin using this at your earliest opportunity or else, why play it? Historically, some important Creatures have fit this model. Rebel Searchers, and Enclave Cryptologist are fine examples.

GRANDPA GROWTH'S PICK

Grandpa Growth- THUMBS UP
I teetered back and forth...and in several other directions about what to choose. Favorite is a hard bug to catch when it comes to me and my mana. I use so many of these cards and they almost always travel in a herd. Sol Ring is obviously in every deck, but it seems to be that if one of them is going in a deck, then Cultivate, Rampant Growth, Sakura Tribe Elder, and Joraga Treespeaker are coming too. Sadly though, I don't always play Green. I have a big collection of mana rocks that I like, but it would be hard to say that they are my favorite. Sakura Tribe Elder is my favorite card, pants down. For the sake of variety though, I won't point that out again. K Reach is even more ubiquitous, but it is the card that I always want in my opening hand. If this resolves it feels tough for me to lose. Once the train gets rolling it can be hard to stop and in most games the toughest hurdle to overcome is simply amassing enough resources to start throwing haymakers.

Venser's Journalist- THUMBS UP
Definitely a classic land ramp spell, the arcane version of Cultivate. I really don't have anything to say about the card except that it pays to be able to get a land on the field AND one in your hand.

Uncle Landdrops- THUMBS UP
I wish we'd just gotten actual Koko Baby instead of Cultivate as the reprint in M-Whatever. I prefer the hand of the Kodama doing actual reaching- it's just good flavor.

Also, I was going to say that this is one of the few Heather Hudson artworks I like, but it turns out I didn't realize she basically does all the work for Commander's most playable cards- Pongify, Chord of Calling, Sculpting Steel, original Karmic Guide and Ghost Quarter. The list goes on, and though she's definitely gotten better through the years, it's just astounding how many good cards her work got printed on.

Until next time, be sure to tell us about all your favorites in the comments below.

Pass!
-UL/VJ/GG

In General: Engines and Investment pt. 3

Welcome back Zoners, this is the third and final part of my series on Investing in games. If you missed them, take a look at Part 1 and Part 2. Today, we have the prestige, as it were; the big reveal. We are going to find out what investment cards are good and which ones are bad and how to tell. First, a brief description of the resources we need to invest.

In Magic there are a lot of key resources. Most people will tell you that there are three: life, mana, and cards. That is a dramatic underestimation. Just look at some of the costs for your spells, some require you to mill a certain number of cards, so the size of your library is a resource. Some take more than one turn to set up, so time is a resource. Some investments only work in a particular situation, so we need to dedicate a lot of the slots in our deck to cards that help us reliably set up that specific board state. People often just call this "synergy" and think about it as a consequence of and requirement for good deckbuilding, but synergy is a resource AND an investment itself, because it requires effort on your part to create. For the purpose of this discussion, everything that can potentially translate into a resource, is itself a resource. E.g. cards in deck eventually become cards in hand, so "cards" as in the card advantage that we discussed above, are just part of a big value chain. Eventually cards in hand become cards in play or cards in the graveyard, yet another resouce...you get the idea.

Characteristics of Healthy Investments

Liquidity

The biggest sticking point that I want to stress about resources is, again, that they can be converted into a different resource. This isn't always easy though. Sometimes the transition requires an extra cost. If you pay 2U and discard the Divination, you can turn two cards in your deck into two cards in your hand. If resource has high liquidity, then you can change it into something else quickly and cheaply. If you cast a Grizzly Bears, you easily change mana and a card in hand into a card in play. This is a fairly liquid transaction, meaning not much of your resources were lost in the transition. In fact, only the mana is gone. The card just went from one bank account to another. So, in effect, the net transaction was: pay two mana and get two damage on each of the subsequent turns where you can attack.

The moral here is: we want to invest in things that either take advantage of the liquidity of our resources or increase the liquidity. 

Return on Investment

Here we are looking to expand out total resource base. We want to translate a small amount now into a larger amount later. Remember that exchanging resources has a cost. We can mitigate the effect of that by simply having an excess amount of some resource. To illustrate this, let's look at a combo:

So, this sets up an infinite loop. We bought a Queenie and the Altar and now we can create a creature and kill it an arbitrary number of times. This is the Magic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. You provide the inputs and it runs forever on its own. Now that isn't incredibly impressive, once we have infinite something, we can pretty easily turn that into infinite anything. Let's add another piece into the mix:

BOOM! Now we have infinite creatures and colorless mana. This is the Magic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. You provide the inputs and it runs forever on its own. THIS is the Magic equivalent of a free-energy device. You tipped off a chain reaction that will spiral out of control producing an ever-increasing amount of value. Don't get too excited though. You might have gotten infinite return on your investment, but you spent a lot of resources to build this monster and that is a problem...

Smallest Initial Outlay

We don't begin the game with an infinite amount of resources, we have only a small amount. It is important to pick an choose what to use those resources on in order to maximize our chances of winning. That decision making process is what this whole article is about. Having a small initial outlay gives us a great chance of coming out ahead on our investments. There are less moving parts so there is less that our opponent can target to disrupt us and even if our investment doesn't pan out, we didn't lose much anyway. Most games are won and lost on this series of small, incremental investments. You don't need to go bigger than your opponent, you need to commit what you have to the right place at the right time. Example: Ponder.

This is a very small investment. One card, one mana. We never see that mana again, but we trade our card for a better card. This marginal enhancement in card quality is HUGE because not all cards in Magic are equivalent. They don't do the same thing so just having more doesn't necessarily mean that you have the right one. Cards like Ponder give you a card off the top of your deck that is better than the average random card because you get to choose from a larger selection of random cards. Using your skill and contextual information you can turn your Ponder into the best card in that situation, which is why is is so widely used in Legacy decks as a way to smooth draws and dig for gas. Incidentally, Ponder also offers a huge return on investment.

Time-Value

Every resource has a time value, which means that it becomes more or less important at particular stages of the game. A good example of this is your turn. In the early turns, not much gets done, but later in the game when you can cast multiple spells, attack, and substantially impact the board, the value of taking a turn goes up dramatically. In general, each action you take increases your likelihood of winning the game (actions that don't are what we in the business call mistakes). Any turn where you take more actions is more valuable. This is the driving force behind awesome cards like Time Stretch. In the late game, you have a ton of mana and probably have used way more cards than you started with, but with access to all these additional resources a single turn can mean a huge swing in the state of the game. As often is the case with this card, if you take an extra turn or two, you will often win on the spot.

The Final Word

As I stated in the previous segment, the best way to evaluate an investment is to compare it to the opportunity cost. "A good investment always beats it's opportunity cost." This means that the best investment you can make is the Highest Value Alternative. It gives you the highest return on your investment, requires the smallest initial outlay, maximizes the time value of your resources, and maintains or increases the liquidity of those resources. That is it. Keep in mind everything that you are spending and everything you are getting; the best cards just put you ahead no matter what. Here is an example of a perfect investment:

Four mana for a land and a creature is a modest price to pay. If you deal or prevent any damage with the body, the value will increase over time. It is also very difficult for your opponent to interact with Solemn without giving you even more value on your investment. Do they trade a creature? Well, you already got the land and you will also get to draw the card. It is just impossible to come out behind in the resource advantage game if your deck is stuffed full of things like this.



Now let's see some bad investments:

These are expensive, unpredictable, take a long time to generate any value, generate only minimal value at all, don't help exchange our resources fluidly, and do almost nothing if our opponent disrupts or destroys them. That's all the time I have for today. I hope you enjoyed this series on investment. If you love it/hate it demonstrate it! Leave a comment on this or anything else. Next week I will be back with a post on a related subject: vehicles!
-GG

Super Saver Sunday: Where is my stapler?

Now that the buzz from the initial Commander sets have worn off, it is a good time to pick up some of the marquis cards of the format. With a new Commander product scheduled for release later this year you can expect another Commander boom like we saw in 2011-2012. I would suggest picking up copies of these cards now before prices rise again. All of the price data in this post was snagged from Blacklotusproject.com an excellent MtG financial resource. Here are some cards that are going through a bit of a price slump; making it the perfect time to pick up a copy or two for your decks:

Solemn Simulacrum (Mirrodin)
2011: High: $9 Low: $3
2013: High: $5.50 Low: $1

High quality colorless values cards are a must in Commander. Their playability and price are elevated because they can fit nicely in every deck and maintain a competitive power level. The M12 printing initially hurt the price of Solemn, but its' Standard playability kept prices up for long time. It now looks like prices are stabilizing again, but I wouldn't expect that to last if another large influx of Commander players occurs within the next year. 



Consecrated Sphinx
2011: High: $12 Low: $3
2013: High: $7 Low: $3

To understand my recommendations about this card it will just be easier to show you the graph.  http://blacklotusproject.com/cards/Mirrodin+Besieged/Consecrated+Sphinx/
At the height of this cards popularity and playability in Blue/Black Control decks at Worlds 2011, this card was pretty expensive for what I would consider a casual only card. Standard will do that to you. This card saw a precipitous drop off even pre-rotation, but continued through a steady decline. Prices have begun to pick up slightly and more movement can be seen in the price point. There are currently copies readily available in the 5-6 dollar range. This is a very reasonable price in my opinion and I would recommend buying in before prices rise any further.


Grave Titan (M11)
2011: High: $18 Low: $8
2013: High: $6 Low: $2

Without any playability to speak of in the last year this card has dropped hard and fast. If you were waiting for a good time to buy in, there hasn't been a better one yet. Grave Titan is a solid playable in Commander. It doesn't always make it in to my Black decks, but it always up for consideration. The popularity of this cycle should help them keep value for a while into the future.




Koth of the Hammer (Scars of Mirrodin)
2011: High: $30 Low: $11
2013: High: $5 Low: $4

This was never all that popular and its price has sunk steadily ever since it was printed. The Venser v. Koth duel deck didn't help much either. The card isn't that great, but it something that should be seeing play in the general mono red deck. If they come out with a few more threatening 3-5cmc Red threats then we may never hear from Koth again, until then though I think it will continue to see moderate play. This isn't what I would call a staple or really even a strong playable, but there are very few Red cards that fit those criteria in my opinion and I struggled hard to find a card that had seen any relevant financial decline in the period I was looking at, oh well.


Green Sun's Zenith
2011: High: $9 Low: $4.50
2013: High: $5.50 Low: $3

Regardless of your thoughts on Modern as a competitive format it has had dramatic and consistent effects on the price of cards post-rotation. As a general rule, if it is at all playable in Modern it is going to hold tremendous value, but if it isn't seeing play in the format you can pretty much guarantee an immediate price drop. This card is very playable in Commander and should really be getting used more than it is. It gets a wrap as a mono green card, but that is just absurd. I think 4 or 5 good targets is enough to run such a powerful tutor effect. As long as Chord of Calling is in the Modern Melira decks GSZ can serve as a reasonable and reasonably cheap substitute.





Stoneforge Mystic
2011: High: $18 Low: $7
2013: High: $8 Low: $7

Everything I said above about Modern playability and price retention is true in triplicate for Stoneforge.  At the height of its popularity this card commanded an impressive price tag. It tore up Standard for more than a year and continues to be a strong control threat in Legacy, but all of the cash has been sucked out of this card. I feel for the people who shelled out 20's on this card just to play it in CawBlade. Receiving a pre-ban in the initial announcements for Modern was a death sentence for this cards value. If you were one of the lucky ones like me and just had fat stacks of copies lying around from Worldwake then good for you. If you are silly like me and didn't sell them when you had the chance that kind of sucks, but I absolutely guarantee that every time I sleeve up a Plains I will be including one of these. I'd stake my rep on it. 

That's all for today Zoner's. This is a little outside the realm of my usual diatribes, but this is the time of year when I typically make purchases on rotating cards or cards that have rotated in the past couple years; a solid strategy if you are trying to save money on top quality cards. Let me know what you think in the comments. I'll be back next week with a real S^3 with some stuff even I haven't heard of yet...the future is exciting!

GG

Ten Cards Guaranteed To Improve Any Deck

Today we're gonna talk about the best of the colorless- The Artifacts!

I'm in the process of compiling a reference list for the site where you can find EDH staples for every color and color combo. 

For now though, we're not talking about that.

So let's start the countdown with the Honorable Mentions, in no particular order.

Crucible of Worlds 
The only card of its kind. It's a fantastic include in decks with any of the Zendikar or Onslaught fetches, and loves its PIC, Strip Mine. Any deck's lucky to have it, but the Crucible is not for every deck.
 
Mimic Vat
Sweet card for a lot of reasons and a host of situations. Card just simply lost out to the cream of the crop.

Wurmcoil Engine
Sweet 2-for-1 creature. very few removal spells get its terror completely handled. 

Batterskull
Sweet equipment/dude. Can be saved and recurred, which is awesome.

All is Dust
Sweet removal, especially for decks that play mana-doublers like Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Power, and Caged Sun.

Sword of Feast and Famine
Gives you mana advantage and disrupts your opponent, along with great protection colors, green and black being pretty common colors.

Sword of Fire and Ice
Draws you cards and shocks your opponent or his/her creatures. Also great protection colors. 

Now for the REAL LIST!

10. Duplicant

Ol' Dupey's a sweet 2-for-1 that gives you better board control and provides great removal, particularly for those people in your playgroup that try to slam Eldrazi or the Colossus brothers. The Dupe handles all those game threats and can turn the tide. He may not get the triggered abilities, but he's so great in green and red decks which don't have the remove from game mechanic for creatures. Also, Dupe's a great target for cheaper tutors like Fierce Empath and Treasure Mage.

9. Sensei's Divining Top

I have to say, I didn't really want this card to make the list. Mostly because I'm not sure it's good on EVERY turn in EVERY deck, and my intention was to put more accessible cards on this list.

But it's just too good to leave out. The Top only has one mortal enemy that can kill it in Krosan Grip, but it also has a friend in Trinket Mage to make it a consistent target in any blue deck. 

Top changes the game though, so despite my efforts, it makes the list at no.9.

T-7. Nevinyrral's Disk / Oblivion Stone

Mass Removal is a huge part of EDH. The Disk and Stone are great additions to any deck, resetting the board and creating equilibrium.

I put them here as a tie at 7 because I'm not sure which ones just better overall. They both have advantages in situations. 

Stone kills Planeswalkers and can be activated as soon as it's played, but costs more to activate. Disk costs less, but doesn't hit Planeswalkers. Stone might have the edge cause it can protect your stuff, but then you've probably had it out took long. It's a conundrum, really. 

6. Steel Hellkite

Surprise card maybe?
I think this card is great. It's the creature blue and black needed to help them with pesky enchantments and other threatening artifacts. In addition, he can destroy token armies in a single combat step. 

I think Hellkite's an auto include in about every deck. Period.
5. Solemn Simulacrum

Speaking of auto-includes, enter Solemn Simulacrum. Though scholars maintain that the translation of his name was lost centuries ago, we know what his name means. Value.

Solemn is Value, and one of the best decisions you can make for any deck is to put Solemn Simulacrum in it. 

Let's thank Swedish Magic Pro Jens Thorén for the design of this incredible 2/2. He's the land ramp you can't get anywhere else except green. He's the card draw you can't get if you're not playing blue, or paying life in black. Yes, my friends. It's true. 

Solemn Simulacrum IS the most interesting card in Magic.

Stay Winners, my friends. Play Solemn

A land, a creature, a card. For four mana. So go, get your cousin Chuck Berry on the phone. Cause you know that sound he's been looking for? It's here, it's cheap, and it'll save your life.

4. Umezawa's Jitte

Some cards are just better than others. This happens.

Then once in a while, there's a card. A card that's just too amazing to be fair. 


And so it rules the world. This is Umezawa's Jitte. Perhaps one of, if not the best equipment across all of Magic. 

This card turns games around. The Jitte wins games. 

Yeah, it's expensive, but if it could, the Jitte would be killing in every deck forever.

3. Skullclamp

I know what I just said about the Jitte, and it still is cooler than sliced bread. 

Skullclamp however, does the one thing the Jitte cannot. It draws cards. 

It gets the bump over the Jitte here because of this. It's also cheaper to buy, less expensive to cast, and it makes decks with bad EDH colors, like red and green, actually contenders. 

It's better because it can be played in every deck forever, and it should. 

2. Sol Ring

Tolkien wrote that there was One Ring to rule them all. And this is it. 

One of the purest EDH staples. It's ramp, and hot, nasty, badass speed. 

If you have one it should be in a deck. I once found myself with 6 decks and a Sol Ring not in any of them.

You know what I did? I punched myself. I punched myself right in the mouth. Then I cleaned up my bloody knuckles and put that Sol Ring in a deck. 

Don't make the same mistake I did, is all I'm saying. Sol Ring is that good.
1. Karn Liberated

Karn, Planeswalker Extraordinaire is no.1 because he's a seven mana win-condition. 

He's the Peyton Manning of Planeswalkers, with a matching, flavorful story of injury and triumph to boot.

Looks like a winner to me.

It's difficult to say he's the best Planeswalker in EDH because Jace, The Mind Sculptor is very Tom-Brady competitive, but Karn I think has the edge. 

For starters, he can go in any deck, and covers many weaknesses and removal.
Jace is an easier preparation. Is your opponent's general blue? If no, you got nothing to worry about. 

Second, Karn's abilities allow him to change the game completely in 3 turns by rebooting the game.

Jace is great, but the decision-making process of choosing whether to bounce dudes, fateseal, or brainstorm becomes a difficult balance reserved for more advanced players. Not saying he's not good, he's just better when you know what the situation calls for. 

So Karn gets the nod. Play it if you got it, and you won't regret it. I swear.

When I return from my 24-hour break, we'll talk more. 

Pass Turn.

-Uncle Landdrops